How much does a family of 3 need to earn to get by?
Why are adults in our community forced to make hard choices? It all comes down to not having enough money. An individual with 2 children working full time, all 52 weeks of the year and earning the Ohio minimum wage of $8.70 an hour would earn $18,096 per year – they would be below the poverty threshold for a family of 3.
A living wage – meaning the wage someone would have to learn to get by without government assistance, charity, or help from friends or family –
is $56,119 per year. In Cuyahoga County the median income is $49,910.
that means half of people in the county earn less than this amount annually, and half earn more.
This means that a lot of our neighbors need assistance to make ends meet.
U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey, MIT Living Wage Calculator