Could you get by on a low-wage job? Use this tool to find out.

Could You Get By on a Low-Wage Job? Use This Tool to Find Out.

Could You Get By on a Low-Wage Job? Use This Tool to Find Out.

Moneybox
Commentary about business and finance.
April 2 2014 3:33 PM

Could You Get By on a Low-Wage Job?

Use Marketplace’s tool to find out.

Walmart cashier
A cashier works at the checkout counter of a Walmart Supercenter in Ohio in 2005.

Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images

Nearly a third of all working families in the U.S. struggle to pay for their basic necessities every month. For Americans working in jobs that don’t require a college degree—minimum-wage workers at McDonald’s, sales associates at Walmart, those working multiple part-time jobs in retail—the struggle is more pronounced.

In this interactive, developed by Marketplace’s Wealth & Poverty Desk, you can see for yourself how difficult it is to make ends meet in a low-wage job.

This is part of the Marketplace series “The Secret Life of a Food Stamp.” Read the entire series here.

Marketplace, from American Public Media, is the most widely heard program on business and the economy in the nation.