Can a full-time minimum wage pay the rent?
Set every state's minimum wage against its median one-bedroom rent and the answer is the same everywhere: one full-time minimum-wage job does not cover it within the usual affordability guideline. What changes from state to state is how far short it falls.
By statenumbers.com · · 8 min read
Housing is usually called affordable when it takes no more than 30% of gross income. That is the threshold the US Department of Housing and Urban Development uses to define a cost-burdened household. Turn it around and you get the income a rent requires, and from there the number of hours a minimum-wage worker would need to work each week to earn it:
hours a week = monthly rent × 12 ÷ 0.30 ÷ 52 ÷ hourly minimum wage
We ran that calculation for every state using two datasets on this site: the statewide minimum wage, checked by hand against the US Department of Labor's table, and the Census Bureau's median gross rent for one-bedroom homes, which includes utilities where renters pay them. A full-time year is 2,080 hours.
The headline: no state clears a 40-hour week
In no state does a 40-hour week at the minimum wage cover the median one-bedroom rent at 30% of income. The closest is Missouri, where the $15.00 minimum and a $858 median one-bedroom require about 44 hours a week. Even a studio is out of reach on one full-time job in every state.
| State | Wage | 1BR rent | Hours/week |
|---|---|---|---|
| Missouri | $15.00 | $858 | 44 |
| Maine | $15.10 | $893 | 45 |
| Rhode Island | $16.00 | $978 | 47 |
| Nebraska | $15.00 | $928 | 48 |
| South Dakota | $11.85 | $774 | 50 |
| State | Wage | 1BR rent | Hours/week |
|---|---|---|---|
| Georgia | $7.25 | $1,318 | 140 |
| Utah | $7.25 | $1,239 | 131 |
| Texas | $7.25 | $1,237 | 131 |
| New Hampshire | $7.25 | $1,174 | 125 |
| North Carolina | $7.25 | $1,155 | 123 |
U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division — State Minimum Wage Laws / Consolidated State Minimum Wage Update Table · Min. wage · 2026 · rel. DOL table effective 2026-07-01 · Manually maintained · verified 2026-10-24
US Census ACS 5-Year Estimates (summary file) · B25031 · 2020–2024 · rel. December 2025 · Official data
Notice who is at the top. The states closest to affordable are not the ones with the highest minimum wages. They are mostly lower-rent states that raised their minimums by ballot measure or law, such as Missouri, Maine, Rhode Island, and Nebraska. The states at the bottom all use the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour while having rents near the national median.
The $7.25 states
20 states rely on the federal minimum, either because they have no minimum wage of their own or because it is not higher. The federal rate has been $7.25 since July 2009, while rents kept rising. In these states, a full-time year at the minimum pays $15,080 before tax. Covering the median one-bedroom within the guideline takes at least 81 hours a week, and in Georgia it takes about 140: the median one-bedroom rent there adds up to 105% of a full year's minimum-wage pay.
For the country as a whole, the median one-bedroom rents for $1,235 a month. Affording that at $7.25 an hour would take about 131 hours of work a week.
Higher minimums help, but rents are higher too
18 states and DC now set a minimum of at least $15. That roughly doubles the federal floor, but those states tend to have expensive housing. At California's $16.90 minimum, affording the $1,780 median one-bedroom still takes about 81 hours of work a week. Washington does better at about 70 hours, because its minimum is higher and its rents are lower than California's. Across all states, the minimum wage and the one-bedroom rent move together, but rent wins: in 33 states, the median one-bedroom takes more than half of a full-time minimum-wage income.
Every state, ranked
Select a column to sort. “Share of pay” is a year of median one-bedroom rent divided by a full-time year at the minimum wage.
| State | Minimum wage | Full-time year | 1BR rent | Share of pay | Hours/week for 1BR | Hours/week for studio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Missouri | $15.00 | $31,200 | $858 | 33% | 44 | 43 |
| Maine | $15.10 | $31,408 | $893 | 34% | 45 | 45 |
| Rhode Island | $16.00 | $33,280 | $978 | 35% | 47 | 47 |
| Nebraska | $15.00 | $31,200 | $928 | 36% | 48 | 46 |
| South Dakota | $11.85 | $24,648 | $774 | 38% | 50 | 48 |
| Michigan | $13.73 | $28,558 | $923 | 39% | 52 | 50 |
| Arkansas | $11.00 | $22,880 | $757 | 40% | 53 | 53 |
| Vermont | $14.42 | $29,994 | $1,019 | 41% | 54 | 53 |
| Connecticut | $16.94 | $35,235 | $1,240 | 42% | 56 | 49 |
| New Mexico | $12.00 | $24,960 | $887 | 43% | 57 | 53 |
| Illinois | $15.00 | $31,200 | $1,121 | 43% | 57 | 58 |
| West Virginia | $8.75 | $18,200 | $657 | 43% | 58 | 57 |
| Ohio | $11.00 | $22,880 | $828 | 43% | 58 | 55 |
| Alaska | $14.00 | $29,120 | $1,071 | 44% | 59 | 54 |
| Montana | $10.85 | $22,568 | $851 | 45% | 60 | 54 |
| Delaware | $15.00 | $31,200 | $1,194 | 46% | 61 | 60 |
| Oregon | $15.55 | $32,344 | $1,301 | 48% | 64 | 63 |
| Arizona | $15.15 | $31,512 | $1,303 | 50% | 66 | 60 |
| Washington | $17.13 | $35,630 | $1,568 | 53% | 70 | 68 |
| New Jersey | $15.92 | $33,114 | $1,465 | 53% | 71 | 66 |
| Massachusetts | $15.00 | $31,200 | $1,414 | 54% | 73 | 78 |
| Florida | $15.00 | $31,200 | $1,430 | 55% | 73 | 71 |
| Hawaii | $16.00 | $33,280 | $1,533 | 55% | 74 | 69 |
| New York | $16.00 | $33,280 | $1,533 | 55% | 74 | 73 |
| Maryland | $15.00 | $31,200 | $1,441 | 55% | 74 | 74 |
| Minnesota | $11.41 | $23,733 | $1,130 | 57% | 76 | 70 |
| Colorado | $15.16 | $31,533 | $1,553 | 59% | 79 | 75 |
| Wyoming | $7.25 | $15,080 | $759 | 60% | 81 | 75 |
| California | $16.90 | $35,152 | $1,780 | 61% | 81 | 73 |
| District of Columbia | $18.40 | $38,272 | $1,944 | 61% | 81 | 73 |
| Iowa | $7.25 | $15,080 | $770 | 61% | 82 | 85 |
| Nevada | $12.00 | $24,960 | $1,293 | 62% | 83 | 74 |
| Mississippi | $7.25 | $15,080 | $784 | 62% | 83 | 79 |
| North Dakota | $7.25 | $15,080 | $788 | 63% | 84 | 77 |
| Kentucky | $7.25 | $15,080 | $799 | 64% | 85 | 78 |
| Oklahoma | $7.25 | $15,080 | $833 | 66% | 88 | 83 |
| Virginia | $12.77 | $26,562 | $1,487 | 67% | 90 | 93 |
| Alabama | $7.25 | $15,080 | $850 | 68% | 90 | 84 |
| Kansas | $7.25 | $15,080 | $874 | 70% | 93 | 87 |
| Indiana | $7.25 | $15,080 | $886 | 71% | 94 | 95 |
| Louisiana | $7.25 | $15,080 | $908 | 72% | 96 | 92 |
| Wisconsin | $7.25 | $15,080 | $909 | 72% | 96 | 98 |
| Idaho | $7.25 | $15,080 | $955 | 76% | 101 | 103 |
| Pennsylvania | $7.25 | $15,080 | $1,025 | 82% | 109 | 110 |
| Tennessee | $7.25 | $15,080 | $1,069 | 85% | 113 | 108 |
| South Carolina | $7.25 | $15,080 | $1,113 | 89% | 118 | 113 |
| North Carolina | $7.25 | $15,080 | $1,155 | 92% | 123 | 118 |
| New Hampshire | $7.25 | $15,080 | $1,174 | 93% | 125 | 121 |
| Texas | $7.25 | $15,080 | $1,237 | 98% | 131 | 128 |
| Utah | $7.25 | $15,080 | $1,239 | 99% | 131 | 128 |
| Georgia | $7.25 | $15,080 | $1,318 | 105% | 140 | 142 |
What changes with a second earner
Two adults working full time at the minimum wage, 80 hours a week between them, can cover the median one-bedroom within the guideline in 27 of the 50 states and DC. For a two-bedroom, the kind of home a family with children needs, that falls to 20. In the remaining states, even two full-time minimum-wage incomes leave the median two-bedroom above 30% of income.
What this calculation leaves out
- Few workers earn exactly the minimum. In states using $7.25, most entry-level jobs pay more because employers compete for workers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts only about 1% of hourly workers at or below the federal minimum. The calculation shows what the legal floor buys, not what typical low-wage jobs pay.
- Many cities set higher minimums. Seattle, Denver, Los Angeles, and many other cities and counties require more than their state. The statewide rate understates pay in those places, and rents there are usually higher too.
- Median rent is not asking rent. The Census median includes long-time tenants on older leases. Someone signing a new lease today will usually pay more, so the real gap is likely wider than shown.
- Gross pay, not take-home pay. The 30% guideline uses income before tax. Payroll taxes reduce take-home pay, while the Earned Income Tax Credit and housing assistance raise the resources of some low-wage households.
- Statewide rents hide local markets. A median one-bedroom in a small town and one in the state's largest city can differ by hundreds of dollars a month. Check your metro area.
Why it matters even if you earn more: the gap between the wage floor and local rent shapes how tight a state's housing market feels for service workers, how hard employers find it to hire, and how much rent burden the lowest-paid households carry. It is one of the clearest single measures of how far a state's housing costs have run ahead of its pay.