How do people survive on minimum wage?

[Noomi]

keeping minimum wages down, just puts more people on the government dole....

But, but - there are so many well paying jobs to be had and people are just too lazy to get a decent job because they prefer living off welfare!!!!!!!!!!

According to conservatives anyway.

 

[Care4all]

What? They sell their food stamps for 60 cents on the dollar and eat the T bones and shrimp for a week and then are out of money.
They go to the food bank and Must Ministries to get their other food.
The kids go hungry. Are you so naive and gullible to believe that giving irresponsible people that have children that they can not even feed will be responsible to get food from a food stamp card?
Most folks on food stamps hate their own kids. If they loved them they would work 3 jobs 64 hours a week like I did for 4 years straight PLUS WENT TO COLLEGE.

So they take a loss on the $1.39 a meal, and wind up eating Tbones and shrimp?

I think you're a piece of human garbage, racist pig. I could be wrong. Do some homework. Go to Walmart on the first of the month and midnight. You'll find a crowded store, and carts filled with loaves of crappy white bread, cheap bologna, cheap hot dogs, etc.

I still don't believe you're an honest caring person, but the fact remains that you made the claim that people are eating like kings on foodstamps, in spite of the simple math showing that your claim breaks down to $1.39 a meal, on those 30 months.

Bullshit....I have seen people filling up shopping carts with all kinds of food, handing over food coupons then getting into cars I cannot afford to buy...
\The whole social entitlement system in this country is over run with fraud.

hate to inform you...but Food Stamps haven't been handed over as you claim in over 15-20 years....food STAMPS were abolished so you are lying or you are thinking back to BEFORE the 1996 welfare reform bill...people use a debit card for food, there is no way in heaven that you can determine who is on food stamps or what kind of car they drive...

I call BS to the enth degree, on that statement of yours spoon.

 

[Barb]

keeping minimum wages down, just puts more people on the government dole....

And those government subsidies underwrite corporate profits by reducing the demand (if not quite meeting the need) for higher wages.

 

[High_Gravity]

So they take a loss on the $1.39 a meal, and wind up eating Tbones and shrimp?

I think you're a piece of human garbage, racist pig. I could be wrong. Do some homework. Go to Walmart on the first of the month and midnight. You'll find a crowded store, and carts filled with loaves of crappy white bread, cheap bologna, cheap hot dogs, etc.

I still don't believe you're an honest caring person, but the fact remains that you made the claim that people are eating like kings on foodstamps, in spite of the simple math showing that your claim breaks down to $1.39 a meal, on those 30 months.

Bullshit....I have seen people filling up shopping carts with all kinds of food, handing over food coupons then getting into cars I cannot afford to buy...
\The whole social entitlement system in this country is over run with fraud.

hate to inform you...but Food Stamps haven't been handed over as you claim in over 15-20 years....food STAMPS were abolished so you are lying or you are thinking back to BEFORE the 1996 welfare reform bill...people use a debit card for food, there is no way in heaven that you can determine who is on food stamps or what kind of car they drive...

I call BS to the enth degree, on that statement of yours spoon.

He can probably tell who is on the EBT card by looking.

 

[thanatos144]

Only a complete fucking idiot without any work ethics at all would worry about how to eek out a meager living on Minimum wage. It's a stepping stone job to something better idiots... Not a career choice.

There are a lot of people working mw jobs that have no choice...

Yet it is still not a career choice......

 

[thanatos144]

As many hours as it takes.

When I went back to college after the first time I worked 40 hours a week at one job, 12 hours a week at another part time job that paid the MW and another 12 hours a week mowing yards, cleaning gutters and other odd jobs.
64 hours a week
And I went to college on top of that!
You do what you have to do. I made it and it made me value a dollar and value working to get ahead.
Go to work, work 2 jobs or maybe 3 like I did.
Or bitch and moan and make demands that you are owed something.

When you worked that 40 hour mw job, your pay was 1/3 more than a mw worker gets today, when adjusted for inflation. Do you think you could have made it if your paid paid 1/3 less?? What would you have done?

work twice as many hours. One does what they must to earn their degree and some spending money along the way.
Stop whining.

How well did that degree do for all those asshats in the occupy movement???? No the future isnt going to be elitist education it is gonna be if you are willing to WORK to get ahead.

 

[Care4all]

when we first moved to Maine, we paid cash for our house, and owned outright our cars but neither Matt or I had a job....Matt looked for one for about 6 months and couldn't find one so my husband at 45 years old, took a minimum wage job at a department store in the shoe area...he hadn't actually sold shoes in over 22 years....but he took this job, to get health care insurance for me...Matt is a disabled Vet and his Health Care was covered with the VA....but my insurance at the time was costing over $900 a month and was eating in to our savings and retirement....that we worked so hard to build up....

Ya gotta do, what ya gotta do, and matt did it for me, for the health Insurance...within 3 months of him working there he got promoted and they more than doubled the minimum wage that he was making when they hired him and in the last 5 years he got several other moves up and promotions which we are grateful for....he still doesn't make anywhere near what he was making before we moved here....about 1/3 of what he used to make and if you calculate what I was making in Massachusetts when working, our family income is less than 10% of what it was in Massachusetts....but because we had saved money those previous 20 years and were able to pay cash for our home and cash for the cars, we still live a very comfortable life.....

HOWEVER, even at 2-3 times the minimum wage, we would be STRUGGLING right now, if we didn't own our home and had to pay a mortgage...

I have no idea how people on Minimum wage survive that have to pay rent without gvt assistance....and they certainly do not and can not, afford their own health Insurance....

 

[koshergrl]

Life is a struggle. The government doesn't exist to eradicate the difficulty of life.

 

[Gadawg73]

Hmmm 5 people x 30 days (I'm being conservative) x 3 meals a day comes out to $1.39 a meal. Yeah, T bones and shrimp on that kind of budget. Are you insane? More like ground meat once a week, lots of pasta, rice, beans, etc..

What? They sell their food stamps for 60 cents on the dollar and eat the T bones and shrimp for a week and then are out of money.
They go to the food bank and Must Ministries to get their other food.
The kids go hungry. Are you so naive and gullible to believe that giving irresponsible people that have children that they can not even feed will be responsible to get food from a food stamp card?
Most folks on food stamps hate their own kids. If they loved them they would work 3 jobs 64 hours a week like I did for 4 years straight PLUS WENT TO COLLEGE.

So they take a loss on the $1.39 a meal, and wind up eating Tbones and shrimp?

I think you're a piece of human garbage, racist pig. I could be wrong. Do some homework. Go to Walmart on the first of the month and midnight. You'll find a crowded store, and carts filled with loaves of crappy white bread, cheap bologna, cheap hot dogs, etc.

I still don't believe you're an honest caring person, but the fact remains that you made the claim that people are eating like kings on foodstamps, in spite of the simple math showing that your claim breaks down to $1.39 a meal, on those 30 months.

I do not care what you think. I focus on providing for my family and community as I work with and donate to every charity here including Habitat for Humanity.
How are my comments racist in any way.
This ought to be rich. He calls me racist and I have made no comments about race whatsoever.

 

[Gadawg73]

When you worked that 40 hour mw job, your pay was 1/3 more than a mw worker gets today, when adjusted for inflation. Do you think you could have made it if your paid paid 1/3 less?? What would you have done?

I made $2.90 in 1979 MW which is equivalent to $6.27 an hour now.
How is that 1/3 less?

Federal Minimum Wage Rates, 1955

Are you stupid or something? Your link VALIDATES WHAT I POSTED.
You claimed that my pay was 1/3 more in 1979 when I made $2.90 AND THE DAMN LINK POSTED showed that the worker now gets 2/3 MORE NOW adjusted for inflation.

You need a lesson in math and economics big time. Your link is the one I used to begin with.

 

[Care4all]

I made $2.90 in 1979 MW which is equivalent to $6.27 an hour now.
How is that 1/3 less?

Federal Minimum Wage Rates, 1955

Are you stupid or something? Your link VALIDATES WHAT I POSTED.
You claimed that my pay was 1/3 more in 1979 when I made $2.90 AND THE DAMN LINK POSTED showed that the worker now gets 2/3 MORE NOW adjusted for inflation.

You need a lesson in math and economics big time. Your link is the one I used to begin with.

no, it's you that can't logically interpret the chart...in 2007 the minimum wage was worth only $4.41 an hour, in 1979 min wage was worth $6.27 an hour, approximately 1/3 less in value for minimum wage in 2007 vs 1979....

sheesh, and you are a lawyer?

 

[Mr Natural]

Life is a struggle. The government doesn't exist to eradicate the difficulty of life.

Why not?

We pay enough into it. They may well do something useful with the money.

 

[Againsheila]

keeping minimum wages down, just puts more people on the government dole....

But, but - there are so many well paying jobs to be had and people are just too lazy to get a decent job because they prefer living off welfare!!!!!!!!!!

According to conservatives anyway.

Unfortunately, in our society, there will always be people who can't think for themselves. We call them republicans and democrats, conservatives and liberals. To these people the party is everything and they are too blind to see. It is to them that we can give credit for the downfall of America. They refuse to stand up and stop anything because they foollishly believe if they don't vote for the dems or the reps they are wasting their votes. They have been taught this by the dems and the reps who in reality are the same people. Sadly, it's a self fulfilling prophesy.

 

[Againsheila]

So they take a loss on the $1.39 a meal, and wind up eating Tbones and shrimp?

I think you're a piece of human garbage, racist pig. I could be wrong. Do some homework. Go to Walmart on the first of the month and midnight. You'll find a crowded store, and carts filled with loaves of crappy white bread, cheap bologna, cheap hot dogs, etc.

I still don't believe you're an honest caring person, but the fact remains that you made the claim that people are eating like kings on foodstamps, in spite of the simple math showing that your claim breaks down to $1.39 a meal, on those 30 months.

Bullshit....I have seen people filling up shopping carts with all kinds of food, handing over food coupons then getting into cars I cannot afford to buy...
\The whole social entitlement system in this country is over run with fraud.

hate to inform you...but Food Stamps haven't been handed over as you claim in over 15-20 years....food STAMPS were abolished so you are lying or you are thinking back to BEFORE the 1996 welfare reform bill...people use a debit card for food, there is no way in heaven that you can determine who is on food stamps or what kind of car they drive...

I call BS to the enth degree, on that statement of yours spoon.

I myself have seen people abuse the system. Doing away with the system is not the answer. Allowing the various agencies access to the same records would go a long way to stopping the abuse. There are many, many illegals here who are married but claim they aren't. The husband works under the table while the wife gets welfare. Yes, she can get money and medical care for EACH of her children. Sometimes they trade off their children. One woman who worked for DSHS posted that two women came in with the same 5 kids. She pointed it out to her boss who said they couldn't do anything about it. Finally she started taking pictures of the "families" who came in for help and suddenly, they stopped going to THAT particular DSHS office with the same kids.

Meanwhile, I had a friend who was without a job, she'd left her abusive husband and had a child. She went in to DSHS to ask for money for daycare so she'd have a place to leave her son while she went looking for work. She was staying with her parents so she didn't need anything else, but her mother couldn't take care of her son. They tired to push many other programs on her and seemed disgusted with her when she stuck to her guns and asked for money only for daycare. They finally relented and gave her money for daycare.

When my husband was laid off for 3 years we couldn't get any help for ourselves. I got a job that paid $9.30 an hour to start and DROPPED due to them declaring bankruptcy. I apparently made too much for foodstamps. Do you know what kind of food you can get at the food bank? Well, there are lot of danishes and pastries and bread. Once a month we got a can or two of vegetables and soup, some milk and maybe a little meat. The subsidies the government used to give them are gone, I don't know what happened to them, although we did get a can of government pork once. It was horrible stuff, but edible if you made up some barbeque sauce and served it as pulled pork.

We never would have made it without help from our family and friends and neighbors. What about the people who have no family? Who's neighbors aren't so friendly? Do YOU know your next door neighbors? Would YOU help them? Mine had their church give us baskets for both Christmas and Thanksgiving. I cried the first time one was delivered. Afterwards I got a call from another church for directions, seemed on of their members had put us in for a basket too. I explained that I'd just received on and they should give it to someone else. They were shocked. They thanked me for telling them and said that most of the people they delivered to would have taken the basket anyway. So there are families receiving Thanksgiving and Christmas baskets from more than one church, I'm betting those are the ones using their food stamps for T bones, while others like us went without or didn't even qualify for food stamps.

First thing I did when we got back on our feet was give my neighbors some money for their Thanksgiving and Christmas basket program. Then I had a party to celebrate and thank all those that helped us through those 3 years of hell. Funny enough, when I mentioned it on this board I was attacked for wasting money. Some people don't understand paying back those who helped you. Others seemed to think the party would be too expensive. To hear them tell it, I would have been catering the party and holding it at some country club. I have no idea what they do, but for us a party is a gathering of friends. I have never spent as much on a party as they seem to think I do. How much does it cost for hot dogs and hamburgers and potato salad? Surely not anywhere near what all those people did in helping us. I mean 3 years and we kept our house. Had to sell my 1969 mustang convertible, but we kept our house. Never could have done it without some help from my friends.

Because I have been there, I know what it's like. Most of us are only a little away from losing everything. A stock market crash, a layoff, and we'd be in the same possition as some of these mw workers. While my husband was laid off, a friend's husband was also laid off, he got a job working at Costco for just over mw. Now he's in management there, but what if he were someone like my friend with tourettes? What if he'd been 20 years older, do you think Costco would have hired him? What if my husband and never been rehired? We would have surely lost our house. Worse, I would have died from breast cancer as I got that just after he was rehired. My job at united was sent to India just after he was rehired so I'd lost that health insurance.

 

[Againsheila]

Bullshit....I have seen people filling up shopping carts with all kinds of food, handing over food coupons then getting into cars I cannot afford to buy...
\The whole social entitlement system in this country is over run with fraud.

hate to inform you...but Food Stamps haven't been handed over as you claim in over 15-20 years....food STAMPS were abolished so you are lying or you are thinking back to BEFORE the 1996 welfare reform bill...people use a debit card for food, there is no way in heaven that you can determine who is on food stamps or what kind of car they drive...

I call BS to the enth degree, on that statement of yours spoon.

He can probably tell who is on the EBT card by looking.

Well I've been there and it is pretty easy to tell with some of them. Besides the cards don't pay for anything but food and when they use the card for food and cash for toilet paper it's a dead give away.

 

[Againsheila]

Only a complete fucking idiot without any work ethics at all would worry about how to eek out a meager living on Minimum wage. It's a stepping stone job to something better idiots... Not a career choice.

There are a lot of people working mw jobs that have no choice...

Yet it is still not a career choice......

It's not any choice...it's called doing whatever you can to survive. I'm surprised at the number of people here who don't understand that but seem to think that they know everything and that all mw workers are lazy and deserve to die of starvation or exposure to the elements.

 

[Againsheila]

when we first moved to Maine, we paid cash for our house, and owned outright our cars but neither Matt or I had a job....Matt looked for one for about 6 months and couldn't find one so my husband at 45 years old, took a minimum wage job at a department store in the shoe area...he hadn't actually sold shoes in over 22 years....but he took this job, to get health care insurance for me...Matt is a disabled Vet and his Health Care was covered with the VA....but my insurance at the time was costing over $900 a month and was eating in to our savings and retirement....that we worked so hard to build up....

Ya gotta do, what ya gotta do, and matt did it for me, for the health Insurance...within 3 months of him working there he got promoted and they more than doubled the minimum wage that he was making when they hired him and in the last 5 years he got several other moves up and promotions which we are grateful for....he still doesn't make anywhere near what he was making before we moved here....about 1/3 of what he used to make and if you calculate what I was making in Massachusetts when working, our family income is less than 10% of what it was in Massachusetts....but because we had saved money those previous 20 years and were able to pay cash for our home and cash for the cars, we still live a very comfortable life.....

HOWEVER, even at 2-3 times the minimum wage, we would be STRUGGLING right now, if we didn't own our home and had to pay a mortgage...

I have no idea how people on Minimum wage survive that have to pay rent without gvt assistance....and they certainly do not and can not, afford their own health Insurance....

My father was career Air Force. For many, many years, they paid in extra so my mother would be covered by the va the same way my father was. They had that program back then, but the right after my father retired, the government did away with that program. They didn't give my parents back one dime of the money they paid in so my mom could be covered when they retired.

My mom died of lung cancer. Her doctor had left the business and she couldn't find a doctor that would take a new medicare patient even with tricare adn another insurance. I found out after she'd gone a year without seeing a doctor and was in great pain. I took her to my doctor and by the time we found out what was wrong it was too late. She'd been taken to the emergency room more than 5 times and they refused to admit her. When she was finally admitted, it turned out she had lung cancer. She died 10 DAYS later.

I remember all those times at the emergency room seeing Hispanics come in, not speaking English and they would be admitted until they could find an interpreter, but they couldn't seem to find room to admit my mother. They would attach her to machines and the alarm would go off every 5 minutes and instead of doing something about it, they'd turn off the machines. My mother, an American citizen, wife of a career vet and she had 3 different insurances and she was treated like crap while people who spoke no English were treated with kid gloves. I don't know if the Hispanics were legal or illegal but I'm 90% sure they spoke English. It's amazing what not speaking our language can get you. You better have your kids fluent in another language it may save their life one day in our country.

All they'd do for my mom was give her pain killers and send her home. We'd repeat the process a couple of days later.

Do you know how long it takes lung cancer to kill you? A hell of a lot longer than 10 days. No wonder she was in such pain.

Sorry, went off on a tangent there, usually I'd erase it but this time, I think I'll leave it up for discussion.

 

[Againsheila]

I made $2.90 in 1979 MW which is equivalent to $6.27 an hour now.
How is that 1/3 less?

Federal Minimum Wage Rates, 1955

Are you stupid or something? Your link VALIDATES WHAT I POSTED.
You claimed that my pay was 1/3 more in 1979 when I made $2.90 AND THE DAMN LINK POSTED showed that the worker now gets 2/3 MORE NOW adjusted for inflation.

You need a lesson in math and economics big time. Your link is the one I used to begin with.

My IQ is 140, what's yours? This could explain some things...like why you can't read a chart.

 

[Dick Tuck]

What? They sell their food stamps for 60 cents on the dollar and eat the T bones and shrimp for a week and then are out of money.
They go to the food bank and Must Ministries to get their other food.
The kids go hungry. Are you so naive and gullible to believe that giving irresponsible people that have children that they can not even feed will be responsible to get food from a food stamp card?
Most folks on food stamps hate their own kids. If they loved them they would work 3 jobs 64 hours a week like I did for 4 years straight PLUS WENT TO COLLEGE.

So they take a loss on the $1.39 a meal, and wind up eating Tbones and shrimp?

I think you're a piece of human garbage, racist pig. I could be wrong. Do some homework. Go to Walmart on the first of the month and midnight. You'll find a crowded store, and carts filled with loaves of crappy white bread, cheap bologna, cheap hot dogs, etc.

I still don't believe you're an honest caring person, but the fact remains that you made the claim that people are eating like kings on foodstamps, in spite of the simple math showing that your claim breaks down to $1.39 a meal, on those 30 months.

I do not care what you think. I focus on providing for my family and community as I work with and donate to every charity here including Habitat for Humanity.
How are my comments racist in any way.
This ought to be rich. He calls me racist and I have made no comments about race whatsoever.

So you've been lucky enough not to be stuck in a minimum wage job. You are arrogant enough to suggest that those who receive $1.39 per meal are eating like the galloping freaking gourmet. You provided the numbers, and claimed that those receiving food stamps were eating tbones and shrimp, not me.

 

[zeke]

I know how people survive on minimum wage......barely.

I think the interesting question is which is more important to people today;
Living the American Dream (as defined by ???) or surviving the best you can.

Seems to me that the poorer class of people have decided that survival best they can is the more practical approach to living.

When you can't read beyond a 5th 6th grade level and math is way difficult, well it is hard to be upwardly mobile when you are dumb. And when surrounded by other dumb people and adding alcohol, drugs and to many kids, well survival wins out.

Don't know the answer. But being a landlord for 23 years renting to people mostly in the 10 to 15 dollar an hour range and watching these people struggle, you sure can't make it on a minimum wage job.

Survival of the fittest may be the way. Let the ones that don't want to move up starve out.

That would make for an interesting next couple decades.