Does Your Family Earn a Livable Wage?

[Turquesa]

http://www.livingwage.geog.psu.edu/

I’m just curious what a livable wage looks like where you live and whether or not your family earns it. 

We do, thanks to DH’s job.  But heaven forbid if I became the breadwinner!  I have my Master’s and still couldn’t earn a salary considered “livable” for my area.

Edited by Turquesa - 4/22/11 at 5:33pm

[MCsMom]

We make more then what is considered a 'livable wage' for our family - lol - but it sure doesn't feel like it sometimes.  It is interesting to compare what they have for different areas.  And to see how the average pay for the different areas looks like.

[kristandthekids]

.
Edited by kristandthekids - 1/16/13 at 7:01pm

[neetling]

Nope!  and as our income is funded by the state they want to take even more away due to budget issues!  Joy! /sarcasm

[Drummer's Wife]

That's kinda neat, but odd b/c I'm not sure how to figure it for 2 adults and 4 kids.  I mean, the jump from 2 adults/1 kid to 2 kids is $7 more an hour.  Does each additional kid really require that much more to make a livable wage?  I guess they do if you are paying for daycare, which is the other thing - they include that in the expenses ($1,104 for two kids is what they quote for my city), but then you should be able to deduct that amount from their projected income if one parent is a SAHM, I would say.  I wonder if that assumes child care for my 4 kids would run $2,208 a month (maybe it would) but really, we just pay $400 for preschool for one. 

So, it's kinda weird how they figure the liveable wage - I mean, our food is quite a bit more than they project (even when inflating it for our bigger family) and our housing is also a lot more expensive than they figure. 

Then, mine states a liveable wage for 2 adults is $13.71 an hour, and I think yours said that, too, OP.  The thing is, that seems crazy to me.  I can't imagine living off that amount even without kids... that's less than $7 an hour per adult earner.  Doesn't seem very liveable to me. 

I compared my current city to where we used to live (Denver) and it shows that we need more money to live here than there - which doesn't seem right to me considering the COL seems quite a bit lower where we live now.  Still interesting, so thanks for linking!

Edited by Drummer's Wife - 4/21/11 at 10:41pm

[Chicky2]

Yes, my dh does on his full time job.  Barely.  But I have to add the childcare to the housing to meet what we spend on housing.  W/his sidejobs we are above living wages, but that varies each year, lol.

If we lived where my dh works we would be below living wages.

[love4bob]

Wow we make waaay less than what is needed supposedly for 2 adults 2 children, and we have 3 children. We live comfortably though, and don't struggle much. The estimated housing is waaay low. I couldn't find a decent home for under $800 here for sure, and it is saying that what is needed is about $550.

[philomom]

Yes, we make quite a bit more than that but have a house payment that's high and one child with extra medical expenses not covered by insurance.

[weliveintheforest]

According to that site, we don't.  I tend to agree with their numbers as what would be a comfortable living.  Our expenses are broken up differently, but the total sounds right. If my husband had full time work, year round, at his usual rate with no vacations, we would be making just over the 60k they list as being what you need for a family of 4. 

[Alyantavid]

That site is weird.  We make under the livable wage, but our expenses are much lower than what they have listed.  And I make more per hour than the typical rate.

[frugalmum]

My husband is at 3X the livable wage but we also have 3X the number of children listed (+1 on the way!), plus a high COL area.  We definitely don't feel rich but are better off than most.

[oiseau]

According to that site, we do, but I'm sorta confused about how they calculate things. The food and transportation estimates seem really high to me and there's NO WAY you could find a liveable space for 2 adults here for $560/mo (our rent + utilities is close to $1300 for a small 2 bedroom apartment and it would be almost impossible to find anything much cheaper than that).

EDIT: I just realized I was looking at the specific location of the OP, not MY location! The link in the first post takes you to the OP's location...not your own!

OK, combined, my fiance and I make over the living wage, but our expenditures still don't match very well to what they report (we pay less for transportation, close to their estimate for housing, but WAY more for medical expenses).

[Monarchgrrl]

I make quite a lot more than the living wage for my area. DW is a SAHM. I'm very thankful for my job!

But, yeah, our expenses don't match. We don't pay anything for childcare, pay way less for transportation (even with two cars), less for food, and more for rent.

[CherryBomb]

Not according to that, and we have twice as many kids as it figures.  But their estimations are off on some things, and we don't use childcare ($827/mo for 2 kids?  Geeze!!) We can pretty easily feed our family of 6 on less than what it has for a family of 4.  Our house payment is much lower, etc.

[livacreature]

Yes. :) 

[PenelopeJune]

Definitely not, but somehow we've managed to survive. We would definitely be more comfortable based on their estimates. Right now our monthly income is right at what they say we need for 1 adult, but we are two adults, two children. We are below poverty level.

We have no childcare costs, and our rent is way cheaper than they estimate, but that's probably because we rent from family. We have no medical expenses because thankfully we are healthy, but we'd be screwed if something went wrong.

[mama_y_sol]

Nope.  Very interesting site.

[Hannah32]

Our expenses don't match either and transportation seems high to me (but we own a very old, reliable car). However, we were not making what they say you should be making after taxes to be "livable." However, on paper, I make what they suggest for a family of 3. We just pay a lot out of my paycheck for health insurance. 

I suspect most people in America are making below living wage. That's the kind of society we've chosen. Luckily for us, we've have some lucky breaks that have allowed us to accumulate a cushion and we are really good at managing expenses. 

[onlyzombiecat]

I think we probably are but I'm not sure their numbers are right for my area.

The expenses they list are higher in most categories than what we have- at least $1000 more than what we spend.

[heatherdeg]

We make way more than they say we need and it feels that way (and we live in gratitude).  That being said, their housing cost is well under reality.  We bought a foreclosure at fire sale pricing and our housing payment is $1500/mo to their $900/mo.  Literally--we had the absolute lowest sale closing for the entire area for 2010.  It made quite a stir.  So they're a bit off.  If we'd have bought any other available home (with 3br & crawl--which is way below the 4br & full basement for the area) we'd have paid at least $50,000 more (as it was, in it's current condition, my house appraised for $34,000 more than we bought it for).  And it's actually cheaper to rent some of these homes than to buy them.  The home I rent would sell for nearly double the home I bought and I'm paying $1800/mo for rent (it's a larger house).

So I'm wondering how they get their numbers.  And obviously the housing being so far off would change the livable wage--although we would probably still make more than their estimate.

The other thing is that I have to wonder how many "sinking funds" they account for.  I didn't open the spreadsheet to see what all went into this.