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Minimum-wage employees who work full-time shifts in all US states including the capital Washington D.C. are not able to easily afford a roof over their, in light of minimum wages that can get as low as $7 per hour. A one-bedroom apartment at the fair market rent is sometimes out of reach for the country’s low-income workers while 29 states have so far helplessly made their attempts to raise the minimum wage above the federal rate of $7.25.

The National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) revealed in a report that the problem has been worsening over the past five years. Currently, for a person with minimum wage to afford a one-bedroom apartment, he or she needs to work for 86 hours a week, [around 15 hours a day for six days a week] which is more than double the standard full-time work week.

According to the findings of the report, a wage growth seems to remain stagnant amid the rising prices of housing unites especially in metropolitan areas across the US and rising demand for affordable housing.

Without exception, the crisis seems to be growing. According to the Urban Institute Research, since 2000, rents in all states and counties have increased, and the number of families and people needing affordable units has been on the rise as well.

Different researches have been conducted to address the problem. For a full-time worker with low-wage, he or she needs to make at least $15.50 dollars per hour to afford a one-bedroom apartment at the fair market rent.

In September 2015, the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies and Enterprise Community Partners, a real-estate research and investment organization, suggested that over the next 10 years, the rental population in the U.S. will climb by about 4 million people. (That is considered as a conservative estimate compared to the Urban Institute’s projections.)

The report said that even if housing prices and income rise as quickly as inflation (about 2 percent annually) the number of severely rent-burdened Americans (those paying 50 percent or more) would increase by 11 percent over the decade, to over 13 million people in 2025.

If the current patterns persist and rent prices increase more quickly than incomes, each 0.25 percentage point increase in rent will mean an additional 400,000 Americans who are spending half of their pay on housing, leaving them little money to spend on their other basic needs, noted the Harvard Center’s report.

The outlook is troubling for the elderly as the report notes that one-third of elderly renters use more than half of their income on housing, that’s more than the national average (more than 30 per cent of their income).

As for the Urban Institute analysis also carried out in 2015, the number of renters receiving federal assistance (in particular through the Housing Choice Voucher program) is rising. For the U.S. poorest and vulnerable households, the alternatives are unsafe housing, exploitation, overcrowding, and homelessness.

According to sources, the crisis is most dramatic in cities in the South and West, but there is no place in the nation that it does not touch. This economic and moral crisis caused by stagnant wages, high rental prices, and decreased employment opportunities may continue to play out over the next decade, even for the people considered currently as middle or upper class.