A minimum-wage worker needs 2.5 full-time jobs to afford a one-bedroom apartment in most of the US

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: strongfp
"Yea just work hard and you'll get there!" Says only the people who got lucky in the upper / middle class people.

Let me share a story with you. Growing up, I had the best grades in school, possibly the best grades in the state, nearly perfected my ACT's. My family was split, my mom who I lived with 4 days the week was working class. My dad was the CEO of a major business you have definitely heard of. Between my grades and the money, I had a lot of options in life. So what did I do? I went to a lower tier school that accepts anyone, never submitted my ACT's. Never took family money to pay tuition. Lived under a bridge for a couple years because it was tuition or shelter.

Things eventually got better over time, but I continued to goto school debt free (doing so by paying as I go). The end result is that it took me from 19 to 36 to finish... 17 years. In that time I obtained 7 degrees in Computer Science, Simulation and Game Engineering, Business, Interactive Digital Technology, Computer Graphics, Web Programming, and Math.

Finished my schooling and got recruited right out of university by a company I never applied to, but that had heard of me. They wanted me to the the head developer for a whole new product family of VR content. So I did that, and I've been working there for a bit over a year now. My salary is 6 figures in a low cost of living area. It's comfortable enough for now.

Now, here's the twist in my story. Remember how I mentioned my family has money? I've got a trust fund worth over $20 million that I can access any time I want. If it were what I wanted I could avoid working every day for the rest of my life. But, that's not what I want. I would rather prove that I could do it without those advantages because I don't believe in the concept of generational wealth.

The pedal meets the metal when a real emergency emerges that takes you out of the workforce for months or perhaps for life. Most without safety net will struggle.

There used to be a time when bachelors were rare. High school graduate men could support a family. But guaranteed student loans and an influx of women into the workforce devalued the value of work.

The U.S. is brainwashed into thinking they have to work themselves to death to be "worthy" to live a mediocre existence. Many countries leave the U.S. in the dust as far as benefits and wages go. And many U.S. citizens feel if someone isn't eating ramen every night, living in a crappy 1 bedroom dump, and working 2 and a half jobs, they don't deserve to have a decent living.

There are a ton of jobs that are minimum wage that someone has to do. But people don't give a crap that those jobs needs to get done. They won't do them. But they won't have any pity for those that do. Min wage used to at least allow you to live.. now you can't live on that. Fatcat CEOs in big business are happy you feel that way. They get ridiculous bonuses for doing.. nothing extraordinary, and yet.. people still call out their fellow citizens because they are not suffering enough to earn a basic living. It's so sad.

In the U.S. people feel lucky to have jobs after taking "advantage" of their companies pathetic maternity leave program. While in other countries, business insist new mothers get solid pay and benefits so they can raise their newborn child. Citizens in the U.S. settle far, far too easily for what big corporation shoves their way. And have even learned to ridicule others who don't suffer as much as they do. It's pathetic.

a reply to: fleabit

The system has designed itself to work this way. Years of demonizing the poor and worshiping those with money has done this. I remember years ago workers at Ikea in Europe protesting the slave labor conditions their counterparts in America were working under. In Europe there are companies that shut down completely during the summer so employees can spend time with their families. In America your employer will say to you that since your newborn child is in the hospital for being born prematurely you don't really need leave from work because they aren't at home ( this happened to me.)

a reply to: mus8472
My eldest brother happened to be my employer when the same thing happened to me.

"Why do you have to be at the hospital?"
"My newborn daughter could be dying."
"Why do you have to be the hospital? I need you in the office where you can do something."

Most likely why everyone I know makes $60 to $300 an hour.

Why do you want to incentivize people to keep doing crap jobs?

More importantly, if these are the types of jobs no one will do but illegal immigrants, why are you advocating taking those jobs away from them? By making them more desirable to people that wouldn't normally do them, you're going to force unemployment on those immigrants!

Companies that pay minimum wage or a little more are very plentiful. They have great difficulty in retaining employees, people quit, come back, quit, come back and so on.

Companies that have good paying professional positions that pay from 60K to 100K are utterly swamped with applicants. These companies can be quite selective in who they hire so the employment candidate is exactly what they want.

Three to four interviews before hire is ridiculous. One slip up during that time and no job. Its comparable to a PhD candidate writing a dissertation then going before a panel or board to defend his work.

originally posted by: CB328
You really don't need any more proof of the failing of capitalism than this. At a time when corporations and CEO's are raking in gigantic profits, the people actually doing the hardest and worst jobs can't even afford an apartment. We hear a lot of proganda on here about how capitalism provides for people so well and creates so much prosperity. The truth is it creates prosperity for those at the top by destroying and enslaving those at the bottom. How is this any different than communism? It's just slavery with lipstick.

A minimum-wage worker needs 2.5 full-time jobs to afford a one-bedroom apartment in most of the US

www.yahoo.com...

Minimum wage was never intended to be able to independently support a person...Minimum wage is for high school and college kids who live at home supported by their parents...

Minimum wage was never intended to be able to independently support a person...Minimum wage is for high school and college kids who live at home supported by their parents...

Who ever made that assessment? It used to be able to raise a family of 3 above the poverty level, in the 60s. From the 80s on, wage increases did not keep up with inflation. But it's far more than that. Of all developed countries, the U.S. is the only country where paid time if is not required. Many businesses will still have a vacation plan.. but it's not required. In Italy for example.. you MUST take 30 days off a year. And companies like that you do it, it makes you more productive when you are working.

I myself now work for a company that adopted a new trend of unlimited vacation time. No accrual.. no vacation time paid if you leave the company, and for many professionals, you can't take time off. I've had I think 3 non-holiday days off in two years, usually taking a day off around a holiday to get a "mini" 4 day vacation. Other countries force you to take time off. In the U.S. you are considered weak or a liability if you dare take time off. It's a weird and screwed up mindset driven by profit.

Vacation plan.. maternity leave.. wage rates.. you won't the United States anywhere close to the top of any list that rates work-life balance. In top 10 lists.. always missing. In top 30 lists, usually near the bottom. You can find the U.S. however, always in the list of the top 10 countries with the worst work-life balance.

And the saddest part of all of this, is how CITIZENS cling to this and call out other citizens for being "lazy" when they want time off, better wages, and are not working 2 jobs to earn a living. This is your life.. and living your life should be the most important thing in it. You will not be laying in your death bed.. and saying that you had worked a bit harder. But you will be wishing you had lived more.

My wife and I have considered a few times moving to another country with a less skewed sense of "loyalty" to your job. To one of many countries where working isn't the whole of your life. Still might do it too.. she is tired of seeing me work 10 + hour days, work at night, work the weekends, no vacations.. it just never ends. And in the U.S. - big companies have happily gone along with this work-work-work and be happy you are doing it mentality.

originally posted by: Allaroundyou
$2,575.48.......Wait a second the number provided from the labor department says that the average American worker makes over 50k a year.....?....NO
The numbers are a joke and if you believe them you maybe fall into a certain category of stupidity.

The market is a competition, there's winners and losers. 40% of the workforce makes $30,000 per year or less. 26% makes $20,000 or less.

Here, have fun with this
dqydj.com...

originally posted by: c2oden
In most places in the US, $200,000 is a very nice house.

And yet, in the places of the US where the majority of people live, $300k (99th percentile income) doesn't even get you the lifestyle that a 50th percentile income would get you back in 1970.

originally posted by: SocratesJohnson
Let me move all the straw away from this post...


Minimum wage is mainly for 2nd or 3rd job positions in a house hold

If there is not something seriously wrong with someone, they move off of minimum wage within 90 days

Now, someone can put the extra straw into another strawperson arguement

That's arguing semantics. When people make these arguments about minimum wage, what they're actually referring to is "at or near minimum wage". Taco Bell for example starts you at minimum wage but gives you a 25 cent raise every 90 days.

In terms of purchasing power though, that is still effectively minimum wage. It's just easier to type minimum wage than clarify near minimum wage as well.

originally posted by: Vector99
Ok Time to call bullshiz for bullshizz.

2.5 full-time jobs = 100 hours a week
Federal minimum wage is $7.25

Lets for the sake of argument eliminate overtime wages, ok?

100 hours per week at minimum wage would equal $725 per week in income.

Who is struggling on $725 a week income? Please show me this demographic.

They are referring to the budget idea that housing should cost no more than 30% of your after tax income. At $725 a week you're looking at about $2500 in income post taxes. 30% of 2500 is $750 in rent.

Last night campfire camping talk. A friends 17 yo grandson and girlfriend have their second kid on the way. They want to live together but not work because they are too busy taking care of the baby. Her parents have had enough so our friend who is the grandparents had them show up and want to use their camper to live in????? No and no your not moving in. So grandparents are now bad people but happy people. Kid quit school to take care of girl and baby and one on the way???
Grandfather was amused top say the least.

originally posted by: Ahabstar
I will be fair here. The old wisdom is that housing should be 1/4 of your income.

No one was able to make it on that, because either rents were too high or wages were too low. In recent years that wisdom has been readjusted to either 30% or 35% of income. In many budgets, you can find them argue for rent+utilities to be 50% of income or less.

originally posted by: Iscool
Minimum wage was never intended to be able to independently support a person...Minimum wage is for high school and college kids who live at home supported by their parents...

Yes it was. In 1955 or 1967 for example minimum wage was good enough that one could eat quite well, pay for college out of pocket (at 3 classes per semester), and own a home simultaneously, all on minimum wage.

originally posted by: fleabit
I myself now work for a company that adopted a new trend of unlimited vacation time. No accrual.. no vacation time paid if you leave the company, and for many professionals, you can't take time off. I've had I think 3 non-holiday days off in two years, usually taking a day off around a holiday to get a "mini" 4 day vacation. Other countries force you to take time off. In the U.S. you are considered weak or a liability if you dare take time off. It's a weird and screwed up mindset driven by profit.

Unlimited vacation is highly variable. Some companies actually honor the spirit of it, while others will just deny all time. On average unlimited vacation results in fewer vacation days being taken though.

a reply to: fleabit

I've worked next to a CEO of a 250 million dollar a year company and trust me when I tell you he did nothing extrodinary but inherit the company from his father

all the IT personal did all the real leg work and the CCIE's were the ones who held the company together and they got paid millions less than the CEO

a reply to: Aazadan

Roosevelt

Throughout industry, the change from starvation wages and starvation employment to living wages and sustained employment can, in large part, be made by an industrial covenant to which all employers shall subscribe. It is greatly to their interest to do this because decent living, widely spread among our 125, 000,000 people, eventually means the opening up to industry of the richest market which the world has known. It is the only way to utilize the so-called excess capacity of our industrial plants. This is the principle that makes this one of the most important laws that ever has come from Congress because, before the passage of this Act, no such industrial covenant was possible.

arguing that it was never meant to be a living wage is done out of pure ignorance, that doesn't mean I'm arguing for it but it's a damn fact so tired of hearing such ignorant partisan talking points

originally posted by: toysforadults
I've worked next to a CEO of a 250 million dollar a year company and trust me when I tell you he did nothing extrodinary but inherit the company from his father

If he did nothing extraordinary, then you should be able to do it too right?