What it takes to afford rent in Kansas City

By the numbers: Kansas Citians need to make $61,457 annually to afford the city's average rent of $1,536, according to Zillow's latest rental report.

• Renters in the city are spending about 21.9% of their income on rent, well under the 30% benchmark.
• But the income needed to comfortably afford rent in Kansas City has jumped 38.7% since April 2020, according to Zillow.

What they're saying: Being a tenant in KC gets more difficult each year, Tara Raghuveer, director of the citywide tenants union KC Tenants, told KCUR last year.

• "And that has a lot of implications for our city," she said. "When tenants get priced out of a place like New York City or Chicago, they tend to come to places like Kansas City. What happens when people get priced out of Kansas City? Where do they go?"

The bottom line: Renters here may not be officially burdened yet, but affordability is eroding.

• In 2024, Kansas City officials approved $6.7 million toward eight Housing Trust Fund projects expected to create or preserve 684 affordable rental homes.