Hawaii ranks as
7th least affordable

Isle residents must make
at least $17.60 an hour
to pay the average rent
for a two-room apartment

There isn't one state in the country where the federal minimum hourly wage of $5.15 is sufficient to pay rent and utilities on a one-bedroom apartment, an advocacy group on low-income housing reported yesterday.

Minimum wage does not add up Rent struggles: The typical worker must earn at least $15.37 an hour -- nearly three times the federal minimum wage -- to afford rent and utilities for a two-bedroom apartment, the National Low Income Housing Coalition says. What's affordable: That figure assumes that a family spends no more than 30 percent of its gross income on rent and utilities -- anything more is generally considered unaffordable by the government. The result: Wage increases aren't keeping up with increases in rents and utilities while government funding for rental assistance programs isn't enough to meet demand, critics say. Affordability This list ranks locations by how much people must earn to pay rent for a two-bedroom apartment: Where Hourly Wage 1. D.C. $22.83 2. Calif. $21.24 3. Mass. $20.93 4. N.J. $20.35 5. Md. $18.25 6. N.Y. $18.18 7. Conn. $17.90 8. Hawaii $17.60 9. Alaska $17.07 10. Nev. $16.92

A two-bedroom rental is even more of a burden -- the typical worker must earn at least $15.37 an hour to pay rent and utilities, the National Low Income Housing Coalition said in its annual "Out of Reach" report.

Hawaii ranked as the seventh least affordable state in the country. Residents needed to make at least $17.60 to afford a two-bedroom rental, the report said.

While soaring home sale prices in Hawaii have grabbed the most headlines, rental rates are not far behind and pose a serious burden, said Kauai County Housing Director Ken Rainforth.

Kauai had the highest median home prices in the state in November. Rents, meanwhile, have jumped from around $900 for a three-bedroom home two years ago to between $1,500 and $2,000 today, he said.

"It's critical now. We've got severe overcrowding," Rainforth said, adding that in his own Kapaa neighborhood, one out of three homes is packed with three or four generations of families.

"Whenever you have eight to 10 cars parked outside one house, it's not a normal situation," he said.

Gov. Linda Lingle named an affordable housing task force in July that will focus on fast-tracking the construction of 17,000 subsidized rental housing units on state land in urban areas during the next five years.

Her administration yesterday also announced a fiscal 2006-07 budget that, among other things, increases the Rental Housing Trust Fund by $2 million a year, which it said would result in 450 new affordable rentals per year.

The least affordable region in the country was the San Francisco metropolitan area; rent and utilities for a one-bedroom apartment in Marin, San Francisco or San Mateo counties in California required a wage of least $22.63 an hour.

The same three counties also led in the wage needed to afford a two-bedroom rental, at $29.60 an hour.

California topped all states in the hourly wage needed to afford a two-bedroom apartment, at $21.24, followed by Massachusetts, New Jersey, Maryland and New York.

About 36 million homes in the United States are rented. Roughly 80 percent of renter homes are located in nearly 1,000 counties in which a family must work over 80 hours a week -- or more than two full-time jobs -- at minimum wage to afford the typical two-bedroom apartment, the coalition said.

The coalition's "housing wage" assumes that a family spends no more than 30 percent of its gross income on rent and utilities. Anything more is considered unaffordable by the government.

The report quoted federal Bureau of Labor Statistics data that showed hourly wages rising about 2.6 percent over the past year, slower than the 2.9 percent rise in rents recorded in the Consumer Price Index.

"You get pushed into a situation where some necessities don't get paid for" because more salary must be devoted to housing, said Sheila Crowley, the coalition's executive director. "For people on low-wage fixed incomes, that's a chronic way of life."

To close the gap, the government must pour money into programs that help poor people pay rent, and must preserve and build more affordable housing units, Crowley said.

Data from the Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development were analyzed to derive housing wage figures. The report also factored in areas in which state minimum wages are, or may soon be, higher than the federal standard.

States with more residents in rural areas were generally the most affordable, although no state's housing wage was lower than the federal hourly minimum wage of $5.15, which has not changed since 1997.

West Virginia was the lowest at $9.31 an hour for a two-bedroom rental.