If Minimum Wage Were Living Wage

Costs $16 an hour at full-time work to live in Kentucky, where the minimum wage is $7.25.

 

Think Progress:

Here’s how much you’d actually need:

CREDIT: Dylan Petrohilos/ThinkProgress

Though $15 may sound high, the minimum wage would be at $22.62 if it had kept up with the income gains of the top one percent. Raising the minimum wage to $22 would increase the price of a Big Mac by about a dollar.

While the Fight for $15 has fought the economic model built on low wages, there is still a ways to go before achieving truly fair wages. As Jacobin Magazine points out, “fast-food wages are some of the lowest in the entire job market, and significantly raising them would likely lead to a major restructuring of the wage floor across the entire nation.”