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Rent has outpaced minimum wage across the country. Best Interest Financial found seven cities where a full paycheck doesn't cover one apartment
Kaleb East / Unsplash
Grocery bills, gas prices, and rent have all climbed for more than a decade and a half while pay for minimum-wage workers stayed exactly the same. The federal minimum wage has sat at $7.25 an hour since 2009, even as the typical one-bedroom apartment turned into a luxury that few full-time minimum-wage workers can rent on their own. In a handful of U.S. cities, a full-time minimum-wage paycheck now falls short of a typical one-bedroom by hundreds of dollars every month.
Some states have raised their own minimum wage well above the federal floor, giving workers there more breathing room. But 17 of the 50 largest U.S. cities still pay workers only the federal $7.25 an hour, even as rent has grown far faster than paychecks for the lowest earners nationwide. A single full-time worker on the federal minimum brings home about $1,160 a month before taxes, well short of covering a typical one-bedroom apartment in any of the nation's largest cities. In several cities, the shortfall is severe enough that a worker would need to log well over 100 hours a week just to cover rent alone.
