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What will 1 hour of work at minimum wage buy in your country?

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posted on Jun, 3 2015 @ 02:31 PM
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a reply to: SlapMonkey
Wow, massive differences in fuel prices depending on the state!
I can see how a national minimum wage just couldn't be set.
Oh, and I chuckled reading in your following post about the limits on gas you could buy on base in Germany, you would have sold it easily.
Here in the UK diesel fuel used for agricultural vehicles or boats has reduced tax, and some folk sell it illegally, but it is stained red so if you are caught using it in your car there are heavy fines.

a reply to: Subaeruginosa
Hahaha! Cheers for that, Big Mac Index, love it. Check out poor Ukraine at the bottom, I wonder how much minimum wage is there if they have one.

a reply to: spiritualKat33
Molly would eat you!


a reply to: ketsuko
I guess when the average US state is bigger than many nations it would make much more sense for any minimum wage to be the sole responsibility of each state, not federal government.
I'm curious, we have hundreds of thousands of Eastern European workers coming here every year because they can save money up (even on minimum wage) and buy properties back home which are dirt cheap in comparison. I personally know lots who have done it, then moved back.
Do you have similar movements of people for economic reasons between states, or is the difference in living costs/wages not so much?

*Edit*
Thanks for all the replies so far folks, I find this all rather interesting

edit on 3.6.2015 by grainofsand because: (no reason given)



posted on Jun, 3 2015 @ 02:35 PM
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a reply to: ketsuko

Yeah, I envy what you guys pay in the US for smokes. But the cheap whiskey is where its at, I could buy a 750ml bottle of 7 yr old Jim Beam over there from 1 hour of Australia's minimum wage. You can even get a 750ml bottle of 101 wild turkey for just over $21 online, which falls short of the Australian minimum after the currency conversion. But still, its just crazy awesome.

Who needs 3 big macs when you can buy bourbon that cheap anyway? lol.

edit on 3-6-2015 by Subaeruginosa because: (no reason given)



posted on Jun, 3 2015 @ 02:40 PM
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a reply to: Subaeruginosa

I can get a 700ml bottle of Jim Beam at the Tesco's down the road from me for £12.85
That is 1 hour and 57 minutes work on the UK minimum wage.

*Edit*
It's only aged 4 years though.

edit on 3.6.2015 by grainofsand because: (no reason given)



posted on Jun, 3 2015 @ 02:46 PM
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a reply to: grainofsand

A half a tub of kitty litter or seven cans of cat food or 1 1/2 gallons of gas.



posted on Jun, 3 2015 @ 02:54 PM
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originally posted by: mamabeth
a reply to: grainofsand

A half a tub of kitty litter or seven cans of cat food or 1 1/2 gallons of gas.
I don't know about kitty litter as my cat Molly does her thing on her travels outside my house. If the cans of cat food are 400gms (14 ounces) then I can get 18 and a half for an hour at minimum wage here, but I'm guessing you don't buy the cheapest judging by your avatar lol.
Your fuel has really surprised me though, after conversion to litres, nearly exactly the same as the UK for an hours work, but 60% of our petrol price is tax.
Is the minimum wage low in Ohio, or your gas expensive?



posted on Jun, 3 2015 @ 03:03 PM
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a reply to: grainofsand

I don't really know what our state's minimum wage is.I have been a stay-at-home
housewife for over 13 years.I was going by the $ 6:50 per hour.I pay .86 per can
of purina proplan cat food.Kitty litter is getting really expensive and I have 3 cats.



posted on Jun, 3 2015 @ 03:16 PM
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a reply to: grainofsand




$7.25 seems pretty low when I do the currency exchange, £4.72 an hour.
The other way around, £6.50 for an hour in the UK = $9.97

We are taxed heavily on purchased goods here though, between 5-20% (Sales tax) except for food and childrens clothes which are exempt.

How much petrol/gas will that $7.25 buy where you are?
I'm happy to do the conversion, just curious as about 60 pence in every £1.00 of fuel here goes to the government in tax.



It is incredibly low...there was supposed to be an increase a couple of years ago but it never happened. Petrol in my immediate area is $2.69 per gallon as of yesterday afternoon...it's steadily on the rise so it could be higher today.

We're taxed on everything too...sales tax, gas tax, cigarette tax, et al. In TX, where I'm from, there is no state tax and we are not sales taxed on perishable food items or medicines, but everything here in VA is taxed. Your minimum wage is about the amount ours really needs to be in order for people to be able to make it...and by "make it", I mean having a roof over their head and something to eat every day...never mind medical costs and other life necessities.



posted on Jun, 3 2015 @ 03:18 PM
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a reply to: mamabeth

Ah fair one, I was looking at the absolute minimum companies can pay in different parts of the world and what the worker can buy for an hour of their time. Just curious more than anything to see how things we all pay out for differ in price and/or are offset by cheaper local differences.

Oh, and yep I thought so, that is proper posh cat food!
My Molly will eat anything, curiously one of her favourites is that processed meat Spam, and sometimes the 99 pence store does 3 tins for 99 pence.
2949 calories of food for the cat, and only 99 pence.

I could buy 19 (340gm/12ounces) cans of Spam for an hours work on minimum wage here.



posted on Jun, 3 2015 @ 03:30 PM
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a reply to: tigertatzen

Ohmygosh, just done the calculation, at current exchange rates your petrol is 46 pence a litre but at my nearest station it is £1.20, that works out to be $6.96 for a gallon in your area.
60% of that is tax though, and I'm guessing you don't get stung by that as much as we do?



posted on Jun, 3 2015 @ 03:44 PM
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a reply to: grainofsand

Yep.

My husband's company has one facility out in Missouri and a bunch of others out on the East Coast. Cost of living out on the coast between taxes and other things is much higher than it is here. The company will compensate your salary for cost of living if you move east, but they will not similarly cut it back if you move out west.

So a common tactic some take is to land a job in the company out east, tough it for about three to five years, and move back with at least the salary increase you got when you moved out there.

People in government jobs and other jobs with guaranteed pensions will also work out east or west and then retire to the Midwest where the costs of living are generally much lower and their dollars will go much further.



posted on Jun, 3 2015 @ 03:55 PM
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a reply to: ketsuko

Ah that's interesting. We're a small nation here and there are regional variations in wages but the biggest is London compared to the rest of us. I used to be in the Civil Service and just checked the current maximum pay rate for the grade I was when I left.

Inner London - £43,000
Outer London - £42,500
Rest of UK - £40,000

Not a huge difference I'll admit, but every colleague I spoke to at meetings in London was dead jealous of my chilled out walk to work at the seaside and paying half the rent they were. That tiny bit extra called "London weighting" was definitely not enough. It is why I never moved to London.

Regional variations in property prices are a much bigger issue in the UK than wages.



posted on Jun, 3 2015 @ 04:14 PM
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a reply to: grainofsand

Damn, sorry I didn't read the OP properly, that's what I make in my current job. Think the minimum wage here is £6.41, so you'd probably be able to buy about 15 cigarettes per hour.



posted on Jun, 3 2015 @ 04:23 PM
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a reply to: Coagula

Haha no worries!
Are you UK same as me then? It's £6.50 here and that buys about 15 Cig's.
If you are posting from your phone you may not see the Union flag on my sandcastle in my avatar.
Can't see it on my Android.

If you are UK then decent wage fella, I used to earn close to that but did the whole career change thing and I'm self employed now, just cover what I need these days, and my needs are not that much anymore, chilling round the house is much nicer than working.



posted on Jun, 3 2015 @ 04:30 PM
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a reply to: mamabeth




A half a tub of kitty litter or seven cans of cat food or 1 1/2 gallons of gas.



Federal minimum wage is $7.25 hourly, so it's at least that much in Ohio, and if your numbers are really correct, it should be far more than that. Either way, cat litter does not cost that much. The Evil Empire sells 40lbs. of it (scoopable too) for less than ten bucks and it's that price in Ohio Walmarts too. I run a specialty pet boutique and even our premium litter doesn't cost that much money. Someone is ripping you off, big time. Ditto the canned food. I wouldn't feed my cats that mass-manufactured garbage-in-a-can in a million years, but if I did, for that price I'd be ordering better quality food off the internet.

Gas is $2.69 a gallon here, so you're actually saying it's over $4 per gallon in Ohio right now (going by your $6.50 minimum wage calculation)? That is alarming...and exactly the reason that a federal minimum wage cap is so ridiculous. If things differ that much from state to state, it makes no sense to not have cost of living increases to match.



posted on Jun, 3 2015 @ 04:30 PM
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originally posted by: grainofsand
a reply to: ketsuko

Ah that's interesting. We're a small nation here and there are regional variations in wages but the biggest is London compared to the rest of us. I used to be in the Civil Service and just checked the current maximum pay rate for the grade I was when I left.

Inner London - £43,000
Outer London - £42,500
Rest of UK - £40,000

Not a huge difference I'll admit, but every colleague I spoke to at meetings in London was dead jealous of my chilled out walk to work at the seaside and paying half the rent they were. That tiny bit extra called "London weighting" was definitely not enough. It is why I never moved to London.

Regional variations in property prices are a much bigger issue in the UK than wages.


It can be a huge difference here.

For an idea, if the other state were California, the salary difference would be about $30,000/year. Now it's not, but in order for us to maintain our current standard of living that's about what his salary would have to go up if he were transferred to a company position in California.

Our standard of living here would increase a lot. That just gives you an idea of the relative differences in cost of living between Missouri and California.
edit on 3-6-2015 by ketsuko because: (no reason given)

edit on 3-6-2015 by ketsuko because: (no reason given)



posted on Jun, 3 2015 @ 04:36 PM
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a reply to: grainofsand




Ohmygosh, just done the calculation, at current exchange rates your petrol is 46 pence a litre but at my nearest station it is £1.20, that works out to be $6.96 for a gallon in your area.
60% of that is tax though, and I'm guessing you don't get stung by that as much as we do?


They tax us pretty heavily...I'd be the wrong person to ask how much, because I don't own a car, but I know a big chunk of the petrol cost here is due to taxes. And I'm not sure if that is all federal government taxes or if there are additional fees per state for gasoline taxes too.



posted on Jun, 3 2015 @ 04:54 PM
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originally posted by: ketsuko
Our standard of living here would increase a lot. That just gives you an idea of the relative differences in cost of living between Missouri and California.
Wow, yep I get that!
Here, the extra pay for those in London (working for central government) stops the moment you move out of London.
If it didn't then I would have worked London for a while then transferred, definitely.

That 30,000 difference sounds similar to the Eastern Europe/UK thing, the minimum wage in Romania is US$ 1.53, but in the UK it is $9.97 per hour.
I can see why it is an attractive option for those in Eastern EU to move here and earn money to send home living 3 or 4 to a room.
I'd do it if I was in their position.



posted on Jun, 4 2015 @ 02:58 AM
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a reply to: grainofsand

Yes...$15.00 per hour is in the works for Seattle's minimum wage...here is an article about this in USA Today...

Link: www.usatoday.com...



posted on Jun, 4 2015 @ 03:16 AM
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Another way to look at it in the US is that the federal minimum wage will get you a 6-pack of beer after an hour's work. Depending on the brand you pick. Crap beer like Budweiser, Miller, etc. That hour won't afford you better stuff like a 6-pack of Guinness or Stella Artois at FMW.



posted on Jun, 4 2015 @ 10:44 AM
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Where I live, I think our minimum wage is $10.50/hr.

It wouldn't even buy me a pack of smokes... but it would buy me 3 beers at our local legion.

So for $10.50, I could sit in the legion for a couple of hours slowly sipping on 3 beers... whilst mooching cigarettes off of the old fart veterans that I play darts with on Tuesdays.

It pays to have friends in high places.




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