MIT’s Living Wage Calculator

Here is a random fun — okay not “fun”, but interesting website that I, um, saw someone post on Reddit. The living wage calculator is a database of estimates for the minimum income necessary to meet your basic needs in different places in the U.S. You can look up your county, find the calculated living wage, and see it broken down my specific expenses.

The living wage shown is the hourly rate that an individual must earn to support their family, if they are the sole provider and are working full-time (2080 hours per year). The state minimum wage is the same for all individuals, regardless of how many dependents they may have. The poverty rate is typically quoted as gross annual income. We have converted it to an hourly wage for the sake of comparison. Wages that are less than the living wage are shown in red.

The living wage for Kings County (Brooklyn, where I live) is $12.75 for one adult. Below it are the expenses that went into accounting for the wage, and average hourly wages for different jobs in the area.

Food is $242, rent is $1129. Required annual income before taxes is $26,521.

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