The Hourly Wage You Need to Afford Rent in Washington State

Say it with me.

"The rent is too damn high!"

It was high back then and with most places raising the rent every 6 months or so, it's getting worse and worse.
To the point where many are having trouble making ends meet with the rent and power and food and any other essentials.

Out of curiosity I was wondering what the average hourly wage would be for someone to rent here in Washington State at kind of a bare minimum to afford rent and still have a life.

The federal minimum wage is $7.25. That's absolute minimum. That's the lowest wage required. Shameful. You can't even get a decent lunch for that wage anymore.

You remember when the 1% were up in arms about how $15-$20 for minimum wage was too much. Well, as it turns out for the state of Washington, it's still not enough.

According to Chase, you should only be paying 28% of your monthly income on your rent/mortgage to sustain a quality of life.

Nobody was talking about an unfair wage, it was more the ability to afford rent and still, y'know, feed your kids.

The good news for us here in Washington state is that we're on the decrease down 7% from last year according to USA Today.

But according to BuzzFeed, for the average 2 bedroom you would need to make an hourly wage of $31.33.

That's to afford the rental as well as any other things you may need.

Again, this is on average for Washington so bigger cities like Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia and 'rich' neighborhoods like Issaquah would be included in this list as well.

If you're looking to live on the cheap, Arkansas is the cheapest at $16 an hour to afford rent + life.
While the most expensive belongs to California needing an hourly wage of $42.25.

I have a feeling our friends making $30+ an hour in Yakima are living it up. And good for them.

It's a rough time right now and all we can do is keep going and maybe consider those side-hustles you've been considering.