Yahoo Finance Here’s the Living Wage a Single Person Needs To Live Comfortably in North Carolina
The minimum wage in North Carolina is the same as the federal minimum wage — a paltry $7.25 an hour, or about $15,000 a year, where it has remained for 15 years since 2009. That wasn’t enough to live comfortably in North Carolina or anywhere else in America even before the post-pandemic era of high inflation.
So if the minimum wage doesn’t provide financial security in the Tarheel State, what compensation does?
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ZipRecruiter says the average North Carolinian makes $25 an hour, or around $53,000 a year, more than three times the legal minimum. So, is that a living wage in the state?
It depends on where in North Carolina you live and what you consider “living.”
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What is a ‘Living Wage’
According to the Global Living Wage Coalition, a living wage is, “The remuneration received for a standard workweek by a worker in a particular place sufficient to afford a decent standard of living for the worker and her or his family. Elements of a decent standard of living include food, water, housing, education, health care, transportation, clothing, and other essential needs including provision for unexpected events.”
The federal poverty line for 2024 for a single person is $15,060 — exactly $20 less than the minimum wage provides. So, if the minimum wage is poverty plus one large pizza, what dollar amount provides a living wage that lets you pay the bills, bank some savings and enjoy your life?
According to myFutureNC, “A living wage is defined as earning a family income equivalent to 300% or more of the federal poverty line.”
That’s $45,180, which means the average North Carolinian earns a living wage with $7,820 to spare — but there’s more to it than that.
3 Times Minimum Wage Poverty Pays the Bills — and Little Else
MIT examined data from 3,143 counties in 384 metros across all 50 states and Washington, D.C., to devise its Living Wage Calculator:
First, it added the costs of what it calls the “eight basic needs”: food, childcare, health care, housing, transportation, civic engagement, broadband, and other necessities.
Next, it subtracted income and payroll taxes.
Then it divided the remainder by the number of working adults in the household.
Finally, it generated a living wage presuming 40-hour workweeks for 52 weeks per year, or 2,080 hours annually.
The MIT Living Wage Calculator concludes that a living wage in North Carolina is $21.56 per hour or $44,844.80 per year. That validates the formula of a living wage as 300% of the poverty line almost to the dollar, but what kind of life is that?
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MIT based its living wage on a household’s ability to cover the necessities over 52 full-time workweeks with no vacations or even a single day off — but are you living if, after all that, nothing is left over once you pay your bills and taxes?
SmartAsset analyzed what you’d need to live comfortably in each state if you followed the popular 50/30/20 budgeting rule — 50% of your income for needs like those covered in the MIT analysis, 30% for wants like dining out, entertainment and hobbies, and 20% for savings, investment and debt reduction.
In North Carolina, a single person would need more like $43.12 an hour or $89,690 per year — roughly double MIT’s standard — to earn a living wage that affords them a life.
Different Cities Have Different Living Wages
The SmartAsset study profiled five North Carolina cities, including one among the 25 priciest metros in America.
Here’s what you’d need to earn to make the 50/30/20 budgeting rule work for you, depending on where you live in the state:
Winston-Salem: $39.36 per hour or $81,869 per year
Greensboro: $41.88 or $87,110
Durham: $47.62 or $99,050
Charlotte: $48.72 or $101,338
Raleigh: $49.40 or $107,752
Rural North Carolinians Are Falling Behind
In North Carolina, urbanites are most likely to earn a living wage. The farther away from the city you get, the more likely you are to struggle to get by with less.
Here are the percentages of North Carolinians who earn a “family-sustaining wage” by their county’s geographic makeup, according to myFutureNC:
Urban: 61%
Suburban: 51%
Rural-metropolitan: 46%
Non-metropolitan rural: 41%.
The statewide nonprofit writes, “These differences reflect both county-level differences in the cost of living and differences in the types of jobs available in these counties.”
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This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Here’s the Living Wage a Single Person Needs To Live Comfortably in North Carolina
