According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and their latest numbers from 2020, there were
479,000 Idahoans being paid an hourly wage. Of those, 7,000 or 1.4% of them were paid minimum wage or less.
Idaho’s minimum wage has stayed at $7.25 since 2009. Someone working 40-hours a week at the minimum wage would take home a gross weekly pay of $290 for a total of $1,160 a month and just over $15,000 annually. It’s easy to see how people working to just survive in this economy are having a hard time affording housing in Idaho.
With the unemployment benefits, someone who made $7.25 an hour could collect up to $14.75 an hour, on the low-end of the spectrum. The maximum someone in Idaho can receive in unemployment benefits is $463. To beat that, they would have to make more than $11.57 an hour to bring that much home.
With President Biden's $300 weekly bonus, some may receive a maximum of $763 a week, which is nearly $20 per hour. This won’t last forever though. It has been said by political officials it is to end in December 2021.
According to the office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, the poverty guideline for a one-person family/household in 2020 is $12,760. That means someone who makes minimum wage is just barely over the poverty line.
The poverty rate in Idaho is 14.5% according to Welfare Info. One out of every 6.9 residents of Idaho lives in poverty. How many people in Idaho live in poverty? 236,000 of 1,626,557 residents reported income levels below the poverty line in the last year.
The city of Boise lists a one-person household median income to be $52,700 and a two-person median income to be $60,200. With housing and rental prices averaging $1,554 in Boise and the average Boise apartment size is 875 square feet.
Even the current housing market in Boise has astronomically risen.
A majority of national news sources stated that “Boise is now the least affordable housing market in the U.S.”
To determine the affordability of a housing market, the Oxford Economics’ Housing Affordability Indices look at whether a city’s median-income household can afford a median-priced home.
With a Housing Affordability Indices score of 1.61, Boise’s home prices are 72% above what a median-income household can afford.
From the Boise Regional Realtors Association, a recent study found that the city's median home price was almost $535,000 — 10 times higher than the city's median income.
The median listing home price in Boise, ID was $529.9K in November 2021, trending up 20.2% year-over-year. The median listing home price per square foot was $296 sourced from the National Realtor Association. As of November 2021, on average, homes in Boise, Idaho sell after 48 days on the market.
With all of the out of people moving into Boise from out of State primarily from California, Washington, and Oregon are paying with all-cash offers and over asking price for an Idaho home. One of the contributing factors to Idaho's housing increase is because of all the out of State residents moving to Idaho, driving up current home prices. This unfortunately has drastically affected our local Idahoans. Even though there has been an increase in job growth because of this big housing boom, income levels still do not support the current economy here in the State of Idaho.
According to an article from the Idaho Department of Labor, the coronavirus pandemic and its effects pushed Idaho’s unemployment rate to an all-time high of 11.6% in April of 2020. Idaho was reported to be the fastest State to add employment opportunities to its residents from 2020 to 2021. Although Idaho has seen a rise in employment opportunities there has still been a large number of labor shortages. Idaho businesses are struggling to stay open because they can’t find enough workers that want to work for minimum wage rates in Idaho which is $7.25 an hour. We have seen Idaho businesses, mainly large food chains and national franchises advertising to pay up to $15 an hour just to keep their doors open. With the income level being below the national average, unemployment pay being higher, and additional stimulus' being paid by the National Government it's no wonder why so many more Idahoans are facing economic hardship.
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