Full-time workers are feeling the pinch in today’s rental market. A nationwide housing shortage and skyrocketing property values—coupled with fewer pay raise for the general working population in recent decades—are fueling a squeeze in the rental market. But how affordable is rent in your state?
To assess affordability, Foothold Technology looked at rent and wage trends in each state and Washington D.C. based on the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Fair Market Rent and the average renter’s wage in each state, as shown in a 2022 analysis from the National Low Income Housing Coalition. The 12 least affordable states on the national list are ranked based on the number of jobs needed at an average renter’s wage to afford a modest two-bedroom unit.
HUD’s Fair Market Rent metric is usually set at the 40th percentile of rent for typical units—meaning slightly below the average rent in a given metro area. It excludes low-quality, already subsidized, and recently built units. And in the case of the NLIHC analysis, “affordable” is used to describe monthly rental rates that equate to 30% or less of a renter’s income.
Today, a renter in the U.S. needs to make $25.82 an hour, up from $24.90 last year, to afford the rent for a modest two-bedroom apartment, according to the NLIHC. If the renter needs just one bedroom of space, they will need to earn $21.25 per hour on average.
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