--- title: The 10 Most (and Least) Affordable Cities for Rent on a Minimum Wage description: A new analysis from Zillow shows which U.S. cities have the most (and least) affordable rent prices for workers at minimum wage jobs. authors: - name: Adam Hardy role: Lead Data Reporter url: https://money.com/author/adam-hardy/ bio: Adam Hardy is a lead data journalist at Money, where he frequently reports on financial barriers that affect low-income Americans. Adam’s work has also appeared in Business Insider, Forbes, Nasdaq, The Penny Hoarder, Yahoo! Finance and more than a dozen local and regional newspapers. education: University of South Florida, BA, Magazine Journalism at_money_since: 2021 articles: 498 covers: - Housing - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Debt - Economy and Politics - Education - Health and Wellness - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Pets - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology also_seen_in: - The Penny Hoarder - Forbes Advisor - Creative Loafing - The New York Times - The Washington Post - Bloomberg - Harvard Law School - The Federal Register - National Consumer Law Center - CBS News - Becker's Hospital Review - Business Insider - Mother Jones - The Week - Fortune - The Philadelphia Inquirer - National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NAFSAA) - Education Advisory Board (EAB) - The Institute for College Access & Success (TICAS) - This Morning with Gordon Deal - Empower - Reddit social: - https://www.x.com/hardyjournalism - https://www.linkedin.com/in/hardyjournalism/ editors: - name: Brad Tuttle role: Senior Editor url: https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/ bio: Brad Tuttle is a former senior editor at Money with over 10 years’ experience covering a vast number of personal finance topics, including careers, cars, travel, budgeting, investing, insurance, credit cards, consumer psychology, real estate, banking, and shopping and deals. education: Columbia University School of Journalism, MS at_money_since: 2014 articles: 366 covers: - Housing - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Economy and Politics - Education - Health and Wellness - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Pets - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology social: - https://twitter.com/bradrtuttle - https://linkedin.com/in/brad-tuttle-834b225 former_staff: true published: '2023-02-03T18:38:09.000Z' modified: '2024-01-10T13:34:16.000Z' section: Housing tags: - Minimum Wage - News - Rent word_count: 529 canonical: https://money.com/cities-rent-affordable-minimum-wage/ type: NewsArticle source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![Collage of people doing daily activities in the same house as roommates](https://img.money.com/2023/02/News-Roommates-on-minimumwage-10.jpg) High rents have forced a bleak ultimatum on minimum wage workers across the country seeking an affordable place to live: Get several roommates or several full-time jobs. ## What the research says Real-estate tech firm Zillow released a [rent-affordability analysis](https://www.zillow.com/research/minimum-wage-rent-32060/) this week that looks at the 50 largest cities in the U.S., comparing the local cost of rent for one- and two-bedroom units to the local minimum wage. - Nationwide, it takes 3.3 full-time minimum wage workers to reasonably afford a one-bedroom unit and 3.8 workers to afford a two-bedroom unit. - In other words, federal minimum wage workers need to find at least two other roommates to comfortably afford a one-bedroom apartment — or they would have to work 132 hours per week. - That arrangement for a one-bedroom unit would exceed the Department of Housing and Urban Development's guideline of a maximum of two people per bedroom. On the other hand, the picture is less grim in many major cities that Zillow analyzed. - Despite rent typically being higher than the national average in large cities, many have [minimum wages much higher](https://money.com/states-minimum-wage-increase-2023/) than the federal standard of $7.25. - For example, in Baltimore — where the minimum wage is $13.25 — it requires 1.6 full-time workers to afford a one-bedroom rental. - “Workers tend to fare better” in these cities, the Zillow report stated. ## Where rent is most (and least) affordable Here are the 10 most-affordable big cities cities for minimum wage workers renting one-bedroom units, according to Zillow: 1. Tucson: 1.3 minimum wage jobs required 2. Fresno: 1.4 minimum wage jobs required 3. Minneapolis: 1.4 minimum wage jobs required 4. Cleveland: 1.5 minimum wage jobs required 5. Chicago: 1.5 minimum wage jobs required 6. Detroit: 1.5 minimum wage jobs required 7. Sacramento: 1.6 minimum wage jobs required 8. Albuquerque: 1.6 minimum wage jobs required 9. Baltimore: 1.6 minimum wage jobs required 10. Kansas City: 1.7 minimum wage jobs required And here are the 10 least-affordable cities for one-bedroom rentals: 1. Atlanta: 4.3 minimum wage jobs required 2. Austin: 4 minimum wage jobs required 3. Charlotte: 3.8 minimum wage jobs required 4. Nashville: 3.7 minimum wage jobs required 5. Raleigh: 3.6 minimum wage jobs required 6. Dallas: 3.3 minimum wage jobs required 7. Fort Worth: 3.1 minimum wage jobs required 8. San Antonio: 3.1 minimum wage jobs required 9. Houston: 3 minimum wage jobs required 10. Philadelphia: 3 minimum wage jobs required All 10 of the least-affordable places feature the worst of both worlds: minimum wages that have been frozen at $7.25 paired with big-city rental prices. ## Keep in mind Zillow’s affordability analysis is based on the recommendation that rental payments should not exceed 30% of the worker’s monthly income. The 30% rule, as it’s often called, is a popular guideline touted by many academics and personal finance experts. - The 30% rule can be traced back to legislation from 1969 led by housing-affordability advocate Senator Edward Brooke. - Some experts argue that the rule no longer makes sense given that increases in housing costs have [long outpaced wage gains](https://kinder.rice.edu/urbanedge/gap-between-income-growth-and-housing-cost-increases-continues-grow). - The rental-affordability crunch persists even though [renting is more affordable than owning a home](https://money.com/renting-cheaper-than-buying-home-now/) in most of the country right now. ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/cities-rent-affordable-minimum-wage/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Housing", "item": "https://money.com/housing/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Renting", "item": "https://money.com/renting/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "The 10 Most (and Least) Affordable Cities for Rent on a Minimum Wage" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/cities-rent-affordable-minimum-wage/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/cities-rent-affordable-minimum-wage/", "name": "The 10 Most (and Least) Affordable Cities for Rent on a Minimum Wage", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2023-02-03T18:38:09.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/cities-rent-affordable-minimum-wage/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/cities-rent-affordable-minimum-wage/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2024-01-10T13:34:16.000Z" }, { "@type": "NewsArticle", "headline": "The 10 Most (and Least) Affordable Cities for Rent on a Minimum Wage", "articleSection": "Housing", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2023/02/News-Roommates-on-minimumwage-10.jpg", "width": 2880, "height": 1920, "caption": "News-Roommates-on-Minimumwage" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Adam Hardy", "url": "https://money.com/author/adam-hardy/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/adam-hardy/#author", "description": "Adam Hardy is a lead data journalist at Money, where he frequently reports on financial barriers that affect low-income Americans. 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