Renters seeking a one-bedroom apartment in the Orlando metropolitan area must still earn nearly $70,000 a year — or make roughly $33 an hour, working full-time — to comfortably afford the average one-bedroom apartment.
That’s according to a new report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition, which takes into account how much a person would need to earn in order to afford housing without spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing costs.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development considers housing “affordable” for households that spend no more than 30 percent of their income on housing costs alone, leaving room for other basic living expenses such as food, transportation and other bills, like car payments.
According to the NLIHC’s “Out of Reach” report, released annually, the average cost of a one-bedroom apartment in the Orlando metro — where 37 percent of households are renters — is $1,731 monthly, or $1,972 for a two-bedroom apartment. This demonstrates little change from last year.
For minimum wage workers, earning $14 an hour, however, comfortably affording the average two-bedroom apartment in Orlando would require working 108 hours a week, or 95 hours a week for a one-bedroom apartment.
Nationwide, across all 50 states and U.S. territories, the average-wage renter would need to work more than 40 hours per week to afford a modest two-bedroom rental home in their community, the report finds.
As of 2026, Florida has the 10th highest housing wage in the nation — and the highest in the U.S. South — at $37.93 an hour, even as the average wage of renters is just $24 an hour. The report’s “housing wage” refers to the amount a household would need to make to afford the average two-bedroom apartment in Florida. Owning a home, particularly in the more expensive metros, has become something of a luxury.
Formerly depicted as a warm, affordable place to retire or raise a family, the Sunshine State has become increasingly unaffordable for the average wage earners, and more welcoming for billionaires who wish to evade state income taxes and ultimately pay less in taxes than low-income earners, under the state’s regressive tax system.
Skyrocketing property insurance rates in Florida in recent years has made buying and owning a home even less attainable for the middle class. Meanwhile, average wages — let alone the bare minimum that employers are required to pay under federal and state law — are still failing to keep up with rental costs, even though the growth in rent prices has plateaued.
“This year’s Out of Reach report shows that, despite economic gains for some, low-income renters continue to face impossible choices between paying rent and meeting basic needs,” NLIHC CEO Renee M. Willis said in a statement, speaking on the national housing affordability landscape.
Some of the state’s most common occupations — in hospitality, retail, home healthcare and landscaping — pay just a few dollars above the state’s minimum wage of $14 an hour, if that, on average.
This leaves a wide swath of Floridians in a position where they either have to put a larger chunk of their income toward housing, or make difficult decisions over whether to pay rent on time or buy needed medication or groceries for themselves or their kids.
“My current lifestyle right now is like, do I pay for housing or do I pay for my car payment?” one Florida renter said, in a statement included in the report.
Orlando, interestingly enough, does not scratch the top five Florida metros in the report that are documented as having the highest housing wages, however. According to the report, Monroe County — home to the Florida Keys — has the highest housing wage at $48.15 an hour, followed by the Miami metro, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Naples.
Affordability concerns haven’t gone completely ignored by state leaders. In their efforts to address rising housing costs, Florida lawmakers in 2023 passed a law offering tax incentives to developers to build “affordable” housing, although this has in practice failed to spur the kind of development needed to provide housing to those making average or below-average wages.
That law, dubbed by lawmakers the “Live Local Act,” also banned local governments from enacting any sort of rent control measures — shortly after Orange County voters approved a ballot referendum to temporarily cap rental hikes at no more than 9.8 percent max per year.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his Republican allies have more recently pitched the idea of eliminating property taxes in the state, in their own controversial effort to, they say, alleviate affordability concerns.
Eliminating or even reducing property taxes (by expanding tax exemptions), however, could ultimately put renters in a gnarly position of having to shoulder the burden of the loss in property tax revenue, and could result in significant cuts to essential public services, including fire rescue, police departments, public transportation and infrastructure, and public parks.
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