How the hell does a single person live on minimum wage?
 

I can't even imagine a single mom living on minimum wage, how the hell does someone even live on $7/hr? :2 cents:

How? By stayin' single..

$6.55 is current minimum wage I believe.

It varies by state.

Roommates, they don't live with other luxuries, etc. 40 hours a week at seven dollars an hour is probably around $1000-1100 a month after taxes, you can live on that in my area. My brother lives on less.

Not everybody has a car or a fancy TV. It's very tough, but that's why it is the minimum.

7*40*4 = 1120

It's more like $900 a month if that after taxes.

I don't know, Justin.

How do you live on minimum wage?

You do by having a second minimum wage job...

Any single mom working and making minimum wage is also probably collecting $700 or so a month in welfare and food stamps.

So to answer your question on how they live. We (the taxpayers) are helping out a little bit.

That's for 4 weeks, every month would be different. So somewhere between $900-1000, the same still applies.

What month has 3 weeks?

Min wage has kept them poor. Get rid of min wage and companies would start to compete for low waged workers. But as of right now its price fixed so no need to compete for workers so no need to pay them anything.

What? You said $900 over four weeks. Only one month only has four weeks... every other month gets a couple extra days. Some months you get a fifth paycheck depending on how it is staggered. There are four extra five week paychecks in a year.

My guess is that a very large percentage of webmasters here make even less that minimum wage if you go by the actual hours...:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

I'm sure you're right, so many broke losers here.

right calculation is
7x 40 x 13 / 3 gives you the monthly wager

wage x hours a week x 13 weeks / 3 months

Because a lot of places it's not expensive to live?

In my area, price of living is so cheap I can technically, if I don't drive a car, or have a cellphone or eat out, any of that extra stuff, just pay my bills, I can live off $600/mo.

It's very doable, obviously won't be able to afford any luxuries, but it's not THAT hard...

live with family

Kraft dinner

Wait...isn't a percentage of earnings deducted from welfare payouts?

Once you figure it out, you'll figure out how to live very well on anything you make above that.

I only mind the people who are starving to death...

GFY is filled with negative energy. :(

Bingo...

The minimum wage here is $8.55

Cant imagine earning less than $25/hr

:2 cents::2 cents:

min wage here is like $9 now, its moving to $10 shortly

It goes up to $7.25 on July 24th.

bullshit. Even where I live where you can get a 1 bedroom apartment for $328 a month and no state income tax it's hard to live on $7.25 an hour.

Let's do math

$7.25 X 40 = $290 per week

$290 X 52 weeks = $15,080 a year

Now no matter what you are geting FICA taxes taken out and you don't get those back. FICA taxes are 7.65%

$15,080 X.9235 = $13,926 after FICA atxes are taken out.

Being single gets you a standard deduction of $5450 and $3500 for your personal exemption.

So $5450 + $3500 = $8950.

$8950 is what you'd get to deduct off your income of $15,080. So $15,080 - $8950 = $6130

$6130 is what you'd have to pay taxes on. Since that would be in the 10% backet that would be $613.

So $13,926( amount left after FICA ) -$613 for income tax = $13,313. I'm not even counting state income taxes.

$13,313/52 weeks = $256 a week to live off of.

Good luck living off of $256 a week. Of course you could a get a 2nd job( inthis economy yeah right ) but remember the first $2000 off that extra income is taxed at a total of 17.65%( FICA and income tax ) everything after that is taxed at 22.65% since you'd be in the 15% tax bracket. So even a 2nd 40 hour job at $7.25 an hour would end up bringing in $11,766 after taxes.

So one could bust their ass working 80 hours a week and only bring home $25k a year after taxes. Which is about $6 an hour after taxes.

you need roommate(s) so that your rent share would only be around $200, and you can easily eat very well for a couple hundred a month if you cook for yourself and shop properly

I know someone who makes about $300 per week before taxes and gets
$1100 from the state for child care, $350 for WIC (diapers and shit), $450 for food and I think about $600 - $800 for her housing allowance. She has two kids so she also gets a state
paid insurance card for her and the kids which covers their health care.


She's about 23 years old and is looking to buy a house for $210,000 at 1% interest
and 50% paid by a federal program for community development.

Poor people in the US are rich compared to most nations !

Recent immigrants do it all the time. Worked 100 years ago, worked during my parents' time, and I'm sure it works now. Here's how my own parents were able to do it when they started out:

1) Live together with other relatives.
2) Share all costs
3) Save 25% to 40% of all income
4) Share transportation/plan out routes
5) Buy food collectively and spread out costs
6) Cook food collectively and pack meals for work
7) Participate in "paluwagan" systems (other cultures use differing terms for this) that involve revolving credit
8) buy assets slowly with savings, reinvest asset income

So because she couldn't keep her legs shut everyone gets to pay her way monthly? :1orglaugh

Good question,

I have no idea.. but have always wondered.

Hell, even if they are bringing home $10 an hour after taxes.. it's still a tight fit.

Maybe for her, but not for whatever children she might have. And if so, they probably pad the checks to the kids a bit more.

It isn't very easy. You have to basically have no debt, live in a cheap place and not have to commute to far to work. You won't have any extras that is for sure.

fat loser socially inept virgin webmasters discussing social problems. the world would be a utopia with gfy in charge.

working two jobs?

I have a friend of mine who is 100% disabled, and from various sources including some money from the VA, he brings in around $2200. Considering his rent is $900 a month and his car payment is $400 a month, that doesn't leave him much left over. But he gets by.

Two words, Top Ramen.