Do you earn $58 an hour? You need that to rent a 2-BR apartment in San Francisco Bay Area

SAN FRANCISCO (KTVU) -- Sure, the minimum wage in the Bay Area has steadily been increasing in the Bay Area, but the $12 or $13 an hour that people are earning in cities from Oakland to Los Altos is a far cry of what’s needed to rent even a one-bedroom house.

That’s according to the recently released 280-page Out of Reach 2017 report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, funded by JP Morgan Chase and Com.

For example, the minimum wage is about $12 an hour in Berkeley and $14 an hour in San Francisco. But to rent a one-bedroom apartment in both those cities, you need to earn four times that – about $46 an hour, the report states. For a two-bedroom house? You need to earn $58 an hour.

The most expensive metropolitan areas to live in the United States are San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland, followed by Honolulu as No. 4, and Stamford, Conn. as No. 5, according to the report. In California, the third most expensive state to rent, the fair market rate for a two-bedroom apartment is $1,600.

The report highlights that the minimum wage in cities across the United States need to earn at least double of what they currently make to live, but the gap is much less in places like Chicago, where the minimum wage is $11 an hour and the rent for a one-bedroom is $20 an hour. Even Los Angeles isn’t as bad. The minimum wage is LA is $12 an hour, while the hourly rate to afford a one-bedroom is about $22 an hour.

The coalition was established in 1974 to ensure that low income people have decent, affordable housing.