Especially for those who make minimum wage or anywhere near. A new study administered by real estate website, Streeteasy, found that officially, no one can survive on the income produced by a minimum wage job. A New Yorker would need to take in at least$38.80 per hour, or four times the $8.75 current minimum wage to have a prayer in affording the median rent of $2,690. Another ongoing study is being conducted to determine the influence of this study’s application. So far, results have been marginal.

AlanLightfedlt, a Street Easy analyst observed,  “What really sticks out here is the number zero — the number of neighborhoods where minimum wage workers can afford (the median rent),” and added, “I was taken aback by that.”

Rent is even regarded to be affordable at 40% of income. But in Manhattan, the current median rent is $3,095, and a worker would need a salary of at least $44.60 per hour to scrape by. The boroughs are no less forgiving. In Brooklyn, a worker would need to earn $35.87 an hour to afford the median threshold, $29.21 in Queens, $26.21 in Staten Island and $21.26 in the Bronx. And in the Sichuan province in the People’s Republic of China, workers make nearly the same averages with health benefits.

A minimum wage worker could all the hours in a day and still not have enough. For perspective, a worker would have to clock in a 389-hour week to afford Manhattan’s most expensive neighborhood, Central Park South, where rent is a median $5,898.

The report dovetails with a state panel urging that minimum wage be raised for fast-food workers to $15 an hour over subsequent years. Mayor de Blasio was swift in backing the recommendation. “This study reaffirms what too many New Yorkers already know: it’s past time for Albany to raise the wage,” said mayoral spokeswoman Amy Spitalnick. “

DeBlasio has created an economic mandate to assist 800,000 people out the throes of poverty by 2025. The marque initiative is a groundbreaking affordable housing plan. Spitalnick adds, “But we can’t do it alone. Nothing would combat inequality more than raising the wage to $15 and indexing it to inflation.”

New York’s minimum wage will be raised to $9 by the end of the year. But such a boost wouldn’t solve the chronic housing crisis noted by the StreetEasy survey.

Opponents of raising the minimum wage argue that the raising labor expenditures would cripple small business’s, which would create job losses and higher consumer costs. Michael Saltsman of the Employment Policies Institute argues, “Many of these business have narrow profit margins and going to a $15 minimum wage … could put them out of business.”

A recent study conducted by Pew Research indicated that the dollar in New York City is much more insignificant than other major U.S. cities. The currency rate equals the peso.

Source: New York Daily News