The Economic Policy Institute has just updated their cost-of-living budgets to reflect how much a family needs to earn to get by in 2013.
Looking at over 600 locations and estimating community-specific costs, EPI found that families need more than twice the amount of the federal poverty line to have a secure yet modest living standard.
"Our family budget calculations show that the real costs for families to live modest -- not even middle class -- lives are much higher than conventional estimates show and virtually impossible for families living on minimum-wage jobs," said Elise Gould, the Economic Policy Institute director of health policy research.
And Miami-Dade is no exception, where the institute found it takes nearly three times the federal poverty line to live a modest lifestyle.
A two-parent, one-child family living in the Miami-Miami-Beach-Kendall metro area needs to earn $60,168 a year to cover all basic expenses, according to EPI.
Meanwhile the federal poverty line for a family of three was set at $19,090 for 2012. According to EPI annual wages for one full-time, full-year minimum-wage worker total $15,080.
EPI's calculated budget for Miami families is also more than $10,000 over the median income for Miami-Dade County, which was $47,500 in 2012, slightly less than the national average of $52,762.
Where is the money going? Health care tops even housing expenses each month-- check out how the $60,168 income is spent by a Miami family of three:
The rest of South Florida proves to be just as expensive: A Broward family of three needs $55,486 to get by and a Palm Beach household of the same size tops in at $61,021.
Click below for the breakdown of EPI's Miami cost-of-living budgets based on family size:
