Cities where you can realistically live on minimum wage

It's tough to get by on minimum wage no matter where you live. But in a few select cities, life on the lowest end of the pay scale is more forgiving.

To determine the cities where it's easiest to be a minimum wage worker, GOBankingRates found the largest cities where the minimum wage is higher than the $7.25-an-hour federal minimum wage. Then, we examined the median price of rent for a one-bedroom apartment and the cost of groceries, utilities and transportation to determine if the pay from a minimum-wage job could cover those expenses.

Of the 13 cities that met that threshold, we ranked them in order of how much was money left over per year after paying for basic expenses, from the least amount of extra cash to the most. If you earn the minimum wage, click through to see where you can live comfortably.

Where the Liveable Cities Are Located

The cities where minimum-wage employees can realistically live are located in two main areas: the Southwest and the Midwest. Wages are higher and the cost of living is lower than the coasts. Conspicuously absent is the Southeast, because states and cities there typically don't have minimum wages that are higher than the federal rate.

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Methodology: GOBankingRates compiled the list of cities based on the 100 most populous U.S. cities, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates and scraped for cities located in states with higher minimum wage than the federal minimum wage, according to U.S. Department of Labor data. Monthly costs of living included the following factors for a single person: (1) housing, using the median rent for a one-bedroom apartment in each city, sourced from Zillow's October 2017 rental index; (2) groceries, using the recommended amount reported by cost-of-living database Numbeo.com for each city; (3) utilities in each city, according to cost estimates from Numbeo.com; (4) transportation cost based on the price of a monthly pass for public transportation, according to cost estimates from Numbeo.com. Monthly costs were totaled and multiplied by 12 to get the annual dollar cost of necessities in each city. To get yearly salaries, the minimum wage was multiplied by 40 hours a week and by 52 weeks in a year.

This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Cities Where You Can Realistically Live on Minimum Wage