Learn About Living Wage

What is a living wage?

Why is it so important?

What is a Living Wage?

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.”

Global Living Wage Coalition

To search for a specific county on the map above, either zoom in on your area of interest or visit the map directly by clicking on the enlarge symbol in the top right map corner to search by county name.

Tier I & Tier II

Living Wage Rates

Living Wage For US estimates a family living wage for each county in the nation. For certification, we use lowest cost county in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s commuting zones to assess the living wage level to more closely reflect the local economy where people live and work.

Living Wages

For Families, For Employers, For Communities, For US

Living wage is not a new concept. It is a needed value that has been discussed for ages. These quotes give a sense of the history of living wage.

  • No person, I think, ever saw a herd of buffalo, of which a few were fat and the great majority lean. No person ever saw a flock of birds, of which two or three were swimming in grease, and the others all skin and bone.

    HENRY GEORGE AMERICAN POLITICAL ECONOMIST (1839-1897)

  • The greatest country, the richest country, is not that which has the most capitalists, monopolists, immense grabbings, vast fortunes, with its sad, sad soil of extreme, degrading, damning poverty, but the land in which there are the most homesteads, freeholds — where wealth does not show such contrasts high and low, where all men have enough — a modest living— and no man is made possessor beyond the sane and beautiful necessities.

    WALT WHITMAN AMERICAN POET (1819-1892)

  • An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.

    PLUTARCH ANCIENT GREEK BIOGRAPHER (C. 46 – 120 CE)

  • The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

    FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT AMERICAN PRESIDENT (1882-1945), SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS, 1937

Learn more about how total renumeration can contribute to paying a living wage.

Tier II Certification