Where Can You Live on Minimum Wage?

[What Would Jesus Do?]

Of course you can. You can't support a family of 4 on MW (nor should you), but you can. Minimum wage is meant for jobs to be held by students or those getting their first job experience, usually while living with parents.

You can do it though, as a single. I used to eat for around $10/week while paying $400/mo for an apartment while I did a $7/hour internship at the end of college. This was my shopping list at Wal-mart in an average week in 2002:
1 loaf bread - .50
1 pack hot dogs - .50
1 pack hot dog buns - .50
1 bag lettuce (re-closable) - $2.50
1 pack generic kraft singles $1.50
sometimes a pack of mini carrots - don't recall price
several bananas - I don't recall the price.
I kept ranch, peanut butter, and ketchup available
I drank tap water usually

I cooked hot dogs and grilled cheese sandwiches on one of those george foreman grills.

Poor? yes. Unlivable? certainly not.

The problem is that people falsely believe they should be able to support a family on a single minimum wage income. Nope, not in America (not anywhere). That's not what minimum wage jobs are for.

Yeah, and I lived in condemned housing as an undergrad. So what.

It's fun to live in ghetto conditions for a brief interval when you know you are just "passing through."

It's disgusting to argue that that's how people ought to live, just because you spent a little while slumming it and you survived or didn't find it too hard.

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

Of course you can. You can't support a family of 4 on MW (nor should you), but you can. Minimum wage is meant for jobs to be held by students or those getting their first job experience, usually while living with parents.

You can do it though, as a single. I used to eat for around $10/week while paying $400/mo for an apartment while I did a $7/hour internship at the end of college. This was my shopping list at Wal-mart in an average week in 2002:
1 loaf bread - .50
1 pack hot dogs - .50
1 pack hot dog buns - .50
1 bag lettuce (re-closable) - $2.50
1 pack generic kraft singles $1.50
sometimes a pack of mini carrots - don't recall price
several bananas - I don't recall the price.
I kept ranch, peanut butter, and ketchup available
I drank tap water usually

I cooked hot dogs and grilled cheese sandwiches on one of those george foreman grills.

Poor? yes. Unlivable? certainly not.

The problem is that people falsely believe they should be able to support a family on a single minimum wage income. Nope, not in America (not anywhere). That's not what minimum wage jobs are for.

Double most of those prices without doubling the income and how well do you think your older self would fare?

 

[The Tradition]

Double most of those prices without doubling the income and how well do you think your older self would fare?

What do you think is going to happen to prices if we double the minimum wage?

 

[Smalls4IA]

Two of my high school students just got jobs at Menards for $13.50 an hour. Anybody making minimum wage either deserves it or is a pos.

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

Two of my high school students just got jobs at Menards for $13.50 an hour. Anybody making minimum wage either deserves it or is a pos.

Blame the victim?

 

[The Tradition]

Blame the victim?

Victim of what? No one is forced to accept a minimum wage job.

 

[birdforpar]

Ames

 

[UNIowaHawk]

I presume this means they're lazy and not working any OT.

 

[GarryO37]

Wrong memes aren't really helpful in making an argument. If you want to advance the idea that minimum wage is hard to live on, don't post memes that are so obviously wrong that your point loses credibility. The reality is you can get an apartment for $400 and you can eat for $200 that leaves you half your wages which is enough for utilities, a car, and even some entertainment. Red state voters are who you need to convince and they aren't going to be moved by this argument because they know it's wrong. And if Sanders is putting this out, that just shows you how worthless he has become.

You brought a tear to my eye.

 

[Herkster5]

Hell, my mortgage plus escrow is $309 a month on a 15 year loan. If someone expects to live in a city, they obviously can't assume they'll find cheap housing, but as already noted, you can flip burgers for more than minimum wage.
It's called living within your means. It isn't exactly complicated.

 

[lucas80]

Speaking of poors, I heard an ad on the radio today for McGrath Kia which claimed that anyone who brought in a paycheck proving they made $350 a week could lease two Kia Souls for $200+ something a month. That didn't seem responsible. I assume they are just trying to get slobs into the dealership and do some kind of a bait and switch.

 

[ChrisVarick]

Hell, my mortgage plus escrow is $309 a month on a 15 year loan. If someone expects to live in a city, they obviously can't assume they'll find cheap housing, but as already noted, you can flip burgers for more than minimum wage.
It's called living within your means. It isn't exactly complicated.

There are not a lot of $35000 homes on the market anywhere. Even in the most rural parts of the country.

 

[Smalls4IA]

Hell, my mortgage plus escrow is $309 a month on a 15 year loan. If someone expects to live in a city, they obviously can't assume they'll find cheap housing, but as already noted, you can flip burgers for more than minimum wage.
It's called living within your means. It isn't exactly complicated.

There are not a lot of $35000 hones on the market anywhere. Even in the most rural parts of the country.

Wrong.

 

[Smalls4IA]

Two of my high school students just got jobs at Menards for $13.50 an hour. Anybody making minimum wage either deserves it or is a pos.

Blame the victim?

Being a lazy piece of crap is being a victim now?

I agree with 99% of what you post on here but I believe you to be this dumb.

 

[Smalls4IA]

Two of my high school students just got jobs at Menards for $13.50 an hour. Anybody making minimum wage either deserves it or is a pos.

Blame the victim?

Being a lazy piece of crap is being a victim now?

I agree with 99% of what you post on here but I believe you to be this dumb.

*Don't believe you to be this dumb*

 

[Herkster5]

There are not a lot of $35000 homes on the market anywhere. Even in the most rural parts of the country.

Probably 10-15 for sale within driving distance to two smaller cities with both massive amounts of blue collar jobs and decent professional work available as well.

 

[Herkster5]

Wrong.

Well thought of answer, thanks for the contribution.

 

[ChrisVarick]

Probably 10-15 for sale within driving distance to two smaller cities with both massive amounts of blue collar jobs and decent professional work available as well.

What city is it? The problem with $35,000 is that there tends to be maintenance that needs to be done. If you are making minimum wage and can barely cover a basic budget you are not going to have money to cover when the water heater goes out or the roof needs replaced. If you are making minimum wage it is hard to save up for a down payment or qualify for a loan.

I think the conversation we really need to have about how this is a subsidized wage. Employers are allowed to pay the minimum wage and then taxpayers pick up the cost of benefits like food stamps and Section 8. The talking point that should be drilled in is that the minimum wage is a subsidy given by middle class tax payers so employers can maximize their profits.

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

Being a lazy piece of crap is being a victim now?

I agree with 99% of what you post on here but I believe you to be this dumb.

Not everybody who can only find a MW job is a lazy piece of crap. Possibly not even a substantial minority of them, although I haven't tried to google that (and wouldn't know how).

Having an economy where people who aren't lazy pieces of crap have to work jobs that barely let them get by (or drive them into debt) and too often strip them of dignity - that's what I mean by "victim." And, yes, we agree a lot - so I'm surprised to find you blaming the victims.

 

[Chuck C]

Who is actually working for minimum wage at a job? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

In 2015, 78.2 million workers age 16 and older in the United States were paid at hourly rates, representing 58.5 percent of all wage and salary workers. Among those paid by the hour, 870,000 workers earned exactly the prevailing federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. About 1.7 million had wages below the federal minimum. Together, these 2.6 million workers with wages at or below the federal minimum made up 3.3 percent of all hourly paid workers.

That means only 1.1% of the workforce that is getting an hourly rate is getting paid AT the federal minimum wage. Also from the BLS:

Age. Minimum wage workers tend to be young. Although workers under age 25 represented only about one-fifth of hourly paid workers, they made up about half of those paid the federal minimum wage or less. Among employed teenagers (ages 16 to 19) paid by the hour, about 11 percent earned the minimum wage or less, compared with about 2 percent of workers age 25 and older.

This also means only 0.6% of the workforce that is over 25 years old and getting paid an hourly rate, are getting paid AT the minimum wage.

As has been pointed out over and over in this thread, in my opinion it's on YOU if you're working for minimum wage. The opportunity to make more is obviously there if 96.7% are making above the minimum wage.

https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2015/home.htm

 

[Herkster5]

What city is it? The problem with $35,000 is that there tends to be maintenance that needs to be done. If you are making minimum wage and can barely cover a basic budget you are not going to have money to cover when the water heater goes out or the roof needs replaced. If you are making minimum wage it is hard to save up for a down payment or qualify for a loan.

I think the conversation we really need to have about how this is a subsidized wage. Employers are allowed to pay the minimum wage and then taxpayers pick up the cost of benefits like food stamps and Section 8. The talking point that should be drilled in is that the minimum wage is a subsidy given by middle class tax payers so employers can maximize their profits.

Near Winnebago, 3M, CDI, Snap on, and a few others. Kossuth county, Winnebago county, and Hancock county. Cheap living with jobs available that pay $10+ an hour starting wage. And really, the houses are livable as they sit for sale. We updated the crap out of ours, but we had the money to do it. Anyone could have moved in and lived in it as it was.

Hell, my buddy bought a house in town for 20k, no updates needed. One can't expect to live in the metro and survive on minimum wage, but it's certainly do able in many places in Iowa

 

[Run&Blade]

It is likely every store manager and department manager at a grocery store started at minimum wage.

 

[Foxclone]

Nobody should look at minimum wage as the end all be all in jobs. It should be looked at as tempory to get to a better paying job. There are jobs out there but people don't want to make sacrifices or bite the bullet and suck it up and do until a better paying job comes along.

 

[anon_01irjibf16qqj]

Yeah, and I lived in condemned housing as an undergrad. So what.

It's fun to live in ghetto conditions for a brief interval when you know you are just "passing through."

It's disgusting to argue that that's how people ought to live, just because you spent a little while slumming it and you survived or didn't find it too hard.

Who is saying that?

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

Who is saying that?

thewop. Not in precisely those terms, of course, but almost. Read his comment that I responded to.

 

[anon_01irjibf16qqj]

thewop. Not in precisely those terms, of course, but almost. Read his comment that I responded to.

Well that's a stretch...holy shit.

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

Well that's a stretch...holy shit.

Not even slightly.

 

[coralville67]

They get all kinds of stuff from gov

 

[Rifler]

Individuals can live on minimum wage, but how about families?

Why would any one individual expect to be able to raise a family on the MINIMUM wage?,... Think about that for a moment.....

 

[whatsup13579er]

Minimum wage gets you around $1,200 per month. I know there are lots of apartments one could get for way under that.

To further this idiotic post, living in government sponsored housing you cannot be charged more than 30% of your income. So if a 1 BR apt in Timbucktoo, IA costs $425 a month, the most you can legally pay is $377 making $1,257 a month on minimum wage. The balance of $48 is paid by the government. That leaves $880 left over to live on per month.

 

[hexumhawk]

To get back to the original OP topic you have to look at it a different way.

You can live pretty much anywhere on minimum wage. The issue comes in when people live beyond their means, have children, buy houses they shouldn't, ect. That is where the personal responsibility and accountability comes in that people lack these days.

 

[Titanhawk2]

I was expecting this response from some of our cons.

Sure, there are some places you could find a 1-bedroom apartment for that.

So the meme's specific claim is wrong. But is it wrong in a more meaningful sense. You know what I mean. Shelter along with food, transportation, health care, yada, yada.

Once you have to look around to find places where could could afford that 1-berdroom apartment on minimum wage, it drives home that even there, you can't actually live on MW.

And, of course, there are so many places where the meme IS literally true.

So is the premise that those on MW are homeless because they cannot afford a 1 BR, or that they live with others now and desire, but can't have their own?

 

[Hoosierhawkeye]

Victim of what? No one is forced to accept a minimum wage job.

For a lot of people it's either that or crime.

 

[srams21]

Hell, my buddy bought a house in town for 20k, no updates needed.

I'm not buying that one bit.

What town? What year did he buy it?

 

[Herkster5]

I'm not buying that one bit.

What town? What year did he buy it?

For the sake an being anonymous, I'm not going to tell you the city, but I will tell you that he closed on it in the past 3 months. It's a ranch house, 1,000 sq ft, two bed, one bath on the main floor, and a really nice, but unfinished basement. And oops, sorry, the assessor site shows he paid 30k for it, not 20k. Still, if someone didn't have a pot to piss in, put that over 30 years and your payments are what, $115 (assuming 4% interest, 20% down payment) a month plus escrow?

Tax assessment looks to be around $650 a year, or $54 a month, let's show homeowners insurance at what, $800 a year ($67) - total mortgage payment of 115 + 54 + 67 = $236

Min wage after taxes (fed and state), social security, and medicare, shows a net paycheck of $936.70.
936.70 - 236 = $700.7 for utilities, fuel, and food. Sure seems livable to me.

 

[whatsup13579er]

For the sake an being anonymous, I'm not going to tell you the city, but I will tell you that he closed on it in the past 3 months. It's a ranch house, 1,000 sq ft, two bed, one bath on the main floor, and a really nice, but unfinished basement. And oops, sorry, the assessor site shows he paid 30k for it, not 20k. Still, if someone didn't have a pot to piss in, put that over 30 years and your payments are what, $115 (assuming 4% interest, 20% down payment) a month plus escrow?

Tax assessment looks to be around $650 a year, or $54 a month, let's show homeowners insurance at what, $800 a year ($67) - total mortgage payment of 115 + 54 + 67 = $236

Min wage after taxes (fed and state), social security, and medicare, shows a net paycheck of $936.70.
936.70 - 236 = $700.7 for utilities, fuel, and food. Sure seems livable to me.

As others have stated if you're working minimum wage you probably have a lifetime of bad decisions behind you and/or ahead of you. A minimum wage working poor isn't going to have $6,000 for a down payment so they will end up paying PMI if their credit score isn't shot from said bad decisions.

 

[Herkster5]

As others have stated if you're working minimum wage you probably have a lifetime of bad decisions behind you and/or ahead of you. A minimum wage working poor isn't going to have $6,000 for a down payment so they will end up paying PMI if their credit score isn't shot from said bad decisions.

Most likely true, but even on a 30 year loan, without a 20% down payment, and PMI, it's still affordable. Not to mention, any of the jobs that I mentioned that are near me would pay well above minimum wage.

 

[srams21]

For the sake an being anonymous, I'm not going to tell you the city, but I will tell you that he closed on it in the past 3 months. It's a ranch house, 1,000 sq ft, two bed, one bath on the main floor, and a really nice, but unfinished basement. And oops, sorry, the assessor site shows he paid 30k for it, not 20k. Still, if someone didn't have a pot to piss in, put that over 30 years and your payments are what, $115 (assuming 4% interest, 20% down payment) a month plus escrow?

Tax assessment looks to be around $650 a year, or $54 a month, let's show homeowners insurance at what, $800 a year ($67) - total mortgage payment of 115 + 54 + 67 = $236

Min wage after taxes (fed and state), social security, and medicare, shows a net paycheck of $936.70.
936.70 - 236 = $700.7 for utilities, fuel, and food. Sure seems livable to me.

I am going to guess by city, you mean some small town in the middle of nowhere? You said Winnebago County before.

30k is a ridiculously small amount to pay for a house. I'd be interested to see what kind of shape the home is truly in at this point. In most places in Eastern Iowa, anything below 100k is shi*.

 

[Herkster5]

I am going to guess by city, you mean some small town in the middle of nowhere? You said Winnebago County before.

30k is a ridiculously small amount to pay for a house. I'd be interested to see what kind of shape the home is truly in at this point. In most places in Eastern Iowa, anything below 100k is shi*.

Where in this pointless argument did it state that you had to try to live in a city on minimum wage? Why not increase your chances of not being a pile of shit system abuser, and live somewhere that you can afford. Plus, some of us like the middle of no where, less folks like you to deal with

And, I did mention the 3 counties where these kind of houses aren't hard to come by, with employment opportunities within 10-20 miles in cities with population over 5,000, decent schools, and even some colleges in those cities.

 

[srams21]

Where in this pointless argument did it state that you had to try to live in a city on minimum wage? Why not increase your chances of not being a pile of shit system abuser, and live somewhere that you can afford. Plus, some of us like the middle of no where, less folks like you to deal with

And, I did mention the 3 counties where these kind of houses aren't hard to come by, with employment opportunities within 10-20 miles in cities with population over 5,000, decent schools, and even some colleges in those cities.

Don't take it personal. I am just more amazed there are places where you can literally buy a house for 30k in somewhat decent shape or not in the middle of a ghetto. For the record, you were the one who stated your friend lived in the city. I figured you meant city as in small town.

I've never been to Forest City so it could be a really nice place. It sounds like if you wanted a manufacturing job with a very low COL in a quiet area it may be just that.