DFW one of the hardest areas for minimum-wage workers to afford rent, study says

Dallas-Fort Worth is one of the hardest regions in the United States for minimum-wage workers to afford rent, according to a study.

According to an analysis by Realtor.com, two workers making Texas’ $7.25 minimum hourly wage would have to work 80 hours per week each to afford the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area’s median rent price of $1,441 in December for apartments up to two bedrooms. The only metro areas in the country where earners would have to work more hours are Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Atlanta, Nashville, Charlotte, Raleigh, Pittsburgh and San Jose.

Just five of the country’s 50 largest metro areas have median rent prices that the study deemed affordable for minimum wage workers without having to work overtime. All of those metros — Buffalo, N.Y., Rochester, N.Y., St. Louis, Phoenix, and Kansas City, Mo. — have a statewide minimum wage higher than the federal minimum wage of $7.25.

Detroit and Jacksonville are expected to join that list in 2026 after Michigan and Florida pass upcoming legislation to raise their wage floors.

In Buffalo, the most affordable metro area in the country according to the study, two workers making New York’s state minimum wage of $15.50 would need to work just 30 hours per week each to afford the medium rent price of $1,176 in December.

Dallas-Fort Worth’s December median rent price of $1,441 for apartments two bedrooms or smaller is below the $1,693 median rent price for all the nation’s top 50 metros combined. But because of Texas’ low minimum wage rate of $7.25, Dallas-Fort Worth is still one of the hardest metro areas for those workers to afford rent, according to the analysis.

Minimum wage earners in Texas’ other major metro areas in Texas, including Houston, Austin and San Antonio, are required to work fewer hours to make their city’s median rent price than they are in Dallas-Fort Worth. In Houston, it would take 76 hours to afford the median rent of $1,369. In San Antonio, it would take 67 hours to afford the $1,207 median rent.

Other cities around the country deemed more cost-friendly for minimum-wage workers include Los Angeles, New York City, Washington, Miami, Seattle, Denver and Chicago. Although all of those metro areas have higher median rent prices, they are also in states that have sustainably higher wages floors.

Rent prices in Fort Worth and across the country as a whole have slowly dropped in recent years, but the overall median rent cost between the top 50 metros combined was still 17% higher than it was before the COVID-19 pandemic in November 2019.