"BING" is a Basic Income Needs Generator for real cost measure budgets. The Real Cost Measure is a basic needs budget approach to better understand the challenges facing America's households.


A basic needs budget approach is intuitive and easy for most people to understand, as it is composed of things all families must address such as food, housing, transportation, childcare, out of pocket health expenses, and taxes. A basic needs budget approach takes into account different costs of living in different communities, and also conveys a better sense of the hardship for families with income below the basic needs budget level as it invokes the notion of tradeoffs between competing needs—if you have an inadequate level of income, do you sacrifice on food, gas, or childcare?


For more information visit the United Way of California's site STRUGGLING TO GET BY: THE REAL COST MEASURE IN CALIFORNIA 2015