The rising cost of rent has pushed up the Living Wage rate.
It's now set at €12.30 an hour - an increase of 40 cent on last year's rate.
Its determined by looking at what it costs to have a socially acceptable minimum standard of living.
Member of the Living Wage Technical Group, Robert Thornton, says the rate would have fallen if we didn't having a housing crisis.
He says "when we look back over the last five years of updates to the living wage, we see costs outside of housing have fallen slightly or stayed stable, whereas housing has gone up significantly".
Mr Thornton believes that things could have easily swung the other way, if there was no crisis.
He says "the living wage would have actually fallen in the last few years, were it not for the housing crisis and ongoing increases in rents".
The Taoiseach has defended not bringing in a mandatory living wage in Ireland.
Leo Varadkar is backing the current minimum wage of €9.80, saying "We've the second highest national minimum wage in the European Union".
He hit back at criticism against it, saying "its calculated by the Low Pay Commission, taking into account the views of workers and unions and also employers in the business sector".
