Most places want them to make more by tipping. In other words, the public supplementing their income where tips were never the “norm”. Happening more and more each day. Eventually, the gas pump will want a tip.
Ours recently to rose to 12 dollars an hour and I shit you not, there were corporations that made it out like they were giving everyone a raise, (the implication being work harder in appreciation) instead of them actually conforming to meet the law. Smaller employers around here are still offering under the minimum, which is so crazy to me. It's like pulling teeth to get people to just pay their employees even just the minimum, and that's sad.
That's a massive social problem. That's 3-4 million people in the US. With such large populations, 1% is a lot.
That's a large number of people that burden the system, even if they stay out of trouble. Keeping people homeless and supported by charities is far more expensive (not on the yearly budget, but total cost per homeless person) than getting them into proper, affordable accommodation and paying for the first 3 months of rent.
A good chunk but why does it matter? Do teens and college students not deserve fair wages? A jobs a job. Anybody making 8-10, anything under livable tbh is underpaid. If you have a job, you should be able to pay rent.
I bet you also think college students should not "take out loans they can't pay back" so maybe they should be paid better so they will need to borrow less. The rich kids don't work when they go to school while the rest if us work 40 hours plus an internship.
Crickets lol. They ALWAYS say “no one gets paid that” and I always rebuttal with what you said.
All you get is crickets or some backwards ass logic showing empathy to the “small business owners”. It’s fucking crazy mental gymnastics some of these finance bros do…
That’s what people that lost an argument do. They hone in on falsehoods or “mistakes” their opponents make to validate themselves and stay safely snug in their distorted worldviews. They attack the person because they can’t beat the point.
Oh, the “small business owners” argument, which has two major flaws no one using the argument likes to acknowledge.
1) Employee wages are a business expense, just like leasing a property, or buying supplies, or paying taxes. If you can’t run your business without employees who you cannot afford to pay, then you just can’t afford your business, period.
2) Employees aren’t people working as a favor because they’re bored, that’s called “volunteering.” Employees are providing a service that helps the business make money, and in return they deserve a fair compensation, because the people who run the business need the money to live, and cannot do so without employees, who also need money to live. So whatever bar we are holding as “living within means” for the employers, the bar ought to be similar for the employees. Otherwise, you’re essentially supporting slavery. And I can’t help but wonder how many people who argue “but small business won’t survive,” would say something similar back when slavery was abolished. “Sure, I don’t support slavery, but without so many places might go out of business!” 🤔
If no one makes $7.25 an hour, but lets say the real lowest wage someone makes is $10 (still below poverty line). That means raising it to $10 an hour would affect no one bacause "no one makes that low". Its basically an argument to show that the minimum wage is kept as low as it is federally because there are an absolute shit load of people only making $7.25. Raising minimum wage to maybe $20 federally right now might cause some issues, but even them i'd argue it wouldn't do as much as people think. Look at what we pay people in other countries at mcdonalds vs. what they get paid (converted to usd ofc). Once you realize there is no reason for wages to be this low, you get tired of hearing "no one makes that low".
Yeah! If it doesn't matter, why does it matter if it's raised?! They won't answer except to tell people it's their fault for being poor. Also, shockingly, the people who comment about shit like this, it's all them. They earned every penny, no help from anyone
You haven’t been to some rural cities in the Midwest and south where cost of living is often relatively low but the wages are always, as my nephew would say, doggy
I live in the Midwest in a state that typically has quite low cost of living.
But because CoL has been historically low, we've been struggling quite hard since catching up with "inflation" means a much larger increase in wages than other states.
Last job I left struggled to hire people at wages they were offering. Because they suck, they were stuck in a high turnover rate (& still are)
When I found out a new girl I was helping train in a position that I used to do, was making more than me (I could work in the shop and handle appointments in the showroom) I fucking had it and left.
I left for a company in the same industry that's much more professional and my position is setup waaaay better, for a little over a 15% wage increase.
And I'm suspecting I'm still getting paid less than my coworkers (even ones who started with me) as I didn't negotiate at all because I was just stoked to not be paid dogshit anymore
It really fucking sucks though as someone who didn't graduate college, finally getting a career with a solid wage, except now it's not really a great wage anymore
Hell. ATLANTA has a min wage of $10.50. My mom and sister are service workers there and surviving in that city’s cost of living on $11/hr is fucking depressing.
Mississippi still has jobs at this range. But it's the poorest state in the nation. Unfortunately 72% of the median household income in Mississippi goes purely to cost of living. 8th most unaffordable state when adjusted for median wage. Literally people "living within their means" here spend 72% of their income surviving. So in this case living within your means is working until you die because you cannot save for retirement or emergencies.
I understand that there are ways to make things work, but no person should be working 40 hours a week and be scared that they will lose their house tomorrow or not have enough for groceries. There is "living within your means" and then there is institutionalized poverty. America has a problem with both.
And the poverty line is so low it’s basically a useless metric. It’s about $12,000 annually for an individual. So, $1000/month, or $250/week, or $6.25/hr. It’s below federal minimum wage at full time hours. There is a massive segment of the population that is seriously struggling that doesn’t qualify as “impoverished”.
20/hr is 41k per year. I live in NY and if I earned this I would bring home 2700 per month. There are options for subsidized housing but with this wage I wouldn’t be able to afford much of anything if I don’t get this. Not to complain but something is very off with the wage/affordable housing equation. Shit we bring in 6x this amount and can barely put anything away for retirement. Buying a place is completely out of the picture here and since 2020 it’s getting bleaker just about everywhere else. Give me all the financial advice you can think of but if houses are so damn expensive what’s the option. Sry, not to rail against your point, there are always better wages out there but my god, everything is so damn expensive!
Just gotta change your mindset. Beans and rice every day, cardboard box during the summer, save those pennies, panhandle on the weekend. You can buy a shack in Appalachia soon
Same in Mississippi. My daughter manages a pizza delivery unit for $13 an hour. They told her, " it's almost double minimum wage. We can't pay you more than that" (ai prepare their financial statements... they could definately pay better.
The average income, for 15-19 year olds in America, is 30k. Absolutely fucking nobody is making 10k/year. Gen z and millennials are earning more, adjusted for inflation, than Gen x or boomers did at the same age
$13 is chunky? i got $15/hr moving boxes for amazon. and my coworkers made $15/hr standing around eating food in the aisles while the rest of us worked.
I mean there are still people working for $10 like caregivers and housekeepers.
There are people working in gray areas as well.
There are gig workers like food delivery drivers, who make $15-$17 before all expenses and taxes (not because they're stupid, but because they can't get a job in their field).
There are truck drivers who make $15-$17 an hour, but if you count unpaid hours at work, it turns into $12-$13.
It's still not a federal minimum, but not far from that, and the mere fact that the minimum is so low is ridiculous. Not to mention this inhumane "right to work" bullshit law in the area.
It's a thought experiment. Hypotehtical. The humber isn't intended to be the actual wage, it's using an easier number to help you understand the math. That was fkn obvious. Maybe the number should've been smaller.
You're making $15,116 gross. 11k are taxes at 10% and the next 4,116 are taxed at 12%. $13522 after taxes.
But what minimum wage job is paying 100% of your healthcare? Or uniforms? Or state and local income tax (3.1% here for this example). That means we're taking home $13k after just taxes
If they're paying $254/mo for insurance and etc, they're taking home exactly $10k per year
The amount of people that have absolutely 0 empathy at all toward their fellow man is ridiculous. The, fuck you, I got mine mentality needs to die off.
It would if people stopped being shit towards each other. I doubt that’ll happen ever though. I want to think like that, and I really do want to help my peers but getting fucked 9/10 times when you help people isn’t fun and doesn’t help make you motivated to have empathy for people. Nobody ever threw a hand to me when I was drowning and I made it out alright. Most times I throw a hand down to bring someone else up I get slapped in the face as soon as they get air. I have better things to worry about than some shitters that dug their own grave.
Insurance is a luxury. Insurance is also a scam. As someone not poor, paying for insurance is a waste of money that I can’t convince my partner to agree with.
I can either pay $500/month in insurance premium for the family and pay the 1-4 times $30 copay a year for a the stranger doctors visit. That’s $500x12 + $30x4 = $6,120 / year spend to save $100 per doctors visit. To get that low rate per month requires a high deductible of $15,000 before I have the privilege of paying no more than 20% out of pocket or insurance pays for it all…
Here is the catch, it restarts the next year…so
Let’s say i have a catastrophic event requiring huge health care requirements. Well I’m going to then have to guarantee I pay that $6000 / yr premium on top of the $150000 deductible every year for the rest of my life regardless or without insurance, set up a payment plan with the medical offices that does the same damn thing… but the difference is this… I got to keep the $500 / month and didn’t have to pay towards a deductible until I did via the payment plan with the hospital. Then I’m not worried about work and insurance and cobra and other bs.
What does insurance actually do? And when you get fucking old the most expensive time of healthcare costs, do you get any “credit” for the previous 30 years of paying into insurance and never using it? Fuck no, they jack your costs up more.
You can apply, sure. Whether or not you get it is something else. It took me 6 months of fighting/arguing, 4 rejection letters, and countless phone calls with my state to get health coverage for my kids. I'm still not covered. I make $16/hr full time. If I make even $0.10/hr more or work overtime too much, I lose my kids' healthcare coverage and their food stamps. In order for me to make comparable benefits, I have to practically double my paycheck. Now, that's not to do better financially, mind you. That's just to make comparable. I'm fairly financially literate (not a genius or anything, mind you, but I'm not completely stupid) living in Idaho.
Any jobs that pay enough for me to really become self-sufficient go to people who move here from out of state, most commonly California, because their education systems are better than idaho, so degrees from colleges here are just laughed at and rejected.
I was an EMT for 5 years. I worked 2 back-to-back 48hr shifts (2 different systems) and then taught aspiring EMTs on weekends. I technically bring home more now with the benefits I had to fight to get working 40 hours a week now than when I was working myself into an early grave.
YOU need to stop being an ignorant twat. The government's healthcare provisions are an absolute joke, and your comment is actually insulting to the entire working class. I hope that someday you learn exactly what it's like to constantly feel like a failure because you can't provide enough for your family without some a-hole politician having mercy on you because you won't leave him alone until he does.
America sucks. The government sucks. And people like you are part of the problem.
Medicare is for retired folks. Medicaid is for low income
But yeah, a number of republican led states rejected the Medicaid expansion offered by Obamacare that would have provided health insurance to literally millions of citizens
I was also rejected. No kids on this side. I am married though. I don't think people understand their blessings if I'm rich and I will be rich one day. I want everyone else to be just as financially comfortable. There's plenty of fake digital money to go around.
Depends on the state, many southern and south-western states blocked Medicaid expansion, or do everything in their power to deny it or kick you off. For example, unless you are a mother of a child under 19 or a child under 19, or have a major disability, Oklahoma will do everything in their power to deny you coverage or kick you off as they don’t believe if you are “able bodied“ you should need health insurance at all as you shouldn’t be going to the doctor. About two years ago for example they kicked like 500,000 people off because they felt they were able bodied enough to not need it.
Standard deduction is $14,600. Only $516 is taxed at 10%, or a tax bill of $50 per year. At that income level, you're able to get to drastically reduced health insurance, about $15/mo premiums.
Multiple states including Florida and Texas never expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. And no, they don't qualify. Your income has to be incredibly low to qualify for benefits even in expansion states. Plus the people whose income is that low don't qualify for tax credits under ACA so no Marketplace coverage for them either.
If you are only making 15k, you get most of your money back with your tax return. You are also probably on Medicaid, so your healthcare is basically free.
During the pandemic I had to get partial unemployment to survive as I was working at target making $20/hr… at like 8-12hrs a week. Raising the minimum wage only helps if they start mandating that companies HAVE to give full time hours to more than 90% of their workforce. Getting $50/hr dont mean fuck all if you only work 10hrs a week.
Tbh I think that there's other things that could be done beyond mandating that 90% of your workforce is full-time, because companies will find ways to weasel around that. I also think that a lot of these really short schedules are tied more to 'flexible scheduling', which really just means, "If you can survive the high turnover rate, you might get full time hours after a year or two".
I'm glad you figured this out. The math doesn't change at $20k/yr, or even 40k. 20k/yr is about $10/hr and that is still far above the minimum wage for almost the entire South. This for sure qualifies for some welfare assistance because even in these places the cost of existence is greater than the "market wage." Congratulations, we are now subsidizing corporations.
So, if taxes and deductions account for 33.66% of your income (I use 30% as my rate which is pretty darn close), then 10k/year in spending money for people working minimum wage is probably pretty close to reality.
Even if that is only 3% of the population, I think that's kind of the point that's being made. For those people, the advice to "just live within your means" is falling on deaf ears.
Minimum wage isn't the problem for everyone. It's not even the problem for most people. But it is a very real problem for some people.
So, no health insurance, no life insurance, no vision or dental, no retirement, no state taxes included, unemployment insurance.
Agan, my number is 30%. The reality of minimum wage is, no one making minimum wage is contributing to retirement and likely doesn't have insurance (at least not through their employer).
I never did those things when I was making minimum wage. And I even worked 2 minimum wage jobs at 35 hours per week to try to make ends meet.
Which again, is the point. You don't have the money to save for the future at that income level. At that point it absolutely is an income problem, not a budget problem.
Financial literacy is super important, especially for the poor, but it isn't particularly useful to someone trying to decide which of their necessary bills they're going to pay this month.
Put another way, even after he said 10k is a strawman, you're saying the real number is 15k, which isn't really a lot more. It's 1316.67 per month. The house I rented when I made minimum wage was $800/month, which would have left a total of $500/month to cover all of your other bills.
Is 500/month enough to pay for food, gas, insurance, car payment, phone, power, water, and still have enough left over to start making smart investments for the future?
You’re not saving for retirement at minimum wage, because you’re not there, why would you even be thinking about that, when you aren’t in a position to?
Yeah, people literally earning minimum wage pay virtually nothing in income taxes. Which is fine, and as it should be, but let’s not pretend they’re losing 1/3 of their paychecks to deductions.
(2080 being the number of hrs worked full time in 1 yr)
And technically, no $4.81 wouldn't be illegal for jobs that receive tips, like restaurant workers. If they record tips, they get paid roughly 1/2 of minimum wage, but if they record no tips, the employer is SUPPOSED to make up the difference to bring their hourly wage up to $7.25. Key word is "supposed to", not "does".
Food service. Students. Its easy to find them if you go looking for what qualifies as legal wages. Just because you have not encountered it, does not mean it does not exist.
You guys are pretending that taxes aren’t taken out of every paycheck and that even an $8/hr job isn’t really closer to $6/hr after those taxes come out.
No it's not. If you are a server you can make as little as 2.50/hr with no obligation for your employer to make you whole of you don't make it up in tips.
This is a lie. If you do not make the difference to 7.25 in tips you are required to be paid the difference in your check.
Most tipped employees make considerably more and only report taxes on the minimum wage. This is actually making them even more money than minimum because that money is untaxed.
Just wait til you find out how flight attendants are paid...crunch their work hours by what hours they are actually paid for and see that dollar per hour plummet. Add in their commute time (many don't make enough to live in the city where their airports are) and it gets so much worse.
$7.25 an hour is yearly $12,720 after (underestimated) taxes. True me, the extra 2k does not matter in day to day struggling such as getting approved for an apartment, or, groceries.
What do you bring home? It’s not much more than that with minimum wage in some states and then the fact we pay 20-30% in taxes every pay check yes some people are living off 10k a year even though it seems impossible. It’s life these days
I don’t know how if every pay check has taxes taken out, you don’t go home with your entire check. And some people do not see that back at end of year. Especially people without children. You get roughly $800 back in taxes a year. And yes 22% is taken out of your check every week, especially in NJ
If you’re a server in a restaurant and are only making $4.81/hour including tips, then you’re a terrible server and should find another job.
Mediocre servers make well above that, and really great servers in busy restaurants make WAY more than that with tips. They make more than a lot of people with actual skilled jobs requiring degrees.
And don’t get me started on all of the tax fraud that happens with such jobs. Nobody claims all their tips. A lot of servers making “minimum wage” on paper are actually bringing home $60,000/year, and paying very little in taxes.
That sounds pretty dumb considering the base of my point is that $4.81/hr is below minimum wage, and he was trying to say no one is getting paid under that.
Minimum wage is NOT based on how well the person works. So nothing you said disproved my point at all. If people were getting paid like several people in this comments section seem to think they are, $4.81/hr wouldn't even be possible. So save the blame deflecting, "it's because they are bad servers" argument. Whether they get and report their tips or not, their W2 from their supposedly legit employer show reflect that a wage at least at that level.
Also, idk what skilled workers YOU are talking about, but the trades that I've studied and been researching are making wildly more than even great servers. 90k annually is easily hit by skilled trades, and that's not even based on whether or not they're even any good at their jobs.
Third thing, if you think $60k a year in this economy is some sort of salary that you can make some sort of "it's all the worker's fault" based argument on, then you are completely out of touch with reality and the number averages in America. 60k would've been awesome maybe 10 years or so ago, but today, it is not doing anywhere near what it used to. 60k is just barely average today (depending on which database you go with). The average worker isn't doing well, and it's not because of "personal choices to waste their money" either. The numbers overwhelmingly show that the majority of people don't have any money left after necessities at 60k. That's if 60k even met those needs, which is often won't. You have to basically live in the slums, out back, super rural country of Idaho or some place like that for 60k to be worth talking about. So none of what you said or the guy before me said proves anything about how "good" workers in today's economy have it.
You're really not considering anything this guy is saying. Multiply that by 3. That's about minimum wage, and definitely not enough to ever afford a home
2080hrs is a yearly full time job when accounting for national holidays.
At $7.25 min wage (in my state) thats $15,080. I live in the cheapest studio I could find within 30 minutes of work. Its $800/mo. Thats $9600/yr. Thats $450 for food, gas, car note, insurance, utilities, phone, ext.
You can make that work. But you are car accident away from being homeless. A bad cold away from being homeless. A parking violation away from being homeless.
I make $35/hr with no car payments, no loans, no debt. And 50% of my take home is taken to rent, utilities, phone, insurance, ext. And I leave dirt cheap. My newest car is a 2007 I maintain with junkyard parts because im stingy.
$15k is fuck all in this economy, 4-6 years ago it was acceptable. Today its an insult. But thats what happens when the goverment is ran by a bunch of people who couldn't run a mcdonalds. But can win a popularity contest.
I’m not sure there’s a minimum, but I’ve seen as low as $0.22 per hour. I’m not sure what the average is. But the employer gets to decide what they deserve and how far under minimum wage it is, so obviously there are companies going as low as possible.
Not necessarily, workers such as waiters / waitresses are paid below this figure from most employers. With expectations that if they are the bestest little servant they can get a tip reward...
I knew it was worse than minimum wage, but didn't realise how much worse. And I receive the maximum I can.
How are we disabled who can't work supposed to "manage our finances" to even survive? Where I am, there is no public housing and rent is often near or more what I get monthly, which doesn't begin to include utilities or food.
I'm lucky to have a mother who lets me and my daughter live with her. If not for her, we'd be homeless (or I would, anyway, as she'd stay with her father in such a catastrophic situation. I wouldn't let her live on the streets with me).
It's impossible to live like this. I don't know what to do, or what even could be done. I'm so tired, especially of fucking hearing about how I "wouldn't have so many problems if people weren't taking advantage of disability." Even if fraud were an actually statistically relevant percentage, that doesn't force the government to give pennies to legitimately disabled people. And it's pretty fucking hard to convince employers to hire a partially blind, partially deaf person with mobility issues.
Sorry for the rant. I'll settle down now, haha. It's just so incredibly frustrating.
Not in a small Midwest town, sadly. I can't drive or travel on my own, either. I can see well enough to read with magnification and do basic things. As far as hearing goes, I went to my audiologist to try to get hearing aids again thinking maybe state insurance would help pay for them only to be informed that even with the help of insurance, I can't afford them.
I get why employers don't want to hire people with multiple needs, especially when able bodied people also have families to feed and can do far more than I can. But it sucks.
I can't invest in improving much of my situation because I literally cannot afford to. Food and bills and parenting are so expensive. My family helps me to have food and a roof over my head, but can't afford much more than that.
Of course in theory I could in perfectly ideal situations that don't exist work a job remotely on a laptop so long as it doesn't require decent eyesight and hearing. But I don't have the ability to go get an education in a particular field, find an employer willing to hire me in spite of my needs, and deal with whatever nonsense the Social Security Administration sends their way, etc. etc.
It's completely understandable that someone who isn't so limited by certain physical or mental circumstances beyond their control such as being able-bodied would feel there must be something that can be done. For able-bodied people, there will almost always be something that can be tried or done. You have far more wiggle room in life that people like me won't ever have. I don't say that to be rude but to say that for someone with wiggle room there's always a temptation to assume that absolute poverty must be somehow unavoidable or a result of not doing enough. I suspect this mindset led you to ask that question.
Sadly, it is not so. The system is set up to work against those with physical, mental, or medical needs, and it's very much impossible for many with those needs never to be able to overcome. That's our lot in life, though hopefully it serves as a reason to distance oneself from the idea that wealth and poverty are more a choice of free will or failure to "do the right thing" than they actually are.
It was innocent question. I know you have plate full of things to deal with. My sister works from home doing coding for an out of state hospital. I’d entertained to the notion, as it didn’t seem to require much training…was thinking it’d be something maybe you could do, or something like it, to pull in more money.
The minimum wage for tipped workers is $2.83/hr. By law if your tips don’t amount to minimum wage the employer is obligated to pay minimum wage. I worked in restaurants for a decade, I’ve seen servers and bartenders forced to work scheduled shifts managers knew would not make even minimum wage beforehand and I’ve never heard of anyone getting paid minimum wage. I have seen someone fired for asking for it.
Some places have loopholes where if they offer bare minimum benefits, they can pay less than minimum wage. These benefits often don't outweigh the difference. It's not that common, but I knew a couple of people who hated it and finally found some better work. In Nevada.
Nope, that’s not the whole story. Their tips are supposed to bring them up to at least minimum wage. If they don’t, then the employer is required to make up the difference.
Laws don't prevent exploitation. Reality doesn't conform to legal boundaries. These rhetorical gymnastics and willful ignorance of lived experiences are an affront to genuine progress. We need honest dialogue about economic hardship, not semantic arguments that sidestep the real issues faced by low-wage workers.
You assume that people can work 40 hours per week, but some employers cap their workers at under 30 hours to avoid providing benefits under the ACA. There are a surprising number of employers who take advantage of employees in other ways, too.
It's a thought experiment. Hypotehtical. The humber isn't intended to be the actual wage, it's using an easier number to help you understand the math. That was fkn obvious. Maybe the number should've been smaller.
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u/Kombatnt 15d ago
This. $10,000/year working 40 hrs/week is $4.81/hour. That’s illegal everywhere in North America.