How Much Income Is Needed to Live in the Largest U.S. Cities?

As the pandemic continues wreaking havoc on Americans' financial stability, less than 88% of apartment households made full or partial rent payments in July. This 3% drop from this time last year pushed SmartAsset to analyze the average cost for a two-bedroom apartment in the top 25 metros. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development says that residents should keep housing costs to less than 30% of their income. SmartAsset’s list outlines the income needed to keep rent payments within 28%. San Francisco unsurprisingly topped the list for highest income needed to afford a two-bedroom apartment at $194,796.

We used data from Zumper to look at the average two-bedroom apartment rent from January 2020 through April 2020 in the 25 largest cities across the country. Using that figure, we calculated the household income renters would need to afford the average two-bedroom apartment while paying no more than 28% of their total income in rent. For details on our data sources and how we analyzed the information to create our final rankings, check out the Data and Methodology section below.

Key Findings
In more than one in four large U.S. cities, renters need to earn six figures annually to avoid being housing-cost burdened. We found that in seven of the 25 cities in our study, the income needed to pay rent on the average two-bedroom apartment is $100,000 or more. San Francisco, California has the highest income needed to pay rent, at $194,796.

Read More