How the numbers are figured
Four Times Rent sets one plain test for a job: a month of full-time work should take home at least four times the typical studio rent in the county where the work is done. This page explains the method, compares it with the best-known housing affordability figure, and offers every county's numbers as a free spreadsheet.
Data version 2026-Q4 · Rents: HUD FY2027 Fair Market Rents · Taxes: 2026
The formula
Take the county's typical studio rent and multiply by four. That is the take-home pay a month of full-time work (160 hours) should leave after taxes. Divide by 160 for take-home per hour, then work backward through taxes to the hourly pay before taxes that leaves that much.
Example, Marion County, Indiana:
× 4 = $4,740 take-home a month
÷ 160 hours = $29.63 take-home an hour
Pay needed before taxes: $37.11 an hour
Every county's figure is on its own page under Every county, and the calculator gives the figure for any ZIP code.
Where the rent comes from
Rents are the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Fair Market Rents for a studio (efficiency) apartment. HUD sets Fair Market Rents at about the 40th percentile of rents, including utilities, paid by recent movers, and uses them for housing vouchers. They are a modest rent, not a luxury one.
- For 2,773 of the 3,145 counties, the county figure is the middle (median) of HUD's ZIP-level Small Area Fair Market Rents for the county's residential ZIP codes. That keeps one expensive or cheap neighborhood from setting the number for the whole county.
- For the rest, which have fewer than three residential ZIP codes with their own figure, it is HUD's studio Fair Market Rent for the area.
- The calculator uses the ZIP-level rent when you enter a ZIP code, so its figure can differ from the county figure.
Taxes
Pay before taxes is the amount that leaves the take-home target after 2026 federal income tax, state income tax, Social Security and Medicare (7.65%), and the state disability or paid-leave payroll deductions some states require. New York City's income tax and Maryland's county income taxes are included. The worker is a single filer with no children and no other income. Tax figures are calculated with PolicyEngine's open-source U.S. tax model.
Most other local income taxes are not included, such as Indiana's county income taxes and city wage taxes in some states, so the figure runs slightly low where they apply. In the Marion County example, a year of that pay (160 hours a month) carries about $6,844 in federal income tax, $2,072 in state income tax and $5,450 in Social Security, Medicare and any required state payroll deductions. Marion County's own income tax would add to that.
How it compares with the NLIHC Housing Wage
The National Low Income Housing Coalition's annual Out of Reach report publishes a "Housing Wage": the hourly pay a full-time worker needs so that a modest rental costs no more than 30% of income. The two measures answer different questions, so their numbers differ.
| NLIHC Housing Wage | Four Times Rent | |
|---|---|---|
| Apartment | One- or two-bedroom (headline figure is two-bedroom) | Studio |
| Rent share | 30% of income | 25% of income (rent × 4) |
| Income measured | Pay before taxes | Take-home pay after taxes |
| Hours | 40 a week, 52 weeks (2,080 a year) | 160 a month (1,920 a year) |
| Rent figure | HUD Fair Market Rent | Median of ZIP-level HUD rents, or HUD Fair Market Rent |
Applied to the same $1,185 studio in Marion County, the NLIHC method gives $22.79 an hour (rent × 12 ÷ 30% ÷ 2,080 hours). Four Times Rent gives $37.11. The gap comes from measuring take-home pay instead of pay before taxes, a smaller share for rent, and fewer hours. Four Times Rent is the stricter test on purpose: rent is only one bill, and a quarter of what a worker actually keeps leaves room for food, transportation, health care and savings.
What the figure does and doesn't cover
- One adult with no children, living alone in a studio. Households with children need more, and the book's chapters discuss how.
- It is a standard for what a job should pay, not a full household budget.
- The county figure is a typical rent. Rents in a given ZIP code can be higher or lower; the calculator shows the ZIP-level figure.
- Rents are HUD's current-year estimates and taxes are the current tax year. Both are updated when new figures are published.
- Minimum wages in the spreadsheet are the state rate (including New York's and Oregon's regional rates), or the federal $7.25 where no higher state rate applies. Some cities and counties set higher local minimums that are not reflected in the county figures.
Download the data
Every county's figures are free to download as a spreadsheet (CSV, which opens in Excel, Google Sheets or Numbers). Each row is one county: rent, take-home needed, pay needed by the hour and year, the minimum wage, how many times the minimum wage the standard is, take-home on a full-time minimum wage job, and the county's rank in its state.
The yearly column is the hourly figure × 2,080 hours, the usual way to state a full-time salary. The standard itself is built on 160 hours a month.
By state
Using the figures
You're welcome to quote, chart and republish the figures. Please credit Four Times Rent (fourtimesrent.org), and link to the county or state page when you can. Suggested wording: "According to Four Times Rent, a full-time worker in Marion County, Indiana, needs to earn $37.11 an hour before taxes to take home four times the typical studio rent." Newsrooms can also put the calculator on a story page for free.
Contact
Four Times Rent was created by Mark Jainchell, author of the book published chapter by chapter on the blog. For interviews, data questions or corrections, email support@fourtimesrent.org.