Many in Tompkins County Do Not Earn a Living Wage: ILR Researchers
The 2025 living wage for a single adult living alone in Tompkins County is $24.82 per hour, but almost half of the county’s 48,894 wage earners earn less than that, according to ILR School researchers.
The 2025 Tompkins County Living Wage Study announced Feb. 26 reports that most of the Tompkins residents earning less than $24.82 are women and persons of color. More than three out of five Black or African American residents of Tompkins County are estimated to earn less than $24.82 per hour.
“The takeaway from this exercise is that, as with most socioeconomic phenomena, the likelihood of earning a living wage in Tompkins County is systematically linked to a worker’s race-ethnicity and gender. White and male residents of the county are disproportionately likely to earn a living wage, while women and persons of color have the highest risk of working for sub-living wages,” Research Professor Ian Greer and ILR Buffalo Co-Lab Research Director Russell Weaver wrote in the report.
The 2025 living wage “may seem high, because it is a big jump from 2023,” Greer said. “But it is really a bare-bones calculation assuming below-average expenditure for a single person with no kids. If it included child care, it would be much higher. The same factors pushing up the cost of living locally are leading workers to demand higher wages from their employers and a higher minimum wage from elected officials.”
A living wage is the minimum hourly amount that a full-time worker who works at least 2,080 hours yearly (40 hours a week for 52 weeks) must earn to afford necessities without needing public or private assistance. The minimum wage in most of New York state is $15.50. In Westchester County, New York City and Long Island, it is $16.50.
The annual salary for a worker earning $24.82 and working 40 hours a week would be $51,526. Full-time licensed child care, calculated separately by Greer and Weaver, could absorb more than half of that. The average cost of full-time care for an infant is $28,600 in Tompkins County. It is $26,236 for a toddler and $22,724 for a pre-schooler.
The living wage was based on numbers from sources such as the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Census American Community Survey Public Use Microdata Samples, and on estimates across nine budget areas. They are rent, food, transportation, communication, health care, recreation, savings, miscellaneous items such as housekeeping supplies and apparel, and income taxes.
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development data provided information about the rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Tompkins County. It is $1,489, an increase of 17% since 2023 and 58% since 2019.
Calculating the Tompkins County living wage began as an Alternatives Federal Credit Union project. With assistance from ILR students, it published a living wage figure every two years from 1994 to 2021, providing a public living wage benchmark. In 2022, the Tompkins County Workers Center calculated the figure, and in 2023, researchers from ILR began calculating it.
The workers’ center created the nation's first Living Wage Employer Certification program in 2006, based on Alternatives' work.
The report was released by Alternatives, the worker center and ILR researchers at an event at the Plumbers and Steamfitters Union Hall, 701 W. State/Martin Luther King St., Ithaca.