In preparing for a presentation to Professor Early’s class at Southwestern University, Craig West took a deeper dive into the MIT Living Wage database and results. He came to believe that we may not be viewing them with a skeptical enough eye. The attached table below is Craig’s estimates for a realistic local living wage using the MIT data and assumptions, and an alternate table with adjustments based on his own assessments. He looked at the methodology page for the MIT database, and it seems overly generous in some respects. Here’s the LW tables—first two columns are MIT, the next one is his:
The MIT living wage for Williamson County is $24.57. My adjusted living wage is $19.25.
Includes: Food, Childcare, Transportation, mobile phone, internet, taxes: remain the same as the MIT calculations
Medical: The MIT figure is based on A Kaiser Family Foundation survey and a BLS estimate. However, someone at this level of income should be able to get coverage through Obamacare for about $150 a month.
Housing: I’ve used the lowest local rental rate for a one-bedroom apartment, estimating $1,200 per month instead of MIT’s $1,564 per month.
Civic: Looking at what the MIT study includes, I believe a low-wage person would not spend as much in this category as they assume, so I arbitrarily reduced this expenditure to $100 per month (and it may still be too high).
Other: This is a catchall category including things as diverse as clothing and cleaning supplies. I think low-income people would economize here. The MIT figure is from another BLS survey.