Last month, real estate brokerage company Redfin released a report analyzing rent affordability in 44 of the most populous U.S. cities. Out of the metro areas surveyed, Redfin found that Providence is the least affordable city for renters in the country.
Joining Providence in the top five least affordable metros Miami, New York, Los Angeles and Boston, “historically expensive” cities where demand and rent are typically high, according to the report. But unlike Providence, median incomes in those cities were more aligned with asking rents.
In their report, Redfin analyzed the median U.S. apartment asking rents for the past three Decembers. The company estimated 2024 median household income data from the 2023 U.S. Census Bureau — the most recent full year available — and other population surveys.
The median salary for renters in Providence is $50,408, according to the report. That is 41.3% — or over $35,000 — less than what they say is needed to afford the median apartment in the city.
“In Providence, we recognize that housing affordability is a growing challenge,” Samara Pinto, the deputy press secretary of the City of Providence, wrote in an email to The Herald. But she said Mayor Brett Smiley “remains committed to addressing it head-on.”
Pinto listed several initiatives the city has implemented to address the affordability challenge, such as the Providence Housing Trust Fund, which commits over $55 million to create or preserve more than 1,600 affordable housing units in the city.
The Rhode Island Department of Housing is developing a Housing 2030 plan, which maps the state’s housing goals from 2026 to 2030. One of these goals is to increase production of affordable rentals. The plan will be critical to addressing “the wage-housing gap” issue, according to Emily Marshall, chief of information and public relations for the department.
The plan “focuses on a comprehensive approach to improving housing affordability by considering not only housing development but also economic factors like wage growth,” Marshall wrote in an email to The Herald. Through financial programs and home ownership initiatives, Housing 2030 aims to ensure “that all Rhode Islanders can benefit from a strong, dynamic economy,” she added.
Redfin Senior Economist Sheharyar Bokhari, one of the authors of the study, emphasized the importance of studying rental prices in this current economic moment. In 2025, “potential homebuyers — especially from younger generations — may decide to continue renting for longer,” he said in the report, citing the widening affordability gap between renting and buying housing.
Nationally, renters need to earn $63,680 to afford the median asking rent for a U.S. apartment, Redfin found. But renters in Providence need an income of $85,800 to afford the median asking rent of $2,145. This is a 12.6% increase from the income needed in Providence in December 2023.
According to Redfin, an apartment is affordable “if a renter spends no more than 30% of their income on rent.” This approach is consistent with guidance from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Danielle Wilbur moved to the West End of Providence in 2018. Since then, she has noticed the city becoming increasingly more expensive, she said.
When she moved into a small third floor apartment in Providence, her rent “was just under $1,000 so that was a pretty good deal,” Wilbur said. In 2023, she found another apartment for which she pays $1,800 in rent. And that’s a “steal,” she said.
But Wilbur believes her experience is unique in the city.
While Wilbur plans to stay in Rhode Island, she always keeps an eye out for listings outside of Providence. “I want to see if anything is cheaper, but to be honest, rent is going up everywhere,” and smaller towns have fewer rental options, she added.
Vivian Blush has been a member of the Providence Organization of Workers and Renters, a tenants and workers organization, for the last five years.
When leases get renewed, the organization often hears from tenants that they “can’t afford $2,000-plus rents,” Blush said. She recalled that rents were particularly high when inflation rose in 2022.
Blush said she supports rent control measures, adding that they are “completely possible” to advocate for in Providence.
“We need to have housing that’s geared towards deeply low-income tenants,” she added. “There’s a lot of people that are never going to be able to afford the market rate private sector rental housing.”
Sanai Rashid lives in Long Island, New York. As an English and Economics concentrator, she is passionate about storytelling and how numbers and data create narratives in ways words alone cannot. When she is not writing, you can find her trying new pizza places in Providence or buying another whale stuffed animal.
