Ikea /MIT Living Wage Rent Changes May Limit Increases if 2010 FMR's are Updated with FY 2014 FMR Data.

Readers will recall my prior Ikea "living wage" post HERE. 

I just took a peek at some FY 2010 vs FY 2014 FMR's for counties where an Ikea store is located.   

I estimate that more than half of these counties saw zero bedroom FMR decreases from FY 2010 to FY 2014.  

An example is Tampa/Hillsborough county which had a $714 zero bedroom FMR in 2010 and a 15.3% reduction in FY 2014 to $605.  While other expenses than rent will likely show increases as they are indexed to more recent data, changes in rents will have a significant over all impact on MIT "living wage" calculations as rents often come close to representing 40-50% of all expenses.

By the time MIT updates their data in September the HUD proposed FMR's for FY 2015 starting in October will be out; it is not clear whether MIT will use that data and if so what impact it would have. 

Note: Portland is one of areas where 2010-2014 FMR's went UP, not down from $626 to $666.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.