Do you earn a living wage in NC? How much you need to afford basics in 2026
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- A report finds NC workers need at least twice the minimum wage to live comfortably.
- The Living Wage Institute found some families need six-figure incomes to afford basics.
- Housing and child care are two of the top costs in the state.
The minimum wage in North Carolina has remained stagnant for years, and some families now need six-figure salaries to afford the basics, a new report finds.
The state has a minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. But North Carolinians need to make at least two times that much to live comfortably in 2026, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Living Wage Institute.
“Today, families and individuals working in low-wage jobs make too little income to meet minimum standards of living in their community,” the institute wrote in its mid-February report. “We developed the Living Wage Calculator to help individuals, communities, employers, and others estimate the local wage rate that a full-time worker requires to cover the costs of their family’s basic needs where they live.”
To create the report, the institute said it studied data from the U.S. government and other sources. Then, it determined “geographically-specific costs for food, childcare, health care, housing, transportation, other basic needs including household goods, personal care items, and broadband, and taxes.”
How much is a living wage in NC?
The report divides results based on families’ living situations, noting that hourly wages for households with two workers “reflect what one working adult requires to earn to meet their families’ basic needs, assuming the other adult also earns the same.” Here’s a breakdown of how much adults living without children need to make before taxes to be able to afford necessities in North Carolina:
- Single working adult: $22.47 an hour or $46,745 a year
- Two working adults: $15.26 an hour or $63,464 a year
So, how much money do parents need to pay for the basics in North Carolina? Here’s what the report found for some common living situations:
- Single working adult with one child: $37.54 an hour or $78,087 a year
- Single working adult with two children: $47.08 an hour or $97,917 a year
- Two working adults with one child: $21.48 an hour or $89,375 a year
- Two working adults with two children: $25.53 an hour or $106,196 a year
The institute cautions that living wage can “vary by location and family size.” Visit livingwage.mit.edu to see living wages in your county, along with living wages for other household dynamics.
The results show the biggest expense for North Carolina residents with no children was housing, which reached nearly $14,000 a year for a single adult. For two working adults with multiple children, child care was the highest cost.
Is NC getting more expensive?
The Living Wage Institute didn’t immediately share year-over-year data with The News & Observer on Tuesday, March 3.
The results were published after the nonprofit N.C. Budget & Tax Center found Triangle-area counties to be some of the state’s most expensive places to call home, with a four-person household needing more than $100,000 each year to “make ends meet,” The N&O reported in January 2025.
Statewide, income figures reportedly rose more than 32% from the center’s previous report in 2022. Costs went up due to impacts from the war in Ukraine, the coronavirus pandemic and so-called “greedflation,” when companies raise prices during periods of inflation.
“There are 168 hours in a week, but in North Carolina a single parent with one child would need to work 200 hours each week to make the statewide average (living income standard) at minimum wage,” Logan Rockefeller Harris, the center’s research manager and an author of its report, told The N&O.
So, is North Carolina more expensive than other states? In 2024, the personal finance website SmartAsset determined the state ranked just about average when it came to costs, The N&O previously reported.
Inspired by a story from The Sacramento Bee in California.
