How does a landlord/apartment verify your income/employment?

If it is a small operation they can run a credit check for $20—$30. If they have many tenants they will likely have a prepaid annual contact with one or two agencies and will get the reports for a much lower cost.
In general, employment is verified by calling the HR department and income info comes from the pay stubs.

They usually want the most recent pay stubs, which will verify that you’ve worked there within the last week or two. The pat stubs will show your wages and year-to-date will show whether you’ve been there longer than a couple weeks. My pay stub even shows my date of hire. They usually also request your last two W2s; which show your work history and income further back, even if not all from the same employer, they are more concerned that you are have a consistent income. As for the legalities of what the employer can reveal, it probably varies a little from state-to-state.

If they ask for pay stubs, they’d know your hourly wage. It’s right there on the stub.

I’ve only rented from one landlord (we own now, thankfully), and he just took our word for it. An apartment we almost got asked for recent pay stubs.

Here in NYC they often do a credit check and want income evidence. I’ve found in other places that they sometimes just don’t give a shit at all and don’t verify anything.

Employers can say whatever you want them to say about your income, I guess. You probably should provide the information and let the employer verify it.

I have people sign an information release. Even with that some employers are hesitant to give out information but are usually willing to confirm information that the applicant has already provided. If their credit is good I can usually rely on the applicant to provide reliable info.

Each time I’ve applied to an apartment, they asked for my most recent paystub as income verification. I’m an hourly employee so my hourly rate is right on there and the fact that I’m guaranteed 40 hours a week is on there too.

I don’t think I’ve ever had a credit check done on me…not that I’d really care, but I don’t like to have “hard pull” credit checks on my report.