Experts Available to Discuss Report Showing Minimum-Wage Workers Can't Afford Apartment Rentals.

TOPIC: A report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition shows the cost of rent and utilities for a one- or two-bedroom apartment is out of reach for Americans earning minimum wage, according to an article by The Associated Press. The median hourly wage for U.S. workers is approximately $14. The annual report says a worker must earn an average of $15.37 per hour to afford rent and utilities. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics states the hourly wage increased 2.6 percent since last year, while the Consumer Price Index shows the average cost of rent increased by 2.9 percent.

EXPERTS: ExpertSource can offer several highly qualified experts to comment on this story:

Ian C. Gillis is President and co-founder of Urban Community Partners, LLC. With over twenty five years in the real estate development industry in both the United Kingdom and the United States, Ian has a broad range of experience in planning and developing communities, urban infill, military base conversions, and a full range of residential, commercial and industrial projects. Ian C. Gillis, with his partner, Keith L. McCoy, founded Urban Community Partners with a simple vision: to plan and create enduring places for people to live, work and play. To that end, the company's principals have directed their expertise toward working collaboratively with communities, political leaders, financial institutions, planners, builders and architects to address the critical issues of smart growth, and create with them environments whose social and economic capital is sustainable for generations to come. As a real estate professional with international experience and outlook, Ian is excited about creating neighborhoods and communities with vision and tradition, which will be remarkable places to live for future generations.

Professor Philip Nyden, of Loyola University, Center for Urban Research and Learning, has experience in policy research on what produces stable, racially, ethnically and economically diverse neighborhoods can help government, non-profit, and for-profit organizations understand how create and maintain a stable diverse community. This work has looked at issues such as affordable housing, retail development, education, and other private and public services. Such diverse communities provide a stable community for all residents and enable employers to maintain a broad-based workforce available for all levels of employment.

Magnus Lofstrom is an assistant professor of economics and political economy at the University of Texas at Dallas. He is a labor economist with an emphasis on studying policy relevant issues applying econometric tools. Some of Professor Lofstrom's specific research interests include immigration, self-employment, welfare, earnings inequality and education. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, San Diego in 1999. Prior to joining the faculty at UTD, he served as a researcher and taught at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) at the University of Bonn and at the University of California, Irvine. Dr. Lofstrom also holds appointments as research fellow at IZA and research associate at the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California, San Diego. His work has been published in journals such as Demography, Journal of Human Resources, Journal of Population Economics, Research in Labor Economics and Swedish Economic Policy Review, as well as in NBER books edited by George Borjas and Robert Feenstra.

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