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.

Let's see you try.

You seem to be assuming that you can continue to live in your parents basement, eat your mom's cooking, drive the late-model car they bought you, and ride their health and auto insurance in your calculations. If you eliminated all of those assumptions and understood what it means to fend for yourself, you'd realize how ridiculous your claim is.

"Depends on the City" is the a red flag that shows you don't know what the f*ck you're talking about. Moving is expensive and risky. People have social capital where they currently live: friends, family, contacts, etc who can help put you up for a night, put in a good reference, lend you money, and so forth.

Then there's finding an affordable place to live. Safe, quality, inexpensive housing is in short supply. You can't get a decent place for much less than the city average. Why would a landlord charge less than they can get, unless the place is a shithole, in a shithole neighborhood. 14,000/year gives you a budget of $583/month for housing plus utilities, plus you'd need to save up close to $1200 for first month plus security deposit. How do you propose saving $1200 if you're living on the edge? "Flyover towns" with lower costs have no jobs or social services. What good is that? Shitty crack houses are dangerous. What good is that?

Housing close to business districts tends to be more expensive, so you'd almost certainly need to commute. Most places have dreadful public transportation, so you need a car or you'd lose your job. Poor neighborhoods also tend to lack grocery stores, so you need a car to get decent food. Poor people don't have a nearby Wegmans like you do near your parents house. If you suggest a food pantry, it shows you have no clue about how they work. Visits are strictly limited, and what you get is similarly limited. I know places to get breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day, but if you work you may not be able to get there while they're operating.

Cars need maintenance and insurance. If you're poor, you're almost certainly driving a car that is old and unreliable.

You also need a phone, so your boss can call you because shitty minimum wage jobs have inconsistent work schedules. You also need medical insurance and money for health care. And don't forget clothing.

I volunteer with homeless people, and people on the margin. I help them find safe, stable housing. It's really hard. You can get a boarding house room for the $583 budget when they come available, but then you have no kitchen or refrigerator. Public transportation sucks. I know a couple of young men who walk 6 miles per day getting to and from work. This isn't even an expensive place like Boston, NYC, LA, or San Francisco

There is no way you can be a single mom and raise two kids on minimum wage. Who watches then kid while mom works? Oh yes, someone else with no job. Sure. If you want those kids to go to college good luck. They give need based grants but few go for free. I guess they don't need any education either. They can join the min. wage earners.

Medicaid does not cover anything. Even an ambulance ride has a $100 copay.

You guys are looking at this all wrong.

Let this person work for minimum wage, struggle and be happy and proud about it so that those of us making real money can pay a lot less for the services we enjoy.

We call that the American Way!

Let's be a little more patriotic.

Almost all minimum wage jobs are less than 40 hours a week. As many examples of people who say they have lived on $14k a year, they are only covering the very basic of basics. If you can’t cover health insurance or saving for retirement, then you are woefully ignorant of how close you are to being homeless. If their lifestyle was sustainable they would still be living that way. Granted that minimum wage is supposed to be only a starting point, the current minimum wage is actually below starting point level.

If you are budgeting correctly you should be paying between $350 and $400 a month for housing if you are living on $14k a year. If you are spending more than that you are living beyond your means.

Having a standard minimum wage across the county or even across a state is a problem. The minimum wage ought to be tied to the cost of a basic apartment rental in the local area that you live/work in. No long commute to work allowed. This makes housing affordable and then other life expenses can fall in line so that people can apply themselves as they want to improving their situation and earning a better wage. If they wish to stay at the local minimum wage forever, fine. Not everyone is cut out for college.

zxcvxzcv wrote:

$1k rent/month plus $50 utilities, $200 food=$15,000. You can imagine a lot of other expenses, car, car insurance, clothes, phone bill, gifts, furniture.

But you don't get to keep a bunch of that $14k anyway. Even if you count tax refunds at the end of the year--tough to make it that far--you're still taking home more like $12k at most. So, no, minimum wage is not a living wage even if you're single with no children.

What you fail to realize is that increases in the minimum wage increase the prices of all of the goods and services that minimum wage workers use (pretty much everything except utilities). The single mother with two kids made choices that put her in that situation (and the fathers of those children should be held financially liable for their role). The children are covered by food programs and Medicaid (which covers almost everything for kids with pretty much no copay).

no effin way wrote:

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, the point of that thread was that the only thing that would even make that difficult was health insurance.

I lived on less than $7000 / year (i.e. what I spent, already adjusted for inflation) for 5 years, paying rent with a few roommates. I didn't even budget; that was doing pretty much anything I felt like doing with money, in a city that costs three times that of my hometown for rent. (Which is to say most of that was rent.) . The only caveat there was I was not paying for health insurance.

Old cars are cheap. Do the maintenance yourself. Liability only insurance (with a good record) is cheap. Old clothes are cheap. Only buy fruit in season and don't buy much meat, and food is cheap. Cell phone plans can be really cheap if you know how to do it. ($10 / month).

Now, on the flip side, of course businesses have a moral obligation to pay their workers a living wage. What kind of sociopath could possibly think otherwise? It's possible to disagree on what wage that actually is, or if we're better off with the government enforcing that wage, but not that they have a moral obligation to pay a wage that can be lived on. Someone who doesn't think a business has a moral obligation to its workers needs to be removed from any type of power, immediately; they're a sociopath.

CuriousPerson wrote:

no effin way wrote:

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, the point of that thread was that the only thing that would even make that difficult was health insurance.

Food: $155/month (a bit over $5/day. Save coupons, buy groceries in bulk, and don't eat outside)

Property tax: $100/month (this is about as low as you can go without living in a dump)

Water/Sewer: $50/month (a large portion of this is fixed service charges that apply even if you use no water)

Electric: $30/month (you won't be getting much AC in summer)

Gas: $30/month (average price, winter will be more expensive than summer)

Clothes, shoes, and personal care products: $20/month

Entertainment: $50/month (includes internet and phone)

Transportation: $20/month (you'll be using your bike for almost all trips)

Emergency fund for repairs: $20/month (what's left of the budget; you need to be somewhat lucky to avoid major repairs and DIY all your minor ones)

The $475/month budget is doable, but as you said, it leaves no room for health insurance.

Your proposed budget assumes that the individual owns the home they live on. A very big assumption considering this thread is about a minimum wage worker.

Veritas wrote:

Your proposed budget assumes that the individual owns the home they live on. A very big assumption considering this thread is about a minimum wage worker.

He was referring to a specific thread in which the guy had a paid for house.

I know, I saw that thread. This is another thread regarding minimum wage workers. Completely different scenarios.

Veritas wrote:

I know, I saw that thread. This is another thread regarding minimum wage workers. Completely different scenarios.

Yes, different scenarios. A minimum wage worker would get more than 475/month so not sure why you're applying one to the other.

Veritas wrote:

I know, I saw that thread. This is another thread regarding minimum wage workers. Completely different scenarios.

Just add the cost of rent to it, and replace the property tax cost with extra transportation costs due to your work commute. $600/month for rent will still keep you within budget ($5700+$7200=

That is a pretty spot on perfect budget.

Yes, you increase the budget due to having to pay rent and increase transportation costs due to the fact you have to get to and from work. The 'proposed budget' also admits your electric and gas varies by season but uses the minimum hypothetical payment only. One of those bills is going to be higher for most of the year. And you have to have excellent health and have little to no dental or vision issues because you have no insurance. Also, places with such low costs of living tend to be quite a bit more limited in the social and transportation services they provide, in case anyone feels it would be no issue taking the bus and going to soup kitchens. God help you if you have a spouse and kids... And, minimum wage jobs usually don't offer 40 hours a week and may have very inconsistent schedules. This could make it difficult to impossible to coordinate getting between multiple jobs if you needed more money. You would almost certainly need your own vehicle, which means paying for gas and car insurance.

But... If you are young, single with no dependants, live next to work, get 40hrs/week, have no car, have perfect health and live in an area with a very low cost of living that happens to offer cheap and reliable public transportation... You'll be fine.

Adding on, my spouse has an auto-immune disorder and thyroid issues. They also have vision issues. The point is, it isn't feasible for everyone to simply not have insurance. Pay as you go can be VERY expensive depending what you need. Medicaid wouldn't bring the cost to zero and depending on where you live, varies in what is provided. Neither of us are minimum wage workers, but I can easily see how unrealistic and naive many of the scenarios and budgets in these type of threads are.

I think if you are single(no non-working spouse and/or kids to support), live in a low cost of living area, and are reasonably frugal you can make it work. Many if not most Americans don’t live frugally enough to make this work. I studied and worked hard when I was younger to get a good career (physician) so I don’t have these worries. I do feel if I were single I could make it on minimum wage if that was the only job I could get.

Having a hard time understanding the purpose of this post. Is it to share how well you do with less? That's cool, all for it. I make between 5-10k annually and agree- it's not a big deal, especially if you don't like owning cars, having kids, and socializing in moderation. But if the OP is saying that minimum wage is okay then they're out of their mind.

Be careful to not be over influenced by those (likely wealthy) few who want you to believe that you and your work aren't worth more.

Its the difference between surviving and living.

You can survive on minimum wage but the quality of life would be very low.

Conundrum wrote:

Its the difference between surviving and living.

You can survive on minimum wage but the quality of life would be very low.

Funny, I've lived in the same apartment building with an able-bodied single Mom, she never worked but had satellite TV, chain smoked and drank on the front steps all day while on her cell phone, had live in boyfriends for various periods, got busted for shoplifting and heroin possession, .. I moved out of the building cause of her noise, but her high life carries on. Because why?

There are many other examples in my small community.