Do you earn a living wage in Ada County? How much you need to make in 2025
Do you make enough money to afford your basic needs in Ada County? A quarter of the households across the country reported living paycheck-to-paycheck, according to an October 2024 analysis from Bank of America, as costs of living rise while minimum wages in some states like Idahoremain the same.
For the majority of households in Ada County, a single person would need to make at least 3.5 times more than the federal minimum wage to afford basic needs such as housing and food costs, according to the living wage calculator by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Households with two working adults and no children still need to make 2.5 times the hourly minimum wage of $7.25 per hour in Idaho in order to meet their needs, according to the calculator. This living wage calculated by MIT is defined as ‘the hourly rate that an individual in a household must earn to support themselves and/or their family, working full-time, or 2,080 hours per year.” What is a livable wage in Boise and Ada County? Here is how the numbers break down:
Can you live on minimum wage in Boise?
Idaho has kept its minimum wage at the federal minimum of $7.25 per hour.
In Boise and Ada County, an adult without children working a full-time job and making minimum wage would be living below the poverty wage, according to MIT’s living wage calculator. This minimum wage brings home a salary of $15,080 per year before taxes.
To meet the poverty wage in Ada County, according to MIT, an adult with no children must make at least $7.52 per hour while working 40 hours per week, or $15,641 annually before taxes.
The federal minimum wage was raised from $6.55 per hour to $7.25 per hour in July 2009 and has not changed since.
Other states and metropolitan areas have increased minimum wages beyond the federally-mandated $7.25 per hour to keep up with rising costs.
According to the Labor Law Center, all of Idaho’s neighbors except for Wyoming and Utah have increased state minimum wage since the federal minimum last increased.
As of 2025, the minimum wage in Washington is $16.66 per hour and $15.05 in Oregon, according to the Labor Law Center. In Montana, the minimum wage is $10.55 per hour.
If a person wanted to live at the poverty line in Ada County while making minimum wage, they would need to live in a household with two working adults and no more than one child, according to the calculator.
What is considered a living wage in Ada County in 2025?
To meet basic needs in Ada County, an individual must make at least $25.67 per hour or $53,394 per year before taxes, according to MIT’s calculator. The wage needed to afford the basics increases substantially if a person has children to support.
These are the living hourly wages in Ada County in 2025, according to MIT’s living wage calculator:
- Single adult with no children: $25.67
- Single adult with one child: $44.64
- Single adult with two children: $55.53
- Single adult with three children: $72.58
- Two working adults with no children: $18.14
- Two working adults with one child: $25.07
- Two working adults with two children: $30.41
- Two working adults with three children: $38.08
What is a living wage in Idaho?
Though the cost of living statewide is slightly lower than wages needed to live in Ada County, individuals would still need to make more than double the state’s minimum wage to meet their needs. These are the living hourly wages in Idaho in 2025, according to MIT’s living wage calculator:
- Single adult with no children: $23.18
- Single adult with one child: $39.18
- Single adult with two children: $47.93
- Single adult with three children: $61.88
- Two working adults with no children: $16.45
- Two working adults with one child: $22.31
- Two working adults with two children: $26.82
- Two working adults with three children: $32.76
What’s the living wage in other Idaho counties?
Wondering how much you need to live in other Idaho counties? You can look up living wages in Idaho counties and other metropolitan areas across the state using the living wage calculator.
Click on the name of the county or metropolitan area to see the statistics in your area.
How does MIT calculate living wages in the US?
MIT created the living wage calculator in 2003 as a way to calculate the most recent costs of living in communities across the country. “Policymakers often turn to measures like the federal poverty line – a national number based on three times the cost of a minimum food diet in 1963 – to answer that question,” MIT said in its methodology. “However these benchmarks no longer reflect the true cost of living in a modern economy.” The calculator uses eight basic needs — childcare, food, health care, housing, internet and mobile, transportation, civic engagement, other necessities and taxes — to calculate how much money a household needs to make hourly to afford those expenses. These costs are calculated using a variety of sources including the U.S. Department of Labor and the National Database of Childcare Prices, among other federal and research agencies. MIT calculates the hourly living wage for a county or metropolitan area by calculating the family budget by adding the cost of basic needs, then identifying the cost of income and payroll taxes, according to theirethodology. Then, the total of basic needs and taxes is divided by the number of working adults and the number of full-time hours worked in a year to find the hourly wage. The’s //ving wage calculator for last updated // February on
This story was originally published August 20, 2025 at 5:00 AM.