If it is reasonable for a young person to have flatmates, then that should be because they are a student or an artist and are working only part-time while devoting the rest of their time to their studies or their art.
But a person working full-time? Who may be a single mother or father with a child to support? They should be able to afford a place to live, without roommates.
A living wage is for living indefinitely, not just surviving. That should afford more comforts like a reasonable amount of space, a car if needed, and saving for retirement or emergencies.
These are all real situations that make me think that pinning "living wage" to a level where you have to have roommates is not a good goal. You're basically asking people to survive by accepting unstable living conditions and potentially taking strangers into their homes, which isn't exactly "having your needs met."
Theres also lots more people, and as more people consume more resources it does not follow that better technology in some field will translate to increased every aspect of life.
It's not "student wage". It's not "struggling young person" wage. It's "living" wage. It's for living - at any age.
Eg does that quants internship get a lower pay because they are expected to graduate beyond it? If so, how do we define what jobs are stepping stones and which are long-term careers?
There are many ways to accomplish this beyond simply raising wages. Better government programs, lower the cost of housing/medical/transportation/food/etc. (these are surprisingly simple but many vested interests don't want this to happen), better retirement programs, etc. etc. etc. You see more of this in more socially democratic countries.
With a lot of these discussions, we need to be careful about the seductively simple solutions.
(Lowering the cost of essential goods and services is also something that can be done by leveraging the open market. It doesn't take yet another wasteful government program, which is the typical approach in socialist and social-democrat countries.)
Pick IL for example. Min wage $15, so $30k a year income fulltime. Most every adult that’s worked even a little should be able to earn decently more than min, which is for completely unskilled, new workers. Median il wage is 66k.
Even at $30k, the rough 30% rule on housing is $750/mo. At 66k it’s over $1500/mo.
Dig through smaller cities, and you’ll find apartments to rent in either end of this range. This works in any state.
(Which in turn opens up opportunities for others to move in to the higher-cost places and boost their own productivity.)
Historically housing was much smaller. And people lived with their families for a lot longer commonly. A lot less was also spent on domestic appliances (not just washer & dryers) and at-home entertainment (a lot less was spent on entertainment in general).