Minimum wage IS a living wage, unless you’re bad with money.

Minimum rage wrote:

14,000/year.

Depends on the city, but I could easily live on this with money to save.

Yeah it depends on the city. In my city you can make 2-3 times that amount pouring steamed milk into a cup of espresso!

Total nonsense. While it is cheaper to live in some parts of the country, less than $50 per week solely on groceries is tough to manage. Think about it, that's $7/day for three meals and drinks. $1 pasta, $.50 cheddar cheese, $1 tomatoes, $1 tortillas, $.50 peanut oil, $.50 olive oil, $1 for cereal, $.50 milk, $1 drink. Now you want a single mother with two kids to live on this?? Crazy.

Most people need to commute to work. That's going to require a car in many places that lack public transportation, thanks to conservatives. If you have public transportation, that's probably going to be about $60/month or $720/year. You better be in the right state to be covered by Medicaid. If you're in a Republican state that didn't expand Medicaid coverage, you're probably out of luck. At $500 rent, that's $6k/year or half your take-home pay. Anything over 1/3 of take home pay is considered a serious problem. At $600 rent, that's $7200/year. Good luck living on the remaining $4800, especially with two kids. Where are those kids when Mom is working 40 hours per week at minimum wage? Doesn't she have to pay for child care? Child care is going to drain much of the remaining. 10 hours per week at $20/hr for the two, a steal, that's $200/week or $10,400/year.

They better be school age and have some free public aftercare or it cannot work. A living wage would be more like $25k for a mother with two kids and only in certain parts of the country.

zxcvzxcv wrote:

Total nonsense. While it is cheaper to live in some parts of the country, less than $50 per week solely on groceries is tough to manage. Think about it, that's $7/day for three meals and drinks. $1 pasta, $.50 cheddar cheese, $1 tomatoes, $1 tortillas, $.50 peanut oil, $.50 olive oil, $1 for cereal, $.50 milk, $1 drink. Now you want a single mother with two kids to live on this?? Crazy.y.

That family would receive about $400 in SNAP (food stamps) benefits per month.

Wasn't there a thread not too long ago about how it would be impossible* for a single person with no dependents to survive off of $475/month ($5700/yr) even if you lived in a house in flyover country that was completely paid off? And the cost of rent to that, and I can't see how someone could survive on minimum wage*.

*Only way this can be done is by having a sh!t ton of roommates.

no effin way wrote:

And the cost of rent to that, and I can't see how someone could survive on minimum wage*.

*Only way this can be done is by having a sh!t ton of roommates.

Meant "add", not "and". Stupid auto-correct....

Plenty to eat......... wrote:

zxcvzxcv wrote:

Total nonsense. While it is cheaper to live in some parts of the country, less than $50 per week solely on groceries is tough to manage. Think about it, that's $7/day for three meals and drinks. $1 pasta, $.50 cheddar cheese, $1 tomatoes, $1 tortillas, $.50 peanut oil, $.50 olive oil, $1 for cereal, $.50 milk, $1 drink. Now you want a single mother with two kids to live on this?? Crazy.y.

That family would receive about $400 in SNAP (food stamps) benefits per month.

A single mother with two kids could and would quit her job and collect welfare up the wazoo. Let's be real for a second here

afaduhfasd wrote:

Mark Twain wrote:

When the world ends I want to live in Cincinnati, because they're 20 years behind everybody.

Hey-oh!

If Cincy is not your taste, you can also find apartments in the $600/mo range in (among others), Houston, San Antonio, Phoenix, Orlando, Tampa, etc.

Major metropolitan areas (Manhattan, NJ, Chicago, etc) will probably cost more, but one can probably find work at higher than minimum wage.

Housing costs (ncluding utilities) can further be defrayed by sharing living space with roomate(s)

Minimum wage can be living wage

Forget that. I know apartments that cost $200 a month in Houston.

The delusion is high in this thread. Particularly in regards to housing and food costs.

Veritas wrote:

The delusion is high in this thread. Particularly in regards to housing and food costs.

Agreed. Folks in the big cities don't realize that some things are actually affordable in other parts of the country.

You're among the delusional.

only if you live in a redneck section of the usa

factcheck.org wrote:

Minimum wage should be 0 dollars wrote:

Either way, it's not a firm's job or moral obligation to provide a living wage in the first place.

Truth.

Minimum wage used to be 0 dollars. It was a good system unless of course you were one of the slaves.

Part of a business expense is to pay a living wage. Don't expect us tax payers to cover for you and pay living costs for your employees family.

Food is cheap. 2 dozen eggs, a $5 canister of oats, a $3 skippy peanut butter, a loaf of bread, a bag of carrots, other frozen veg, a couple cans of chickpeas, and some rice will get you pretty far for $25-30.

Just stop buying meat, milk, and fruit. It saves a ton of money. Sure, it’s not perfect nutrition. But it’s a lot better than the average poor American diet.

And will cause health problems later in life. And you won't be saving much money in the meantime. So many naive posters...

I've seen $350 per month for rent in the sticks with a roommate, but $120 a month for food? How on Earth could anyone do that? That's $4 per day? $1.33 per meal? Most snacks cost more than that. A real meal with any nutritional value costs at least $3-5, even if you're buying very cheap.

factcheck.org wrote:

Minimum wage should be 0 dollars wrote:

Either way, it's not a firm's job or moral obligation to provide a living wage in the first place.

Truth.

"Profits made out of the distress of the people are always much smaller than profits made out of the most lavish service of the people at the lowest prices that competent management can make possible"

"I will build a motor car for the great multitude...constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise...so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one-and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God's great open spaces."

"But to do for the world more than the world does for you--that is Success."

- Henry Ford

He started a kind of profitable company.

You wont see what you think if you think it is $15,000 a year try and live on about $8,000 or so because that is what you will likely see.

This is my monthly gross and I am struggling:

Gross Pay: $6,174.00

Taxable Wages: $4,716.94

Nontaxable Wages: $419.06

Deductions: $1,499.06

Net Pay : ($4,674.94)

Deductions:

Allotments, SV: $4.00

FEHB: $171.84

OASDI: $146.22

Retire, Fers: $112.99

Tax, State: $74.08

Dental: $28.96

FEGLI: $10.35

Medicare: $34.20

Union: $15.00

Tax, Federal: $138.44

TSP: $8.72

Vision: $8.73

Take Home: ($3,921.41)

Now let’s talk About Bills:

Rent: $774.00

Car: $490.00

Insurance: $334.00 (Michigan is not cheap)

Utilities: $200.00

Phones: $184.00

Internet: $50.00

Food: $400.00 (Family of 4)

Gas: $200.00 (I work 50 miles away)

Day Care: $600.00

Additional: $687.00

Total: ($3,919.00)

Pocket Average is about even.

For those that can assume you can survive off of minimum wage good luck to you it is not a forgiving economy right now and they will pounce on you the moment you are down and try and keep you there. As you can see I make a decent income and don’t take much home a great deal of the deductions are not by choice and I do not have a very nice car. I went through some financial difficulties when the economy took a turn and my wife and I lost everything our house our nice vehicles and even got hit with a bankruptcy. Also when we asked for state help food stamps, and other assistance we got denied. They kept trying to say well you made $110,000 last year and I was trying to explain well I am completely out of a job now. They did not care and yet it is a fact you will see illegals at the state office getting everything they need but myself a hard working disabled veteran basically got spit on.

See original thread title. If you are bad with money you can’t live on any wage. Making $110000 and not having an emergency fund or plan of you lose your $110,000/yr job is being bad with money. You probably spent more than you had. “They” are not keeping you down.

Also, you’re time would have been better spent working 50hours per week immediately at a minimum wage job so you wouldn’t need food stamps.

After the Last job I lost, on the way home , I stopped at a restaurant and was hired for a minimum wage job. I could not go home without a job. Jobs are good. Not bad. Even if you have to wear a uniform and make less than you did.

It's doable, but not on the coasts (that being said, most jobs in coastal cities pay well over minimum wage). The OP probably lives in his parents basement, so he has enough disposable income for his X-box and his skateboard. Sharing a space makes it even cheaper (I made it through college on $200 a month rent and about $30 a week for food). That being said, a minimum wage job is a starting point, not an ending point and can serve as an educational opportunity if you treat it as such. If you get an education and don't have a kid outside of wedlock, you will not have to worry about a minimum wage job long term (and yes, I worked a number of crap minimum wage jobs growing up, and I learned many things about business doing so that I use in my career today). The great thing about this country is we can determine our own worth through hard work, education and life choices.