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A new report shows some Florida residents need to work way more than the standard 40-hour workweek just to afford rent in the state. The report is by financial technology company Self, and published in Newsweek.
It showed that some Florida residents need to work 63 hours a week to cover rent. That’s based on Florida’s 2024 median rent of $2,033.
It’s a problem that Kimberly Overman, founder of the Housing Leadership Council in Tampa Bay, said has wide-reaching effects.
“When people can’t afford the rent, when they can’t provide shelter for their kids, when they’re unable to provide various different basic needs because their rent is so high, they’re not going to be happy. They’re not going to be comfortable,” Overman said.
And it’s not just families being affected.
“We’re finding that a lot of our high school and college students are choosing to stay with their parents because they can’t afford to find a place on their own that they can actually earn enough to be able to afford on their own, even though they may have a college education,” Overman said.
She says by the end of 2022, Hillsborough County added 29,000 rental units within Hillsborough County.
“We needed the rental units. The challenge is we got units that people here don’t earn enough to afford,” Overman told WMNF.
On average, the report found 50 work hours per week are needed to cover monthly rent costs in the U.S.
