Employers are slowly adding to their payrolls when it comes to certain positions, but those who are grabbing these new jobs will struggle to pay for housing with their new salary, according to a recently released report by the Center for Housing Policy.
The CHP study–Paycheck to Paycheck: Is Housing Affordable for Americans Getting Back to Work?–is based on what the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has recently determined are the five most common jobs for which employers are doing the most hiring: accountants, groundskeepers, janitors, office clerks and security guards. In the apartment sector, “afford” is defined as the ability to pay monthly rent with no more than 30 percent of one’s monthly income. Based on those terms, only accountants can afford to rent at average prices. Accountants also constitute the only one of the five employment groups that can afford to buy a condominium or single-family home at today’s typical prices, despite presently low interest rates.
Out of 210 affordable metro areas assessed in the report, an accountant could afford to rent a one-bedroom apartment in each of those markets, while an office clerk could fund such accommodations in just 129 of the markets. A security guard, groundskeeper or janitor would be able to spare the money for a market-rate one-bedroom rental in 116, 98 and 49 of the markets, respectively. Of course, location matters. Springfield, Mo., tops the list as the least expensive rental market, followed by Wheeling, W.Va.; Brownsville, Tex.; Bay City, Mich.; and Fort Wayne, Ind.
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