What is a living wage for Bellingham? Official estimates don’t hold up against the average budget
Bellingham Herald mcclatchy·Mercy Housing Northwest/Courtesy to The Bellingham Herald
Alyse Smith
5 min read
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The Bellingham Herald publishes articles each month on grocery, gas, rent and real estate costs, as well as roundups of local jobs that pay a “living wage,” but now we have crunched the numbers to find a figure we feel is closer to an actual living wage in Bellingham.
A living wage depends on the size of your family and how many dependents you need to provide for. First, we looked at what other organizations thought was a living wage in Bellingham.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology calculated the living wage by county by evaluating typical expenses to find how much an individual must make hourly to support themselves, or multiple children or dependents in a full-time job. According to the MIT data:
▪ Bellingham’s living wage for an individual with no dependents is $23.52 per hour, working full time.
▪ For an individual with one dependent the living wage is $41.99 per hour. With two dependents, it’s $54.84 per hour, and $72.06 with three dependents.
▪ In a household with two adults, but only one working and no dependents, the living wage is $32.07 per hour.
▪ In a household with two adults who both work full-time with no dependents, the living wage is $16.04.
▪ In a household with two adults who bot work full-time with one dependent, the living wage is $23.53 per hour. With two dependents, its $29.97 per hour, and $35.65 with three dependents.
Living costs in Bellingham
To evaluate a real living wage in Bellingham, we researched living costs including housing, insurance, groceries, gas, student loans, utilities and health care.
Housing costs
The average rental prices in Bellingham in February were $1,500 in the 98225 ZIP code and $1,836 in the 98226 ZIP code, averaging $1,668 between the two ZIP codes, according to previous reporting by The Bellingham Herald. For rental insurance, the average cost is $159 per year, or $13.25 per month in Washington state, according to ValuePenguin, a research and analysis website.
For home owners, mortgage costs can vary based on the price of your home, property taxes, credit scores, down payments, interest, HOA fees and more. Jason Lee, a Bellingham real estate broker with Windermere Real Estate, looked at the average sold price of Bellingham homes in February to give us a local estimation of mortgage payments.
The average home sold price in February was $741,000. With a 20% down payment on a 30-year mortgage loan with a 6.375% interest rate, a homeowner in Bellingham would pay about $4,268.27 per month.
“No two home buyers are the same,” Lee wrote in an email to The Herald.” “Existing debt, credit score, W-2 income, etc., will all factor into how much you can afford and what mortgage rate you qualify for. Don’t assume that a friend or family member’s monthly mortgage payment will be what you would pay.”
But what about utilities? The average cost of utilities in Washington state including energy, water, internet, natural gas, phone and streaming is $401.20 per month, according to Forbes Home, Forbes’ home improvement website.
On average, renting in Bellingham costs an estimated $2,082.45 per month, and owning a home costs about $4,766.47 per month.
Car and gas costs
We also evaluated the monthly cost of car insurance and gas.
In Washington, car insurance costs about $1,410 per year for full coverage and $515 per year for minimal coverage, according to Bankrate, a personal finance research website. Depending on your coverage, the average costs between those estimates would be $962.50 per year, or $80 per month.
Gas costs can also vary depending on the type of gas you use, how often your drive your car, where you drive, and what type of car you have. On average, Americans spend between $150 to $200 on gas every month, according to J.D. Power.
Many Americans also have student loan debt and have monthly payments they need to budget for. According to a study from Student Loan Planner and data from the graduating class of 2019, Washington residents pay an average of $274 per month on loan payments.
The total of all the monthly expenses above come to an estimated $4,414.45 for renters in Bellingham, and an estimated $7,098.47 for homeowners in Bellingham.
The monthly expense total does not include the costs of any debt payments besides student loans, car and home upkeep, clothing, health care products and other household costs.
Bellingham’s living wage
If someone in Bellingham made $17.53 per hour, the living wage according to the city, they would make approximately $2,804.80 per month and $33,650 per year before payroll deductions.
According to our basic analysis, to afford the total cost of living in Bellingham an individual needs to make at least $27.59 per hour gross pay to rent in the city. For homeowners, an individual needs to make at least $44.37 per hour gross pay.
Again, this is a very simplified budget we’re presenting. Our cost analysis did not include dependents, car loans, clothing, health care products, car maintenance, investments or savings and other costs that arise.
