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MIT Living Wage Calculator

livingwage.mit.edu

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Re: MIT Living Wage Calculator

#211

Post by overgard »

prepend wrote: post #159
overgard wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pri…

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.

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.

Re: MIT Living Wage Calculator

#212

Post by overgard »

mothballed wrote: post #202
kibwen wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

"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..)

Re: MIT Living Wage Calculator

#213

Post by lp4v4n »

prepend wrote: post #176
lp4v4n wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

Re: MIT Living Wage Calculator

#214

Post by labcomputer »

lp4v4n wrote: post #141
JamesBarney wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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…

> 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.

Re: MIT Living Wage Calculator

#215

Post by fuzzer371 »

twoodfin wrote: post #197

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 de…

And yet... It doesn't! Stop posting arguments like this.

Re: MIT Living Wage Calculator

#216

Post by zozbot234 »

overgard wrote: post #211
prepend wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 an…

The flip side is that the people being relied upon are performing uncompensated labor or providing other unpaid services, which is not a healthy state of things. This very dynamic can end up trapping these people in poverty and hinder their access to more productive arrangements.

Re: MIT Living Wage Calculator

#217

Post by strken »

citizenpaul wrote: post #181
jrajav wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 neces…

> 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…

50 years ago was 1976. I would be surprised if large numbers of adults in 1976 in the US were living in the same room as other adults, unless they were romantically involved.

Re: MIT Living Wage Calculator

#218

Post by Jtsummers »

socalgal2 wrote: post #209
paxys wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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. T…

Look at the childcare number in the breakdown table. 1 adult and 3 children has an estimated $71k/year childcare cost, while 2 adults and 3 children (1 working) has a $0/year childcare cost. So some things go up (transportation, healthcare, food), but others go down. Childcare going down by $71k pretty much entirely accounts for the difference you're questioning (~$34/hour difference just on that entry).

Also, two adults (assuming married) will pay lower taxes than one adult for the same income. That's another ~30k difference per year in the breakdown table for the 3 children case. If your tax burden is lower, you can afford a lower wage while bringing in the same net.

EDIT: Tax rates in the US are roughly half (except for high income earners, way beyond these living wage estimates would be relating to) when you're married versus single.

https://www.irs.gov/filing/federal-income-tax-rates-and-brac...

Check out the 22% bracket on that page, the range is doubled for married people filing joint versus single. That's a huge savings each year. Tax savings of two married people and any number of kids is a major contributor to why the living wage drops when someone gets married versus is single with the same number of kids.

Re: MIT Living Wage Calculator

#219

Post by lp4v4n »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #187
lp4v4n wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

I don't doubt you can eat three meals with 6 dollars, but it's crazy how solipsistic people are when it comes to food. Not everybody can buy food in bulk and cook at home.

A 10 oz ham sandwich will probably cost you more than 2 dollars even if you buy everything at the supermarket. I don't know why people are so reluctant to admit that 12 dollars a day is not much for groceries.

Re: MIT Living Wage Calculator

#220

Post by Jtsummers »

matuszeg wrote: post #182
lelandbatey wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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?

> In households with two working adults, all hourly values reflect what one working adult requires to earn to meet their families’ basic needs, assuming the other adult also earns the same.

From the page itself, first paragraph. Double the value under 2 adult (both working) to get the estimated household income.

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