The Working Homeless
The people who work, contribute, raise families… and still find themselves without a place to call home.
With Labor Day approaching on Monday, September 7, 2026, we’ve been thinking about the meaning of work in the context of what we see every day in our work with individuals and families experiencing housing instability. As we anticipate a holiday that recognizes the contributions of American workers, we’re taking a closer look at a question that challenges some of our most deeply held assumptions about homelessness: What happens when someone is working, earning a paycheck, contributing to their community… and still can’t keep a roof over their head? Over the course of this multi-part series, we’ll look beyond the stereotypes and into the research, the numbers, the realities of housing and wages, and the complicated path between employment and stability.
EXPLORE THE SERIES
PART I – The Myth: “Just Get a Job.” – What if the person you think needs a job already has one?
PART II – The Math – Who can actually afford to live here?
In Part I of The Working Homeless, we challenged a familiar assumption about homelessness: that the path to losing housing begins with not working. The research told us otherwise. People experiencing homelessness can be working. They can have formal employment. They can have paychecks. They can be doing precisely what we have told them to do: get a job. So now we have to ask the next question… What does that job actually buy? Because if we are going to talk seriously about work as a pathway to stability, we have to talk about the math… not ideology or stereotypes… or whether someone is trying hard enough – the math. And when we put Hunterdon County under a microscope, the numbers tell a story that should make all of us pause.
Start With the Minimum
As of January 1, 2026, New Jersey’s minimum wage for most workers is $15.92 an hour. The state increased the minimum wage by 43 cents from the previous year’s rate. At 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, a person earning $15.92 an hour would gross approximately: $33,113.60 a year. This is before federal income taxes, Social Security, Medicare, New Jersey taxes, health insurance, retirement contributions… before transportation, groceries, childcare, a cell phone, a prescription, a car repair… before virtually anything else required to live.
The phrase “minimum wage” can be misleading. Minimum wage tells us the lowest amount an employer is generally permitted to pay a covered worker – not what it costs to live. Aren’t these two entirely different numbers? So let’s look at another number…
The Living Wage
MIT’s Living Wage Calculator estimates the hourly income a person needs to cover basic expenses in a particular geographic area, based on household composition. For Hunterdon County in 2026, MIT estimates that a single adult with no children needs approximately: $28.47 an hour to meet basic needs while working full-time. That’s an annual income of roughly: $59,218. Now put those two numbers next to each other… New Jersey minimum wage: $15.92/hour & Hunterdon County living wage for one adult: $28.47/hour.
The difference is: $12.55 an hour. The living wage is approximately 79% higher than the state’s minimum wage. And remember: we’re talking about one adult with no children. The minute children enter the picture, the numbers change dramatically.
MIT estimates that a single adult in Hunterdon County supporting one child needs approximately: $52.15 an hour. With two children: $70.85 an hour. With three: $84.35 an hour. Seeing the big picture forming here? Let’s stop there for a moment because this is where the phrase “just get a job” begins to lose its usefulness. A parent can absolutely have a job… but is that job producing enough income to cover the basic cost of being a parent in the community where that parent lives?
But We’re Talking About Housing
A living wage is not the same thing as a housing wage. How much does a person need to earn to meet basic needs? The housing wage asks, “How much must a person earn to afford a modest rental home without spending more than 30% of their income on housing?” The National Low Income Housing Coalition’s Out of Reach report uses that 30% standard because households spending more than 30% of income on housing are considered housing cost burdened under the commonly used affordability standard. And in Hunterdon County, the answer is startling.
The $41.85 Number
The most recent Hunterdon County-specific Out of Reach figures give us a $41.85 hourly housing wage for a modest two-bedroom rental at Fair Market Rent which translates to approximately: $87,040 a year. The Fair Market Rent used in that calculation was $2,176 a month. And the average renter wage in Hunterdon County was only: $17.39 an hour. These figures come from the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s 2025 Out of Reach dataset, which compares local wages with the cost of modest rental housing using HUD Fair Market Rent data. NLIHC defines the housing wage as the hourly wage a full-time worker needs to earn to afford a modest rental home while spending no more than 30% of income on housing.
So let’s put the numbers together for Hunterdon County:
- $15.92 – New Jersey minimum wage in 2026
- $17.39 – average renter wage in the 2025 Hunterdon County Out of Reach data
- $28.47 – 2026 MIT living wage for one adult, no children
- $41.85 – 2025 Hunterdon County housing wage for a modest two-bedroom rental
Four numbers telling us something extraordinarily important.
These Are Not Four Versions of the Same Number
And as Labor Day approaches, we’re going to keep asking questions and as “Hunterdon Promises…”, we will work together to find the solutions
- Department of Labor & Workforce Development | New Jersey’s Minimum Wage to Increase to $15.92/Hour for Most Employees on Jan. 1 – (confirms the $15.92/hour statewide minimum wage effective January 1, 2026.)
- Living Wage Calculator – Living Wage Calculation for Hunterdon County, New Jersey – (provides the 2026 $28.47/hour living wage for one adult with no children and the higher figures for households with children.)
- 2025_OOR_FullReport.pdf – (provides the Hunterdon-specific $41.85 housing wage, $2,176 two-bedroom FMR, $87,040 annual income and $17.39 average renter wage used in this installment.)
- NLIHC Releases Out of Reach 2025: The High Cost of Housing | National Low Income Housing Coalition – (explains the methodology and the national wage/housing affordability gap.)
- Out of Reach: New Jersey | National Low Income Housing Coalition – (provides the current 2026 New Jersey figures, including the $43.89 statewide two-bedroom housing wage and $15.92 minimum wage.)
- New Jersey | National Low Income Housing Coalition – (provides the 2026 $47.81 two-bedroom housing wage for the Middlesex-Somerset-Hunterdon HMFA.)
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If you’re interested in getting connected to community events like that, find ways to GET INVOLVED here on our website. Together, we can help families overcome crisis and move forward with dignity, hope, and the support they deserve.
by Dawn Hartfelder – updated 8/29/2026
