More of Your Paycheck Is Going to Pay Rent. Which Cities Are Keeping Pace?

Source: The New York Times — 

With skyrocketing rents, landlords aren’t just taking more of your cash — they’re spending more of your time.

The typical full-time employee in the United States worked nearly 63 hours in October to pay an average rent of $2,040 — almost six hours more than in October 2019, before the pandemic, according to data from the listing company Zillow. In other words, about 36 percent of the average renter’s gross income is spent on housing.

“That is rent-burdened,” said Jeff Tucker, a senior economist at Zillow who focused his analysis on work hours to give renters a sense of what rising rents truly cost. (Generally, spending more than 30 percent of gross income on rent is considered unaffordable, according to the New York University Furman Center.)