I assert that individuals can make it on minimum wage.

[Gamdwelf]

No, it's based on the fact that rent, in any reasonable budget shouldn't be more than 40% of your income.

If you're making 1600 a month, that means you're paying at least 40% of that in rent.

Why not, I don't think that's highly unreasonable.

[Spectral]

Oh, reading comprehension is my #1 talent I guess.

Well shit I don't know then. That's implying you pay $1600+ per month for a 1 bedroom apartment, which can't possibly be true. My mortgage on a 4 bedroom house is $1200.

It's an incredibly deceptive tactic that they're using - they base it on median apartment cost for a state and assume that you cannot have this exceed 30% of your income. There are at least four enormous flaws with that:

1. State-wide statistics don't reflect cheaper cost of living outside of major urban hubs.
2. Minimum wage isn't intended to pay for median housing - median housing is really good!
3. Low income people that are frugal can live with housing costs exceeding 30% of income.
4. Government transfers such as SNAP boost personal income and are counted by most landlords, but not by this graph.

[WskyDK]

He did actually write pretty much what the map represents, and it is in linked together with the organization that did do the research. But yeah it is somewhat lacking in information, but alas politics is shallow on facts for the most part, especially in social media.

The key qualifier is missing from that map however; "without spending more than 30% of their monthly income on housing" is what's causing the increase in hours per week shown.

[Spectral]

If your income is being subsidized by other people's tax-money... no, you're not making it on minimum wage. You're making it on minimum wage plus part of someone else's wage.

I'm all for government assistance for low-income families, but that doesn't magically mean they're making enough to live comfortably. Let alone the fact that it is VERY difficult to get any kind of assistance as a healthy, young individual.

AND THEN, you have to see the correlation between people saying that minimum wage is enough and people who complain about people being on assistance.

FWIW, I am emphatically not one of the people you're describing in that last sentence. I support increases in programs like the EITC that help working people that don't make much money.

[Barnabas]

Below is an infographic posted by Bernie Sanders Facebook page showing how many hours an individual must work per state to afford a 1 bedroom apartment.



Honestly I don't believe it.

I think it's very possible for an individual to live off minimum wage comfortably for an extended period of time, if need be.

Is it easy, no but possible, yes.

No real source accompanied the information which adds to it being sensationalized. Which I think is the main problem. You can't have real discussion about poverty when people can't talk about the actual facts.

The only "source is that numbers are from the 'low income housing coalition' with no research or explaination as to how they generated these numbers.

PS:. In before bootstraps

So the federal minimum wage is then is multiplied by excessive overtime until it reaches whatever imaginary number they say a living wage is? This is rich coming from a democrat who made everyone who has a job life more expensive via ACA. It'd be nice if he didn't live in some imaginary world.

[Deleted]

The key qualifier is missing from that map however; "without spending more than 30% of their monthly income on housing" is what's causing the increase in hours per week shown.

True, we seem to agree on this, so let's not flood this thread more

[WskyDK]

True, we seem to agree on this, so let's not flood this thread more

Agreed
Merry Christmas!

[Spectral]

Hell in some stats $1600 doesn't even cover rent.

This is obviously false. In some very expensive urban cores and in very few ridiculous metro areas (DC and SF come to mind), it costs $1600/month for pretty decent apartments. There are no states where $1600/month would not cover very nice housing.

[the game]

True, we seem to agree on this, so let's not flood this thread more

Agreed
Merry Christmas!

Wow. progress was made today in off topic.

[The Firestar]

The burden of proof lies on you to say that you can live comfortably on minimum wage for an extended period of time. But, just to humor you, let me introduce a little math.

I live in Kentucky, where the statewide minimum wage is federal - $7.25 / hour. I'll skip the bigger cities for now and look for a reasonable apartment in Ashland, a city in the heart of coal county, Appalachia, right on the WV border. A few quick checks show that a 1 bedroom apartment in this city will rent anywhere from $425-$600 per month. For the ease of math, we'll take the low end - $425 per month for rent per month. Divide by the minimum wage, and we get 58.62 hours.

58.62 hours of minimum wage per month to afford the cheapest 1 bedroom apartment in the heart of coal country. That comes out to 14.66 hours per week. This is less than the infographic presents - but again, this is based on, likely, the lowest prices in the entire state.

Now let's look at something in a bigger city. Lexington is the second biggest city in the state, but also home to a number of companies that have a large number of jobs in the area (Lexmark, Jif, Amazon, Coca-Cola, Toyota) that make it appealing for a working-class citizen to live in. The minimum wage in Lexington is in the process of rising from federal minimum to $10.10 per hour over a 3 year period - the current minimum wage is $8.20 / hour, which took effect July 1 of this year. Similarly to the Ashland example, a few quick checks show that the price for a Lexington apartment is between $960 and $1150, utilities included. Again, for the sake of simplicity, we'll assume the low end, as a person on a limited income is likely to take the cheapest deal available. So 960/8.2 = 117.1 hours per month. Divide by 4 and you get 29.2 hours per week to afford rent.

29.2 hours on minimum wage - in the spot where the majority of minimum wage jobs are, I might add - just to afford rent for a 1 bedroom apartment. And let me tell you anecdotally, these apartments are garbage. Infested with roaches and bedbugs and rats... and again, that's 3/4 of a normal 40 hour week simply spent on rent. That's not factoring in things like health insurance, car insurance (You need a car to get around Lexington - the buses are too unreliable), food, clothing, taxes... Taxes alone will eliminate anything you have after rent.

Now imagine if Lexington didn't have a higher minimum wage than federal. That 29.2 hours per week then jumps to 33.1 hours. That's less than 7 hours of a 40 hr/week paycheck to take care of all of your expenses outside of rent. It's still less than the infogaphic presents - we all know that political infographics take the most extreme example that they can, while I took more reasonable examples - but the point still stands. No way can you do that.

No, you cannot live comfortably on the minimum wage as it stands right now. It's a starvation wage. The rent is so low in Ashland because coal country is dying, and had been dying long before Obama's EPA regulations. There's no jobs out there, and so no reason for workers to stay, and so no demand for those apartments. In places where people actually want to stay because there's actually work? Minimum wage is a death sentence.

[Gamdwelf]

Someone hasn't seen New York apartments.

Oh I've watched the HBO dramaty 'Girls'

[Spectral]

Okay so found the picture with some more detail, it is how many hours you'd have to work if to not have to use 30 % of your paycheck on your rent.

It also relies on the assumption that everyone requires enough money to afford the median rent cost (unless "Fair Market Rate" means something drastically different, but eyeballing it, this looks about right) for the state.

Everyone should be able to spot why this is incompetent, dishonest statistics.

[Jester Joe]

Oh I've watched the HBO dramaty 'Girls'

I...can't say that I have.

But they're small.

[Gamdwelf]

The burden of proof lies on you to say that you can live comfortably on minimum wage for an extended period of time. But, just to humor you, let me introduce a little math.

I live in Kentucky, where the statewide minimum wage is federal - $7.25 / hour. I'll skip the bigger cities for now and look for a reasonable apartment in Ashland, a city in the heart of coal county, Appalachia, right on the WV border. A few quick checks show that a 1 bedroom apartment in this city will rent anywhere from $425-$600 per month. For the ease of math, we'll take the low end - $425 per month for rent per month. Divide by the minimum wage, and we get 58.62 hours.

58.62 hours of minimum wage per month to afford the cheapest 1 bedroom apartment in the heart of coal country. That comes out to 14.66 hours per week. This is less than the infographic presents - but again, this is based on, likely, the lowest prices in the entire state.

Now let's look at something in a bigger city. Lexington is the second biggest city in the state, but also home to a number of companies that have a large number of jobs in the area (Lexmark, Jif, Amazon) that make it appealing for a working-class citizen to live in. The minimum wage in Lexington is in the process of rising from federal minimum to $10.10 per hour over a 3 year period - the current minimum wage is $8.20 / hour, which took effect July 1 of this year. similarly to the Ashland example, a few quick checks show that the price for a Lexington apartment is between $960 and $1150, utilities included. Again, for the sake of simplicity, we'll assume the low end - $960. 960/8.2 = 117.1 hours per month. Divide by 4 and you get 29.2 hours per week to afford rent.

29.2 hours on minimum wage - in the spot where the majority of minimum wage jobs are, I might add - just to afford rent for a 1 bedroom apartment. And let me tell you anecdotally, these apartments are garbage. Infested with roaches and bedbugs and rats... and again, that's 3/4 of a normal 40 hour week simply spent on rent. That's not factoring in things like health insurance, car insurance (You need a car to get around Lexington - the buses are too unreliable), food, clothing, taxes... Taxes alone will eliminate anything you have after rent.

Now imagine if Lexington didn't have a higher minimum wage than federal. That 29.2 hours per week then jumps to 33.1 hours. That's less than 7 hours of a 40 hr/week paycheck to take care of all of your expenses outside of rent. No way can you do that.

No, you cannot live comfortably on the minimum wage as it stands right now. It's a starvation wage. The rent is so low in Ashland because coal country is dying, and had been dying long before Obama's EPA regulations. There's no jhobs out there, and so no reason for workers to stay, and so no demand for those apartments. In palces where people actually want to stay because there's actually work? Minimum wage is a death sentence.

Gone through the math many times and had to live like this for 3 years ezpz. Rent is more than 30%of income though.

[Spectral]

Finding one house doesn't prove your argument correct. I can find a apartment in Kentucky for $120 a month, only thing I got to deal with is the whores and crack dealers next door to me every night.

Look up 7th street in Louisville Kentucky and you can see how much of a shit show that is. Avg apartment rent in Kentucky is $800 a month. If everyone could get something cheaper then no one could.

Finding it in literally 20 seconds shows that the poster I was replying to is wildly overestimating the local cost of rent in Birmingham. If I gave enough of a shit, I could almost certainly hunt down better examples in more time.

Do you think that everyone spends the average or higher? That is, do you think the average is the floor for decent apartments?

[Strangebrew]

Just because something is possible, doesn't mean it's acceptable.

But well, enjoy your crime-ridden poverty struck shit cities i guess.

[Mellrod]

Of course they can make it on minimum wage. They very fact you don't have hoards of minimum wage workers dying left and right means they are making enough to survive.

But of course being able to survive and being able to live are two different things as they say.

Just because something is possible, doesn't mean it's acceptable

[isuridedes]

No real source accompanied the information which adds to it being sensationalized. Which I think is the main problem. You can't have real discussion about poverty when people can't talk about the actual facts. The only "source is that numbers are from the 'low income housing coalition' with no research or explaination as to how they generated these numbers.

(a) You are arguing that lack of source material casts doubt upon the infographic being shared, yet your own argument fails to provide any source material to lend credibility to its own stance.

(b) The National Low Income Housing Coalition does, in fact, provide its research as well as an explanation of how it arrives at its conclusions. They have a website dedicated to the above infographic here: http://nlihc.org/oor They provide the full report in English and in Spanish, as well as access to previous years reports for comparison all the way back to 2005.

(c) Your entire premise is based on your own unwillingness to look past a graphic and ask where it came from. Simply looking up "Low Income Coalition" returns the above URL.

[Tinykong]

A single person making minimum wage in my state brings home $542 every two weeks after taxes. Sure, they are going to get EIC and other tax breaks, but that doesn't pay your rent every month.

Good luck affording a $700-800 one room apartment plus utilities.

[Spectral]

Just because something is possible, doesn't mean it's acceptable.

But well, enjoy your crime-ridden poverty struck shit cities i guess.

Do you really hold the position that highly criminal districts in cities are a product of a too-low minimum wage? To be charitable, I'd assume that this is just a rhetorical trick, but I thought I'd inquire.