Today is Friday, July 16th, and you're listening to The Morning Announcements presented by

Betcha's Media, on Sammy Sage.

A new report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition has revealed that housing has

become so expensive in the United States, such that there is now no state, county, or

city in the country where a full-time minimum wage worker who works 40 hours a week can

afford a two-bedroom rental.

The report also showed that a full-time minimum wage worker can afford a one-bedroom rental

in only 7% of all U.S. counties, and that a worker would need to earn 2490 per hour

in order to afford a two-bedroom home at Fair Market Rent.

It goes without saying that housing affordability is a greater challenge for black and Latino households,

with those groups more likely to be housing cost burdened.

And yet, employers are here wondering why people would prefer to knock at a job than

work for poverty wages, when they could just be in poverty without even having to work for it.

In an effort to curb the impoverished status of an embarrassing percentage of the country,

the White House says $15 billion in child tax credit payments have been sent out to the

families of nearly 60 million children.

For every child's under the age of six, families will get up to $3,600 each year, or $300

per month.

For every child, age of 16 to 17, the amount is $3,000, or $250 per month.

The goal of this program is to cut child poverty in the U.S. in half.

And according to Columbia University Center on Poverty and Social Policy, they estimated

that these measures could lift 5 million children out of poverty.

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