Here’s an easy way to calculate the hourly LIVING wage in your area

2.25  median price for rent of a 1 bedroom apartment / 160 (40hrs/week*4 a month).

How did I come up with this? The standard rule for figuring out how much housing one can afford is spending no more than 30% of their income on housing. Realistically, people will go as high as 50% of their income on housing to get what they need, and going that high will still allow a person some savings, but it is not ideal. If someone makes 225% more than their housing cost, their housing costs would represent approximately 44% of their take-home pay in a typical month.

Some additional math here maybe useful. Say that rent is $1000/mo; 225% of $1000 is $2250. $1000/$2250 is 44.44% of their income.

This number can be played around with of course, but once you get to 55%+ of your check being spent on rent alone you are getting into trouble. Hence being a good guide