San Francisco Chronicle: Here’s the hourly pay you need to comfortably afford the rent on a S.F. apartment

A new report finds that the city is still far out of reach for many working-class renters. It takes a household income of $68.33 an hour — more than four times the local $16.32 minimum wage — to comfortably afford a two-bedroom apartment in the San Francisco area, the National Low-Income Housing Coalition found in its analysis of federal wage and rent data from 2019 to 2021.

The coalition’s annual report measures affordability based on the federal government’s longstanding “30% rule,” which says no more than 30% of one’s income should be spent on rent to leave money for food, healthcare and other necessities.

By those metrics, the Bay Area and nearby Central Coast are actually home to all four of the nation’s least affordable rental markets.

“These numbers are mind boggling, and they’ve only gone up,” said Amie Fishman, executive director of the Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California. “We can no longer justify being the most expensive. That’s not the identity that we should be holding.”

Read more via SF Chronicle…