The High Cost of Housing on the Eastern Shore

Jan Plotczyk • August 17, 2021

A shocking report on rental housing affordability titled Out of Reach: The High Cost of Housing 2021 was just released. Written by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, the report states that there is not a single county in the U.S. where a household earning the local minimum wage can afford a two-bedroom rental home. Additionally, on the Eastern Shore, there is no county where a household earning an average renter wage can afford a two-bedroom home. (See technical notes at the end for more information on terms used.)

The report estimates that in Maryland, a full-time worker must earn at least $28.60 per hour ($59,480 annually) to afford to rent a modest two-bedroom home at fair market rental prices. This amount is called the housing wage. The difference between the housing wage and the Maryland minimum wage of $11.75 per hour ($24,440 per year) is vast.

The average wage earned by renters is generally between the minimum wage and housing wage. In Maryland, the average renter wage is $18.42 — $10.18 less than the two-bedroom housing wage. So the average renter in Maryland must work 62 hours per week to afford a modest two-bedroom home renting at the fair market price of $1,487.

Affordability is a federal standard that holds that no more than 30% of a household’s income should be spent on housing and utilities. Using this formula:

Individuals with disabilities relying on Supplemental Security Income (SSI) can afford a monthly rent of only $238.
A household with one full-time worker earning the federal minimum wage ($7.25) can afford a monthly rent of no more than $377.
A household receiving the average unemployment insurance benefit can afford a rent of no more than $503 per month.
A household with one full-time worker earning the Maryland minimum wage ($11.75) can afford a monthly rent of no more than $611.
A family of four with poverty-level income in most areas of the U.S. can afford a monthly rent of no more than $663.
A worker earning the average Maryland renter wage ($18.42) can afford a monthly rent of $958.

Among Eastern Shore counties there is a wide range of average two-bedroom fair market rents and average renter wages, all of which are lower than for Maryland overall.

Two counties, Queen Anne’s and Worcester, have average renter wages that are less than Maryland’s minimum wage, due, perhaps, to exemptions in Maryland’s minimum wage law for tipped workers, very small businesses, certain agricultural workers, and workers in produce, poultry, and seafood processing, among others. Two other counties, Talbot and Somerset, are within a few cents of the minimum wage. The other five counties have average renter wages that exceed the minimum wage, but none are as high as $15.

Average two-bedroom fair market rents range from $764 per month in Somerset County to $1,384 per month in Queen Anne’s. But in no county is a single full-time job at the average renter wage enough to pay for a two-bedroom rent.

The difference between average rent and affordable rent can be staggering. In Queen Anne’s County, for example, the monthly affordable rent for a household making the average renter wage is $491 — $900 dollars less than the average two-bedroom rent of $1,394. Consequently, the average renter needs 2.8 full-time jobs in order to afford a two-bedroom home. (High rental costs in this county may be influenced by the high area median income — see Table 1.) In three counties — Cecil, Talbot, and Worcester — the average renter needs 1.8 full-time jobs. More than one full-time job is needed to afford a two-bedroom home in the other five counties as well.

In Maryland, 33% of households are renters. On the Eastern Shore, this figure ranges from 19% in Queen Anne’s County to 42% in Wicomico — close to 53,000 households total. The lack of affordable rental housing is a crisis that affects a large proportion of our population, and requires urgent solutions at the federal, state, and county levels.

First, rental assistance must be available to all who need it. Currently, because the funding does not exist to do more, federal housing assistance is available to only one in four income-eligible households.

Next, there must be a commitment to fund the construction of more affordable homes on the Eastern Shore to counter the shortage of affordable rental housing. There must also be a commitment to fund the preservation, rehabilitation, and expansion of public housing for the lowest-income renters.

Third, emergency assistance reserves need to be created to provide urgent support to families who experience a sudden and temporary shock to their finances. The pandemic illustrated how economically precarious many low-income households are. A fund would help prevent evictions and homelessness.

Finally, Congress must strengthen and enforce renter protections such as the Fair Housing Act and create new safeguards such as the right to legal representation at eviction and “just-cause” eviction protections.

Legislation for some of these items has been proposed at the federal level, but with the current GOP resistance to laws that would help anyone but the rich, it will be difficult to enact. The Maryland House of Delegates introduced a comprehensive package of bills to strengthen tenants’ rights in 2021, but only some pieces were successful.

The pandemic exacerbated the plight of the low wage earner. But things were bad before that. Just returning to the pre-covid status quo would ignore the millions of households that could not afford their rent even in better economic times. In a wealthy country, it’s a moral imperative to work to better the lives of low-wage workers and provide housing security to all.

Technical notes:

Average renter wage is the estimated mean hourly wage among renters, based on 2019 Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data, adjusted and projected to 2021.

Fair market rents are estimates of what a person moving today can expect to pay for a modestly priced rental home in a given area. The kind of home that can be rented for the fair market rent is in decent condition, but it is not luxury housing.

Housing wage is an estimate of the hourly wage full-time workers must earn to afford a rental home at fair market rent without spending more than 30% of their incomes.

Sources:

Out of Reach: The High Cost of Housing 2021, National Low Income Housing Coalition.

https://nlihc.org/sites/default/files/oor/2021/Out-of-Reach_2021.pdf

Maryland Minimum Wage, Resourceful Compliance

https://www.resourcefulcompliance.com/maryland

Maryland House of Delegates announces comprehensive housing legislation, Afro News.

https://afro.com/maryland-house-of-delegates-announces-comprehensive-housing-legislation/

Maryland General Assembly

https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/

The National Low Income Housing Coalition was established in 1974 and is dedicated to achieving socially just public policy that ensures people with the lowest incomes in the U.S. have affordable and decent homes. They publish a yearly report on the state of affordable housing.

Jan Plotczyk spent 25 years as a survey and education statistician with the federal government, at the Census Bureau and the National Center for Education Statistics. She retired to Rock Hall.

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