No full-time minimum-wage worker can afford a 2-bedroom apartment in any US state

cnbc.com - The absolute least that an employer is legally allowed to pay an employee for an hour's work varies across the country, but one fact remains constant: In no state does working 40 hours a week for minimum wage enable a person to rent a two-bedroom apartment.

That's according to new research by the National Low Income Housing Coalition covered by The Washington Post. Across the country, it reports, even full-time workers would have to make about or more than twice as much to afford a home.

In states such as Alaska, Washington, Colorado, Florida, Virginia, Illinois and most of the Northeast, workers would have to make over $20 an hour. Workers in California, D.C. and Hawaii are the hardest hit by the price of housing: They need to earn a whopping $30, $33 or $35 an hour, respectively, to afford a two-bedroom apartment.

The federal minimum wage is $7.25.

Not all workers are subject to the federal minimum wage. Some are, as five states, including Mississippi and Louisiana, have no official minimum wage, and two more, Georgia and Wyoming, have a minimum wage of $5.15, or about $10 less an hour than full-time employees would need to make to be able to afford a two-bedroom. In those places, the federal minimum wage applies, with a general exception for workers who receive tips.

By contrast, states such as Connecticut and California mandate that even entry-level workers receive about $10 an hour, while cities and, increasingly, states such as Illinois and New York are phasing in a new minimum wage of $15 an hour. That minimum supersedes the federal one.

The Fight for $15, a worldwide effort to raise wages and strengthen unions, has successfully led to better pay in many places since its launch in 2012, and a proposed federal minimum wage of $15 an hour is now part of the Democratic Party platform. According to these numbers, however, even that wouldn't make housing affordable.

As things stand, an American making the federal minimum wage of $7.25 would have to work 94.5 hours a week, or more than two full-time jobs, to afford a two-bedroom rental.

The Post notes that "many of the occupations projected to add the most jobs by 2024 pay too little to cover rent. These are customer service representatives, personal care aides, nursing assistants, home health aides, retail salespeople, home health and food service workers who make, on average, between $10 and $16 an hour. ... as a result, more than 11.2 million families end up spending more than half their paychecks on housing," money they could otherwise direct toward transportation, education, food, clothing or savings. (ontinueReading
* * * *

Related: A Wealthy Capitalist on Why Money Doesn’t Trickle Down

American capitalism has failed us: We’re overworked, underemployed and more powerless than ever before