What It Takes to Thrive

Defining a Thriving Wage

The Poughkeepsie Children’s Cabinet (PCC) is connecting cradle-to-career opportunities to build pathways for young people to achieve socioeconomic mobility. For students contemplating which pathway to take after high school, such as moving directly to work, college, or trade schools, it is important that they understand the longer term earning potential for each pathway. We know that economic mobility is about more than whether people have jobs. It’s about whether individuals and families have the resources and opportunities they need for long-term financial stability. At PCC, we want to know what it takes for families not just to survive, but to thrive, and what careers provide that opportunity. 

That question led us to a new measure of economic success: the thriving wage. A thriving wage is an income level that lets individuals and families cover their basic needs and also build lasting stability, resilience, and opportunity. It builds in recognition that as a community, our role is to encourage youth to seek careers that allow them to build wealth and have discretionary income to make choices about how they envision their future. 

Our report below explains how PCC determined how to measure thriving wage, as well as how it was built: the ways a thriving wage differs from a living wage, which cost-of-living measures we compared, how we calculate thriving wage thresholds, and how thriving wage contribute to decisions families make and define themselves. This measure belongs to everyone working toward a stronger Poughkeepsie: educators, youth program staff, employers, and families. We hope it sparks new conversations about how to help more of our neighbors thrive, and how to build the pipelines from early childhood through career exploration, and from entry-level jobs into higher education opportunities so that local employees can advance.