Study: Atlanta named worst place to live on minimum wage
(Mary Stringini)
ATLANTA - Atlanta residents working minimum-wage jobs are struggling more than anywhere else in the country to live comfortably, a new study finds.
Move.org, a website that reviews moving companies and reports on the moving industry, says that Atlanta tops the list as the worst city for minimum wage earners in the United States.
According to their research, people earning the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour in the city would need to work 177 hours a month - or slightly more than 22 days if you work eight hours a day - to afford a one-bedroom apartment.
Using information from the U.S. Census data, the organization says the median monthly gross rent for a one-bedroom apartment in the city is
$1,283.
Rounding out the top 5 other worst minimum wage cities were Plano, Texas, Austin, Charlotte, and Nashville.
The best city to live in with a minimum wage job was Bakersfield, California, where the study found you only needed to work 52.4 at minimum wage to be able to afford an apartment.
The study found that the average minimum wage in the 75 biggest American cities is $10.40 per hour, and the average one-bedroom apartment rent is $1,040 per month, which means rent in most major cities requires over 60% of a person's monthly gross minimum wage income. That also doesn't include the amount taxes take out of your paycheck.
This is not the only recent study to show Atlanta's expensive housing situation. In 2020, the National Low Income Housing Coalition found that people in the Atlanta, Sandy Springs, and Roswell areas need to make $22.44 per hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment, meaning an income of $46,680 annually. That's 3.1 times the amount Georgia's minimum wage pays.
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