Out of Reach 2005
Danilo Pelletiere, Research Director
Keith Wardrip, Research Analyst
Sheila Crowley, President
This edition of Out of Reach is dedicated to NLIHC Founder Cushing N. Dolbeare, who passed away in March. Cushing was one of the nation’s leading experts on federal housing policy and the housing circumstances of low income people, and was the original author of Out of Reach.
To order hard copies of OOR please click here to see our publications page. Despite the emphasis on homeownership and the marginalization of renters,
renter households still make up fully one-third of the households in the
United States — nearly 36 million households. Out of Reach is a
side-by-side comparison of wages and rents in every county, Metropolitan
Area (MSAs/HMFAs), combined nonmetropolitan area and state in the United
States. For each jurisdiction, the report calculates the amount of money
a household must earn in order to afford a rental unit at a range of sizes
(0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 bedrooms) at the area’s Fair Market Rent (FMR), based
on the generally accepted affordability standard of paying no more than
30% of income for housing costs. From these calculations the hourly wage
a worker must earn to afford the FMR for a two-bedroom home is derived.
This figure is the Housing Wage.
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Out of Reach index
Established in 1974, the National Low Income Housing Coalition is dedicated solely to ending America’s affordable housing crisis. NLIHC is committed to educating, organizing, and advocating to ensure safe, decent, affordable housing within healthy neighborhoods for everyone.
NLIHC provides up-to-date information, formulates policy and educates the public on housing needs and strategies for solutions.
Additional copies of Out of Reach are available from NLIHC.
Permission to reprint portions of this report or the data therein is granted, provided appropriate credit is given to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
The data for nonmetro areas included in Out of Reach is being
published in collaboration with:
Housing Assistance Council
Moises Loza, Executive Director
1025 Vermont Ave., NW, Suite 606
Washington, D.C. 20005
Tel.: 202-842-8600
Fax: 202-347-3441
Web: www.ruralhome.org
This research was funded in part by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. We thank them for their support but acknowledge that the findings and conclusions presented in this report are those of NLIHC alone, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Foundation.
Support for this research was provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and by the Rockefeller Foundation.
