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Renters in most Utah counties likely don’t make enough to afford a modest, two-bedroom apartment, according to new data.
The “Out of Reach 2024″ report was released recently the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the National Low Income Housing Coalition. The report uses HUD’s fair-market rent calculations to determine the housing wage — how much a full-time worker must earn to afford a modest rental home without spending more than 30% of their income on housing — for states, counties and metropolitan areas across the country.
The report found that “more renters than ever before are paying more than they can afford on rent,” and risk homelessness, said Diane Yentel, who heads the coalition.
That includes Utah, where the mean wage for renters was lower than the housing wage in all but four counties, and was within 50 cents of it in another two. All six are rural counties.
Renters in Utah can’t afford to buy a home in all but one county, according to a recent analysis by The Salt Lake Tribune of U.S. Census Bureau and real-estate industry data. And based on a Tribune analysis of the new report, they can’t afford to rent in most counties, either.
The coalition’s analysis found Utah’s statewide housing wage — what a person would have to earn to be able to afford a two-bedroom apartment at fair-market rent — is $26.89 an hour.
That cost varies from $17.40 an hour in several rural counties to $30.88 in Salt Lake County, and a maximum of $34.75 in Summit County. There is data available for every county in Utah except Daggett County.
Meanwhile, the mean renter wage is lower statewide and in nearly every county than the housing wage — sometimes by double-digit numbers.
It’s only higher in Duchesne, Garfield, San Juan and Wayne counties, all rural counties in eastern or southeastern Utah.
Mean renter wages also are lower but within 50 cents an hour in two other counties — Box Elder County in the northwestern part of the state and Uintah County in eastern Utah. That gap is small enough that the NLIHC determined a renter could work one job and still afford a modest, two-bedroom apartment.
In other counties, the gap between the typical renter and housing wages varies from 87 cents in Beaver County to $15.64 in Kane County and averages about $7 an hour (more than $14,500 a year).
There is more affordability for one-bedroom apartments, but the mean renter wage is still short in 18 counties, including Cache, Davis, Grand, Iron, Kane, Salt Lake, Tooele, Washington and Weber.
The gap matters because even in “an improving economic landscape,” renters continue to struggle, Yentel said, and that leads to more evictions and higher rates of homelessness.
There is, however, some good news for Utah renters.
For one, the state’s housing wage is about in the middle compared to other states.
Utah’s housing wage also is lower than neighboring Arizona, Colorado and Nevada, as well as other western states like California, Oregon and Washington. Utah’s northern neighbors have housing wages somewhat lower than Utah’s — Idaho’s is about $4 lower, and Wyoming’s is about $8 lower.
And though there are new and luxury rentals across the state that cost much more than the fair-market rent HUD set, one analysis found typical rents for one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments are lower.
Median rent along the Wasatch Front is between $77 and $166 a month less than fair-market rent for two-bedroom apartments, according to data from ApartmentList.com.
And median rent is only higher than fair-market in Davis County by $8, the ApartmentList data shows — it is lower in Salt Lake, Utah and Weber counties by at least $80.
Utah has focused on ways to improve the state’s housing crisis, but most have focused on homeownership.
As part of the Out of Reach report, the coalition suggested solutions for the rental side, though they are actions the federal government is advised to take. The coalition has recommended:
Long-term federal investments in affordable housing, including rental assistance.
Construction of deeply affordable housing.
Preservation of existing affordable housing.
Stronger renter protections.
Megan Banta is The Salt Lake Tribune’s data enterprise reporter, a philanthropically supported position. The Tribune retains control over all editorial decisions.
Follow @MeganBanta_1