Originally Posted by
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) 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.