To afford a decent, two-bedroom apartment at the Fair Market Rent in Indiana, Hoosiers working a 40-hour week need to earn $15.17 per hour. This is Indiana's 2017 housing wage, revealed in a national report released today.
The report, Out of Reach 2017, was jointly released by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a Washington, D.C.-based research and advocacy organization, and Prosperity Indiana. Out of Reach documents the gap between what workers earn and the cost of housing by calculating housing wage. This is the hourly wage a renter working 40 hours per week must earn to afford a modest apartment without spending more than 30 percent of his or her income on housing costs.
The housing wage of $15.17 is $7.92 higher than the Indiana minimum wage ($7.25). That means a renter earning minimum wage in Indiana would need to work 67 hours per week to afford a one-bedroom rental home at Fair Market Rent and 84 hours per week to afford a two-bedroom.
The least affordable counties for Hoosiers to access rental housing are Monroe, Newton, Lake and Porter counties. The housing wage in Monroe County is $17.77. In Lake, Newton, and Porter, $16.62 is needed to afford a Fair Market Rent two-bedroom rental. Also more expensive than the state average, Indianapolis’ housing wage is $16.35.
Prosperity Indiana Executive Director Andy Fraizer said, "Housing markets vary across Indiana based on local conditions. In all local markets, wages are not keeping pace with
housing costs, and those earning the least are struggling the most. The Out of Reach report illuminates this problem in every county with easily understood data."
Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, said the Out of Reach 2017 data depicts why millions of low-income renters are struggling to afford their homes.
“The federal minimum wage has stayed the same since 2009 but the national Housing Wage has increased to $21.21 for a two-bedroom rental home, more than 2.9 times higher than the federal minimum wage and $4.83 higher than the average renter’s wage,” Yentel said. “We have the resources to solve the affordable housing crisis by realigning federal tax expenditures and reinvesting the savings in rental housing programs that serve our nation’s most vulnerable. We lack only the political will to do so.”
The Prosperity Indiana 2017 state policy agenda outlines strategies to increase the supply of affordable rental housing and ease its development. This includes legislation to provide clarity and certainty around tax exemption for 501(c)3 nonprofit organizations that own and operate affordable housing for low- and moderate-income families. Prosperity Indiana is working with leaders in the Indiana General Assembly to create a uniform, objective standard to ensure that nonprofit organizations receive property tax exemption throughout all of Indiana’s 92 counties.
“A uniform property tax system that values the charitable purpose of basic shelter for low-income families is essential to preserving and expanding quality affordable housing options, which our state currently lacks,” Fraizer said. “We can assist households who face the greatest challenges in finding decent, safe and affordable housing by providing fair tax treatment, rebalancing scarce federal housing resources and increasing investments in proven solutions, like the National Housing Trust Fund and rental assistance. America can afford to invest in programs for people with the greatest needs.”
For additional information, visit: www.nlihc.org/oor.
