How Much Money Does Your Family Need to Make in Texas?

I don't know the official stats so I'm just going to make a somewhat educated guess that about 75 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. If that stat is true, that's pretty sad. That doesn't live up to the phrase of "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" that is prominent in our Declaration of Independence. Is it greed? Is it corporations that value investors over employees? Is it an inept government? Whatever the reason, a majority of Americans struggle financially. That's just proven by this latest study that shows how money various family sizes need to make to live in Texas.

SmartAssest Via MIT Living Wage

It takes a lot of money to support yourself or your family. You need to have groceries in your home so everyone can eat. That's expensive. You need to have a car to get back and forth to work or to school functions. That's expensive. Yourself or your family needs to have medical insurance. That's expensive. You need to have a home to live in. That's expensive. Not to mention any amenities that you want to have like cable or cell phone or streaming services.

Everybody wants our money for something.

How much would you or your family need to make to support just the basics of living? SmartAsset was able to compile a list based off of numbers from the Living Wage Calculator from MIT. It may or may not surprise you the number that was generated.

Overall Wage Needed in Texas

The first set of numbers is the overall wage for different family sizes needed to live in Texas. Mind you, these numbers are based off of just the basic needs for a family:

1 adult, 0 children: $43,508
1 adult, 1 child: $73,609
1 adult, 2 children: $90,695
1 adult, 3 children: $117,742

2 adults (1 working), 0 children: $60,091
2 adults (1 working), 1 child: $71,638
2 adults (1 working), 2 children: $80,178
2 adults (1 working), 3 children: $85,843

2 adults (2 working), 0 children: $60,091
2 adults (2 working), 1 child: $82,285
2 adults (2 working), 2 children: $100,689
2 adults (2 working), 3 children: $116,350

Yeah, that's the bare minimum needed. Wow. The numbers can even be broken down to each county in Texas. For instance, I live in Smith County. In my house it's me, my fiancé and her daughter. To support us with our basic needs, we'd each need to make $19.00 per hour. Just the basics. Wow. If you're in Gregg or Cherokee or any other county in East Texas, you can look up the income needed at livingwage.mit.edu.

No One Makes Enough Money Anymore

The sad truth is, right now, no one makes enough money to do anything. Not go on a vacation, not splurge on a fun hobby, not enjoy a night out on the town more than once a month, if that. Our government is supposedly the ones to work for us to make that dream of "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" a reality. Instead, they keep arguing over a red hatted blonde or stand an 80 plus year old politician behind a podium to yell at us. Don't even get me started on how over taxed we are.

Corporations get on their high horse saying they've brought in record profits but will turn around the next day and lay off a quarter of their workforce saying they can't afford to pay them. The day after that, it's announced that the CEO of that corporation has brought in a bonus of $15 million dollars and their investors brought in record dividends. That's not business, that's a problem.