Index: Even renting more out of reach

$15.78 that’s the hourly wage people need to earn, working 40 hours a week all year, to rent a decent place, according to a national index. The National Low-Income Housing Coalition recently released its latest annual index, Out of Reach 2005, and the average hourly wage needed to rent nationwide had increased from $15.37 in 2004, which was itself an increase from $15.21 in 2003. New York City, surprisingly enough, did not make the index’s list of most expensive rental metro areas by hourly wage needed. That list was topped by the San Francisco metro region, where a renter would have to earn $29.54 an hour, the index concluded. more [Slatin]