let me hear your voice tonight (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alexseanchai) wrote2010-03-10 12:17 am
alexseanchai) wrote2010-03-10 12:17 am
minimum wage != living wage
Minimum wage in this state is $7.25/hr. Let's assume we're talking about someone who flat refuses to accept anything that comes with the slightest hint of implication of being a lazy bum willing to keep slacking off as long as the government keeps the food stamps and unemployment checks coming. Let's also assume we're talking about someone who's perfectly willing to work her ass off, but, y'know, within reason, so forty hours a week. No dependents and no disabilities, for simplicity's sake. So $290 a week, fifty-two weeks a year comes to $15080 a year, before tax. Poking at Wikipedia's figures for payroll, Medicare, and federal and state income taxes brings me to $11593.53 which is about 76% of $15080 so let's round to 75% which is $11310 and divide by twelve, so our minimum-wage friend has $942.50 a month to live on.
A cursory Google tells me a supercheap apartment in this town runs $600 a month for rent. Let's assume our minimum-wage friend is sharing with one roomie, fifty-fifty split on rent, so that's $300 which leaves $642.50, and I am not looking at what downsides this supercheap apartment might have, I don't really want to know. As best I can figure from here, electric would come to $50 a month, water $10, landline $40, so total utilities $100 and split that evenly is $50 which leaves $592.50.
The USDA is helpful and has calculated for me that a female between nineteen and fifty who eats real cheaply spends an average of $150 a month on food while getting the proper balance of everything. That leaves $442.50.
That's four hundred fifty dollars a month to cover any and all expenses including but not by any means limited to toilet paper, shampoo, dish soap, maxi pads, Tylenol, Advil, band-aids, car, gas for car, insurance for car, school tuition, school books, saving up to buy a house or retire or in case of emergency, and (since Medicaid is contingent on more factors than just income and there ain't never been a minimum-wage job with benefits) health insurance.
(And she'd better be real careful about making sure she and any male sex partners she may have are using contraception properly, because if she has to adjust this budget to account for the needs of a squalling bundle of sunshine, joy, and dirty diapers, she is fucked.)
So, beloved parents mine, next time you decide to run your mouth about how these people on unemployment who have dependents and mortgages are just lazy bums willing to keep slacking off as long as the government keeps the food stamps and unemployment checks coming (as proven by how all the minimum-wage jobs in the state are filled by Guatemalan immigrants instead of American nationals)? And how it proves the above point that these people refuse to consider minimum-wage jobs because said jobs won't cover the bills when these people have yet to cut basic cable out of their budget?
Shut the fuck up.
A cursory Google tells me a supercheap apartment in this town runs $600 a month for rent. Let's assume our minimum-wage friend is sharing with one roomie, fifty-fifty split on rent, so that's $300 which leaves $642.50, and I am not looking at what downsides this supercheap apartment might have, I don't really want to know. As best I can figure from here, electric would come to $50 a month, water $10, landline $40, so total utilities $100 and split that evenly is $50 which leaves $592.50.
The USDA is helpful and has calculated for me that a female between nineteen and fifty who eats real cheaply spends an average of $150 a month on food while getting the proper balance of everything. That leaves $442.50.
That's four hundred fifty dollars a month to cover any and all expenses including but not by any means limited to toilet paper, shampoo, dish soap, maxi pads, Tylenol, Advil, band-aids, car, gas for car, insurance for car, school tuition, school books, saving up to buy a house or retire or in case of emergency, and (since Medicaid is contingent on more factors than just income and there ain't never been a minimum-wage job with benefits) health insurance.
(And she'd better be real careful about making sure she and any male sex partners she may have are using contraception properly, because if she has to adjust this budget to account for the needs of a squalling bundle of sunshine, joy, and dirty diapers, she is fucked.)
So, beloved parents mine, next time you decide to run your mouth about how these people on unemployment who have dependents and mortgages are just lazy bums willing to keep slacking off as long as the government keeps the food stamps and unemployment checks coming (as proven by how all the minimum-wage jobs in the state are filled by Guatemalan immigrants instead of American nationals)? And how it proves the above point that these people refuse to consider minimum-wage jobs because said jobs won't cover the bills when these people have yet to cut basic cable out of their budget?
Shut the fuck up.
no subject
http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2010/03/family-feud-politics.html