One question this raises for me is, how should the number of dependents a person has impact their compensation? How should a person's membership of a larger hou

One question this raises for me is, how should the number of dependents a person has impact their compensation? How should a person's membership of a larger household vs living alone impact their compensation? This displays the cost of living based on both how many children and how many working adults are considered together. The framing makes it seem as though people's wages "should" be set relative to that all-in cost of living. The copy introducing the tool overall says: > 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. And viewing specific results for a county in my state I see this copy: > The state minimum wage is the same for all individuals, regardless of how many dependents they may have. This doesn't explicitly say, but seems to suggest that something is is wrong if an employee isn't paid enough to cover the living expenses of them and their non-working family. At an abstract level, sure it sounds reasonable that we would want a person's wages to cover their 'basic' cost of living. But e.g. for a single person with 3 kids in Alameda County, CA, the living wage is given as $86.40, whereas for a single person with no kids, the living wage if $22.35, and for an adult in a household with 2 working adults, the living wage is only $17.15. It seems like there's a huge fairness issue if people are paid more for having dependents and for being single. Suppose you had two workers doing the same job, equally well, but A is a single parent 3 kids and B is a single person living alone. Should A be paid nearly 4x as much as B? Suppose A gets married and their kids now have a step-parent; should A's compensation be cut nearly in half? Suppose B moves in with their significant other who initially works, should their compensation drop further? If B's cohabitating significant other quits their job, should B's compensation really be doubled? What conditions is the the "2 adults (1 working)" x "0 children" meant to cover -- should it depend upon the other adult's _ability_ to work? While perhaps one might think that an employer was being noble by trying to use this to ensure employees had a floor on their ability to house and feed themselves, if you were a person with no dependents, I think this would really sound like discrimination. https://livingwage.mit.edu/counties/06001 https://livingwage.mit.edu/counties/06001