REPORT: Denver’s minimum wage among highest in US, but rent remains far from ‘affordable’
It’s no secret that housing prices around the country have gotten quite lofty in recent years – all while the federal minimum wage has stayed at the $7.25 that was established in 2009. That said, 34 states have increased their own minimum wages above the federal level and some cities have established local minimum wage requirements that are even higher than those required by their state. Denver, for example, has a minimum wage of $18.29 an hour above Colorado’s required $14.42.
A recent report from Clever took a dive into the topic of minimum wage and affordability, using data to determine where around the country minimum wage workers spend the largest and smallest share of their income on rent. Their report compares local minimum wage earnings to the cost of renting a one-bedroom spot in the country’s 50 largest cities.
One big takeaway from the report is that no major city has ‘affordable’ rent on a single minimum wage income, with ‘affordable’ being defined as housing costs of 30 percent or less of one’s total income. Denver, however, was actually one of the more affordable places nationwide.
Denver ended up ranking 9th among the 50 largest cities nationwide in terms of housing affordability for minimum wage workers, with the minimum hourly wage of $18.29 and monthly rental costs of $1,789 meaning that a minimum wage worker is spending about 56 percent of their income on the place they call home. While this is a much higher share of income compared to minimum wage workers in list-leading Buffalo (who spend about 39 percent of their income on rent), it’s significantly lower than the most expensive spot for minimum wage workers to live – Atlanta, with a minimum wage of $7.25 and housing costs of $1,632. This means that in Atlanta, 132 percent of a minimum wage income is required for housing – or in other words, 4.38 minimum wage incomes would need to be combined in order to hit the aforementioned 30 percent threshold for affordable housing at the average rental cost for a one-bedroom.
When it comes to Denver, the hourly wage needed for housing costs to fall at or below that 30 percent threshold is $34.40, with 1.88 minimum wage incomes needed to meet that same threshold. In order to help put that into perspective, rent would need to be just $951 per month to make housing in Denver affordable at a minimum wage income.
It’s also worth noting that Denver has the third-highest minimum wage ($18.29) among the 50 cities included in the study, behind only Seattle and San Francisco and their respective minimum wages of $19.97 and $20.96.
Find the full report here.

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