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I didn’t realize it at the time, but there were a lot of important things I always took for granted growing up and then raising a family. We moved around quite a bit, so I have a lot of experience in starting over in new places. But we had it a lot better than I thought.
- It never occurred to me that I wouldn’t be able to find a full-time job that at least paid enough to stay one step ahead of the creditors.
- It never occurred to me that I wouldn’t be able to buy a decent enough vehicle to get me to work, much less the gas needed to take me there.
- It never occurred to me that I wouldn’t be able to afford an inexpensive place to live that was still reasonably clean and safe.
Times changed, and those things occur to folks a lot nowadays. The housing shortage is not only forcing more families to live together, sometimes in cramped conditions, it’s keeping more people from being able to move here and fill open positions. That, in turn, is keeping the local economy from gathering enough momentum to fight off the triple evils of inflation, kinks in the supply chain and war in Ukraine.
All of which brings up an important question: Just how much money does it take to live in Cherokee County?
Once upon a time, one of the county’s charms was its cheap land, but that was a story told long ago. The cost of living in the rural mountains used to be a fraction of what it cost in the city, but that, too, has changed dramatically over the years.
The N.C. Budget & Tax Center has released its 2022 Living Income Standard. The goal, according to a release, is to capture what it really takes to make ends meet in all 100 counties. The standard is not living high on the hog, taking vacations and dining out – it’s a basic floor for what families need to get by.
By that standard, we’ve got a lot of work to do to keep working families from falling through the cracks – especially in Cherokee County, which ranks below the state average in most categories.
Let’s start with a traditional nuclear family of four, two adults and two children. In order to meet all of their essential needs, that family living here requires an annual income of $59,780, which breaks down to $28.75 per hour if one adult works full time outside the home, $14.25 per hour if both adults do.
That’s significantly higher than the county’s median household income of $40,793, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Yet, most of us know local families who are somehow managing to live on much less, even if it puts a huge strain on their marriage and quality of life.
According to the Living Income Standard, the least-expensive county in North Carolina for that family to live in is Alleghany at $52,950, while Chatham and Orange counties come in at a staggering $80,000. Try making that work on minimum wage, which would take a 17-hour workday for a single parent to get by. Very few people in that position can afford medical insurance, and fewer still can save for retirement.
What can we do about it? The best place to start is simply by acknowledging the reality of what has happened over the last 40 years.
Average worker pay rose 8.8 percent from 1979-2019, from $21.14 per hour to $23 per hour, according to Pew Research. Meanwhile, the average pay of chief executive officers has risen 970.2 percent – no, that’s not a typo – in the same time frame.