Minimum-Wage Workers Are Clocking 80+ Hours a Week Just to Afford Rent
As a developer, I look at numbers every day—construction costs, financing terms, rent rolls. But sometimes a single stat cuts through the noise and makes you pause: in some U.S. cities, minimum-wage workers need to clock over 80 hours a week just to pay rent on a modest apartment. Let’s break that down. That’s not 80 hours a week to build wealth, save for retirement, or send a kid to college. That’s 80 hours a week simply to put a roof over your head. It’s a stark reminder of how disconnected wage growth is from rental pricing, and why affordability is one of the defining challenges for our industry. The Numbers Don’t Lie Realtor.com’s data lays out the imbalance clearly: Even after two years of rent softening, workers earning minimum wage are barely keeping pace. Many of the hardest-hit cities aren’t just coastal “usual suspects” like Boston or New York. Places like Milwaukee and Atlanta top the list because wages there simply haven’t kept up with housing costs. Across these top 10 ha...