# Essential workers priced out of rental market

> Retail workers, cleaners and nurses can afford fewer than 4 per cent of rental listings across Australia as wages fail to keep pace with soaring rents.
- Title: Essential workers priced out of rental market · Abc | Shortify
- Summary: Retail workers, cleaners and nurses can afford fewer than 4 per cent of rental listings across Australia as wages fail to keep pace with soaring rents…
- Keywords: rental affordability, essential workers, anglicare, social housing, australia, housing crisis, wages, rental market, Abc
- Source: Abc — https://abc.net.au/news/2026-11-05/essential-workers-priced-out-of-rental-market/107346978
- Published: 2026-11-04T14:01:00+00:00
- Read time: 2 min
- Topics: rental affordability, essential workers, anglicare, social housing, australia, housing crisis, wages, rental market, news, politics
## Anglicare's snapshot reveals the crisis
Anglicare's annual Rental Affordability Snapshot found essential workers including retail workers, social workers and cleaners can afford fewer than one percent of rental listings across Australia.
## Nursing and teaching faring slightly better
Nurses can afford just one point one percent of listings. Teachers can afford three point three percent. Both professions remain severely constrained in the private rental market.
## Social worker cuts medications to pay rent
Allie Thompson, a single mother and social worker in inner north Brisbane, pays seven hundred forty dollars per week for rent, taking up about half her income.

> I just avoid going to the doctor's as much as I can unless it's absolutely urgent, and I haven't been to the dentist in probably 10 years.
## Nurse cuts luxuries after forty years
Silvia Laing, a nurse for more than forty years supporting cancer patients, pays five hundred fifty dollars per week for rent in Albany, WA, about a third of her income.

> Accommodation and health are on the top priority list, and everything that's somewhat luxury is just not going to be afforded.
## Anglicare staff struggle in Pilbara
Meenaaz Adams, Anglicare's Pilbara Service Manager, took eight weeks to find a rental in Karratha after moving there. She was declined three times, something she had never experienced before.

> We thought that 'oh we'll secure something in four weeks'. No, we were declined three times, something I've never experienced.
## Rents up forty-four percent in five years
Anglicare surveyed forty-eight thousand seven hundred seventy-six rental listings.Unit rents increased by forty-four point three percent in five years while house rents rose thirty-six point six percent.Wages increased by less than half that rate.
## Only three occupations saw improvement
Of sixteen essential occupations surveyed, only three saw an increase in affordability compared to twenty twenty-five. The other thirteen either decreased or remained stagnant. For hospitality workers in the Northern Territory, no affordable rentals exist.
## Kasy Chambers on the broken contract
Kasy Chambers, Anglicare Australia executive director, said the social contract that full-time work in essential jobs would provide affordable housing no longer holds. Consecutive governments have stopped building and funding housing over forty years.

> You would be able to live a decent, if not opulent, lifestyle. That's no longer the case.
## Anglicare calls for social housing
Anglicare is calling on the federal government to build more social housing or shift existing housing into social housing rather than relying on the private market.
## Key takeaway

Anglicare's Rental Affordability Snapshot found essential workers can afford almost no rental properties in Australia, with only three of sixteen occupations seeing improved affordability since last year.