The housing squeeze.

Byline: The Register-Guard

In all of the United States' 3,066 counties, a person making the minimum wage can afford a two-bedroom apartment in only four. The high cost of shelter relative to people's wages goes a long way toward explaining the persistence of poverty in America. Indeed, an effective way to combat poverty-related problems such as hunger would be to advocate for affordable housing.

The National Low Income Housing Coalition said in its annual report that on average, it takes an hourly wage of $15.37 an hour to pay the rent and utilities on a typical two-bedroom apartment.

The calculation is based on the rule of thumb that says housing costs should consume no more than 30 percent of gross income. By that standard, the least affordable housing in the country is in the District of Columbia, where a worker must earn $23.83 an hour to cover basic rent and utilities.

In Lane County, where 38 percent of households are renters, it takes an income of $13.21 an hour to keep rent and utilities on a $687-a-month apartment from exceeding 30 percent of gross pay. The average for all of Oregon is $12.89 per hour.

Jobs paying $12 or $13 an hour aren't easy to find. Low-income renters must adjust their budgets, their working lives or both to pay for shelter.

The first thing to go is that 30-percent-of-income rule. Rent soaks up half of many low-income people's pay. That leaves less for all other expenses, ranging from transportation to health care.

Equally unrealistic is the notion of a household with one earner working 40 hours a week. Housing costs force many people to take second jobs, and it's normal for households to include two wage-earners.

The consequences of these responses - working more and having less left over after paying the rent - are far-reaching. The difficulty of meeting the basic need for shelter means that working people have less time for their families. There's less money for luxuries, and sometimes not enough for essentials. That helps explain why the U.S. Department of Agriculture finds hunger among American families, even those with members working full time.

The fact that affordable housing for low-income people can be found almost nowhere in the United States shows that there are no easy solutions. In the absence of subsidies, rental housing prices obey market forces that push them beyond the easy reach of people at the bottom of the income scale. Subsidies can create affordable housing, but the cost is high and the demand is great.

Minimum wage laws help make housing affordable. But even in states such as Oregon that have high minimum wages, the gap between incomes and rents remains wide.

Still, the housing coalition's report is a useful reminder of the difficult economic circumstances that confront millions of working Americans. The high cost of housing is a tap root of poverty. Give people affordable shelter, and many other problems would go away.