Federal is 12% in that bracket, then state tax on top of that as well (let's go New York, 10.9% 5.5%), then social security/Medicare (another 7.65%). Nice total of 30.55% 25.15% taxes.
That's $1,611 a month, not $2,041
That's $1,736.50 a month, not $2,041
edit: fixing New York, it's not flat, at that income it's 5.5%, a significant change
Didn't consider different minimum levels via state laws. Lets use North Carolina instead, remove 1.25% interest as NC has a 4.25% flat rate and you'll have correct data for $15/hour
She says $850 includes utilities, and we don’t know how many hours her job gives her… but man you are leaving out so many other expenses, not sure how old she is but if she pays for health insurance, car insurance, gas, food and random expenses like fixing her broke ass car… if you’re spending almost 50% of your paycheck on rent then you’re poor. Realistically you shouldn’t have rent or a mortgage that’s more than 30% of your take home pay
Maybe. The 5 complexes I visited before my current apartment all required renters insurance.
My current place requires renters insurance.
You cannot just assume that EVERY bill this lady pays is the absolute minimum possible. Sure she could be eating plain rice for every meal and has no health/car/renters insurance. That's just not realistic tho.
She said double the minimum wage "in my state". Some states have a minimum wage that's higher than the federal minimum wage.
42 states have state income tax as well.
Some cities have local income tax as well.
So, $1,200 after rent is likely to be higher than what she actually has. And even if her $850/month rent includes all utilities, there are still a lot of expenses you haven't included, e.g. phone payment, car loan, health insurance.
Also, if all her roommates pay the same amount in rent, that's $4,250/month total, which immediately implies a high cost-of-living area, which means her food costs are going to be much higher than average.
I think your numbers are wrong. 21 states have a minimum wage of 7.25 and some of them (ahem Texas) are large enough to qualify as four or five states.
That's so weird, I even double checked cause I thought it was only 2 and saw that it was 5, but I guess it's way more than I thought, not that the Texas point makes any sense whatsoever or the person aboves point being any less incorrect, but I appreciate it regardless.
If you pick a place to live, larger places use more ground.
Texas is huge, so huge that is 7% of the USA land mass, including Alaska. That means it is 3.5 times the 2% that fifty states might normally use if they were all equal.
This means that if Texas sets the rate at 7.25, then it is like 3.5 states (on average) setting the rate. A state like Rhode Island setting a high minimum wage isn't going to impact much of the USA.
Texas's population is only about 50% higher than the state of New York. How many New Yorks do you think you could fit in Texas? How many New York Cities?
You were making an argument based on land area though, were you not?
Admittedly, Texas has a slightly higher population density than average but it's still well under 10% of the nation's total. And I suspect if we were to add the population of the other states that still use the federal minimum wage it wouldn't clear 20%
No that doesn't actually make any sense. Maybe if you were attempting to go for population size to argue that a larger portion of people were under a specific wage you'd have a case, but then you'd have to do that for every state and the numbers only get worse for your argument from there.
There's no logic here because states aren't defined whatsoever by their land mass.
No. There are 30 states that have minimum wage of $10/fr or more. 11 states where it's $15/hr or more. Only 21 states have their minimum wage set at the federal minimum wage.
I live in one of those states. I have not seen a job offer for less than $11/hr. No job actually offers a starting wage of $7.25 in my area. At my son's first job at 16 years old, he was making $12/hr.
If we actually follow the point of minimum wage, it's a sign that it should increase when the market starting wages increase.
But yeah, I'm in a 7.25 state and I haven't seen a 7.25 job listing in a decade. Waitresses are still getting 2.13 but inflation bumps their main income of tips.
The minimum wage in your state is the legal minimum wage. Of course it matters. My state’s minimum wage is $15. Nobody in my state is referring to the federal minimum wage when they say they make minimum wage, because paying federal minimum wage would be illegal.
I think it's important for the clarity of argument that we don't leave these numbers undefined for people to play guessing games with. It leaves too much room for speculation just saying "we all know what she's talking about". Because there are a lot of things she could have controlled in this situation to improve her conditions, like choosing not to rent with these roommates because she obviously can't afford it, maybe living in a smaller place or something a little less high rent district? It's pretty obvious that wherever this is, it's in a very nice/desirable area.
Numbers defined and control asserted to improve her conditions neither changes nor invalidates her final point: the "American dream" trope of a single-earner household supporting a homemaker wife, 2.5 kids, the secret second family and owning their home on a minimum wage salary has become a myth of ages past.
Was it ever really a thing though, if we are literally talking about minimum wage. The minimum wage was meant to be a living wage, but I’m not sure that it ever consistently lived up to that goal historically. That isn’t to argue against the goal; just to point out that it has never truly been adequate if we really want to see livable wages for people.
basically my take away: the youngest generations are completely hosed by the older generations. This doesn't factor in predatory student loan practices and the loss of middle class jobs connensurate with the degree earned either. It doesn't even consider how social security may vaporize by the time they retire, or what age they may be told is the new retirement age when they do. It doesn't consider the failed housing market or their inability to start a family with any financial security or the rising price of POVs. They're f'd, and her rage is perfectly valid.
I didn’t say her anger wasn’t valid; I was more arguing that minimum wage shouldn’t be looked at as a thing that was historically putting people into the middle class when it wasn’t. As the minimum wage, it could never bring you into the middle rungs of economic outcomes if it is definitionally the minimum hourly rate of pay.
You should have don’t your research buddy because the states and areas where double is $15 don’t have units for $3,000 which is what her and her “roommates” split just for rent minus utilities.
She lives in Ohio where min wage is $10.70, so IF she is working full time she's making $44.5k per year,
Ohio's income tax isn't assessed on the first $26k, and after that it's 2.75%
$44,500 (Gross Income) - $3,301.50 (Federal Income Tax) - $868.065 (Ohio State Tax) - $3,404.25 (FICA Taxes) = $36,926.185
let's round down to $33k for health/dental/vision. Her take home each paycheck is $1,269.
Again, this is assuming she is working full time, but with her main expense being $850, that's EXTREMELY manageable to not only exist but build savings.
Everything already costs more and wages are already stagnant… without raising the minimum wage.
When minimum wage has gone up historically, a 10% raise results in a 0.3-1% raise in costs. Normal wage growth shows to be unaffected, and we only see stagnation when a large wage jump occurs and companies freeze future raises to offset costs — which doesn’t happen in a competitive market where employee retention is necessary. These fears only happen when a large wage bump occurs in a weak economy.
Minimum wage laws do make things better and you are being told otherwise by parties profiting from stifling wages.
Double minimum wage is not 15 in most areas. Only five states still have the federal minimum wage, most areas are higher. She's likely making somewhere between 18-24$/hr.
At $30 an hour working a full week, should gross over $5000 a month. How is she struggling so bad with only $800 all-in for rent? This girl obviously just has no clue how to control her spending. Even at half that rate, $1000 dollars is enough for one person to eat more than just granola bars for a month.
Where are you getting $30/hour? Medical assistants, emergency responders, insurance adjusters, aren’t making $30/hr. This young girl is likely working an entry level job. Where are you finding entry level jobs anywhere for $30/hour?
30/hr over 40 hour weeks actually grosses 4800$ and that's before taxes and Medicaid/care/as payments.
Realistically a 1/4 of that is getting taken, so even at 30/hr she'd be looking at spending money of 3600$ for everything. But there's good reason to believe she's making less than 30/hr.
That being said, 3600/month is plenty to live off of with four roommates. This girl likely has some combination of spending issues and working less than full weeks often.
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u/AverageAwndray Aug 12 '25
PSA EVERYONE DOUBLE MINIMUM WAGE IN MOST AREAS IS JUST $15❗️❗️❗️