That is a good point. $65k in any city/suburb in Washington State probably puts you in a one bedroom apartment. Maybe two if it’s older or shittier. You’re living but certainly not thriving.
I think the article suggests living wages to live like a king.
The criteria they used is that “50% of income is used to cover necessities, such as housing and utility costs, 30% goes toward discretionary spending, and 20% is left for savings or investments.”.
I don’t know anybody who makes under six figures and saves or invests 20% of their income, and 30% discretionary spending seems like a LOT.
If the article were more realistic, the living wage amounts would be significantly lower than reported. As stated, it would leave people very comfortable.
Someone making $100k/year can’t really afford these $2+ rents if they’re not making big sacrifices elsewhere.
That may be the key, though. I’m not American, but was looking at Canadian household figures, and I’m seeing something like 40% of food spending going to restaurants! “Communications” being over $2600 a year ($216 / month for phone and internet???)! Private transportation being over $11,000 a year (10x what public transportation would cost). Drugs and alcohol accounts for nearly $2000 a year with gambling being another $200.
Sacrifice doesn’t mean to be poor, but it does mean that people need to spend wisely. If done right, you could live an even better life while spending less!
To that, I wonder what the real cost of living would be if people were more reasonable with their spendings.
Cooking is labor, intensive labor at that. Someone working 50 hours a week is going to have a lot less energy to dedicate towards cooking their own food, and will thus likely eat out more.
Truly, I don’t think encouraging people to cook at home is a viable solution. We need low cost, high quality, publicly owned and operated community kitchens.
Cooking for one is highly inefficient, both in time and resources. Cooking for 500 is much better in both.
Hey, even though I love to cook, I’m also SUPER lazy (some might just call it efficient) when it comes to making meals.
For one, investing just a few hundred dollars (or much less if buying used) can get you a pressure cooker and/or a bread maker, and/or a rice cooker, and/or a slow cooker.
Any of these items, especially the pressure cooker, can save a considerable amount of time - most meals are simply “drop in your ingredients and walk away”. It can take less time to make dinner and clean up than it would take to order out.
I’m not exaggerating.
Longer, more elaborate meals are often made on the weekend, so we aren’t missing out on favourites like pizza. Even then, I won’t spend more than 20-30 minutes in the kitchen making a large meal. LOL
Being able to save money on food is a skill, and it’s a skill that everyone should know.
Even making batches of food ahead of time (I do this with beans) can save a considerable amount of money per month, without taking up more than a few minutes of effort.
All I’m saying is that if people are struggling, but they are spending a huge amount of money on restaurants, then making meals at home is a reasonable, easy way to save money.
Hell, even if you really don’t want to put any time into cooking from scratch, premade meals are going to be cheaper than a restaurant meal.
Laziness breeds efficiency, totally with you there. I guess my comment was more pre-empting the inevitable “well if people just ate more at home they wouldn’t be poor” response than it was directed at what you said. I agree that cooking for yourself is way more cash efficient, and using things like crockpots or insta-pots can reduce the time commitment also.
It’s still a struggle for people who work hard labor or any really draining job, and get home exhausted while still having household chores to manage. It’s also still less materially efficient than a centralized food facility, even a private restaurant. Or those who never had any model from which to learn to cook and are intimidated by it, though that could be fixed with proper educational opportunities. Also, for those living alone, the choices are often buy a couple days worth of food every couple days, make big batches of food and eat the same thing every day for a week, or risk food spoilage and waste.
I think individuals cooking their meals is a good way to manage under the current situation, but I like to conceive of better alternatives, and the efficiency gains in terms of time, labor hours, and waste of a community kitchen or pantry are too large for me not to advocate for them anytime I see an opportunity. There would likely be added intrapersonal and community benefits from the increased socialization also. I hope to one day be able to open one locally if I can ever afford to buy a commercial space so as to minimize monthly costs, but I think it would benefit much more from local governmental support and communal ownership and management.
I’d love to not own a car, but that not possible with the current infrastructure around me, and I think that’s true for most people in North America. I’d like that to change, but that would require actual leadership and cooperation, which apparently isn’t a thing anymore.
This would go a long way to help people get control of their money.
I’m very fortunate to have access to “pay-as-you-go” insurance, so at most I pay around $250 a year (two drivers) for up to 1000km, and every additional 1000km is around $50-60.
Since I’ve been able to move much of my car driving to cycling, I’m saving in gas and insurance. Easily $3000+ a year.
Even if someone isn’t physically able to cycle, investing in an ebike to offset some of their driving can also have an impact on their wallet.
But if you’re stuck with car payments, a rigid insurance plan, and are forced to buy gas often, then it’s a very tough situation.
Another co-worker told me I lived like a poor person, but I don’t think so.
Haha. I don’t think what they meant was to actually live like a poor person, but to be frugal with your spending. This can have a profound effect on how much money you keep!
Italy, 22k / year after taxes and health insurance ( public health so taxes ) . 6k / year , 2 room rent. 150-220k, you buy 3 room apartment near city center , medium city. No property taxes on your first house you own. A lot of people complain about cost of houses and rents.
I make more than the article listed for my state, but it’s unlikely I could actually get by on my own, at least not without sacrificing some comforts like a well maintained apartment, eating every day, and paying my bills on time. Granted, I do live in the city. If I lived in the middle of nowhere my CoL would be lower, but then I’d be unemployed.
The people who live outside the city are able to find employment too. It’s a myth that jobs are only in the cities. Especially so if you work in tech and can do remote work.
That’s what brings these cost of living averages down - the people not living in big cities whose expenses are less.
I do work in tech, but a lot of what I do now is physical setup. I could not do my current role fully remote, and these jobs only exist in cities or in fairly large companies. Eventually I’d love to move away from the city and work remotely, but that’s not possible right now. I wasn’t trying to generalize to the population as a whole, I was making a comment on my specific experience.
64,463 for a single person in New Jersey. I’m tying to reach that goal to make that much. Right now I make about 45,000 and am using as many programs as I can (nj snap, some energy program and more) because I’m the sole income provider for my family of 4. I currently am renting a house from a friend for 1500 and he plans to sell soon. When he does I will be screwed. I can’t find rent that low. He should be renting the house I’m in for 2k a month or more. All I want to say is I’m much better off then alot of people out there and life is still a struggle.
One thing that people forget is that minimum wage is a factor as well. In texas a living wage is $14 and living wage of $25 in california. so you’d think you’d have a better cost of living in texas. However if you compare the minimum wage texas is $7.25 and california is $15.50.
For the amount you work, california is a better deal. However that makes it harder for people to come move to california obviously.
Lol it says living wage for my area is $20/hr. At $1,400 median cost for a 1 bedroom, closer to $2000+ typically due to prioritization of luxury condos and apartments, there’s no way in hell anyone is making a living wage at $20/hr.
Yeah everyone references this and I’m glad the tool exists, but I don’t think it’s been able to keep up with the insane inflation and rent hikes of the last two years.
It says $17.50 for a single person in my area, but there’s maybe two cockroach-infested, 600 sq ft apartments in my whole city that you could qualify for on that wage.
I also live in one of the more affordable cities in my county, so I really don’t know how they got that number for 2023 to begin with.
They say single, so I assume they also mean living alone. Being able to pay rent etc on your own without roommates. Still, while I skimmed the article I didn’t read all the nuance so I might have missed where they specified their parameters.
Edit: found it:
In Hawaii, the living wage for single workers is $112,411 — the highest in the U.S. — according to an analysis by personal finance website GOBankingRates.com. To determine the living wage in each state, GOBankingRates calculated the minimum amount a single person would need to follow the 50/30/20 budget, using data from Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Following this outline, 50% of income is used to cover necessities, such as housing and utility costs, 30% goes toward discretionary spending, and 20% is left for savings or investments.
This can’t be defined at the state level. It costs a hell of a lot more to live in San Francisco, than to live in Tulare, CA. Most states have high and low cost areas.
When was this and what state? I inherently dont believe anyone is making federal minimum wage in 2023 other than slave workers aka prisoners or bracero type field workers
Well, according to the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics report, 1.6 million workers are at or below the federal minimum wadge. And I could break down the groups for you to show you it’s more than prisoners and field workers. But seeing as you could have just googled it yourself instead of incredulously asking internet strangers for anecdotal evidence, I’ll assume doing so would be a waste of my time.
Still, if you are genuinely curious, here is the report I mentioned.
Store associate. Though the ones you’ve mentioned only “vary wildly” because the scam that is tipping culture (no offense to those that have those jobs but all companies should pay fair wages and not impose on their customers/patrons) and gig work are short/niche/temporary work to fill a need or gaps in industries.
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