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A single person in the Twin Cities metro area needs to earn $47,442 a year — about $22 an hour — to afford the basics: food, housing, health care, transportation and a cell phone. For a family of four, the parents need to earn at least $119,229 a year — or about $28 an hour each.
That’s according to the Economic Policy Institute’s latest Family Budget Calculator , which estimates how much it costs to make ends meet across America.
The cost of living far exceeds the minimum wage in Minnesota ($10.85 per hour) and Minneapolis ($15.57 per hour).
But the good news is most households across much of Minnesota earn more than the basic cost of living, according to the latest income estimates from the Census Bureau. For example, the median four-person household in the Twin Cities metro area — meaning half of households make more, half make less — earns $148,901 a year.
In St. Louis County, which includes Duluth, the cost of living for a family of four is $102,649 a year while the median four-person household earns $114,034. In Olmsted County, which includes Rochester, the cost of living for a family of four is $124,795 while the median four-person household earns $136,891.