100-Hour Weeks To Afford Rent: How Expensive Is Living In NJ?

NEW JERSEY — Affording rent in New Jersey could require working more than 100 hours per week. While the cost of living varies around the state, one factor remains consistent: a normal workweek won't cut it for making rent in any apartments throughout the state, according to data from the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom apartment in New Jersey is $1,628 — the nation's seventh-highest average, according to the nonprofit. Affording even a "modest" one-bedroom apartment ($1,344 per month) in the Garden State requires a minimum-wage earner to work 80 hours per week, the data indicates.

At $13 per hour, New Jersey has one of the nation's highest state minimum wages. But the wage won't get tenants far in making rent throughout much of the state, according to the NLIHC's calculations.

In New Jersey's priciest metro area (Jersey City) a full-time worker would need an hourly wage of $37.92 to afford a two-bedroom apartment. That would require working 116 minimum-wage hours. But the state's least-expensive metro area (Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington) still has a housing wage of $24.96, which exceeds what much of the area earns and requires 76 minimum-wage hours to afford a two-bedroom rental.

The nonprofit calculated the wages a full-time worker must make to afford a modest rental home at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's fair-market rent (FMR) without spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing costs:

• zero-bedroom: $1,171 rent, housing wage of $22.52
• one-bedroom: $1,344 rent, housing wage of $25.84
• two-bedroom: $1,628 rent, housing wage of $31.32
• three-bedroom: $2,058 rent, housing wage of $39.57
• four-bedroom: $2,374 rent, housing wage of $45.66

New Jersey has a median hourly wage of $24.51 for all occupations. Many of the state's heavily employed sectors fall short of the income threshold for comfortably affording even a studio apartment, including New Jersey's 58,300 fast food and counter workers (median hourly wage of $14.51), 72,620 home-health and personal-care aides ($15 per hour), and 35,090 nursing assistants ($18.68 per hour).

Thirty-six percent of the state lived in rental households from 2016-20, according to the NLIHC. On average, New Jersey's apartments required 2.4 full-time, minimum-wage jobs to make the fair-market rent. But the figures varied by area.

Here's the fair-market rate for a two-bedroom apartment in each metro area, the estimated hourly mean renter wage in each location, and the number of full-time, minimum wage jobs required to afford two-bedroom rent in each location:

• Atlantic City-Hammonton: $1,407 rate for a two-bedroom apartment, estimated hourly renter wage of $14.02, 2.1 minimum-wage jobs needed
• Bergen-Passaic: $1,736 rate for a two-bedroom apartment, estimated hourly renter wage of $22.06, 2.6 minimum-wage jobs needed
• Jersey City: $1,972 rate for a two-bedroom apartment, estimated hourly renter wage of $37.23, 2.9 minimum-wage jobs needed
• Middlesex-Somerset-Hunterdon: $1,851 rate for a two-bedroom apartment, estimated hourly renter wage of $25.94, 2.7 minimum-wage jobs needed
• Monmouth-Ocean: $1,558 rate for a two-bedroom apartment, estimated hourly renter wage of $16.04, 2.3 minimum-wage jobs needed
• Newark: $1,479 rate for a two-bedroom apartment, estimated hourly renter wage of $27.48, 2.2 minimum-wage jobs needed
• Ocean City: $1,465 rate for a two-bedroom apartment, estimated hourly renter wage of $10.19, 2.2 minimum-wage jobs needed
• Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington: $1,298 rate for a two-bedroom apartment, estimated hourly renter wage of $17.62, 1.9 minimum-wage jobs needed
• Trenton: $1,613 rate for a two-bedroom apartment, estimated hourly renter wage of $23.81, 2.4 minimum-wage jobs needed
• Vineland-Bridgeton: $1,377 rate for a two-bedroom apartment, estimated hourly renter wage of $12.98, two minimum-wage jobs needed
• Warren County: $1,365 rate for a two-bedroom apartment, estimated hourly renter wage of $15.67, two minimum-wage jobs needed

Here's the NLIHC's national report on rental costs and New Jersey data.