Minions are juicing the numbers.

The title of the article sucks.

It was a sub-minimum wage job, and paid $1.10/hour. I was a nurse's aid at a hospital in my city, and I was honestly shocked to learn that some of my fellow nurse's aids were supporting families. At the time I'd just graduated high school and saved most of my paycheck to finance college. I attended a state university in the city I lived in, and lived at home while I took classes. All this is to spell out how my expenses simply weren't all that great.

I quit college after the first semester, and soon found a job at the local credit bureau. The federal minimum wage back then was $1.25/hour. It was enough to allow me to move out from home, rent a very small apartment, walk to and from work -- owning a car was completely out of the question -- and survive. Not long after, the federal minimum wage went up to $1.60 (maybe $1.65/hour) and that made a noticeable improvement in my life.

Here's what I want to say. I was single. Living on my own, in a relatively low cost of living city (Tucson, AZ) and I was still struggling. I had zero debt. Credit cards didn't exist yet. But it was all I could do, exactly what I could do, to pay my rent (I don't recall for sure, but I believe my utilities were included in my rent), buy food, have a small amount of entertainment, such as going to a movie. There was simply nothing left over, and I, at the risk of repeating myself, was single.

Most of my early years of employment I earned very little money, and was very aware of fellow workers who had families. I never quite understood how they made it.

Life at the bottom is far harder than people who have never been there have any idea.