Even in the best year (2008, $3269) this isn't remotely enough to live on. That's less than $9 a day, and that's an exceptionally high payout! In 2012 it was $2.40 a day. Maybe you could live on that in India or Vietnam, but not in the U.S.
This does have certain implications where either it gets indexed to some kind of cost of living index, probably very corruptly, or it gets polarized into some kind of coastie/non-coastie or urban/rural issue.