> The National Low Income Housing Coalition used that number to calculate the hourly wage a household must earn to afford a home while spending 30 percent or le

> The National Low Income Housing Coalition used that number to calculate the hourly wage a household must earn to afford a home while spending 30 percent or less of their income on rent. This is a nit, but I don't think that's a reasonable way to calculate the relationship between housing cost and affordability. Some expenses do scale with housing cost (mainly things that depend on local labor), but many important ones don't (car payments, grocery bills). So in an area with very high housing prices and a relatively-high minimum wage, you'd expect low-income workers to be able to spend more than the "standard" 30% on housing, and still be able to afford other daily necessities. I certainly don't mean this as a refutation of the article however -- the Bay Area is a very hard place to live on a low income.