As the price of living goes up and hourly wages stay the same, the living wage for many will be out of their reach.
According to MIT’s Living Wage Calculator for the Chicagoland Area, the average cost of living for a single adult with zero children in their household is $18.72. This is around five dollars more than the minimum wage in Chicago, which is $15.40. This price obviously rises depending on how many people are in a household and whether a person or family has children.
For a single parent, the hourly wage needed to have a living wage is $37.25. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average hourly wage in Cook County is $29.74. This means that the living wage for a single parent and their child is just shy of ten dollars more than the average Chicagoan’s hourly wage.
Wage Discrepancies
This is not indicative of the wages of all Chicagoans, though. On the higher end of the hourly wage spectrum are jobs such as those in healthcare, law, and management, where the hourly wages are between 40 and 60 dollars an hour. These are jobs that usually require not just a university education, but a postgraduate education, such as law school or med school. The lower end of the wages includes jobs such as farming, maintenance, and food service, which all make under twenty dollars an hour on average.
The discrepancy between livable wages in the city of Chicago and the reality of what many Chicagoans make is only heightened by the rise in the cost of living and the threats of a coming economic downturn.
Affording to Live
According to the website Rentcafe, more than half of the households in the city are rent-occupied, meaning that more people rent in the city than live somewhere they own. In North Lawndale, the average rent price for a one-bedroom apartment is around $1600 a month.
If a single adult with no children were to live in North Lawndale, making the lowest living wage possible at around $18, this average rent would be about half of their monthly income, working an average full-time job of 40 hours a week.
Making a little under $3000 before taxes would only leave $1400 for other costs, such as bills, groceries, and other necessary payments. These costs can be mitigated, of course, if there is more than one adult working in a household without children, but this cannot always be the case.
Bigger Picture
The reason the living wage price is so important to note is that inflation is rising and affecting the economy very quickly. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average Consumer Price Index for all Urban Consumers rose by 6.4% from January 2022 to January 2023. The price of shelter, or housing, rose by 7.9%.
The price of living is very obviously rising for all Chicagoans, but the minimum wage is less than needed to keep up with this rising cost is not only bad for people but bad for the economy. Not only this, but the barriers between well-paying jobs such as requiring post-secondary education or postgraduate education keep people from earning and saving enough money to move up in economic class. This, along with exponentially rising costs for families or those with children, can leave people struggling for not just years but generations.
Throughout the country, we see a problem with rising inflation and the people unable to financially withstand the changes in the economy. In our neighborhoods, our friends and family, and our fellow Chicagoans, we see people trying to afford life in the United States.
Written by Caroline Buehler
Sources:
RentCafe: Chicago Illinois Rent Market Trends
MIT Living Wage Calculator
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Occupational Employment and Wages in Chicago-Naperville-Elgin
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Consumer prices for shelter up 7.9 percent from January 2022 to January 2023
Top and Featured Image Courtesy of MrMonochrome‘s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
Inset Image Courtesy of mlinksva’s Flickr Page – Public Domain License
