Do you earn a living wage in Tri-Cities? Here’s how much you’ll need to make
Do you earn a living wage in Tri-Cities?
In 2025, the minimum wage in Washington state was $16.66 per hour.
An adult living alone in the Kennewick-Richland area would need to earn over $6 more per hour than Washington’s minimum wage to afford basic needs, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Living Wage Calculator.
Meanwhile, a single parent with three children would need over three times the minimum wage to pay for necessities including food, housing, transportation and medical care, the calculator found.
Here’s what to know:
What is a living wage? How does MIT’s living wage calculator work?
“At its simplest, a living wage is what one full-time worker must earn on an hourly basis to help cover the cost of their family’s minimum basic needs where they live while still being self-sufficient,” MIT explained.
Developed in 2003, MIT’s Living Wage Calculator shows the hourly rate a person must make to support themselves — and their household, when applicable — while working full time, which is 2,080 hours per year.
The calculator factors in geographically-specific food, childcare, health care, housing and transportation costs, plus the average costs of other basic needs including taxes, MIT said, based on data from various sources.
Living wages are calculated for 12 different family types, based on the number of working adults and the number of children. The calculator was last updated Feb. 10.
How much does a single adult need to make to live in Tri-Cities?
MIT’s Living Wage Calculator looked at living expenses and earnings in what it called the “Kennewick-Richland, Washington” area, implying that Pasco was not represented in the numbers.
According to MIT, here’s how much a single adult in Kennewick or Richland would need to earn hourly to make a living wage in 2025:
- With no kids: $22.81 per hour
- With one kid: $40.93
- With two kids: $51.76
- With three kids: $64.82
This means that Tri-Cities residents who make more than minimum wage aren’t earning enough to cover basic needs.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, a single-person household making $7.52 an hour would be considered at the federal poverty line. So would a four-person household with one adult earning $15.46 per hour.
“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” of how much income is needed to live, MIT said. “However, these benchmarks no longer reflect the true cost of living in a modern economy.”
What do local couples need to earn to afford basic costs?
According to MIT’s Living Wage Calculator, a two-adult household in Tri-Cities with one adult who works would need to earn the following amounts to cover basic needs:
- With no kids: $32.52 per hour
- With one kid: $39.66
- With two kids: $43.74
- With three kids: $50.45
In households with two working adults, each adult would need to make the following hourly amounts to earn living wages:
- With no kids: $16.26 per hour
- With one kid: $23.10
- With two kids: $28.42
- With three kids: $34.10
Based on the MIT report, Washington’s minimum wage is only enough to live in Tri-Cities in households with no kids and two adults bringing home the same amount.
What’s the annual income needed to live in Tri-Cities?
MIT also looked at the annual income needed before taxes for households in the Tri-Cities area, based on the average cost of basic needs and taxes.
For households with no kids:
- Single adult: $47,437
- Two adults, one working: $67,643
- Two adults, both working: $67,643
For households with one kid:
- Single adult: $85,133
- Two adults, one working: $82,486
- Two adults, both working: $96,117
For households with two kids:
- Single adult: $107,651
- Two adults, one working: $90,984
- Two adults, both working: $118,246
For households with three kids:
- Single adult: $134,827
- Two adults, one working: $104,933
- Two adults, both working: $141,864
What is the median annual income in Benton County?
The median annual income in Kennewick was $72,867 in 2023, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
In Richland, the median annual income was $92,550 in 2023, Census data show.
When looking at all of Benton County, the median household income was $87,316 per year, according to the Census Bureau.
This story was originally published September 11, 2025 at 5:00 AM.