To afford two-bedroom rent, minimum-wage worker needs to work 76-hour week, experts say

If you’re working a minimum-wage job and you want a two-bedroom apartment, you better find another job. Not a different job. An additional job.

That’s because it takes nearly two full-time jobs — 76 hours of work per week at minimum wage — to afford an average two-bedroom apartment in the Eugene-Springfield area, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

The coalition said the area’s fair market value for a two-bedroom apartment is $1,495 — a 7% increase over last year’s rate of $1,397.

Rental rates in the Eugene-Springfield metro area rank in the top third of all U.S. metro areas, placing 162nd among 605 areas.

They are not the highest in Oregon, though: The Portland metro area is the most expensive in the state. And rents in Bend, Corvallis and Salem tend to be higher than in Eugene and Springfield.

Even so, rents in the Eugene-Springfield area can be unaffordable for many residents.

Based on numbers calculated by the National Low Income Housing Coalition — using the common guideline that no more than 30% of your income should go to housing — if you made minimum wage, $15.05 an hour in Eugene, about $783 per month should go to housing.

But that won’t even cover the typical rent for a studio apartment in the Eugene-Springfield area. You’d have to be making $20.38 an hour, assuming a 40-hour workweek, to afford a studio apartment.

Here’s a breakdown of how many hours per week you’d have to work at minimum wage for different apartment sizes in the Eugene-Springfield metro area.

Timothy Morris is the executive director of Springfield Eugene Tenant Association. His organization’s work ranges from a 24/7 tenant help hotline to educating local tenants on their rights. He isn’t surprised by these numbers.

“It’s not surprising at all to see that you have to work well above what’s considered a full-time job to even afford an apartment, let alone any other part of your life,” Morris said. “This matches exactly what we see, and it’s been devastating families for years now.”

According to the dataset collected over the last five years by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, 41% of the Eugene-Springfield housing market are renters.

The issue boils down to a single, simple cause, experts say.

“For Lane County in particular … we just don’t have the housing supply that we need to house our population,” Morris said. “That is just a plain and simple truth.” 

According to an Oregon Housing and Community Services report in 2024, the widespread housing shortage has created a situation where moderate-income renters are “priced out” of moderately priced homes they would normally rent.

With limited options, they’re forced to apply for housing that’s cheaper and ordinarily geared toward low-income renters. As a result, the supply of low-income rental housing decreases, pushing the lowest income renters to even poorer housing, or leaving them with no housing options at all.

Advocates such as Kevin Cronin, director of Housing Oregon and member of the Springfield Eugene Tenant Association, says support for these tenants is only going to get worse, citing cuts to Springfield Eugene Tenant Association staffing and services after state lawmakers downsized its budget by 70%.

“All the state resources for tenant help, funding for legal aid, funding for the Springfield Eugene Tenant Association, and the community alliance of tenant support, all got cut,” Cronin said. “It’s going to be much harder on these renters.”

These are resources he believes are vital, especially given what he sees as a trend of landlords sharply increasing rental rates on short notice.

However, Tia Politi, a board member of the Rental Owners Association of Lane County, says landlords are squeezed by the same market pressures facing tenants and are forced to increase rent to keep up with expenses.

“Since COVID, construction costs have skyrocketed,” Politi said. “Insurance, if you even get it, has skyrocketed.”

She agrees that the issue stems from a housing shortage and notices the city making progress by encouraging larger housing developments, through tax breaks and incentive programs. However, she sees these programs as not providing enough support to local landlords who can create affordable housing.

“All the developments I’m seeing are for out-of-state, rich kids, not, you know, workforce housing. I’m not seeing any tax breaks being given to develop workforce housing or create  more housing that an average person could afford.”

Laura Hammond, housing tools analyst with the city of Eugene, emphasizes that subsidies are only given to developers that can guarantee the rent will remain affordable — as defined by the city — for 20 years after construction.

Even then, Hammond says, the city remains openminded to housing developments that may not fully qualify as “affordable.”

“We need housing across the spectrum. We need affordable housing. We also need market-rate housing at various levels.” Hammond said. “Because that would potentially help stabilize the cost of housing across the community.”