Free Tool · Level Up Life Skills
Can You Live on Minimum Wage?
Find out what it really costs to live on your own – and what wage you’d really need to get there.
Part of the Money Matters Journey on Level Up Life Skills
This simulator is a free companion tool to the full Journey, available to Level Up Life Skills members. Use the defaults to see the big picture — or plug in your own numbers to make it personal. Parents: this tool works well as a starting-point conversation with a teen.
Pick a city, set a wage, and watch the real cost of living stack up against take-home pay. Most configurations won’t balance. That’s the point.
Ready to Go Deeper?
This tool is a free resource from Level Up Life Skills. The full Journey walks through the history of the minimum wage, the policy debates, and what financial stability actually looks like — with real activities and no fluff.