[HN Gopher] MIT Living Wage Calculator
___________________________________________________________________
MIT Living Wage Calculator
Author : bear_with_me
Score : 149 points
Date : 2026-02-09 19:50 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (livingwage.mit.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (livingwage.mit.edu)
| thealistra wrote:
| US only it seems?
| jmclnx wrote:
| Pretty good, but not granular enough. For example, the area I
| grew up in is much cheaper to live in that the metro it is tagged
| to. The two areas are separated by 15 miles (~24km).
|
| If you live in a large city, then it works great.
| downrightmike wrote:
| Does this base itself on the metric started in 1963, that was
| eseentially a big guess that 3x starvation level was well off?
| because we have better numbers now. Avg us salary is 60k, but to
| take car of the needs of a family of 4, not in starvation range
| is ~$160k/year
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| https://livingwage.mit.edu/pages/methodology
| lelandbatey wrote:
| Put in an area and see for yourself. In general, yes this
| calculator is closer to what you're describing. For example,
| Skamania County, a pretty rural county of Washington state with
| a very low population of 12,000 people, still has a "required
| living wage" for 1 breadwinner + 1 homemaker + 3 children of
| $104,292 per year: https://livingwage.mit.edu/counties/53059
|
| That feels pretty close to accurate.
| chasd00 wrote:
| Yeah Dallas county Texas, where I live, for family of 4 and 2
| working adults is around $105k/year. That seems close,
| there's nothing secure about that long term (no room for
| savings or retirement) but it's livable.
| ninalanyon wrote:
| How can you need that much money to not starve?
|
| According to Wikipedia[1] median household income in the US and
| Norway is only about a quarter of your 160 kUSD.
|
| I'm pretty sure that most of the people living near me in
| Norway are not high earners but I don't see any signs of
| starvation either.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income
| etchalon wrote:
| Norway has many wonderful things American voters are
| terrified of giving people less they use them.
| downrightmike wrote:
| USA site. USA metrics. USA Comment. I vote to get the same
| things you all have, but your assumption is that Norway
| matters in this context is foolish
| nomel wrote:
| > not in starvation range is ~$160k/year
|
| That highly depends on your definition of "need" and where you
| live. If you're in a city with ludicrous cost of living, like
| San Fransisco, then sure. But, that's also why people commute,
| or just choose to go somewhere cheaper. It's somewhat shocking
| seeing how much higher the standard of living is, with much
| less income, outside the big cities.
| Exoristos wrote:
| In the U.S., a family of four technically doesn't need any
| money "not to starve," because SNAP covers the cost of
| groceries if providers are unable.
| ninalanyon wrote:
| 2080 hours per year! That's 52 weeks of 40 hours per week. It's
| also inhuman.
|
| Here in Norway we have five weeks of holiday plus various public
| holidays and only 37.5 hours per week adding up to about 1700
| hours per year.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Yeah, oil nations are different. Norway's resources are well-
| managed, but oil nations with outsourced defence just have
| different constraints.
| sva_ wrote:
| In Germany its somewhere between 1600-1700 hours, and we
| don't have much oil
| Sadzeih wrote:
| France is not an oil nation. We have 35h weeks and 5 weeks of
| paid vacation as well.
|
| Edit: Also, the US is a damn oil nation. It has nothing to do
| with oil, and everything to do with politics.
| daedrdev wrote:
| France has stuck is head in the sand regarding its future
| finances
| NewJazz wrote:
| So has the US, difference is the US citizens don't get
| anything good out of their debt.
| mhb wrote:
| > US citizens don't get anything good out of their debt
|
| Partly because they're paying for drug innovation and
| defense for other countries.
| baq wrote:
| As if the US hasn't!
| wtcactus wrote:
| Yes, and your government takes 57% of the total GDP to
| themselves, rely on an external power (that's less and less
| friendly) for their protection and are on the track to
| their 6th prime minister in less than 2 years (is it 6th?
| I've lost track) because if they try to increase the
| retirement age above 62 (in their pay as you go
| unmaintanable system) people come down to the streets to
| burn down businesses and destroy public property.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Spain and Portugal were in pretty much the same boat not
| too long ago and they've started to reform of their own
| accord. The French will come around once the bond
| vigilantes start taking a serious look at that whole
| government deficit+debt situation and unsustainable
| retirement ages. Of course it will be painful and involve
| severe austerity measures, but that's what it takes.
| burkaman wrote:
| Every single nation on Earth has mandatory paid vacation,
| except for the United States and three tiny islands: https://
| en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_b....
|
| Edit: And looking into it a little, I'm pretty sure two of
| those islands actually do have mandatory paid leave after a
| minimum period of employment.
| adam_beck wrote:
| It would be interesting to know which percentage of full-
| time jobs in the USA get no paid vacation.
| changoplatanero wrote:
| I don't get what the big deal is about mandatory paid
| vacation. My view is that your total compensation will be
| set based on the market value of your labor. Some portion
| of that compensation is given to you in the form of
| ordinary wages and some portion in the form of paid
| vacations. If the government mandated paid vacations would
| it increase many people's total compensation?
| anticorporate wrote:
| Wages and time off are not frictionlessly interchangeable
| in the vast majority of jobs. Mandating minimum levels
| for both helps make sure people have access to both.
| sdellis wrote:
| For a lot of us, work is not our life. Turns out that
| most people really want a paid vacation. Smart
| Capitalists know that it's easier to extract value from
| workers with higher morale.
|
| If you would rather trade your paid vacation for an extra
| week of pay, I am sure you and your boss can work it out.
| Companies pay out unused vacation all the time. Just
| don't ruin it for the rest of us!
| marcyb5st wrote:
| In my European mind (I have 25 mandated days off per
| year), if there was not a mandatory paid vacation limit
| two things would happen:
|
| 1. Further exploit desperate people since those that
| don't need to work at any cost would steer clear of jobs
| that have 0 holidays. 2. You would further penalize
| people with families where both parents work. It is well
| understood that if your kid is sick you can't really use
| your sick days and so must use your PTO days. Having 0
| available days doesn't play well with having kids
| (personal experience).
|
| And finally, having mandated PTO allow you to actually
| take holidays. I heard too many times of companies that
| offer unlimited PTO and when the employer tries to take
| some they sabotage him/her or plainly threaten his/her
| job security.
| burkaman wrote:
| The easiest answer is yes, since many Americans currently
| earn minimum wage with no paid vacation, minimum wage
| with mandatory vacation would be an increase in total
| compensation. I don't know how paid leave regulations
| impact wage growth in general, I'm sure there is research
| on this but I didn't immediately find anything.
|
| Another way to think about it: why do we have building
| codes? We don't want to incentivize builders to cut
| corners that would risk an electrical fire or falling
| down in an earthquake or something in order to offer a
| cheaper price, so we make it illegal. If unsafe buildings
| are allowed, it makes it difficult for safe builders to
| stay in the market. Similarly, we don't want to
| incentivize workers to sell their labor with zero leave
| in order to offer a cheaper price, because that risks
| unhealthy and insular communities (literally unhealthy if
| people can't take sick leave), poor mental health,
| unhealthy childcare practices, an unhealthy civic
| environment if people can't take time off to vote or
| volunteer, etc. The labor market is competitive and
| people will sacrifice paid leave if they have to, because
| they need money to live, so we should make it illegal to
| remove the incentive.
| worik wrote:
| > total compensation will be set based on the market
| value of your labor.
|
| No, you do not want that.
|
| The market value of most people's labour is very close to
| zero.
|
| Left to the market most of the population would live just
| below starvation, a very small group of owners would live
| very well, and a small group of artisans would do OK
| supporting the tiny group.
|
| That is where many countries are heading
| the_gastropod wrote:
| Unless you have a union, there's a dramatic power
| imbalance between you (the employee) and the employer at
| the negotiating table. I'd urge you to read up about the
| 19th century labor movement and what conditions prompted
| it.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| Mandatory vacation, like education, mandatory IDs, and
| myriad other laws are the sole jurisdiction of the
| individual States to decide. There will never be a "US" law
| about these things. Most questions that start with "why is
| the US the only country..." can be explained by the fact
| that the States decide and the US government can't force
| the States to make laws.
|
| Similarly, there is no US law against most crimes. It
| doesn't mean those laws don't exist in every State.
|
| That said, there is no State with mandatory paid vacation
| either AFAIK.
|
| Given the political diversity of the States, this suggests
| that mandatory paid vacation is either not considered an
| important issue by people across the political spectrum
| _or_ there are existing regulations that would create real
| problems if there paid vacation was mandated without
| changing those regulations first.
| burkaman wrote:
| There has been a federal law for mandatory family and
| medical leave for 30+ years
| (https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fmla). It is unpaid and
| doesn't cover all workers, but that's a legislative
| detail that could be changed. I don't see any legal or
| constitutional reason that unpaid leave can be federal
| but paid leave can't.
| hybrid_study wrote:
| I'm not sure that's the key factor. Resource wealth helps,
| but it doesn't automatically translate into shorter workweeks
| or generous leave. Countries with far fewer natural resources
| --such as Germany, the Netherlands, or Denmark--still manage
| shorter working hours, strong labor protections, and
| substantial paid vacation.
|
| Those outcomes depend much more on labor policy, bargaining
| power, and what governments choose to protect. In many
| places, business pressure and media framing make long hours
| seem unavoidable, even though they're ultimately the result
| of policy choices.
| usrnm wrote:
| > Countries with far fewer natural resources--such as
| Germany, the Netherlands
|
| Where do you think the term "Dutch disease" came from?
| lawn wrote:
| The other Nordic countries don't have oil riches and manages
| just fine.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| Urban workers in China do 3,744 hours per year; farmers do 2400
| hours
|
| Norwegian workers do 1,418 hours per year, one of the lowest in
| the world
| racl101 wrote:
| 3744 hours. Dayum!
|
| Just going off basic numbers:
|
| - 3744/52/5 = 14.4 hour day if they work 5 days a week
|
| - 3744/52/6 = 12 hrs if they work 6 days a week
|
| - 3744/52/7 = 10.3 hrs if they work 7 days a week.
| beambot wrote:
| That is, indeed, what 9-9-6 means: 9am-9pm (12hrs) * 6 days
| per week.
| kevinyang222 wrote:
| 9-9-6 is also not full productivity for 9-9-6.
|
| Office workers will eat lunch, take a 1-2hr nap in the
| afternoon, and also eat dinner with their coworkers
| within the common 9-9-6 rhythm. It still takes a
| significant chunk of time, but the actual working time
| butt-in-chair is closer to 54 hours
| hackable_sand wrote:
| You lose productivity doing 996 anyways so how can you
| maximize past that?
| pyrale wrote:
| > Urban workers in China do 3,744 hours per year
|
| For reference, that's 10:15 per day, 365 days a year. Or 996
| without vacations, if you intend to have one day off.
|
| 996 has never been a standard work duration for urban workers
| in China, aside from some tech companies that promoted
| performative work ethics. And even there, people _do_ take
| vacations.
| chasd00 wrote:
| I think they just do that to get to an hourly rate. It's
| probably better to look at the annual income and think of that
| number regardless of how many hours you worked during the year.
| clircle wrote:
| The standard of living that one could afford with a "living wage"
| looks to be very very low. Like, 0 vacations and no house low,
| for my metro area.
| NewJazz wrote:
| Yes, this is supposed to be the number at which you aren't
| going to go into (medical, auto) debt, make rent/utilities each
| month, and not starve. It is by no means intended to represent
| a life containing any luxuries.
| falcojr wrote:
| And for my area it is very high. I live in a cheap midwest town
| and according to this, the difference between here and San
| Francisco is only 30k a year.
| clueless wrote:
| This whole dataset needs to be downloadable, instead of being
| behind their UI..
| amelius wrote:
| Basically a "ramen profitable" calculator.
| prepend wrote:
| I don't think this is very accurate. In my county the "living
| wage" is $26.50 for a single adult with no children.
|
| Many young people I know live on much less than this.
|
| This is more like "optimal wage to live alone in my own apartment
| with a car." Which of course, people would like to have but
| certainly isn't required to be comfortable.
|
| For example, transportation costs are $9000/year and housing is
| $20000/year. These are both way more than is necessary.
|
| They need better branding because calling this a living wage is a
| misnomer and harming their cause.
| andiareso wrote:
| I disagree. Living wage is not minimum wage.
| sedatk wrote:
| The web site also makes that distinction: living wage,
| poverty wage, and minimum wage.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| That is the point isn't it.
|
| The minimum wage is far below what it takes to actually
| 'live', like have a place to live and a car.
| NewJazz wrote:
| Are those people funding their retirement? Are they going to be
| able to take care of themselves as health issues come up? Are
| they receiving support from family?
|
| Edit: also the housing cost is probably factoring in a studio
| or maybe a 1bd for a single person. That may seem luxurious to
| you, but for many that is the only real option they have
| (roommates are hard to come by and can hurt you physically and
| fiscally).
| prepend wrote:
| No, roommates aren't hard to come by. As evidenced by the
| millions who have roommates.
|
| In my 20s everyone I knew had roommates. And it was a good
| life.
|
| Saying a studio or 1 bedroom is required makes this metric
| pretty ambiguous.
|
| Thus my point, that this isn't what's required to just live.
| But to live comfortably.
| etchalon wrote:
| "Living wage" means the ability to live, not scrape by with the
| bare minimum possible.
| bumby wrote:
| I feel like I've eat pretty well, and my household food costs
| are almost half what the calculator shows. Similar for
| vehicle costs etc.
|
| After looking at the method, I think the calculator probably
| has some bias towards "what society has convinced us we
| need". To a certain extent that is a relative and subjective
| perception problem, and one exacerbated when you live in a
| society with a lot of consumer debt.
| Larrikin wrote:
| What does eating pretty well mean to you? Maybe you don't
| even if you think you do? We don't know without your budget
| or a receipt from your typical grocery run
| NewJazz wrote:
| Also some folks are just smaller than others.
| bumby wrote:
| They do try to account for this in their method. Men,
| women, and children of different ages all have different
| amounts of assumed food intake
| bumby wrote:
| Mostly what the typical nutritional guidance has
| advocated consistently over the last few decades, with
| maybe slightly higher protein intake.
|
| 6-8 servings of fruits and vegetables a day, fairly
| liberal amounts of dairy and lean protein, lesser amounts
| of red meat. Grains like breads/rice for additional
| carbohydrates.
|
| Admittedly, avoiding eating out regularly is the #1 way I
| keep food costs down, though.
| etchalon wrote:
| My household food costs are about 20% more than what the
| calculator shows (and that's a very minimal budget)
|
| Behold, "averages" are not perfect.
| bumby wrote:
| Are you following the USDA thrifty food plan like the
| methodology assumes?
| etchalon wrote:
| I don't perfectly weigh our groceries every week to hit
| the exact counts they recommend, no.
|
| But we stick to the essentials, utilize different stores
| for the lowest prices we can get, and don't purchase
| nonsense.
| bumby wrote:
| Would you agree that large uncertainties can bring into
| question the validity of a model?
|
| Ie "averages" with large variances are not often very
| informative
| etchalon wrote:
| I agree that the very term "averages" implies "an
| average".
| lp4v4n wrote:
| The yearly cost of food for one person without children in
| the county of Los Angeles(I selected an expensive area on
| purpose) is showing 4,428 USD. That's about 12 dollars a
| day. I don't even live in the United States but that value
| looks pretty low if anything.
| bumby wrote:
| That's pretty surprising, honestly, because there are
| other areas considered much lower COL that are within
| spitting distance of that value.
| prepend wrote:
| I can easily cook all my meals for $12/day.
|
| I don't consider daily or even weekly restaurants part of
| a necessity for life.
| lp4v4n wrote:
| People have commutes and work shifts that don't always
| allow them to buy food in bulk and cook their own food.
|
| Not everybody is like you.
|
| Restaurants have never been a necessity for life, but I
| guess that for a lot of people you should be upper class
| to eat out once a week.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| Anecdotally, I can easily eat for $12/day even in
| Seattle. There are days when I probably spend half of
| that. We aren't talking beans and rice here, these are
| diverse satisfying meals. It does require you to cook
| though.
| blobbers wrote:
| Is a family of 4 in a 2BR considered living wage? Because
| they have rent at $3600 for a family in silicon valley...
| which seems impossible. I paid more than that when I
| graduated from college with a roommate 20 years ago.
| prepend wrote:
| That's what I think when I hear the term, too. But these
| numbers are not just living, but living at a pretty high
| standard.
|
| I would expect living wage to mean the amount one needs to be
| able to live out your life fairly decently and with dignity.
| I think many do so without having pay this high.
| SLWW wrote:
| I do think it's a crack up how when I check my own "living
| wage" i still under-perform in comparison to the chart, but in
| my county i'm within the top 15%.
|
| Needless to say; only old people have homes and only those who
| have sufficient help get a nice appt.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| Why should we accept that rather than our own standards? If
| we take your tack on this then we shouldn't try to make
| anything better for anyone, just live with what we've got and
| accept whatever lot we find ourselves in.
| jrajav wrote:
| > This is more like "optimal wage to live alone in my own
| apartment with a car." Which of course, people would like to
| have but certainly isn't required to be comfortable.
|
| This is a debatable goalpost. It seems more reasonable to me to
| assume that meeting basic shelter needs includes having a
| private room to oneself. The only reason to argue otherwise is
| to try to drive down the wage further, and is that at all
| necessary? Renting a private room was possible on nearly any
| wage 50 years ago, and the only reason it seems out of reach
| for many now is because purchasing power has been slowly
| stagnating for decades, while housing costs have soared in
| recent times. Yet this whole time, GDP continues to rise. It
| seems that our society can easily support much higher minimum
| wages (and this would likely have only a positive effect of
| stimulating the economy), but simply chooses not to.
| losvedir wrote:
| Having a private room is not the same as living alone (having
| a private apartment/house).
|
| I think it's reasonable for young people to have flatmates
| and share an apartment, for example.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| Is it reasonable for two people who are dating to have to
| keep their shared apartment when they break up? What should
| happen if a roommate becomes flaky or moves out?
|
| These are all real situations that make me think that
| pinning "living wage" to a level where you have to have
| roommates is not a good goal. You're basically asking
| people to survive by accepting unstable living conditions
| and potentially taking strangers into their homes, which
| isn't exactly "having your needs met."
| still-learning wrote:
| Its reasonable, but as we've advanced humanity in so many
| other fields (medical, technical, agricultural) why
| shouldn't the base standard of living also be increasing.
| SideQuark wrote:
| The base standard of living has increased throughout
| pretty much all of humanity over the past 50 years, and
| through huge parts of humanity over even 20 years.
|
| Theres also lots more people, and as more people consume
| more resources it does not follow that better technology
| in some field will translate to increased every aspect of
| life.
| bumby wrote:
| I agree with the sentiment, but the premise of capitalism
| is that those advances also become cheaper due to market
| efficiencies. In other words, people should be able to
| have a higher quality of life for relatively lower cost.
| If/where that actually occurs is a whole different
| discussion.
| bradlys wrote:
| A living wage shouldn't be based upon what wages a student
| could be comfortably living on for a couple years before
| they get their $500k/yr new grad quant job. It should be
| based upon what people could live on comfortably
| indefinitely.
|
| It's not "student wage". It's not "struggling young person"
| wage. It's "living" wage. It's for living - at any age.
| bumby wrote:
| Does this then imply some jobs are not intended to supply
| a living wage?
|
| Eg does that quants internship get a lower pay because
| they are expected to graduate beyond it? If so, how do we
| define what jobs are stepping stones and which are long-
| term careers?
| bradlys wrote:
| I think all full time jobs should at a minimum pay a true
| living wage where one can live comfortably, save for
| emergencies, etc. If the job cannot pay that then it
| shouldn't exist.
|
| There are many ways to accomplish this beyond simply
| raising wages. Better government programs, lower the cost
| of housing/medical/transportation/food/etc. (these are
| surprisingly simple but many vested interests don't want
| this to happen), better retirement programs, etc. etc.
| etc. You see more of this in more socially democratic
| countries.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| The issue of "which jobs should exist" should be left to
| the market only. If typical low-end jobs throughout the
| country pay wages that do not guarantee a minimum living
| income, the government should simply make up the
| difference for everyone in a fair way (subject to
| clawback rates as earned income increases, in order to
| keep the overall arrangement viable).
|
| (Lowering the cost of essential goods and services is
| also something that can be done by leveraging the open
| market. It doesn't take yet another wasteful government
| program, which is the typical approach in socialist and
| social-democrat countries.)
| bumby wrote:
| I'm not against that idea but there are some knock-on
| effects we should be careful of. For example, it will
| make it hard for younger people to get a job. If I have
| to pay a teenager the same as someone with a decade or
| more of work experience, that teenager probably won't get
| a job.
|
| With a lot of these discussions, we need to be careful
| about the seductively simple solutions.
| digiown wrote:
| A minimum wage should not necessarily afford you a median
| home, that's why it's called a minimum. But for a
| functional developed nation I argue it should afford you a
| private room or a very small apartment. Ideally the cost
| between the two wouldn't be that different, but due to
| decades of building restrictions the latter does not really
| exist. This isn't true in Japan for example, where you can
| find arbitrarily small apartments at correspondingly low
| prices.
|
| A living wage is for living indefinitely, not just
| surviving. That should afford more comforts like a
| reasonable amount of space, a car if needed, and saving for
| retirement or emergencies.
| monsieurbanana wrote:
| Any adult with a full-time job should be able to afford a
| studio or small apartment. Probably making concessions on
| the location depending on where they want to live. It's not
| a matter of being young or not
| SideQuark wrote:
| In the US, this is trivial to do. Theres plenty of states
| where unskilled entry lever wages easily allows this
| life, for most of the locations, with the exception of
| extremely high cost city centers.
|
| Pick IL for example. Min wage $15, so $30k a year income
| fulltime. Most every adult that's worked even a little
| should be able to earn decently more than min, which is
| for completely unskilled, new workers. Median il wage is
| 66k.
|
| Even at $30k, the rough 30% rule on housing is $750/mo.
| At 66k it's over $1500/mo.
|
| Dig through smaller cities, and you'll find apartments to
| rent in either end of this range. This works in any
| state.
| bumby wrote:
| Part of the issue is those smaller cities don't offer a
| large supply of job opportunities. So people are often
| not able to pick and choose their location.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| This is an underappreciated argument for basic
| income/UBI: you need a lot less of it since its very
| existence enables recipients to move to lower cost of
| living locations.
|
| (Which in turn opens up opportunities for others to move
| in to the higher-cost places and boost their own
| productivity.)
| adventured wrote:
| Historically it's reasonable for anybody to have roommates.
| It's a modern scenario where having your own place is
| supposed to be the standard.
|
| Historically housing was much smaller. And people lived
| with their families for a lot longer commonly. A lot less
| was also spent on domestic appliances (not just washer &
| dryers) and at-home entertainment (a lot less was spent on
| entertainment in general).
| matthewkayin wrote:
| If a person is working 40 hours a week to contribute to
| society, then they should be able to afford housing from
| that society. If a person on minimum wage needs to have a
| roommate to get by, then that means that their 40 hours a
| week is not enough to afford their own shelter. Without
| that roommate, the person goes without a home despite
| having done their time for society. This is not reasonable.
|
| If it is reasonable for a young person to have flatmates,
| then that should be because they are a student or an artist
| and are working only part-time while devoting the rest of
| their time to their studies or their art.
|
| But a person working full-time? Who may be a single mother
| or father with a child to support? They should be able to
| afford a place to live, without roommates.
| wavefunction wrote:
| I would only add that young people or anyone should be
| able to afford to live alone as you say OR opt to live
| with roommates to share expenses and save and build
| wealth. It shouldn't be necessary for anyone working 40
| hours a week to pool their resources with other people in
| similar situations simply to survive.
| ChadNauseam wrote:
| > It seems more reasonable to me to assume that meeting basic
| shelter needs includes having a private room to oneself
|
| Why would that be reasonable? College students and young
| adults usually have roommates. I don't feel it's inhumane.
|
| > The only reason to argue otherwise is to try to drive down
| the wage further
|
| Another reason to argue otherwise is because you care about
| the truth. Even if you and I agree on the ends, if you use
| the means of exaggerating or stretching the truth to get
| there, you are never on my side. Saying that you need to not
| have roommates to live is an exaggeration.
|
| > Renting a private room was possible on nearly any wage 50
| years ago
|
| You will never find any data to support that because it isn't
| true. 50 years ago, flophouses were common. You would share a
| bedroom room with others, with shared kitchen and bathroom
| between multiple bedrooms. In college, I lived in a housing-
| coop network where we slept two to a room. 50 years ago, they
| slept 4 or 6 to a room in my exact house.
|
| > and the only reason it seems out of reach for many now is
| because purchasing power has been slowly stagnating for
| decades, while housing costs have soared in recent times
|
| This is true. But there is a very natural reason why. Look at
| nearly any US city, and see how many more jobs there are in
| that city than there were 50 years ago. Then look at how many
| more homes there are in that city than there were 50 years
| ago. You will see that the number of new jobs far exceeds the
| number of new homes. The result is that wealthier people bid
| up the housing, while poor people are forced to live outside
| the city and commute. So why have no new houses been built?
| It can't be helped by the fact that building new homes is
| illegal. (e.g. buildings with 3 or more apartments are
| illegal in 70% of san francisco.)
|
| Please direct your anger in the right direction! It's not
| generally the case that billionaires own thousands of homes,
| hoarding them while the poor live on the street. It's more
| often the case that the population has increased while the
| number of homes in places people want to live has stayed the
| same. The *only* solution is to increase the number of homes
| in places people want to live. Raising the minimum wage,
| taxing the rich, fighting corporations, adding rent control
| laws, none of that will help solve the root of the problem,
| the growth rate of homes in cities is far slower than the
| rate of people wanting to live there!
| Aunche wrote:
| > Renting a private room was possible on nearly any wage 50
| years ago, and the only reason it seems out of reach for many
| now is because purchasing power has been slowly stagnating
| for decades
|
| 50 years ago, in high cost of living areas, you could rent an
| SRO, but now they're either banned or practically banned
| because they're strongly disincentivized against. Combine
| this with not building enough new housing and you get a
| recipe for rent increases. Even if a minimum wage works as
| intended, it can only subsidize demand, which would do
| nothing when the bottleneck is the supply.
| cozzyd wrote:
| Yes the decline of the SRO (or boarding houses in general)
| is a terrible thing. That said, a living wage should
| probably afford more than that.
| citizenpaul wrote:
| > Renting a private room was possible on nearly any wage 50
| years ago
|
| I think others pointed this out but I don't think you can
| find any data to prove this because its not true.
|
| I'm not a historian but I have seen a number of old movies
| and in those movies it was very common for the characters to
| be some poor schlub with a full time job at the factory
| living in some sort of group home/flophouse situation. Movies
| tend to reflect stories that resonate with the public at the
| time so I suspect that is because this was a common
| situation. I'd much prefer a single roommate in an apartment
| to a flophouse.
| cwillu wrote:
| You're confusing poverty with living.
| bobro wrote:
| Having a roommate and an annual transportation budget under
| $9000 probably isn't the right demarcation line for poverty.
| sdellis wrote:
| Based on the data sources and the methodology, it looks about
| as accurate as you could get. They link to their methodology
| and technical documentation from that site. Even if some
| resourceful young people you know can get by on less, in
| general people should not have to live in abject poverty while
| working a full time job -- I would consider that to be a "Dying
| Wage".
| cm2012 wrote:
| Edit: Deleted for dumb math
| Jtsummers wrote:
| > $130k per year needed ($28.50 per hour * 40 * 52).
|
| What math are you doing to get $130k with those numbers? That
| wage works out to around $60k/year.
| cowthulhu wrote:
| 28/hr is closer to 60k/yr.
|
| 130k/yr is more like 65/hr.
| NewJazz wrote:
| Your 130k number is >2x what it should be. Recalculate.
| kccqzy wrote:
| Ultimately in all these calculators there has to be a threshold
| that determines whether something is needed for "living" or
| not. And that varies highly by the individual.
|
| The calculator suggests $5,021 for food, but for me I'd only
| shop at high-end grocery like Whole Foods and buy organics
| whenever possible. That's clearly not enough. On the other hand
| it suggests $1,792 for internet and mobile which is about
| double what I actually pay and I have both unlimited mobile
| data and unlimited home data. Then it claims medical costs of
| $2,890. For a fit individual with good employer-provided health
| insurance, that figure should be almost zero.
|
| Ultimately the amount one spends for living depends very much
| on one's preferences and these calculators are approximates. I
| believe you when you say many young people can live for much
| less, but that doesn't invalidate the calculator.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| > Then it claims medical costs of $2,890. For a fit
| individual with good employer-provided health insurance, that
| figure should be almost zero.
|
| No, it won't be almost zero because they're including health
| insurance premiums in that figure. Few jobs in the US cover
| 100% of the premiums for their employees.
|
| >> The cost of health care is composed of two subcategories:
| (1) premiums associated with employer-sponsored health
| insurance plans and (2) out-of-pocket expenses for medical
| services, drugs, and medical supplies.
| groundzeros2015 wrote:
| I think "I should be able to fully express my food brand
| preferences" is not a reasonable standard of livable.
| kccqzy wrote:
| Food choices are highly personal. It's probably the single
| most variable expense item here. Who are you decide for
| someone else whether their food is reasonable enough or
| not.
| groundzeros2015 wrote:
| Well I'm not the one to decide. That's why we let
| individuals allocate money for themselves so they can
| prioritize what they care about from their resource pool.
|
| Because preferences for food, housing, and healthcare are
| essentially unbounded, I think you will always have unmet
| preferences.
| upboundspiral wrote:
| When the choice is between organic food (expensive) and
| eating pesticides that are meant to kill and neuter living
| organisms (somewhat economical) it's a choice we never
| should have allowed to even exist in the first place.
| bradyd wrote:
| Organic food still uses pesticides.
| groundzeros2015 wrote:
| Sounds like you need to get the government's definition
| of appropriate foods changed. And then come back to the
| question of livability.
|
| It must be more nuanced than you say, as millions of
| people reach old age without sharing your concern.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| They probably are overshooting, I agree. But then again the
| "living wage" for a healthy person is a lot less than for a
| not-quite healthy person or a sick person.
|
| The average person is not-quite healthy, at best.
| overgard wrote:
| Hard disagree on this. $26.50 sounds like a nightmare 10 years
| ago, let alone now. There's a lot of places in the US where
| having a car is essentially mandatory (actually, most places).
| If you can't afford a car, that limits where you can live to
| mostly urban areas, which then pushes the housing cost up.. and
| by the way, housing costs are always going up, and no, you
| won't be able to invest in a home, you've been priced out by
| developers and speculators.
|
| Not to mention you need to be able to save money for
| unemployment and rainy days..
| prepend wrote:
| It's obviously not required based on the evidence of many
| people who live and thrive without.
|
| $9000/year is a ton more than just having a car.
| kibwen wrote:
| The average total cost of car ownership in the US in 2025
| was about $12,000. $9,000 is already a huge underestimate
| of what the average person is paying.
| ericd wrote:
| That US average includes a lot of new, loaded, financed,
| comprehensively insured F150's, not some reasonable
| minimum.
| mothballed wrote:
| I lived in a blizzard ridden area using just a 250cc
| motorcycle, year round, including riding it on the
| interstate. Layer enough layers, use heated gloves, etc
| you can easily get by with just a ninja 250, you're not
| going to burn more than $3-4k a year on that no matter
| hard you try.
|
| You don't actually need a car unless you have a child or
| a tradesmen with tools or something like that, a small
| displacement motorcycle will still take you to 99.9% of
| the jobs in the lower 48.
| overgard wrote:
| _" You don't need money if you just do this recklessly
| dangerous and uncomfortable thing."_
|
| (don't worry about how to pay the ambulance bill when you
| hit some black ice..)
| overgard wrote:
| I think you're ignoring how much poor people rely on each
| other and relatives to get by. That's our societies "safety
| net". That doesn't mean they're "thriving" or even
| comfortable, nor is it even sustainable (what happens when
| mom/pop die or require assistance and can't help their kids
| anymore?).
|
| 9000/yr for a car alone isn't crazy at all, just look at
| average car prices. I just had to do my vehicle renewal
| today and it was $500 for a 5 year old car that's not
| particularly expensive! If I look at insurance and car
| payments, I easily spend over 700 a month. This is on a 30k
| car, so it's not like I went and bought the biggest luxury
| vehicle possible.
| pyrale wrote:
| > This is more like "optimal wage to live alone in my own
| apartment with a car."
|
| An appartment and a car aren't exactly luxury goods. Cars are
| often needed to work, and well, having a roof over your head is
| usually required for a decent living.
|
| Sure, if you fancy living in a cardboard box located next to
| your work, your living standards are going to be much easier to
| attain.
| imperio59 wrote:
| This is such a US centric take.
| NewJazz wrote:
| The website is US-specific, so....
| tartuffe78 wrote:
| It's a Living Wage Calculator for US States!
| throwway120385 wrote:
| MIT is a school in the US.
| cozzyd wrote:
| where very few (relatively) people commute by car
| irishcoffee wrote:
| Dell me you didn't click the link without... ah fuck it who
| cares, almost nobody around here does.
| pyrale wrote:
| Because the calculator is an US-only calculator.
| prepend wrote:
| $700/month on car+gas+insurance is certainly pretty cushy.
| This is a luxury for many people I know.
|
| Their cost estimates are much higher than what's required to
| live comfortably and save for a rainy day.
| gs17 wrote:
| > For example, transportation costs are $9000/year and housing
| is $20000/year. These are both way more than is necessary.
|
| Even on the smaller things. "Internet & Mobile" for where I am
| jumped out to me. Based on the difference between 1 adult and 2
| adults, it's $582 per person-year for mobile (which I guess
| isn't far off if you get a good new phone every 2 years, it's
| reasonable enough) and with that subtracted, internet is $100
| per month. The methodology page says "County-level data on the
| cost of internet comes from research on lowest-cost monthly
| plans from BroadbandNow", but even that page shows much cheaper
| options available (including the $70 per month Google Fiber I
| have).
| byronic wrote:
| This depends a lot on where you live. In our area, the
| minimum internet-only offering from Spectrum is $125
| (approximately) after taxes/fees, and the only "competitor"
| is AT&T, which is more expensive for (at least in our area)
| worse / flakier service.
|
| I was surprised (at least for Birmingham/AL/Jefferson County)
| how accurately it pegged _most_ of the costs -- childcare
| here is closer to $12k/annum/child so that one was the only
| one I pegged as 'off' - they show 2 children as $16k and
| that's a ~$8k underestimate
| cozzyd wrote:
| yeah, I spend $30/month on internet (the 100 Mbps Google
| Fiber, since I realized I didn't really need 1 Gbps at home
| now that I go into the office every day...)
| prepend wrote:
| I think I have great access. I pay $60/month for gig internet
| and that's split with 4 people.
|
| I spend $20/month for mobile and buy a new $500 phone every 3
| years.
|
| I make way more than a livable wage, but spend much less than
| their projected costs.
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| I am but a single datapoint, but the $100/month for home
| internet hits quite close to home. I currently pay $130 for
| Spectrum's gigabit cable internet plan. Their website offers
| it for $70, but that's only for the first year; they have
| raised that price by, apparently, $20 per year I've been a
| customer. We do not have fiber and my only other ISP option
| is a DSL provider that maxes out at 40mbps for $30. So sure,
| I can save about 75% on my internet bill by opting for
| internet that is 4% of the speed that I currently pay for.
| And this is in a rapidly growing suburb. I think $100/month
| is easily the case for places like my home, where local
| broadband monopolies still exist mostly unchallenged.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| You're confusing staying alive with living
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| "optimal wage to live alone in my own apartment with a car."
|
| If you can't live alone with a car? Then what do you think you
| are doing?
| istillcantcode wrote:
| I have found if you scroll all the way to the right, you get
| the living wage with multiple roommates and bumming a ride to
| work or waiting for the bus. My area most of the full-time
| entry level fast food/Walmart/gas station jobs pay about a
| dollar less than that number.
| jltsiren wrote:
| "Living wage" means what a household needs for a dignified
| life, not just for bare subsistence.
|
| If you need roommates because you can't afford an apartment on
| your own, you are poor by definition. That's probably the most
| universal definition of poverty that has ever existed. As long
| as there have been houses, the baseline household has had a
| housing unit of their own. Households that have to share
| housing with others have always been characterized as unusually
| poor, no matter the continent and the millennium.
| prepend wrote:
| Not dignified. As you can live a dignified life for much
| less.
|
| Thus my point. I don't know what "livable wage" means with
| these numbers so it's not very useful for discussion or
| planning or measurement.
| legitster wrote:
| > Households that have to share housing with others have
| always been characterized as unusually poor, no matter the
| continent and the millennium.
|
| Historically speaking this is incredibly wrong.
|
| Nearly every culture evolved from some sort of shared
| communal longhouse to individual clan homes, to extended
| family homes. The idea of individual private rooms actually
| comes about explicitly from Manors in the late medieval ages.
| We really didn't see widespread individual homes until the
| industrial revolution. In places like the East, individual
| rooms were an import from the West.
|
| Even in rare places where there were individual family homes
| (Ancient Egypt, for one). Privacy and individuality were just
| not concepts. Through the 1800s, you might have literally
| been sharing a bed with a stranger in a hotel.
|
| There has also never, ever been a point in human history
| where living without some sort of roommate was common. Even
| in situations where you had lots of single workers, they
| almost always lived in bunkhouses or SROs.
| newsclues wrote:
| Is a living wage there bare minimum to live or enough to live a
| life?
|
| I don't make a living wage for my region and while I can afford
| food and a room to rent, I can't really live a decent life,
| save for the future or invest in myself, I just barely get by
| every paycheque to paycheque. Thanks
| Jtsummers wrote:
| > Is a living wage there bare minimum to live or enough to
| live a life?
|
| More the former. A lot of the commenters here are missing
| that detail. A living wage doesn't mean you can afford all
| the nice things, it means you aren't starving and can cover
| the needs for you and your family, but maybe not many wants.
| dheera wrote:
| > live on much less than this.
|
| They do not actually live on less, they sacrifice their health
| or well-being in order to meet the constraint.
|
| I would argue the calculator grossly _underestimates_
| necessities because most of these jobs are not doable in old
| age, so you need to account for saving $1 for each $1 you make,
| to support yourself while old. You also need an emergency fund,
| because in the US you get billed $1000 for the most random shit
| at the most random time.
|
| I got billed $5000 randomly for an echodardiogram because
| insurance didn't pay for it despite them saying they would. At
| least I have $5K to spare, but considering that can happen,
| that needs to be considered a basic necessity.
| reactordev wrote:
| Housing data is flawed. Even if you're single, no kids, you're
| limited to what is available and 1 bedrooms in my state can't be
| had for less than $1500/mo anywhere in the state. Yet this says
| housing costs annually would be $12000. How? I think the data
| this is based off of is super stale.
| Exoristos wrote:
| I never rented a 1-bedroom apartment until I was married. A
| studio/efficiency is fine for singles, or even a room.
| reactordev wrote:
| Studio/1bed are the same thing here. It's the same price,
| same sqft.
| trollbridge wrote:
| It's basically out of date, since the housing market has
| changed so rapidly.
| NewJazz wrote:
| I'm guessing it uses the cost of a studio for a single person.
| reactordev wrote:
| Which can't be had for less than $1500/mo here. Studio/1bed
| are the same.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > Yet this says housing costs annually would be $12000. How?
|
| Having roommates is extremely common.
|
| There are also a lot of room-for-rent situations that don't
| show up on the websites listing apartments. If you're tapped
| into local networks of younger people there's always someone
| with a room for rent or a group of friends looking for someone
| to take over a room in a house they're renting together. Not
| helpful for someone in their 50s moving to a new city, but for
| young people living on a budget this is just how it works and
| has for a long time.
| reactordev wrote:
| Roommate listings are for $1000/mo. I still think it's
| grossly under what a typical person would need.
| Aurornis wrote:
| Read the second half of my comments: You're not going to
| find these roommate situations on public websites. The
| publicly listed ones are intentionally high.
| skulk wrote:
| For Phoenix[0] it shows $44 for 1 adult 1 child, but $42 for 2
| adults 1 child with 1 adult working. Is this because of a child
| tax credit or something?
|
| [0]: https://livingwage.mit.edu/metros/38060
| ahussain wrote:
| I was wondering this too. I assume it's because child care
| costs are lower when one parent isn't working(?)
| lelandbatey wrote:
| No, it's because their model puts dollar values on the labor
| contributed by non-working adults w/r/t raising children. So in
| that case, it could be that 1adult1child is slightly higher
| because of the need to pay for childcare, while the
| food/insurance/clothing etc of the additional adult in
| 2adult1child is offset by the fact that the non-working adult
| will conduct childcare and thus that expense goes away.
| skulk wrote:
| right. kind of obvious in hindsight.
| matuszeg wrote:
| But then why is the number higher for 2adult1child (1
| working) when compared to 2adult1child(both working).
| wouldn't child raising costs get added back in once both are
| working?
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| There is something wrong with the transportation cost. I live in
| a poor rural county, and it says the 0-child transportation cost
| is $10k+. People's trucks here don't even cost that much, and
| they don't drive far. I see it counts as 2 working adults, but
| it's still grossly inflated.
| NewJazz wrote:
| Are you factoring in fuel, repairs, maintenance,
| registration/taxes, and insurance? As well as depreciation?
| bumby wrote:
| I questioned that too, but vehicle costs are based off surveyed
| data. So if the average 2 adults have a car payment, insurance,
| fuel, and repair costs, it's probably reflected in their data.
| To me, that's different than saying "a reasonable mode of
| reliable transportation"
| nearbuy wrote:
| I don't think it's appropriate to use the average vehicle
| costs for the living wage. It overestimates how much people
| on that wage spend on their vehicles.
|
| For example, the average new-vehicle price in December 2025
| was about $50,000. But people earning the living wage mostly
| aren't buying that kind of car. They could buy a new car for
| less than half that, or buy a used car. Or they may choose to
| take public transit.
| 0sdi wrote:
| Someone is siphoning your value. It's quite obvious when you
| track the productivity, or ask questions about how did your
| great-grandpa survive at all without machines. Just stating the
| obvious, don't mind me.
| llmslave wrote:
| Yeah I think people need to start asking the question, "Where
| is the money going". Its not just inexistent, its literally
| going somewhere other than your pocket.
| dmd wrote:
| They're not voting against their own self interest; they just
| have different interests than you. Their primary interest and
| goal is making sure their out-group is hurting, and that is
| what they are voting for, regardless of that happens to them.
| JamesBarney wrote:
| They lived in a house or apt with a third the sqft/person that
| was far more likely to catch fire and didn't have AC.
|
| If they had a car they most likely shared it. It was far less
| safe, didn't have AC, guzzled gas and polluted.
|
| Never ate out and spent a third of earnings on cheap grocery
| store staples.
|
| College and healthcare was much cheaper, and they got a lot
| less of it.
|
| We're benefiting greatly from the increase in productivity. We
| just view our great-grandfather luxuries as our necessities.
| lp4v4n wrote:
| >They lived in a house or apt with a third the sqft/person
| that was far more likely to catch fire and didn't have AC.
|
| But at least they could afford a house, right? I think a lot
| of people would accept living in a house without AC and more
| likely to catch fire. Is a house like that cheap today? No,
| right? It's crazy expensive as well.
|
| >If they had a car they most likely shared it. It was far
| less safe, didn't have AC, guzzled gas and polluted.
|
| Car technology in the past was worse, we know that. Cars were
| more affordable though.
|
| >Never ate out and spent a third of earnings on cheap grocery
| store staples.
|
| Like today then.
|
| >We're benefiting greatly from the increase in productivity.
| We just view our great-grandfather luxuries as our
| necessities.
|
| Young people are rotting at home unable to go ahead with
| their lives because wages nowadays are not enough to pay for
| a house and a family. Why do people try to deny this obvious
| reality? Productivity didn't benefit everyone equally and
| people in the past had more opportunities to build a life
| inside a standard that was socially acceptable.
| krackers wrote:
| >more likely to catch fire
|
| >Is a house like that cheap today? No, right? It's crazy
| expensive as well.
|
| I assume by catch fire GP means electrical wiring? Many
| houses on market today are literally not remodeled since
| the 1940s so retain that original wiring.
| labcomputer wrote:
| > Cars were more affordable though.
|
| Eehhhh... I _really_ don 't think that's true.
|
| First, adjusted for inflation, new car prices really aren't
| that different than they were 10-30-50-70 years ago. You
| have to compare like for like, no cheating comparing a
| modern luxury car to Ford Pinto. For example the cheapest
| car in 1970 cost about $2000, with no frills like a radio,
| passenger wing mirror or floor matts. That's equivalent to
| about $17000 today. A base Nissan Versa today starts at
| $18000, yet includes power windows and an A/C.
|
| Second, the maintenance requirements today are much, _much_
| lower than in the past. There 's a whole list of expensive
| stuff you just don't have to think about with modern cars
| until long after those old cars would be at the junk yard
| (chassis lube, spark plugs, spark plug wires, carb and
| distributor, wheel bearings etc). That's a lot of labor you
| don't pay for, to say nothing of the parts!
|
| Third, despite being heavier, more convenient and safer,
| modern cars have lower fuel consumption. Coming back to our
| Pinto vs Versa example, the Versa gets at least 50% better
| fuel economy.
|
| Fourth, cars today just last longer. It used to be a minor
| miracle when a wasn't rusted out after 10 years or the
| engine still ran after 100k miles. Today, your car might be
| still under warranty at that point.
|
| > Why do people try to deny this obvious reality?
|
| Because it is not at all obvious that that is, in fact,
| reality. It doesn't help to complain about easily-
| disprovable things like the affordability of cars.
| cucumber3732842 wrote:
| All you've done here is take the tired dishonest "kids these
| days and their darn avocado toast and smartphones" trope and
| used different goods/services to spin it in a way to appeal
| to the median commentor on HN.
|
| You're ignoring the gorilla in the room. Why can't one live
| in a comparable manner today and bank the difference? Because
| those things aren't available? Why aren't those things
| available?
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > Why can't one live in a comparable manner today and bank
| the difference?
|
| You can do this. Just move to a sparsely populated area and
| work remote. Rural and semi-rural areas are basically the
| "poor", lower productivity areas within any given country,
| if you can arbitrage the incomes difference via remote work
| you stand to gain quite a bit.
| JamesBarney wrote:
| > You're ignoring the gorilla in the room. Why can't one
| live in a comparable manner today and bank the difference?
|
| For two reasons.
|
| 1. They're illegal. You're not allowed to build a house to
| 1936 climate, safety, and fire codes with un-licensed
| labor. And boarding houses were effectively banned.
|
| 2. Market. Most people would rather live in a smaller
| apartment than 1936 style un-climate controlled death trap.
|
| And the reasons are the same for cars. You legally can't
| see a new version of a 1936 car, and even if you could most
| people would rather drive an old civic.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| And that someone is mostly government, which is a growing and
| increasingly wasteful fraction of GDP. We really need to start
| reining in the national debt and government spending. Drain the
| swamp.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| Reminder that the Republicans' policy has been to starve the
| beast. That is push up government costs while passing huge
| tax cuts (like the big beautiful bill Republicans just passed
| that is greatly increasing the debt) in order to sabotage
| government's ability to function, then blast from every
| rooftop that we need to cut government.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast
|
| "The very reason why we object to state ownership, that it
| puts a stop to individual initiative and to the healthy
| development of personal responsibility, is the reason why we
| object to an unsupervised, unchecked monopolistic control in
| private hands. We urge control and supervision by the nation
| as an antidote to the movement for state socialism. Those who
| advocate total lack of regulation, those who advocate
| lawlessness in the business world, themselves give the
| strongest impulse to what I believe would be the deadening
| movement toward unadulterated state socialism."
|
| --Theodore Roosevelt
| throwway120385 wrote:
| No, it's rentiers. The government takes about a quarter but
| the rentiers easily take 2 times as much in interest, monthly
| fees, and other costs that I have to pay in perpetuity. You
| just don't consider that because you think those people are
| necessary for living a good life. In reality their purpose is
| to extract as much money from you for as little work as
| possible.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Yes, the rent is too damn high. The way to address that is
| BUILDING MORE! Which is what YIMBY is all about.
| bradlys wrote:
| As long as collusion exists, I don't see this changing.
| Manhattan is more expensive than it was a 100 years ago
| but less people actually live there now. Not a little
| less either - 700,000 people less. We've built way more
| housing at the same time. And yes, people have more
| square footage per person now but the housing doubled and
| the population went down dramatically.
|
| Rent is always going to go up there even if they build
| more. Same in other places. As long as rent setting tools
| exist to collude - we will see the rent not go down.
| You're not gonna dump $100m in new buildings and not
| maximize your return.
| digiown wrote:
| It's rent seeking, the antithesis of capitalism. It's always
| been. Enabled by abuse of government power. And no, it's not a
| partisan issue.
|
| You see this pattern across the American economy. The boomers
| locked in their house values by passing all the zoning
| regulations to artificially restrict the supply of housing. AMA
| artificially restricts the supply of doctors to increase their
| wages. Accreditation pushed ever higher costs on universities
| which increased costs, and the availability of loans basically
| cut off the brake cable. And who do you think is really
| benefitting from all the companies enshittifying everything and
| pushing up costs? The billionaires and retirees of course. And
| the young/working people are paying for it.
|
| The solution for individuals is arbitrage. Remote work, get
| healthcare abroad, and avoid college tuitions. The fact that
| these things make sense at all shows how broken the markets
| are.
| bumby wrote:
| Anecdotally, I found some of the costs like food and food to be
| inflated.
|
| When I looked at the methodology, some is based on consumer
| surveys so it may be more reflective of over-consumption. In
| other words, it prices in what people want or what they're used
| to, not what they need. The counterpoint is that maybe some
| wealthy countries should be pricing in a higher quality of life,
| but the "living wage" then becomes a bit of a misnomer.
| cwillu wrote:
| Yes, that's what makes it a living wage instead of a poverty
| wage, let alone a starvation wage.
| bumby wrote:
| The larger point I'm making is the "living wage" may be built
| on an idea that the assumed consumerist norm is ideal.
| hackable_sand wrote:
| Like food and shelter?
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| Anecdotally their numbers are significantly higher for my city
| than what I actually spend in some categories. I am not frugal
| by any stretch of the imagination, you would have to be pretty
| careless and/or irresponsible to hit some of those numbers. On
| the other hand, the living wage is below the actual minimum
| wage in some cases.
|
| If you look at US BLS and Federal Reserve studies on such
| things, they make a distinctions between what people actually
| spend on ordinary expenses and when people can no longer afford
| those categories of expenses.
|
| An interesting artifact is that incomes across the 15-40th
| percentile range in the same city don't save much money but
| still have enough money to pay for all ordinary expenses. That
| is a wide range of incomes for people nominally spending their
| entire income on the same things. What actually seems to happen
| is that average people spend excess income on upgrading their
| lifestyle until they hit the 40th percentile, at which point
| the average person starts saving some of their additional
| excess income.
| Traster wrote:
| I fell out of love with the living wage when the UK government
| bumped minimum wage and _called it_ living wage. The government
| kept on getting raked over the coals by charities who claimed
| that people working minimum wage were in poverty and so our
| govenrment bumped the minimum wage by a bit and then announced it
| as "This is the new NATIONAL LIVING WAGE". Which is just perfect
| politics. You're the government, so you can just take a term.
| Trump can brand the Gulf of America, and the UK Tories can just
| redefine the living wage. Now those charities are stuffed because
| any time they talk about a living wage everyone gets confused, it
| cuts the legs out of the conversation.
|
| The core of the problem is that you basically have to have
| someone define what is an acceptable standard of living. Sharing
| a flat? Nah, the MIT trained economist thinks that's for the
| poverty people so _that_ is defined as below living wage. Walk to
| work? No. You need atleast $10k a year on travel otherwise you
| 're a bus wanker.
|
| A huge amount of this is value judgements on what is an
| acceptable standard of living from people who benefit from
| immense privilege but will never experience the thing they're
| studying.
| rucury wrote:
| Puerto Rico is always left out of these analyses. AFAIK we are
| included in the same data sources (like dol.gov), so I'm always
| disappointing to see the exclusion.
| socalgal2 wrote:
| I think I'm mis-understanding.
|
| How is 1 adult + 3 children at $107.95 and 2 adults + 3 children
| at $63.97
|
| 5 people could require more money than 4. You could say in the
| 2nd case it's $63.97x2 but that doesn't make any sense either
| because the table also has 1 adult 0 children $29.31 and 2 adults
| 0 children at $41.81. Clearly they are not doing 2x to that
| $41.81 as it would be more than the $29.31 at 2x
|
| Was this AI generated?
| bitcurious wrote:
| Child care.
| NewJazz wrote:
| 1. This is not ai generated.
|
| 2. Did you look in the costs breakdown? You'll probs find your
| answers there.
|
| 3. I am guessing having a spare adult to take care of 3
| children instead of paying for childcare is probably the
| difference.
| paxys wrote:
| There are separate columns for 2 ADULTS (1 WORKING) and 2
| ADULTS (BOTH WORKING). I think you are mixing up the two.
|
| And the non-working adult is taking care of children, so
| reducing childcare expenses.
| socalgal2 wrote:
| I am not mixing up the 2
|
| First row, for https://livingwage.mit.edu/counties/06075
| | 1 adult | 2 adults
| (1 working) | | 0 Children |
| 1 Child | 2 Children | 3 Children | 0 Children |1 Child | 2
| Children | 3 Children | | $29.31 | $61.37 |
| $83.72 | $107.95 | $41.83 | $50.47 | $54.77 |
| $63.97 | 1 adult + 0 children = $29.31
| 2 adults + 0 children = $41.83
|
| The only way these numbers make sense if if you assume one
| income. Then 1 adult + 3 kids = $107.95
| 2 adults + 3 kids = $63.97
|
| Given the first example was one income, this 2nd one makes no
| sense. 5 people cost more than 4. These numbers are wrong.
| lacoolj wrote:
| This is very cool to see all compiled and easily navigable.
|
| The thing I want to see next would be the sister calculator: what
| it would take for a business of X size employees, Y revenue, Z
| other expenses, to increase wages to these standards.
|
| This feels like it would help to close that gap. Give a business
| owner a concrete path to take. Just saying something is broken
| isn't going to get it fixed.
|
| Just typing all this I think I have my weekend project lined up.
|
| Thanks MIT!
| bradlys wrote:
| I'm going to base it off of the peninsula (San Mateo County) in
| the Bay Area for a single person.
| https://livingwage.mit.edu/counties/06081
|
| By my estimations, it's not a great calculator. $2.5k/month for
| all housing costs. I'm not saying it's not possible to find a
| studio + utilities but that's not a fun place to live. No AC, no
| insulation, built for a different climate which was 70 years ago,
| laundromat or (hopefully) coin-op laundry in building, likely
| near busy roads (101, el camino) or train tracks with no sound
| insulation, still extremely car dependent (which is included in
| this calculator - gas/electricity, taxes, and cars in CA are very
| expensive), etc. Again, doable but competitive market and not a
| fun one. You'd be guaranteed to NEVER own any property at that
| income. Until we have some public housing utopia, I'd say
| ownership should be accounted for in a living wage. Otherwise,
| you're gonna get evicted when retirement hits.
|
| Its calculation on taxes seems off to me as well.
| https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-paycheck-calculator#...
| Says $72308 in San Mateo, CA gives you $55793 - not $59791. You'd
| have to make close to $80k/yr to get the amount they suggest to
| live.
|
| This calculator does not include retirement savings, emergency
| saving, etc. It just assumes you'll comfortably live paycheck to
| paycheck until you die and never save a dime. In our country, you
| will not be getting $60k/yr post tax from social security. So,
| this is a stupid calculator unless you plan to never retire or
| never experience job loss (max payout is $450/week for
| unemployment in CA), etc.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| > This calculator does not include retirement savings,
| emergency saving, etc. It just assumes you'll comfortably live
| paycheck to paycheck until you die and never save a dime. In
| our country, you will not be getting $60k/yr post tax from
| social security. So, this is a stupid calculator unless you
| plan to never retire or never experience job loss (max payout
| is $450/week for unemployment in CA), etc.
|
| It doesn't include those things because those aren't the things
| that are covered by a "living wage". Living wage sounds like
| something good, but it's literally just enough to cover what's
| _needed_. Can you afford housing, childcare, medical care,
| transportation for work, etc. It 's a low bar, not a good
| target, for a society to try to hit. It means people at that
| wage shouldn't be going hungry or without shelter, but they
| won't necessarily be _thriving_.
| bradlys wrote:
| Right, and I think we shouldn't even be talking about a fake
| ass "living" wage when it's so disconnected from what you
| actually need to reliably "live" in these environments. I
| don't know who comes up with these terms but it's terrible.
| It may as well be called, "absolute minimum amount of money
| to get by without anything ever bad happening or planning for
| the future at all" wage.
| cbdevidal wrote:
| The problem with defining "living wage" is you must trust that
| the person defining it has your best interests in mind, and is
| calculating it while including _your_ needs.
|
| For example, you don't want me to be the one to define "living
| wage." I've been a prepper/bushcrafter for 20 years... the ACTUAL
| "living wage" is _zero_. There are innumerable resources all
| around you if you know how to find and use them.
| legitster wrote:
| The older I get the more I realize how fraught the idea of a
| "living wage" is.
|
| Through mid life, your financial health is not as determined by
| wages, but by your family/connections. Do you have access to a
| grandmother who can babysit? A decent second-hand car? A good
| roommate situation? Just look at the expense table - any one of
| these things could be worth up to 20% of your income!
|
| And you see that literally right here - are any of us actually
| comfortable with the idea that the value of your labor should be
| determined by your marriage status and number of children?
|
| It's kind of telling that countries with "successful" minimum
| wages either don't have one and just institutionalize collective
| bargaining, or they do some fancy calculations that start with
| prevailing median wages and welfare eligibility. The idea of
| trying to get this number from the bottom up by building expenses
| just doesn't seem very robust.
| usui wrote:
| It needs to be because the US has leaned further into
| individualism relative to other countries. If society's golden
| metric of success means being able to acquire all of these
| luxuries or services purely through monetary means as
| transactional individuals, don't be too surprised when the
| expenses rack up.
| thewillowcat wrote:
| Just because the wider society encourages it, your family
| doesn't have to lean into individualism, and many don't. We
| got by when I was a kid with a lot of help from friends and
| family, when I am absolutely sure we didn't have a living
| wage under this definition.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Did you fairly compensate your friends and family members
| for that "help"? Systematic reliance on wholly unpaid labor
| is not exactly something to be proud of.
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| Um, sometimes people help each other because they want
| to, or because they understand that those less fortunate
| than them need it, or because they understand that they
| may need help someday and so it doesn't make sense to
| make a big deal of "compensation" now. It's called
| community, and I think it is something to be proud of.
| legitster wrote:
| I think it also reflects a lense of US academia. It kind of
| assumes a sanitized, formal, self-sufficient life, detached
| from others - and then assumes anything other than that is an
| aberration.
|
| It's kind of like the physics joke about assuming a spherical
| cow in a vacuum.
| cozzyd wrote:
| The cost of childcare seems way underestimated, at least for
| young children.
|
| It shows $13,641 for my metro (Chicago), but day care costs are
| easily twice that. Obviously once kids are school-age this is
| much lower (if going to public school), so maybe that's how you
| get at this figure.
|
| On the other hand the transportation costs are way overestimated
| for non-car families (we spend less than $2k/year on local
| transit for 2 adults and 1 child, obviously this doesn't include
| airfare for vacations or whatnot). Maybe these are both an
| artifact of too broad a catchment area (childcare is probably
| cheaper in the 'burbs, but so likely are average transportation
| costs).
| siavosh wrote:
| If you enter in a US city, another takeaway from the rendered
| table is that U.S. living standards (measured economically)
| continued to improve for some time after the 1970s despite weak
| wage growth largely because *more households relied on two
| earners instead of one*. While productivity kept rising, the
| gains were increasingly captured at the top and not shared with
| the workers. Of course that buffer is now long gone, but wages
| haven't kept up.
| pertique wrote:
| Can anyone speak to the reliability of using metropolitan
| statistical areas for something like this? Having lived across on
| both sides of the tracks in a few, grouping them for something
| like this seems like an interesting choice. One that I probably
| wouldn't agree with, but I'm out of my depth
| thewillowcat wrote:
| This calculator says that the median household in my county is
| not making a living wage, which is ridiculous on its face.
| blobbers wrote:
| How are they getting medical costs in San Mateo County so wrong.
|
| $11,896 with 2 children? My Kaiser $14K deductible bronze plan
| costs $2100 a month. That's more like $25K a year, and that's
| before I use it... the only reason I have it is in case something
| traumatic happens. This is the cheapest plan I can get on covered
| california.
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| I assume that's not an employer sponsored plan? You can read
| the methodology for more, but their data is a mix of a) how
| much people pay into employer-sponsored health insurance plans,
| b) individual and small group insurance market information,
| where available, and c) estimated out-of-pocket expenses not
| covered by insurance. If you're buying a plan through a
| marketplace, you are almost certainly going to come in well
| above the median for your area.
| twoodfin wrote:
| This has been posted many times before, and AFAICT it's
| fundamentally misleading, as it doesn't account for transfer
| payments (refundable tax credits, food stamps, housing vouchers,
| ACA subsidies, ...)
|
| That artificially inflates the "wage level" needed for the
| estimated living standard. It also makes the tax figures absurd.
| No two-parent, two-kid household making $110K is paying 15% of
| that net in taxes, subtracting deductions, credits and subsidies.
|
| IOW, our "safety net" for middle-income parents could get 5X more
| generous and this calculator would show the same results.
| daveguy wrote:
| A lot of the safety net also goes poof if you have the living
| wage. So I'm not sure exactly how your argument works. Are you
| saying the minimum wage should be under the poverty wage and
| everyone with that wage should depend on safety nets as it is
| now?
| fuzzer371 wrote:
| And yet... It doesn't! Stop posting arguments like this.
| diebillionaires wrote:
| seems jusssttt a touch low. like by half
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2026-02-09 23:00 UTC)