Except that paragraph #3 contradicts their own headline:

Even the $15 hourly wage touted by labor activists would not be enough to make housing affordable in the overwhelming majority of states, the coalition found.

Source: Minimum wage doesn’t cover the rent anywhere in the U.S. – CBS News

In other words, $15/hour does afford some housing in some states directly contradicting the headline.

The study uses a definition of “weighted average of fair market rent” – and is saying that $15 per hour does not meet the AVERAGE rent. Which is a true statement – but that also means there are some rentals available below the average rent (by the definition of average).

We covered this in the past noting they were using metrics like “cannot afford to rent at the 40th percentile” rental price, which is omitted from the news stories and obscures that there are, obviously, less expensive rentals below the 40th percentile.

When lobbying groups produce studies, watch out! The purpose of their study is to further their organization’s lobbying interests.

Obviously, minimum wage and housing issues are real issues that require serious attention and thought – but this pseudo news story provides neither. There are fair questions as to whether the minimum wage was ever intended to be a living wage, or an entry level, low skill worker wage or whether it is set at the correct level.

This very poorly done news report was passed along in my Facebook feed. The past couple of weeks, I have been confronted with propaganda and lies (from many sources) on Twitter and Facebook. The poor quality of information on social media renders social media a waste of time.

The only value to this pseudo news item is as an illustration of how non-profits produce studies that are peddled to the news media in press releases, for the purpose of propaganda messaging. The media engages in a symbiotic relationship with propaganda organizations, spreading propaganda messages far and wide without critical analysis.