I live in a college town in Montana and work for a big box retailer. Currently the average rent price for a 1 bedroom apartment is $1095/ month (up 19% from last year). If we paid our employees $12/hour (most do not make this much) and they work 40 hours per week (most people are part time) they would earn $2080 before taxes.
From my time working in the financial industry, credit bureaus recommend keeping your debt to income ratio below 35%. My coworkers are spending well over 50% of their paycheck on rent and that is before considering cc debt, student loan, medical, auto, or anything else.
One problem is these national corporations do market research based on the whole state. Eastern rural montana has a VASTLY different cost of living versus places like Missoula, Bozeman, Billings, etc. So corporate doesn't see the need to increase wages in these areas which means we lose our great employees to other companies and then our upper management complains “no one wants to work!” Super frustrating and hope corporations can figure this labor/cost of living thing out quickly because it is getting quite out of hand.