I don't think that this belongs in this sub-forum at all, and I am rather put off by the dismissive opinions of a base amount for a living wage. Most people here earn multiples of this amount, live Mustachian lives and have the luxury of investing all that extra income with the goal of early retirement. Other people live off the same amounts or less out of necessity, not choice.
If a person wished to save for retirement, that would indeed be a minimum desirable 'living wage'. You could survive off of a lower salary, but your Mustachianism would need to be in full force just to cover your expenses, leaving nothing (or very little) left for saving and investment.
Mustachianism (with savings and investment) with the end-goal of FIRE is one thing, Mustachianism just to keep body and soul together with no hope of ever retiring is another thing entirely.
Even Canada's minimum wages are generous enough to cover a comfortable life and retirement. Not retirement at 30, but retirement at a normal retirement age or slightly earlier. In BC, for example, a full time minimum wage job would pay about $19,000/year after tax. Spending a fairly extravagant $10K-$12K would leave you with $7000-$9000/year for retirement savings, easily enough for a good retirement.
Fairly extravagant? What qualifies as extravagant?
20 years ago in my single days, a one bedroom apartment in a rather shabby building downtown Ottawa, within a bikeable distance of everything, cost me $630 a month. There goes $7560. Bell was $50 a month, or $600 a year (this was the dark ages before such things as 'competition' and 'internet phone'. We're at $8160 now. Groceries, probably around $200 (no big box stores within reasonable reach, and Canadian groceries just cost more and that's the plain jane truth like it or not).
So, I am housed, fed and can call my mother on Sunday, and my bill is $10,560. Oh yeah baby! Living the High Life!
And this is 20 years ago. It's only gotten worse.
Minimum wage in Ontario is currently $10.50 per hour. If you are earning minimum wage you are likely not a full time employee. You are likely to be a part time employee, probably working two part time jobs to get enough working hours. This means you don't have benefits, you don't have paid holidays, and you certainly don't have a pension plan.
Let's say you luck out and get two part time jobs and your wage is minimum, the aforementioned 10.50. You get even luckier and get the maximum hours from each job (24), so you are working 48 hours a week. Furthermore, let's say you hit the friggin jackpot and your workplaces are not unionized, so you don't have to pay union dues. Your pre tax income is $504 a week, or $26,208 annually.
You have a horseshoe up your butt and never ever get sick, so you don't have to take (unpaid) time off work. You also hate leisure and never take a week off to vacation. Also, you don't have children so you don't have to miss any work for their doctor's appointments or sick days or what have you. Yep. You are a machine. 48 hours a week, 52 weeks a year.
According to the handy calculator Rev Can provides, we can find the payroll deductions to be:
Federal Tax: 67.68
Provincial Tax: 29.65
CPP: 21.62
EI: 9.48
After-tax income is a princely 375.57 a week. And you're a machine remember, so you bring home $19, 529 a year. Assuming that you can live the high life outlined above, paying 1993 prices in 2013, you have $8969 a year to invest.
So, you invest. You get 7% on your money every year. It never changes. After 25 short years you've amassed $606,990.26. Not shabby. A 4% safe rate of return on that will net you $24,240 a year to live on. You can retire.
But to do that....
You never had children.
You never took so much as a single day off work........in 25 years.
You never needed eyeglasses or prescriptions or dental work.
You replaced no clothes or shoes or household items.
You gave no gifts.
You took no holidays.
You never ate out, not even so much as a popsicle from the corner store.
No movies.
No internet.
No cellphone.
No insurance.
No bicycle or bike trailer.
You bought absolutely nothing other than grocery store food and paid no bills other than rent and phone. No consumer goods of any kind, ever.
Oh, and you never bought a house, because that would entail higher monthly expenses due to paying property tax, a water bill, hydro and or gas bill, home owners insurance, etc, etc.
Nope, you stayed in your now extremely crappy one bedroom apartment downtown because heat and hydro were included.
For 25 years.
Of course, you could allow yourself the occasional luxury of a sick day or a book from the bookstore, or new underwear, but do it often enough and you get to continue this soul crushing way of life all the way to 65 when you qualify for OAS and CPP.
There is a world, nay, a universe of fucking difference between living on minimum wage and being mustachian.