What a living wage looks like across metro Atlanta's core counties – FOX 5 Atlanta

What a living wage looks like across metro Atlanta’s core counties  FOX 5 Atlanta

A single adult living in metro Atlanta needs to make between $24 and more than $27 an hour just to cover basic living expenses, according to data from the Living Wage Calculator.The Living Wage Calculator, maintained by the Living Wage Institute, calculates the hourly rate full-time workers must earn to cover food, housing, healthcare, transportation and basic utilities without government or private assistance.Across the five core metro Atlanta counties, the required hourly wage for a single adult with no children breaks down as:For families with children, the required income climbs sharply. A single parent with one child in Fulton County needs to earn $41.80 an hour, while the same parent in Gwinnett County needs $42.33 an hour.

Childcare alone averages more than $11,200 annually for one child and nearly $22,000 for two children across all five counties.Housing and transportation make up the largest monthly burdens for single adults. In Cobb and Gwinnett, annual housing costs for an individual exceed $19,900 and $20,800, respectively, while annual transportation expenses average more than $9,000.The living wage thresholds sit well above Georgia's standard minimum wage of $7.25 per hour and outpace average wages for several major local job sectors.According to state and metro-area wage data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:Workers in each of these sectors fall thousands of dollars below the income required