While the economy has improved and the unemployment rate has dropped in most states across the country, many people are still struggling to pay the bills, especially when it comes to rental housing, a National Low Income Housing Coalition study shows. The problem is that while jobs have increased, wages have not, forcing roughly 21 million working Americans to scrape by on a near minimum wage salary, according to the Pew Research Center. At the same time, rents keep rising because the demand for rental units has increased across the country as the home ownership rate has dropped to its lowest point since 1989.

The result is that people are being priced out of the rental market, and it's worse in New Hampshire than most parts of the country, according to The Atlantic's City Lab. Most economists advise renters to pay no more than 30 percent of their annual income on housing. Anything more is unaffordable. Nationally, the average worker needs to make $19.35 an hour to afford the rent on an average two-bedroom home, about $4 an hour more than the average renter's income of $15.16. In New Hampshire, the gap is wider. A renter needs to make $20.54 an hour. That's $6.60 an hour more than the average New Hampshire renter makes, the seventh largest wage gap in the country, the study has found. Hawaii tops the lost with a whopping $17.12 wage/rental gap.

It gets worse for people in New Hampshire working for near minimum wage — $7.25 in New Hampshire and nationally. Those toward the bottom of the income scale in New Hampshire must work 89 hours a week to afford just a one-bedroom apartment in the state, one of the highest totals in the country. Only Hawaii (125 hours), New York (98) and Virginia (97) are worse. A two-bedroom home requires renters at minimum to work more than 100 hours a week. The problem continues to grow as potential homeowners are increasingly priced out of the market, instead turning to rentals, further limiting the rental stock and driving prices higher.