The difference is the ones set up like that pay well enough that you don't work it all year long. It isn't physically possible to work 7-12s (Really 7 12 and 1/2s) for longer than a few weeks at a time.

The places that pay minimum wage, on the other hand, usually try to avoid paying overtime at all. You'd be working three jobs to get that 90 hours.

If you are that poor it is irresponsible to have children or other family members. Or pets. Or a hobby. Or drink soda or have cable and a cell phone.

I'm sure they could afford a one bedroom apartment.

This has come up here before.

It assumes you should not spend more than 30% of your income on housing. A nice ideal, but come on. Do people really think that 30% of MINIMUM wage should be enough to rent a TWO BR apartment? Do we really expect to be paying kids enough in their first jobs out of High School that they should immediately be able to afford a 2BR apartment with just 30% of their pay? Does anyone think that is realistic for the kid who bags groceries?

You know, there is a reason that 1BR apartments exist. And studios. And why people have roommates. It's minimum wage, people! You might as well be arguing that it's not enough to buy a house with a swimming pool.

Now, should people be getting paid more for some jobs that are sometimes paying minimum wage? That's a whole other discussion. But I don't think many people really expect the groceries bagger to be able to get a 2 BR apartment with 30% of his pay.

Progressives have so many good arguments, this isn't one of them.

LOL you're funny

I used kids as an example, but I never said only kids get paid minimum wage. And I said that whether given people doing given jobs should necessarily be getting minimum wage in the first place is a whole other discussion.

But some jobs, like bagging groceries and other typical "first job" jobs, are common for kids (though sure, sometimes adults take them too), and realistically it's the kind of job I think you should expect to get minimum wage for -- and I don't think too many people are going to expect the grocery bagger to be able to pay for a 2 BR apt with 30% of his or her pay.

You don't have a clue, do ya



although I suspect you do....

Whether certain people should be GETTING only minimum wage is a completely different conversation from whether the U.S. minimum wage should be high enough for 30% to cover rent on a 2 BR apt, which appears to be the premise of the OP that I am taking issue with.

....at my local supermarket. I usually shop at a Price Chopper or HyVee, never WalMart, so it's probably even worse at Wally World.

A few decades of 'The New Economy' eliminated pensions for many workers. Bush's recessions wiped out much of the savings of the Boomers and their older brothers and sisters.

Kids and older people aren't the only ones working minimum wage and just-above-minimum jobs. There are a lot of people out there who have never recovered from the Bush years.

Minimum wage IS at nearly a record low in purchasing power, but it was never really enough to support a family on. Here are the figures:

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0774473.html

require that a person's income be no more than one-third of their income. Where I live, those firms control most of the rental units. There is a low income apt. building where the majority of renters are low income workers. There is a 2 year waiting list. On that list are more low income workers, disabled who get SSDI (on the market their rent can be no more than about $350 - you can't even get a "share" for that).
There are national and state parks where people are living in their cars. Walmart allows people to park in their lot as a home base as well.

Walmart and big box stores have pretty much taken over our isolated area - businesses that offer low wages and part-time employment to save on benefits costs.

This is a complicated issue that deserves thorough analysis.

Bringing back jobs that pay decent wages is going to be the challenge of (at least) the coming decade. Most analyses I've read suggest that we won't really recover from "The Great Recession" (It was a depression, gang!) until sometime around 2020. After that, we'll need to address the impacts of new technologies: advanced robotics, 'expert system' (artificial intelligence) and molecular nanotechnology.

Pay people enough and things like Section 8 would be unnecessary. They only exist to subsidize corporate greed.

for a person there to be able to afford paying rent on a 2 bedroom apartment. In Hawaii, the minimum wage ought to be $31.68 an hour.

http://nlihc.org/sites/default/files/oor/2012-OOR-State-Summary-Table.pdf

There are plenty of places upstate that you would have an easier time than 136 hours.

According to the charts, the average rent for a 2 bedroom apartment here is over $700 a month. Where I live in Upper Michigan, one could rent a two story, 4 bedroom house with a garage on the shore of Lake Superior for that amount.

12 years ago I bought the place I'm living in now for $24k ( a 900 square foot home with two bedrooms and unattached garage on a 50' X 100' lot) and with the economy being the way it is, I doubt it's gone up in value.

We don't even need to be talking about two-bedroom apartments. In many areas even a rented room costs more than a minimum-wage worker can afford.

Unconscionable.

minimum wages of some states?

And that goes for all races.

That site is full of eye-opening stats.

The prices keep rising. Ugh

We shall see if they are held accountable for the trillions in theft/loss caused by their very hand.

It has always been a question of how "generous" our society felt as to how little a person in this country should be permitted to make, when it really should be based upon an apolitical metric.

I would like to see the minimum wage adjusted automatically to reflect the minimum amount required for a single individual to rent a one-bedroom apartment, afford food, clothing, and any other necessities I may have left out. I mean, this should be possible to reasonably calculated. I mean if you can calculate something like "Fair Market Rent", despite the amorphous nature of that phrase, you should be able to calculate something like "Fair Liveable Wage".

If you don't have 2 wage earners, you're looking at a 1 bdrm apt.

So...this "study" makes no sense to me.

When I was poor (and I was)...it was always a one bedroom garage apt or whatever. I could barely afford it on min. wage, but I could manage (I didn't buy much meat, etc.).

I graduated to a 2 bdrm in a complex only when I got a roommate (it wasn't worth it...roommates are too much trouble).

Should do a study on living frugally, earning min. wage, and cost of one bedroom apartments that are NOT in complexes.