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For sure I don't see how a minimum wage worker could make it in a one-income family, even if there were no children.
I just figured it up, and $5.15/hr for full-time workers (and keep in mind most companies that hire miminum wage people try to keep them at 30 hrs per week or less, so no benefits) totals $891/month.
I live on $740/month, my SSDI income. But I'm retired and make sure I have minimal expenses. It takes me a year to put 2,000 miles on the car (which isn't mine -- my brother lets me drive Mom's old car now, and her pension pays the insurance since I use it to take her places and provide for a lot of her needs).
Hell, I don't even have propane to cook with (because my old motorhome I live in has a small but unfixable-on-my-income leak that makes the fumes too much to bear) or hot water (the motorhome also has electrical probs and won't let me run the hot water heater without tripping the breaker). Can't afford to get the old toilet fixed or replaced either, so I have to manually flush it by pouring water into it.
AND my lot rent here covers the cost of all utilities except propane and phone anyway.
People like me who have to do laundry at a laundromat are paying at least a dollar per load and probably more, and don't forget to include the dryers too. And soap, and softener -- if we splurge on such a luxury as fabric softener.
I mean, when I think about it, I just don't know how minimum wage workers keep the wolf from the door at all, because employed folks have expenses I don't, such as clothing suitable for their jobs, in addition to commuting and childcare costs.
Only way I can think of is to have two adults working full time, and then if they have children or other dependents, a huge chunk of their income goes to child daycare or eldercare -- even though those workers also earn very little.
Dr. B.F. Skinner wrote a "utopian" novel called Walden Two that was about putting his behavioral principles into practice in a community, and he set it up so that the people who did the most unwanted jobs got paid the most. This was determined by how many people signed up for the various jobs that supported the group in their rural or village setting.
The garbage handlers were the highest paid, since no one wanted to do that! Teachers and skilled people who didn't have to break their backs or even a sweat earned smaller amounts but enjoyed their jobs more. And those who cared for the children when parents were not doing it were well paid too, since it's difficult, demanding work and the community saw their children's upbringing as very important.
Of course, by those standards, all the paper-shuffling office workers in our culture who earn big bucks for doing -- well, what DO they do? -- wouldn't get paid much for sitting down all day indoors. ;)
I was one of those for my 33-year career as an executive secretary -- though at my low level of "grunt work" in the office scheme I didn't get to sit down much. I used to muse when the skyscrapers downtown would empty at lunchtime or the end of the workday: What if suddenly all this paper shuffling became useless, say, in a survival situation after global climate change really changes things in a big way?
I mean, those folks would be virtually helpless and unable to do any "real" work! At least until they learned the skills needed and built up some body fitness and strength, of course.
While some of us paper-shufflers spent our off-time doing other things that kept us in shape and learning other skills that could become our gainful employment in a changed society, most of the coworkers I knew did not.
Back to the gas prices. One of my former coworkers who became a friend sent me an email the other day about a citizen campaign to bring down gas prices at the pump -- one which, the heading proclaimed, "might actually work!"
It was simple and easy, since all there was to it was for everyone to stop buying gasoline from Exxon-Mobil, the single largest oil company now. If the campaign caught fire and millions of Americans simply avoided Exxon-Mobil stations and bought elsewhere, Exxon-Mobil would have no choice but to cut their prices at the pump to get their customers back.
And once they did that, other brands would have to lower their prices to compete ... and voila! We have GAS WARS again!
Sounded good to me. I wonder if it ever got off the ground?
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