Isn’t minimum wage also half that?
Yup. This is why we were trying to get it increased to 15 back in fucking 2011.
Today we need it to be nearly double that.
And here you see the purpose in the design.
this is sustainable because we let them do it to us
Minimum wage here in Alberta, Canada remains $15/hr. CAD and hasn’t changed since 2018. That’s eight years. Absolutely insane now that I’ve looked it up, fuck me. And of course the UCP will never do anything that might help a struggling person.
I remember in 2007 I would have to work two hours for a pack of smokes or a gallon of gas working in fast food. 0/10 would not recommend.
That’s why they need to work two jobs at closer to 60 or more hours per week, no weekends off, in order to have anything at all.
That’s the neat thing, it isn’t for us.
My boss makes a dollar, I make a dime,
This rhyme comes from a different time,
My boss makes a dollar, I make a cent,
That’s why I can no longer afford rent.
Huh, I always thought a dime was $0.01 when I heard the original rhyme
Also, do you really NEED sleep?
And any positions that are paying minimum wage aren’t hiring full time for those positions, that means more than one job which increases transportation costs and reduces free time.
And they do that so they don’t have to provide health insurance, which means the employee will have to pay for their own and thats expensive. Highly predatory.
This is a reason I feel like public health care should be a bipartisan issue. Business people should love not having to do health insurance for employees.
It stops their employees from quitting to start companies to compete with them though. It’s too expensive to start your own company if you need to provide health insurance.
I have had plenty of full time minimum wage jobs. Also had a few zero hour contracts which absolutely suck in comparison.
The federal minimum wage is $7.25, something like 20 states don’t pay a higher wage.
… and many are paid much, much less than that, like working prisoners, making less than a dollar an hour.
… and also many farm workers are paid much, much less than federal “minimum”.
Millions of people. The more you look, the more people you will find making laughable wages.
Most jobs in my area pay $11-$13. It isn’t $7, but it isn’t $15 either. Also, who can manage transportation on $300? I spend that much in fuel. This meme paints WAY too easy of a picture. Life is much harder than that in most of the US. I see people from developing nations saying Americans are spoiled because they’re so rich, but what they think is rich is absolutely destitute poor here. You’ll likely be homeless and hungry if all you earn is $30k/year.
You’re welcome to post the calculus for your area. It is overly simple, but the point is correct. The economics are atrocious.
Young people just don’t understand saving, and how your options expand after saving even just a little bit. Use this post as an example - if you put that $100-130 away every month, in about 6 months you can afford a gun. This gives you a lot more opportunities.

I was about to get pissed. Now I’m cheering.
Back in my day I could go to the corner store and get chips and a soda and a magazine and whatever I wanted. Now they have security cameras.
Minimum wage is not supposed to maintain the expenses of an adult! Stop being lazy and act your age, leave that comfy minimum wage job, actually learn a trade like carpentry or something and build a device to separate heads from the rest of the body.
fire is universal
Young people just don’t understand saving
Young people don’t have any income. How can they understand savings?
if you put that $100-130 away every month, in about 6 months you can afford a gun
And another six months before you can afford bullets.
I wish my bills were that low.
no kidding. that’s my average water/trash bill. I guess the lights don’t need to say on.
how is it sustainable? it’s not. and that’s by design. American politicians and billionaires want it this way. they want the divide. the more poor you are the more likely you are to serve them. slavery never disappeared from the US. the ‘American dream’ has been dead for decades.
the more poor you are the more likely you are to serve them
I am getting tired of waiting for people to realize what’s in the post and finally take up to pitchforks. That’s not rocket science, come on
If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you. Lyndon B. Johnson
It works for poor versus rich too. Convince their depressed earnings are due to immigrants, etc. and they’ll attack them and (not us rich folks). It’s a redirection by the rich.
It also wasn’t sustainable 20 years ago.
Millennials in their 40s are finally reaching the level of income/financial freedom as a genX did in their late 20s.
And some of GenX got part of the Boomer economy where they practically handed you a job for simply asking and things were affordable.
Where is rent 1200? Maybe with 2 roomates.
That’s a reasonable figure for a big chunk of the Midwest. I currently pay around that much for a 2 bedroom apartment.
Eureka CA $1200 for a 2 bed 1 bath single family home
…but you live in Eureka
I had an apartment that was 1200 a month in Southeast Michigan a few years ago. It was the cheapest two-bedroom around because it was pretty poorly maintained.
A decade ago, $1200 was a three bedroom house in my neighborhood. Today, it’s $1400 for a studio apartment, and $3k for the same house.
Again, 10 year difference.
I forget how bad the inflation is. I had that place in 2023-2024 so not quite a decade, but I’m sure things have gotten worse since then.
I never understood landlords like that. Maintenance isn’t too difficult or too expensive barring pretty extraordinary circumstances.
Put in like $200-$300 a month worth of maintenance and you could eventually charge $400-$500 a month more in rent.
Maintenance isn’t too difficult or too expensive
Are you joking? Getting quality contractors (or doing it yourself) is quite a bit of work and often quite expensive. It’s exponentially worse if other people are tearing your shit up because they don’t care about other people’s stuff.
You shouldn’t take this as ‘don’t buy your own home’, but I can’t fathom where you thought properly maintaining a home isn’t difficult or expensive. Go lookup prices on how expensive installing a new roof, AC, kitchen cabinets, or flooring is. And those are only some big-ticket items.
Just bought my 30 year old home last year. Have made quite a few upgrades so far because it was necessary but as far as “general” maintenance goes it’s been pretty negligible. Of course replacing a roof is a shit ton of money but when you only need a new one every 30 years that $20,000 bill can be spread across 360 months for a total of $55 a month. You just need to be knowledgable enough to know what the maintenance costs and account for it ahead of time not last minute after you have already been greedy and spent all the money you collected the past 30 years.
Theyd rather not do extra work and just charge slightly less.
austin tx reporting in, there’s advertisements up near me about the amazing deal of $1100/mo for a 1bed apartment.
Wow, when I lived there, it was $700 just to rent a room in someone else’s house
Southeast US in the smaller cities (rent is cheaper for a reason though…).
And $15/hr is roughly twice the Federal minimum wage.









