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Along the Wasatch Front and near St. George and Moab, it takes more than 100 hours of work at a minimum wage job to afford a two-bedroom apartment at fair market rent.

Utahns working for minimum wage need to work fewer hours in the state’s more rural counties, but they still need to work nearly 88 hours a week to spend 30% of their income on an affordable two bedroom.

In fact, there’s no county in Utah where people working a minimum wage job can work a standard 40-hour work week and make enough to afford a modest apartment — not even a studio.

Workers making minimum wage have the biggest struggle in affording rental housing, though a lot of people make more but still not enough to truly afford their housing, said Andrew Aurand, senior vice president of research with the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

Even a worker making double the minimum wage in Utah — more of a “livable wage” at $14 an hour — would have to put in between 45.4 and 85.3 hours a week to afford a modest two-bedroom rental.

Each year, the National Low Income Housing Coalition publishes “Out of Reach,” which details the gap between renters’ wages and the cost of their housing. The report estimates how much a full-time worker must make to afford a modest rental at the federally established fair market rent without spending more than 30% of their income on housing costs, which is a widely used affordability measure.

Fair market rent is an estimate put out annually by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for what a family moving today can expect to pay for a modestly priced rental home in a given area. It’s used to determine standard payments for the Housing Choice Voucher Program, public housing units and other affordable housing programs.

The lowest and highest rents in Utah

From St. George to Moab to Logan, workers making the Utah minimum wage of $7.25 would have to work at least two weeks’ worth of hours to ensure they spend no more than 30% of their income on modestly priced housing.

That’s lowest, though still at nearly 88 hours, in 11 counties: Beaver, Carbon, Daggett, Emergy, Garfield, Millard, Piute, Rich, San Juan, Sevier and Wayne. All are classified as rural or frontier by the Utah Department of Health and Human Services.

Hours needed for rent are highest in Summit and Salt Lake counties, where it would take 164.8 and 159.6 hours, respectively, at minimum wage to afford a modest two-bedroom rental.

Rates for counties with a major city — like Salt Lake City, Ogden (Weber), Provo (Utah) and St. George (Washington) — are based on rates for the metropolitan area.

These figures aren’t for luxury apartments, Aurand said. They are for rentals that are below the middle of the market. Even in those rentals, he said, the market is unaffordable for people working for minimum wage and other low pay rates.

Sacrificing other needs to make rent

“It forces renters with really low wages to spend most of their earned income on housing,” Aurand said.

They do that by sacrificing other necessities, he said, including food, medication and resources for their children.

Paying too much for rent significantly impacts family wellbeing and worsens mental and physical health, he added, especially for mothers.

Where are the solutions?

Federal, state and local authorities need to address the crisis with multiple efforts, Aurand said.

The federal government needs to allocate more resources for rental assistance and vouchers and programs like the National Housing Trust Fund that help increase affordable housing stock, he said. Those programs step in to fill the gap between wages and rent, he added, which the private market won’t do on its own.

State governments also need to put more resources into programs to help with affordability, he said.

Utah has a rental assistance program funded by state and federal dollars, a state tax credit program for low-income housing and the Olene Walker Housing Loan Fund, which provides loans and grants to develop affordable housing.

The state does not fund housing vouchers, a short-term housing assistance program or a transitional housing assistance program and does not have a real estate transfer tax, according to a recent report from the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute.

Finally, local governments need to make sure zoning laws don’t make it too difficult to develop rental housing, Aurand said.

Megan Banta is The Salt Lake Tribune’s data enterprise reporter, a philanthropically supported position. The Tribune retains control over all editorial decisions.

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