How Many Hours do Americans Need to Work to Pay their Mortgage?:

The visualization uses data from the U.S. Census for household income and Zillow for median home listing price, while calculating mortgage payments based on a standard 30-year term.

With about 170 hours in a normal work month, the worst is in New York City and Los Angeles, where at least 65% of income is going towards housing.

But in a city like Memphis, TN it takes only 18.4 hours of work a month to pay down the average mortgage. That’s equal to only about 10% of monthly household income.

The red bars represent places where you have to work the most hours to keep the roof over your head. In cities like New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and San Francisco, you put in more than 100 hours to make enough money just to pay for housing. That’s longer than two-and-a-half weeks, meaning well over 50% of your take-home pay! Not surprisingly, unaffordable places are all located on the either coastline. In fact, 8 of the 10 most expensive places are all located in California