Person explains how much rent eats into the average American paycheck: 'A humanitarian crisis'

A recent tweet highlighted how high rents were eating into people's income in America and leaving them with very little to spend. It's no secret that wages have stagnated for more than a decade in America and not kept up with inflation, resulting in a lower spendable income, but rent has also shot up in time. People are already struggling to make ends meet and the rent isn't helping either. The Twitter user, who goes by Rob, broke it down and explained why there needs to be rent control. For the purpose of explaining, he took the median individual income brought home in 2021, which was $51,000 and rounded it down to $50,000 for explaining his theory, reported God.DailyDot.

Rob tweeted: “$1,500 rent means you paying $18,000 a year in housing. Someone making $50,000 is paying 22% in taxes. ($39,000) now has to pay rent and is left with $21,000. For the year with all other life expenses.” It's even more scary when you consider the "other life expenses" include debt payments, health insurance, amenities which have all sharply risen over time. While the costs of living, debt, amenities, insurance, and inflation have all skyrocketed, wages continue to stagnate robbing employees of their precious money. The disposable income of workers is next to nothing if not in the minus already. Rob was also liberal with the assumption that the average rent is $1500, especially when you consider it's very low for major metropolitan areas, where most people work for minimum wages.

When you factor in things like starting a family, elderly care, etc, it's almost impossible to meet the rising cost of living without taking out more loans and thus falling into the vicious cycle of debt. It's hardly a surprise that workers are forced to work 2-3 jobs to even put food on the table. The current dynamic is unsustainable and rebellion from workers in the wake of the pandemic reflected that. Workers demanded better wages, working conditions and benefits to return to work and left many businesses scrambling. They were forced to pay better wages to get workers to return to work. Unless there's a serious increase in wages or a fall in rent, it remains to be seen how the workers are going to continue toiling if it means there's going to be no net gain from work itself. In 2019, the House of Representatives had passed a bill to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 from $7.25, but it didn't pass in the Senate. According to CNN, it was also the first time in a decade that a proposal to raise the federal minimum wage has been passed. 

Other Twitter users joined in to highlight how bad the situation is. "During pandemic, I was forced to move out of my apartment of 5 yrs. When I moved in my rent was 600. Moved out it was 850. Now I’m in a place that is 1350 w/ 2 co-signers (going up 100 next month) but my income went down so now my rent is more than my income. I’m a single disabled mom," wrote one person.  Many complained how rent was increase with zero value addition to the house. "Rent went up $200 in literally one year and the only thing that changed was they painted the building blue," wrote one person. "Rent is what the rich, corporations and shareholders have done to the public instead of people being able to afford homes, anymore. It leeches peoples’ earnings off them for their entire lives… like being human cattle for corporate vampires. Same with leasing vehicles," wrote one person.