Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Living Wage Calculator

livingwage.mit.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 53 posts

Re: Living Wage Calculator

#41

Post by bradleyjg »

gshdg wrote: post #40
metaphor wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does $1,789/mo lease you in that area? I suspect the data presumes 2 bedrooms: 1 room for parents, 1 room for children. The pattern is effectively the same regardless of state/county.

There are plenty of sub-$2k 2-BR apartments to be found in NYC. I’m not sure where you’d find one in Manhattan (New York County), though. They’re mostly in the less desirable (whether because of crime or commute time to Manhattan) outer-borough neighborhoods.

I'd look around the last two stops on the 3.

Re: Living Wage Calculator

#42

Post by taffer »

olcor wrote: post #13
alok-g wrote: post #7

The following is much more useful, and covers many more cities across the world: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/

I’ve found numbeo to be practically useless for most cities I’ve been to and stayed. MITs calculator is much more accurate, especially if you are someone who doesn’t earn a high wage. Most people aren’t going to stay in Greenwich village/SOHO/UES if they are in NY, or similar elsewhere. Prices reflected in the MIT calculator seem to take all areas of living into account, that too by county. Edit: Numbers on numbeo se…

> Most people aren’t going to stay in Greenwich village/SOHO/UES if they are in NY, or similar elsewhere.

You can change the assumptions in numbeo too, like for example if you plan to live outside the city center.

Re: Living Wage Calculator

#43

Post by jacquesm »

hiisukun wrote: post #30
ainar-g wrote: post #24

Would it be better to ask the mods to change the title to something like “US Living Wage Calculator”? I clicked expecting a worldwide view, and was a bit disappointed.

I often find this with HN articles. Much like the .com domain, I continue to assume a likelihood of American-focus and allow myself to be pleasantly surprised when it is a global article, service or discussion. Perhaps that's one of the best things about code/git submissions to HN - it's often so easy to apply them to any geographic region.

HN is SV first, US second, English Speaking third and world a distant fourth.

Re: Living Wage Calculator

#44

Post by esotericn »

A "living wage" is somewhat of a misnomer because as other posters have stated it indicates zero surplus.

Really, people have a "cost of living". Their wage only has to be at least that if they have zero capital.

The idea of basically everyone having zero capital as a default state is really kind of saddening.

Not withstanding that, I find the 'living wage' discussion centres around what people get for the minimum wage e.g. can they afford a small room, a studio apartment, a small house, etc.

Really it makes more sense to look at the absolute minimum living conditions and whether they have any surplus that will give them future negotiating power, or the ability to take time off work, etc.

It doesn't have to be that much, if you can live on 15K then on 22.5K you can bank half a year's expenses per year.

Re: Living Wage Calculator

#45

Post by mruts »

What is a living wage? I live in Tanzania and people get by on $50/month and live in mud houses. All of these people are alive and have been for some time.

Similarly, I know some bums in LA whos only expenses are $5/gram weed. They live on the beach, chill in a tent, and are happy and alive.

People in Western countries have such a distorted idea what is a living wage it’s patently absurd. It includes a tv, netflix, a cell phone, a car, apartment, computer, etc.

Most people here in Tanzania would literally kill to make minimum wage in America. It would seem like paradise, a life of extreme luxury.

Americans are so myopic and don’t seem to appreciate how lucky all of them are. There’s no 99% in America: we all are the 1%.

Re: Living Wage Calculator

#46

Post by gshdg »

bradleyjg wrote: post #41
gshdg wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of sub-$2k 2-BR apartments to be found in NYC. I’m not sure where you’d find one in Manhattan (New York County), though. They’re mostly in the less desirable (whether because of crime or commute time to Manhattan) outer-borough neighborhoods.

I'd look around the last two stops on the 3.

Even if there are a few, it’s weird to describe that as the cost of living in the borough if only 1% of the housing stock qualifies. You’re definitely not guaranteed to be able to find an apartment at that price.

Re: Living Wage Calculator

#47

Post by bradleyjg »

gshdg wrote: post #46
bradleyjg wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd look around the last two stops on the 3.

Even if there are a few, it’s weird to describe that as the cost of living in the borough if only 1% of the housing stock qualifies. You’re definitely not guaranteed to be able to find an apartment at that price.

Yeah, agree that's off.

Re: Living Wage Calculator

#48

Post by porky »

porky wrote: post #33

1. US only 2. It seems that "living" does not include almost nothing beyond the immediate living requirements and it does not take into account times you cannot work, can't find job, or simply the fact that a person is a little more than her capacity to be a machine for someone.

And the fact you HAVE to save money, a lot of it, for the future.

Re: Living Wage Calculator

#49

Post by Zenbit_UX »

fyfy18 wrote: post #23
nabla9 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Numbeo has reputation of being very inconsistent. For some cities and countries it's relatively accurate, for some others it's wrong or outdated. It's partly due to their data collecting methodology. They rely on crowd-sourced user inputs and manually collected data. I also have doubt about their analysis methodology, it's seems very ad hoc and amateurish. You should treat Numbeo with a grain of salt. It's honest att…

Which is why companies shouldn't use it to base employees salaries on (GitLab I'm looking at you).

In general I don't like the approach of remote employers basing compensation off of the employees cost of living.

What happens at gitlab if you start off in SF then move to another city? You're a remote employee and are free to work wherever... Do they then demote your pay to reflect the new city or did you just game the system?

What about the opposite case, a worker in India at gitlab moving to SF did they just lose a lot of money?

In general this cost of living approach to remote employment is a cop out to pay lower salaries and save money. Zapier offers bay area salaries to all remote employees and gitlab discriminates... Which would you want to work for?

Re: Living Wage Calculator

#50

Post by apoph3nia »

function_seven wrote: post #11
8077628 wrote: post #10

I agree this seems low. Both housing and additional expenses. How do I know if I'm the victim of an hedonic treadmill?

(Edited to add housing comment) I agree the housing seems low. For my county, it worked out to ~$750 a month for a single childless household. I’ve never seen a rent that low around me. I assume shared living must be on the table for this. As for the other living expenses, and whether you’re on a hedonic treadmill: * How many meals a month are from a restaurant of any kind? * How many of the following do you have pai…

> None of the above are (moral) value judgements, but they’re really easy to get accustomed to

Playing economic limbo with constantly updating 'how low can you go?' data as the stick may be possible to get accustomed to, but isn't necessarily very fun. Especially when gameplay becomes long-term and repetitive.

I'm not judging your list of examples in particular, but I think you may be a bit off the mark as to why threads like this appear at all.

Post reply on HN