The phrase "living wage" is loaded to start with. I'm sure there are political motivations here.
However, when I ran their calculations for my town, I was surprised to get a number very close to what we had already figured out as our minimum "comfortable" budget. No, we wouldn't die on less money, but the cuts would have to come someplace painful, like dropping health insurance for me and my wife, or eating a lot more potatoes and a lot less meat and vegetables.
If you wanted to rephrase the concept to "minimum stable middle class income", they were right on, at least in our case.
However, when I ran their calculations for my town, I was surprised to get a number very close to what we had already figured out as our minimum "comfortable" budget. No, we wouldn't die on less money, but the cuts would have to come someplace painful, like dropping health insurance for me and my wife, or eating a lot more potatoes and a lot less meat and vegetables.
If you wanted to rephrase the concept to "minimum stable middle class income", they were right on, at least in our case.