Orange County Living Wage for 2026 is $22.60/hour

By Susan Romaine  |  January 1, 2026

It is a crime for people to live in this rich nation and receive starvation wages … It is a crime for people to work full-time and still not be able to make enough to live on.      Martin Luther King, Jr., 1968

For the past decade, the nonprofit Orange County Living Wage (OCLW) has announced each January its annual living wage for the county’s tens of thousands of hourly workers. The announcement has served as a guidepost for employers preparing annual budgets, workers living paycheck-to-paycheck, and consumers wanting to spend their dollars at living wage workplaces. Then a year ago, OCLW was forced to shut down operations; however, its annually adjusted living wage can still be easily calculated with the same Universal Living Wage Formula (ULWF) used throughout the nonprofit’s ten-year tenure. So, that’s just what we did, and here’s what we found.

For 2026, Orange County’s living wage for hourly workers is $22.60. For employers who pay at least half of employees’ health insurance, the living wage is reduced by $1.50, to $21.10, to cover the additional cost incurred by the employer.

To add some context to the numbers: for the first time, Orange County’s living wage is more than triple the state’s minimum wage of $7.25/hour. While 34 states and the District of Columbia have raised their minimum wage above the federal $7.25 minimum, North Carolina’s minimum wage has not budged since 2009.  That’s right; for the past 17 years, there has been no wage adjustment even for inflation.

This year’s living wage represents a 13.6% increase over 2025, reflecting the post-pandemic spike in rent in Orange and surrounding counties. As big as that jump is, it is a conservative estimate. OCLW uses average Fair Market Rents (FMRs) over a four-year period to even out the ebbs and flows and remove some of the variability in rent over time.

The $22.60 living wage applies to a worker who is single and living in a one-bedroom apartment.  As family size increases, so too does the living wage. To see other advocacy groups’ estimates for the living wage in Orange County based on family size and composition, visit the Living Wage for US website.

Now that we know the living wage for 2026, let’s drill down on where the number comes from and what it really means. 

What is the definition of a living wage?

For the purposes of the Universal Living Wage Formula, a “living wage” is defined as the minimum amount of income a worker must earn to afford rent and other basic needs (i.e., food, transportation, clothing, medicine) without any reliance on public or private assistance. This is a bare-bones, rock-bottom definition – with some glaring omissions. For example, this formula does not consider a smartphone to be a basic need. Nor is Wi-Fi service, an occasional meal at a restaurant, or a birthday gift for a friend. Most troubling, the $22.60 living wage does not allow for even the most minimal rainy-day fund to help a worker stay afloat during family or medical emergencies. There is zero wiggle room in this budget for life’s inevitable setbacks and crises, only adding to the stress when they do occur.

What is the advantage of using the Universal Living Wage Formula? 

While the ULWF has its shortcomings, it has the advantage of indexing the living wage to rent, by far the biggest expense for Orange County residents and still rising at a double-digit clip.  The ULWF is based on the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) standard that no more than 30% of a worker’s gross income be spent on rent, freeing up the other 70% for other basic needs. For an Orange County worker earning an annual salary of $45,000, HUD’s standard means that rent for a one-bedroom apartment is, at most, $1,125. Practically speaking, that apartment is almost impossible to find in Orange County.

It may be possible to find an apartment at this price in nearby counties though. That’s why almost one-third of Orange County workers live in and commute from the surrounding counties of Alamance, Chatham, and Durham. Given these commuting patterns, OCLW tweaked the ULWF by using the average cost of a one-bedroom apartment in the four-county area of Alamance, Chatham, Durham, and Orange. 

Just who are these living wage workers?

They are the tens of thousands of workers in Orange County earning just enough to eke by while providing critical services and benefits for the rest of us. They staff our hospitals, nursing homes, schools, police and fire departments, grocery stores, restaurants and cafes, hair salons, farms, and automobile and bicycle repair shops. They work tirelessly for nonprofit organizations that are building affordable housing, running food pantries, maintaining parks, spreading literacy, and caring for neighbors who are sick or frail. In short, they are sustaining the everyday life of the community.

In the nearly six decades since Martin Luther King, Jr. made the statement that opened this essay, the gap between North Carolina’s minimum, starvation wage and its living wage has only widened.  In Orange County, the living wage is now more than three times its minimum wage, forcing many full-time workers to take on a second job or side gig, skip medical or dental care, let a phone or water bill lapse, visit a food pantry, or rely on grandparents or other family members for childcare. Sadly, this is the daily reality for all too many stressed workers living just one bill away from food insecurity or eviction. 

How do we turn the minimum wage into a living wage in North Carolina?

The quickest path to reform is November’s midterm elections. To honor Martin Luther King’s dream that every full-time worker in North Carolina can “make enough to live on,” we must elect more labor-friendly state legislators. “Democrats in the General Assembly have consistently introduced legislation to increase wages for working North Carolinians,” says State Representative Allen Buansi. “Every Democratic lawmaker has signed legislation to increase the state’s minimum wage to $15 per hour, but it will take Democrats in the majority in the General Assembly to get this legislation even considered, heard in committee and voted on. Elections matter.”

Susan Romaine is a founding member of Orange County Living Wage and was active in the organization throughout its ten-year tenure.