I’m trying to think of different places I’ve lived, because the cost of housing / food / other changes. For example, when I lived out in the sticks, rent was cheap but food, gas, and incidentals were hella expensive. I’m near a big urban area now, and it’s expensive rent, cheap gas (due to using less), moderate food, moderate incidentals.
Anyway, more relevantly, I know people who can get by with incomes of ~$18.00/hr full time jobs. Anything that is unexpected kills them though, whether it’s car trouble, medical issues, or otherwise. You won’t be in a house though, unless you’re renting a room. You won’t be in a rat-infested hole, but something like a one bedroom apartment or two bedroom with a roommate. I know of a few folks who are raising a family on that salary, with the caveat that family helped them with housing (either an inherited property or similar). This is in an area where you can find cheap housing due to natural disasters and generally ‘rural’ areas that are basically paying developers to build cheap housing (i.e., looks like it’s decent but is basically matchsticks and glue).
I helped people budget when they were making $11.00/hr full time, and that’s where you start seeing a lot of compromises made (it was also 10 years ago, so things have probably gotten worse). Kids and parents are stuffed into tiny rooms in bad apartments, a car is held together by tape and a prayer (and if anything happens it’s going to be scrapped and they’ll try to scrape by with a wreck they could get running, and then hope they never get seen by a cop for its numerous problems / lack of insurance/registration), and hopefully they’ll be able to get a few government benefits to get the kids help for medical benefits.
I’ve worked with people making the federal minimum of $7.25/hr, and they rely on the government to have any hope of a not-horrible life. They’re either in government housing, or in a trailer with 5 people living in it. The car is shared between several people; they walk to work, even if it sucks and is an hour+walk, because they’ll be fired in an instant if they don’t show up; they’re probably on food stamps, utility help,etc.; medical is basically call ems and get to an emergency room if they’re keeling over (and hope that the er can fix it, i.e., that it’s not something that just gets ‘stabilized’); bills are always piling up… it wasn’t pleasant.
So, all that being said, I’d peg it somewhere around $25.00/hr. That’s where my higher paid coworkers seem to start looking at houses, and talk about starting families. I’ll have to go look at the numbers (and we know that those are probably fucked due to the administration right now…) but I think that’s near or above median income in america. That would mean 50% of the population isn’t going to be living “just ok,” which really sucks to think about.
Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 days ago
Depends on your area (because of the housing market and local cost of living), but in my area in California, if you are not making $150,000 or more annually expect to be in a lot of debt and never owning a home.
boonhet@sopuli.xyz 6 days ago
I’m assuming that’s a pretty high cost of living area compared to Bumfuck, NW though. Sucks for anyone working a low wage job in said HCoL area of course, but this is somewhat of a state issue rather than a federal one, since HCoL states and areas should have higher minimum wage than federal minimum wage. And I mean California is at least doing that already, but I think even Cali needs to double its current minimum wage.
Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 days ago
We have I believe the second or the highest minimum wage in the nation. Although our housing/utilities market is the most fucked up.