A recent post found in The Atlantic:City Lab described the lack of a livable wage across the country.  They created a nice little map tool to identify areas where the disparity between minimum wages and costs of living were the largest.

http://www.citylab.com/work/2015/09/mapping-the-difference-between-minimum-wage-and-cost-of-living/404644/?utm_source=SFTwitter

No surprise in that areas across the country like the Northeast and California where high costs of living outweigh the minimum wage disparity is seen to be the largest.

What becomes interesting is that for single individuals Washington state becomes a “living -wage oasis”.  That has to be due to the recent changes in minimum wage laws that state has seen.

Regardless though of the area it becomes clear that a family of two children fails to meet the basic costs of living with a gap in the wage needing to be about $20 per hour higher.  WOW.