How much do you need to earn to afford an apartment in your neighborhood?
That’s the question that animated researchers at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives when we first introduced the concept of the “rental wage” in 2019. How much money do you need to make per hour (working a 40-hour week for the whole year) in order to pay less than 30 per cent of your income on rent—a generally accepted threshold for affordability?
Every year, we crunch the numbers for every neighbourhood in every large municipality in the country. There have been some modest improvements in some provinces compared to previous years, but the picture remains one of deep lack of affordability, particularly concentrated in specific regions. Minimum wage workers, in particular, continue to struggle.
We go into more detail in the full-length report (which you can read here). On this page, we built a map that can help you look up your own municipality and neighbourhood anywhere in there country.
To get started, click on a province to filter to the cities within it. Click on a city to jump to its neighbourhoods map. Hover over anything for additional information. To reset the map, reload the page. The map may take a moment to load.
The map below shows the most recent available data, from 2024. To see older data for comparison, click here for our equivalent map with data from 2023, or click here for the map with data from 2022.
About the authors
Marc Lee is a Senior Economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Marc joined the CCPA’s British Columbia office in 1998, and is one of Canada’s leading progressive commentators on economic and environmental policy issues. From 2009 to 2015, Marc led the CCPA’s Climate Justice Project (CJP), which published a wide range of research on fair and effective approaches to climate action through integrating principles of social justice. Marc continues to write about climate and energy policy, strategies for affordable housing, federal and provincial budgets and macroeconomics. Marc has an MA in Economics from Simon Fraser University and a BA in Economics from the University of Western Ontario. Marc is a past chair of the Progressive Economics Forum, a national network of heterodox economists. He also served as a Visiting Professor at Simon Fraser University’s School of Public Policy in 2024 to 2025.
David joined the CCPA as its Senior Ottawa Economist in 2011, although he has been a long time contributor as a research associate. Since 2008, he has coordinated the Alternative Federal Budget, which takes a fresh look at the federal budget from a progressive perspective. David has also written on a variety of topics, from child care to income inequality to federal fiscal policy. He is a regular media commentator on national policy issues, often speaking to the CBC, Globe and Mail, Toronto Star and Canadian Press. David received his BA from the University of Windsor and his MA from the University of Guelph, both in Philosophy. Follow David on Bluesky at @davidmaccdn.bsky.social
