Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

Realtor Lays Out Just How Much Young College Grads Are Paying For Rent In Eye-Opening TikTok

TikTok screenshots of Freddie Smith
@fmsmith319/TikTok

Realtor and TikToker Freddie Smith enlightened viewers by explaining how a recent college grad is spending as much money on rent in 2024 as a minimum wage worker in 1980.

A realtor on TikTok went viral after comparing the income-to-rent ratio of recent college graduates versus minimum wage workers in 1980.

The breakdown is seriously astounding.


Realtor and TikToker Freddie Smith (@fmsmith319) recently shared his eye-opening analysis on the platform, and it has already been viewed more than 6 million times.

Smith captioned his video with a familiar Boomer position:

"Boomer: 'Millennials and Gen Z need to stop complaining about housing prices.'"

He then explained in his video exactly why it's so much more difficult for people to afford housing now than in 1980, even with minimum wage increases over time.

Smith began:

"Millennials and Gen Zers who are complaining that they can’t buy a house are not working for minimum wage."
"These are people making 60, 70, 80, $90,000 a year who can no longer afford a house. But minimum wage workers are also complaining because they can’t afford rent."

He then dove into the comparisons of the "back in my day" rent and income against today's.

"If you look back to 1980, the rent was $243, and minimum wage was $3.10, meaning your monthly gross was $496. So, to rent this apartment, it would be 48.9% of your gross income back in 1980."
"But let’s fast forward to 2024. The average rent is $1,747. The federal minimum wage is $7.25, giving you $1,160. You can’t even get an apartment with a federal minimum wage."

Basically, in 1980, a worker earning minimum wage would spend about half of their earnings on rent whereas workers earning minimum wage today wouldn't even get close to covering it with their paychecks.

So the TikToker did the math again, this time doubling the current minimum wage, and the results were still staggering.

"But let’s be generous and double the federal minimum wage because people at Walmart and fast food joints are making $14.50 to $15."
"So, $14.50 would bring you to $2,320. So technically, you’re making more, but this is your gross, and [rent would] be 75% of your gross income [if you were] making double the federal minimum wage in 2024. But let’s take it even a step further."

Yes, making double the minimum wage still puts a renter in the position of spending 75% of their income on rent.

Smith then shared his research in which he found the average college graduate makes $24 per hour, and he put that into the equation, as well.

"Someone with a bachelor’s degree could afford this one-bedroom apartment, but it would be 45.4% of their gross income. A college graduate is spending the same amount of their income on rent as the minimum wage worker in 1980."

And let's not forget that these people just spent tens of thousands of dollars and four-plus years to get to that point versus the minimum wage earners of 1980 who "put on a hat, learned skills for two weeks, and started their job."

You can watch below.

@fmsmith319

Boomer: “Millennials and Gen Z need to stop complaining about housing prices.”

While the numbers were astounding, people in the comments weren't surprised at Smith's findings as they expressed they are currently experiencing that exact struggle.

@fmsmith319/TikTok

@fmsmith319/TikTok

@fmsmith319/TikTok

@fmsmith319/TikTok

@fmsmith319/TikTok

@fmsmith319/TikTok

Many also noted that it's not enough just to be able to afford rent, as most places require a person's income to be at least three times that of the monthly rent.

@fmsmith319/TikTok

@fmsmith319/TikTok

@fmsmith319/TikTok

@fmsmith319/TikTok

It's definitely a struggle out there.

And while we certainly appreciate this TikToker's breakdown, we really hope some progress in this area is on the horizon.

More from Trending

Screenshot of Harris Faulkner
Fox News

Fox Host Ripped For Suggesting Trump Tell Anxious '401k People' To Treat Stock Market Tumble Like A Wartime Sacrifice

Fox News host Harris Faulkner received furious criticism on April 1 after suggesting that President Donald Trump, amid stock market tumbles, tell retirees and those worried about losing their retirement savings due to his tariffs that they should treat it like a wartime sacrifice, evoking World War II in response to widespread uncertainty.

Trump has repeatedly referred to April 2 as “Liberation Day,” pledging to impose tariffs—taxes on imports—to reduce U.S. reliance on foreign goods. He has framed these tariffs as “reciprocal,” aiming to match the duties other nations place on American exports.

Keep ReadingShow less
human anatomy figure
Nhia Moua on Unsplash

Doctors Share Things Most Folks Don't Know About The Human Body

The existence of Homo sapiens has been traced back 350,000 years to the late Pleistocene Epoch.

Our current last stop in human evolution is the subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens—modern humans—which would dominate the Holocene Epoch—which began 11,700 years ago—as the last surviving subspecies of Homo sapiens.

Keep ReadingShow less

Most Telling Signs That Someone Is Smarter Than They Let On

Brains and smarts.

Those two things don't always go together.

Keep ReadingShow less
Screenshots of Lauren Boebert and Roger Stone
C-SPAN

Boebert Dragged After Confusing Director Oliver Stone With Roger Stone At JFK Hearing

Colorado Republican Representative Lauren Boebert hit a new low after she attempted to grill director Oliver Stone—the director of the classic 1991 political thriller JFK—on some of his views on the assassination of JFK, only to have colleagues point out that she'd mistaken him for Roger Stone, a former adviser and strategist to President Donald Trump.

The hearing—held in response to last month’s release of 80,000 pages of documents by the Trump administration related to the 1963 assassination—took an awkward turn when more than halfway through the hearing, Boebert brought up a book Roger Stone wrote, which alleges that former President Lyndon B. Johnson played a role in former President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

Keep ReadingShow less
Amy Schumer
Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images

Amy Schumer Epically Fails To Convince Husband She's Pregnant As April Fools' Prank

Stand up comic Amy Schumer realized that her husband Chris Fischer was no fool.

On April Fool's Day, the Trainwreck star tried to prank her husband by telling him she was pregnant, but he knew better than to fall for it.

Keep ReadingShow less