What standard of housing, food, etc? The linked MIT project uses a bunch of median- or near-median costs; it's obviously not reasonable to call 40th-percentile housing costs the basic standard of living, when 40% of the population in fact manage to get by paying less. There are similar objections for other components of their index, such as transportation costs and "civic participation", which appear to take median expenditure in these categories.
This is pretty spot-on for where I live (suffolk MA.) Note that there's no saving category, so the 190k/year with 3 kids dual income is to get by comfortably but never retire.
Housing 40th percentile is a pretty good metric for living wage. What would your metric be, 20th percentile, 10th percentile, something else?
Transportation is the true cost of mobility, including insurance, gas, motor oil, basic maintenance of vehicle.
Civic Engagement category isn't what you think it is and the methodology spells it out:
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey, Table 1400 (Entertainment: fees and admissions; Audio and visual equipment and services; Pets; Toys, hobbies, and playground equipment; Entertainment: other supplies, equip., & services; Reading; and Education)
I mean sure, cross that category out completely, but humans can't live on bread alone and this is exactly what this is measuring: living wage, not depression wage.
You can argue about whether median is a good measure, but the fact that this living wage allocates 0 dollars towards retirement and holidays, for me, is still not truly living wage. Any adjustment to the categories you take umbrage to is washed out by a basic savings plan for retirement.
