Editor's note
John Alvarado introduces us to the classical guitar and invites us to an April 16 performance on the IUI campus. We were delighted to learn about the variety of music for the guitar beyond what your teen plays in the garage. Hear it all at our Who Gets What? podcast available at mortonjohn.libsyn.com.
I don’t know what a Living Wage is, but the folks at MIT think they do. That’s right, MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has developed a Living Wage Calculator for each state, county, and metropolitan area in the nation.

Then you can answer the unanswerable question (Do the Impossible Dream): What’s the difference between living in Indiana and the Indianapolis-Carmel-Anderson Metropolitan Area? And what’s the Living Wage for an Adult alone or with one, two, or three children? How about two adults where one works for pay and the other one does not, with or without the aforementioned numbers of children?

The Living Wage is based on the Typical Expenses of a person or couple (relationship unspecified) with or without a given number of children.

The MIT Calculator computes $43,280 as the required annual income before taxes for a single adult Indiana worker, without children. For the Indianapolis Metropolitan Area the figure is $44,804. That’s based on the typical expenses in the area plus state and federal income taxes. The difference is $1,524 or a 3.5% premium for living in the Indy Metro area vs the state in general. It is not a comfortable income, but a subsistence income.

For the Metro resident, the hourly wage required is $21.54, $0.73/hr higher than the $20.81/hr required statewide. These figures are well above the $7.25 state and federal minimum wage levels.

Illinois’ minimum wage is $15/hr. Michigan $12.48/hr., and Ohio is $10.70/hr. Kentucky too is at the Federal minimum of $7.25/hr.. This leaves Indiana again depending on change seeping up from the south before our legislature acts.

The MIT site also provides occupational salary data. In the Indy Metro as in the whole state, Management receives the highest salaries. There is a 5.1% ($5,980) premium for workers in the Metro area. That’s the difference between $123,990 in the nine county Metro area and $118,010 statewide figure.

The lowest paid workers in both areas are involved in food preparation and serving: $30,890 Metro and $29,950 statewide.

The Metro premium is 3.1% or $940.

Thus, the lowest paid occupation in the state receives just over one-quarter of the rate for the highest paid workers. For the Metro Indy area, the lowest paid occupation is just under 25% the highest paid.

Finally, the family of two adults working and enjoying the blessing of two children typically spends $28,205 for child care in Metro Indy and $24,388 statewide. This $3,817 or 15.7% differential may have more to do with the age of the children and the services offered than the setting.

For the comfortable “Living Wage,” just put livingwage.mit.edu in your browser and look up your county.
Morton J. Marcus is an economist formerly with the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. His column appears in Indiana newspapers, and his views can be followed his podcast.

© 2025 Morton J. Marcus

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