Amy Glasmeier, a professor of economic geography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Allen Carroll from geographic information systems company Esri have created the Living Wage Map, which visualizes the gap between the minimum wage and the cost of living in counties and cities across the United States. The map uses data from Glasmeier’s Living Wage Calculator, which analyzes a family’s expenditures that indicates cost of living, such as minimum food, child care, clothing, and transportation expenses, for a specific geographic area. The map reveals that minimum wage falls short of a living wage for all of the three population segments examined—parents with spouse and two children, single adult, and single parent with one child—in every county in the United States, except for single adults in several counties in Washington.
Mapping the Living Wage Gap
