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Californians Work Longest Hours to Make Rent

Californians work longest hours to make rent as workers in the Bay Area’s two largest cities pull down the biggest salaries in the country. But sky-high rents mean that they’ll spend about two full weeks of work in order to pay the landlord.

An analysis from SmartAsset calculates the number of hours residents of the 15 largest U.S. cities need to work in order to afford the monthly rent on a median-priced unit. Four of the five cities with the longest hours-to-rent-payment ratios are in California, yet another testament to the state’s high housing costs.

San Jose metro area residents need to work an average of 84 hours — more than half of their monthly workload — to cover the median monthly rent of $1,585, second only to renters in Los Angeles. San Francisco ranks No. 5, with 71 hours of work time dedicated to paying the average $1,558 rent payment. San Francisco employees are the highest paid in any of the 15 cities in the study and also among the hardest working, putting in an average of 171 hours each month.

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