Paying Yourself A Living Wage Is The Goal
“Charge what you’re worth.”
If you’re an entrepreneur searching these online/digital business streets for advice on how to make a living wage, you’ve heard those words before. And it’s truly some of the stupidest advice out there.
Pricing is a complex topic with a high amount of nuance. We have to remember that if we’re trying to do business in a non-extractive, non-oppressive, equitable way that our pricing will look very different from our peers and competitors who may not have the same priorities.
There’s a way more sustainable framework for pricing, and it starts with understanding what it costs to afford your life and build from there. Not what your ideal lifestyle would cost you, but what it costs to be where you are, right now. This means knowing what it costs to live in your city, in your home, provide for your kids, restock the refrigerator. This means having an understanding of your living wage.
Your living wage is a number that takes into consideration things that minimum wage calculations do not. These include childcare, health insurance, housing, transportation, and other basic necessities (e.g. clothing, personal care items, etc.) that are necessary to live in modern society. The numbers are based on family size and location and provide a good base point to begin calculating your hourly rate as an entrepreneur.
Luckily, you don’t have to bust out the pen and paper to find your living wage rate. One of my favorite resources is “The Living Wage Calculator” created by researchers at MIT. With this website, you’ll be able to find the living wage for your area and family size. You can also make any tweaks necessary to get to a more accurate number that is reflective of your family structure and lifestyle. Whatever living wage rate that you calculate will now represent your personal “minimum wage.”
You cannot do work for less than this per hour. It’s a hard no.
But here’s the thing: This is a bare-bones number that is still missing some important life/business/political additions (and subtractions...we’ll get there).
