On average, Americans need to work 38.3 hours to cover their monthly rent, which works out to the average work week. But there’s a decent spread on the number of work hours needed to pay for rent across the U.S.
Vermont residents need to work 60.2 hours per month to meet the average monthly rental costs, the highest of any state, according to the Self Financial analysis. People living in South Dakota need just 27.6 hours to cover rent, placing them in the lowest spot. Unsurprisingly, New York City residents need to work the most hours to pay rent at 90.2 hours.
These are the five U.S. states with the highest number of hours required to cover the average monthly rent:
And these are the five U.S. states with the fewest number of hours required to cover the average monthly rent:
See the heat map below, which shows the number of hours required to cover the monthly rent in each state. To see the number of hours, hover over each state. Deeper red indicates a higher number of hours.
Meanwhile, it’s still much cheaper to rent than to buy a home in the U.S. thanks to sky-high mortgage rates nearing 7% and home prices that are 55% higher than at the beginning of 2020, according to the Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index.
