A good salary to live on if you're single is at least $1,000.00 to $1,500.00 per month.
If you have kids then you should have a salary of $3,000.00 to $5,000.00 per month to live comfortably on.
You can live on a lower salary even with kids but it's a hard thing to do and so it's best to have more money than you really need instead of living paycheck to paycheck.
Living alone is cheaper but when you have kids then the cost of living goes up and that $3,000.00 to 4,000.00 per month can seem like nothing.
When a person is making 4000 a month or $4,000.00 per month they are earning on average of $23.00 per hour.
The median necessary living wage across the entire US is $67,690.00.
The state with the lowest annual living wage is Mississippi, with $58,321.00
The state with the highest living wage is Hawaii, with $136,437.00
Also a 2018 study from Purdue University used much wider data from the Gallup World Poll and found that the ideal income point for individuals is $95,000.00 for life satisfaction and $60,000.00 to $75,000.00 for emotional well-being.
When people earned more than $105,000.00, their happiness levels decreased.
If you make $23.00 per hour and work 10 hours per day then you would earn $230.00 per day and if you worked 5 days a week that would mean you would make $1,150.00 per week.
So that $1,150.00 per week X 4 weeks would be $4,600.00 per month.
So if you made 4000 per month and made $23.00 per hour you would probably be working 9 hours per day but of course some people work less hours and some people work more hours.
And then again some people may earn more per hour and work less hours.
Living on $4,000.00 per month is very doable and even $3,000.00 per month is a very livable salary in most places.
You can live on $3,000.00 a month.
Living on $3,000.00 a month is very possible as long as you live somewhere cheap.
For example if you were to live in a place such as Kansas, Oklahoma, Utah, Arkansas etc you could live on $3,000.00 per month easily.
But if you live in a big city such as NYC or Los Angeles California or other big cities then $3,000.00 per month would be hardly enough to live on.
For example a NYC apartment alone could cost $3,000.00 per month so you would need to make a minimum of around $10,000.00 per month to live comfortably in NYC.
But if you had $10,000.00 per month and were living somewhere cheaper where rent or housing was cheaper and living expenses were cheaper than $10,000.00 per month would go much farther and even $3,000.00 per month would go much farther.
I live on $2,000.00 per month myself and I live cheaply in an owned house that is paid for, buy cheap groceries and only buy clothes when needed or buy something when needed.
Some people live on $1,500.00 or less so it's very doable but you have to watch your budget and spending.