That’s the neat thing, it isn’t for us.
My boss makes a dollar, I make a dime,
This rhyme comes from a different time,
My boss makes a dollar, I make a cent,
That’s why I can no longer afford rent.
Huh, I always thought a dime was $0.01 when I heard the original rhyme
The federal minimum wage is $7.25, something like 20 states don’t pay a higher wage.
… and many are paid much, much less than that, like working prisoners, making less than a dollar an hour.
… and also many farm workers are paid much, much less than federal “minimum”.
Millions of people. The more you look, the more people you will find making laughable wages.
Most jobs in my area pay $11-$13. It isn’t $7, but it isn’t $15 either. Also, who can manage transportation on $300? I spend that much in fuel. This meme paints WAY too easy of a picture. Life is much harder than that in most of the US. I see people from developing nations saying Americans are spoiled because they’re so rich, but what they think is rich is absolutely destitute poor here. You’ll likely be homeless and hungry if all you earn is $30k/year.
You’re welcome to post the calculus for your area. It is overly simple, but the point is correct. The economics are atrocious.
And any positions that are paying minimum wage aren’t hiring full time for those positions, that means more than one job which increases transportation costs and reduces free time.
And they do that so they don’t have to provide health insurance, which means the employee will have to pay for their own and thats expensive. Highly predatory.
This is a reason I feel like public health care should be a bipartisan issue. Business people should love not having to do health insurance for employees.
I totally agree! It baffles the mind why its some sort of point of contention.
It stops their employees from quitting to start companies to compete with them though. It’s too expensive to start your own company if you need to provide health insurance.
I have had plenty of full time minimum wage jobs. Also had a few zero hour contracts which absolutely suck in comparison.
Where is rent 1200? Maybe with 2 roomates.
That’s a reasonable figure for a big chunk of the Midwest. I currently pay around that much for a 2 bedroom apartment.
Eureka CA $1200 for a 2 bed 1 bath single family home
…but you live in Eureka
I had an apartment that was 1200 a month in Southeast Michigan a few years ago. It was the cheapest two-bedroom around because it was pretty poorly maintained.
A decade ago, $1200 was a three bedroom house in my neighborhood. Today, it’s $1400 for a studio apartment, and $3k for the same house.
Again, 10 year difference.
I forget how bad the inflation is. I had that place in 2023-2024 so not quite a decade, but I’m sure things have gotten worse since then.
I never understood landlords like that. Maintenance isn’t too difficult or too expensive barring pretty extraordinary circumstances.
Put in like $200-$300 a month worth of maintenance and you could eventually charge $400-$500 a month more in rent.
Maintenance isn’t too difficult or too expensive
Are you joking? Getting quality contractors (or doing it yourself) is quite a bit of work and often quite expensive. It’s exponentially worse if other people are tearing your shit up because they don’t care about other people’s stuff.
You shouldn’t take this as ‘don’t buy your own home’, but I can’t fathom where you thought properly maintaining a home isn’t difficult or expensive. Go lookup prices on how expensive installing a new roof, AC, kitchen cabinets, or flooring is. And those are only some big-ticket items.
Just bought my 30 year old home last year. Have made quite a few upgrades so far because it was necessary but as far as “general” maintenance goes it’s been pretty negligible. Of course replacing a roof is a shit ton of money but when you only need a new one every 30 years that $20,000 bill can be spread across 360 months for a total of $55 a month. You just need to be knowledgable enough to know what the maintenance costs and account for it ahead of time not last minute after you have already been greedy and spent all the money you collected the past 30 years.
Theyd rather not do extra work and just charge slightly less.
austin tx reporting in, there’s advertisements up near me about the amazing deal of $1100/mo for a 1bed apartment.
Wow, when I lived there, it was $700 just to rent a room in someone else’s house
Southeast US in the smaller cities (rent is cheaper for a reason though…).
how is it sustainable? it’s not. and that’s by design. American politicians and billionaires want it this way. they want the divide. the more poor you are the more likely you are to serve them. slavery never disappeared from the US. the ‘American dream’ has been dead for decades.
If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you. Lyndon B. Johnson
It works for poor versus rich too. Convince their depressed earnings are due to immigrants, etc. and they’ll attack them and (not us rich folks). It’s a redirection by the rich.
It also wasn’t sustainable 20 years ago.
Millennials in their 40s are finally reaching the level of income/financial freedom as a genX did in their late 20s.
And some of GenX got part of the Boomer economy where they practically handed you a job for simply asking and things were affordable.
the more poor you are the more likely you are to serve them
I am getting tired of waiting for people to realize what’s in the post and finally take up to pitchforks. That’s not rocket science, come on
Isn’t minimum wage also half that?
Yup. This is why we were trying to get it increased to 15 back in fucking 2011.
Today we need it to be nearly double that.
And $15/hr is roughly twice the Federal minimum wage.
I wish my bills were that low.
no kidding. that’s my average water/trash bill. I guess the lights don’t need to say on.
And that is more than double minimum wage in the US ($7.25/hour)!
It’s not meant to be sustainable. Capitalism is about cheating your fellow men out of their munnies so you have more.
That’s why we need Scientific Socialism
and then homies wonder why some much crime
trap em all, throw em in jail, make em worth less when they get out, prison for profit.
We need to start taking to the streets my friends and just take what you need. Fuck corporate America. I’m gonna take what I want and throw what I think it’s worth on the counter on the way out. Who’s gonna stop me. I need food and clothes for me and my kids. You gonna fucking stop me? The fucking guy checking receipts gonna stop me? No it’s gonna be the Karen bitch that voted for trump and I’m gonna Sparta kick that hoe out my way
I don’t see people stealing food.
That’s the spirit.
YSK: if you’re paying for 60$ for a phone for yourself there are MVNOs that are waaay cheaper
Edit: to be clear this is not to refute the post’s argument
Same as Op. I pay about $10-20 a month for cell service. I’m mostly on wifi anyways.
This isn’t a “don’t buy Starbucks and you can afford a home” tip. More like… Don’t pay AT&T/Verizon/whatever fucking company any more than you have to because these motherfuckers all give money to ICE.
US Mobile is like $20/mo
this is sustainable because we let them do it to us
Minimum wage here in Alberta, Canada remains $15/hr. CAD and hasn’t changed since 2018. That’s eight years. Absolutely insane now that I’ve looked it up, fuck me. And of course the UCP will never do anything that might help a struggling person.
