Rising rents in Ontario outpace wage growth, pushing even professionals to rethink housing choices
To afford a one-bedroom apartment in Toronto while following the classic “32 percent rule” of budgeting, a renter now needs to earn over $44 an hour—more than double Ontario’s new minimum wage, according to Zoocasa’s latest analysis of Rentals.ca data cited by BNN Bloomberg.
Zoocasa’s report highlights that the average rent for a one-bedroom unit in Toronto is $2,295, requiring an annual income of $86,062 to stay within the affordability threshold.
This figure is 151 percent higher than the province’s minimum wage, which now stands at $17.60 per hour.
The wage gap is not unique to Toronto; across the Greater Toronto Area, cities like North York, Mississauga, and Brampton all demand hourly wages above $39 to rent a similar unit, underscoring a persistent affordability crisis.
Even cities once considered more accessible, such as Greater Sudbury and Waterloo, now require hourly wages of $40.93 and $39.42, respectively, for a single earner to afford a one-bedroom apartment, as per Zoocasa.
Kingston, Ontario, stands out as a striking outlier.
While most of Canada has seen rents drop for a full year, Kingston recorded the fastest-rising apartment rents in the country, with a 19.9 percent annual increase, reported by Rentals.ca and Urbanation.
The city’s average rent for all property types reached $2,390 in September, making it the fourth-highest in Canada.
Despite incremental wage adjustments, Zoocasa notes that “Ontario’s housing costs continue to outpace wage growth at nearly every level,” and incremental increases are “insufficient to bridge the affordability gap.”
In Kingston, for example, a single renter would need to earn $40 per hour, or $79,575 annually, to comfortably afford a one-bedroom apartment—figures that are out of reach for most students and many working professionals.
Nationally, the rental landscape is shifting.
While cities like Vancouver and Toronto saw year-over-year declines in average rents, Kingston’s market moved in the opposite direction.
Shaun Hildebrand, president of Urbanation, attributes the temporary affordability in some markets to “new rental supply outstripping demand,” but warns that this trend may not last as supply from secondary sources tightens and population growth continues.
Meanwhile, wage dynamics across sectors add another layer to the affordability conversation.
According to a recent Fraser Institute study, government-sector workers in Canada earned a 4.8 percent wage premium over comparable private-sector workers in 2024.
The study also notes that government employees enjoy broader pension coverage, greater job security, and earlier retirement, suggesting that compensation disparities persist even as housing affordability becomes more challenging for many Canadians.
