Minimum wage and living wage are essentially the same thing. I see the terms being used interchangeably. Besides, Doc gave us the dictionary definition of "living wage"
"the hourly rate an individual must earn to support their family, as the sole provider, assuming full-time employment."
They have to be the same thing, actually. If "living wage" is how much a person must earn over minimum wage to support their family, then living wage would dictate what minimum wage should be. Thus the two go hand in hand. I fail to see a difference.
Minimum wage is not the same thing as a living wage.
A minimum wage
is a fixed number. It's set by law. A living wage is, as I pointed out before, not a fixed number.
You could make an argument that the minimum wage "should" be the same as a living wage, but 1.) It's not and 2.) that doesn't make the terms mean the same thing, anyway.
Okay... so why the push to raise the minimum wage? If living wage is what is needed over minimum wage per hour for an individual to support his family, wouldn't it be reasonable to assume, at 15 bucks an hour, the "living wage" would be higher than that? The number seems to rise in lockstep with changes to minimum wage, does it not?
No, it doesn't "rise in lockstep" with the minimum wage - that's the whole point. Other than both describing bottom-end wages, the two terms have entirely different meanings.
$15 an hour is
more than a "living wage" in some places, and
less in others.
For example, if I made $15 an hour full time, that works out to around $30,000 per year. If my rent is only $500 a month ($6000 a year), then that $15 an hour goes a long way, and you could consider that well above a "living wage". On the other hand, if my rent is $2000 a month, that $30,000 a year would go almost entirely to rent, making $15 an hour decidedly less than a "living wage".