Patch Staff
|Updated Wed, Jun 21, 2023 at 9:42 am ET
WORCESTER, MA — If you earn more than $65,000 per year, you can most likely afford a two-bedroom apartment in Worcester comfortably.
But if you're earning the median wage in Worcester of just over $18 per hour, you'd have to work 84 hours per week every single day of the year to comfortably afford that same apartment.
That's according to the annual "Out of Reach" report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition released this week. The report compares fair market rents in cities and towns across the U.S. against local median wages to determine the gap between earnings and housing costs.
The report found that Massachusetts is the third least affordable state for renting in the nation. A person working full time at the state's $15 minimum wage could only comfortably afford rent of about $780 per month — $1,000 lower than the fair market rent on average for a one-bedroom in Massachusetts.
According to the report, the fair market rent on a two-bedroom in Worcester is about $1,635, which is almost $150 higher compared to the 2022 report. The report uses a U.S. Housing and Urban Development geographic area that includes communities surrounding Worcester, including Westborough, Shrewsbury, Holden, Grafton and Sturbridge.
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