A First Look at the 2026 Living Wage Data

What does it actually cost to raise a family in the U.S. in 2026? The answer depends enormously on where you live and who you live with. This post recaps the key insights about family-sustaining living wages from our recent webinar, Inside the 2026 Living Wage Data.

Geography matters for living wages

Across U.S. counties, family-sustaining wages—or what one full-time worker in a household of two working adults with two children needs to cover expenses—ranged from $19.79 to $51.73 per hour in 2026. While a handful of high-cost counties pushed the range up, over 90% of counties had a family-sustaining wage below $30.00 an hour.

When we map these county-level living wages, we see that high-cost counties primarily cluster along the coasts and in large metro areas. For example, in 2026, the Bay Area’s San Mateo County recorded the highest family-sustaining wage at $51.73 per hour—just over $215,000 for the full family.

Most of the country’s heartland, however, sits in the lower-cost range. Bremer County, Iowa represents roughly the national average at $24.46 an hour—or $101,000 annually—while Martinsville City, Virginia had the lowest family-sustaining wage at $19.79 an hour, or just over $82,000 a year for the whole family.

Regional living wage data also underscores that location matters. Coastal, metro-dense hubs like New England ($36.36 per hour), the Mid-Atlantic ($33.52 per hour), and the Pacific ($35.79 per hour) have the highest family-sustaining wages across the nation. Meanwhile, family-sustaining wages in the East and West South Central divisions ($23.52 and $24.40 per hour, respectively) sit nearly $13.00 per hour below New England—a difference of more than $27,000 annually.

Family structure also matters for living wages

But geography is only half the story. Family structure also plays a significant role in determining budgets and cost of living. In Bremer County, Iowa, our national average reference point, a single adult needs just over $43,000 a year to cover their basic expenses, but a family of four needs more than double that at $101,000. Across low-, mid-, and high-cost communities alike, a family of four needs more than double the budget of a single working adult.

When we break down annual budgets by basic needs, we begin to understand why budgets differ. For a single adult, housing dominates the budget in every county—especially in San Mateo—while transportation and health care round out the top expenses for individuals.

The family-sustaining budget tells a different story. The overall budget expands significantly, not because of a single expense, but because spending in nearly every category grows. Across all three locations, housing and childcare compete for the largest budget share, now joined by a much bigger tax burden and larger basic expenses. The cost structure of supporting a family is both bigger and fundamentally different than for a single working adult.

Affordability is a local story, defined by what people need and what they earn. But it’s also defined by changes in local costs. In our next post, we’ll explore how communities across the U.S. are facing different cost pressures, and what that means for families and employers alike.