A lot of people think we should raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
That's about $31,200 per year (also before taxes).
How big of a deal is that extra $7.75 an hour?
Let's see. We'll start with the monthly costs of just a few basic living expenses. And to keep things simple, we'll focus on the average costs for a single person.
BIG DISCLAIMER: Everyone's experience is different. These are crudely assembled hypothetical scenarios to help us simply consider the relative impact of a $15 minimum wage.
FOOD: The U.S. Department of Agriculture says the food costs for a single man are
$188 to $373 per month. The range for single women is $167 to $331 per month. Since I'm a guy, I'll just use that figure. (No offense, ladies.) And let's assume some serious penny-pinching here by going with the low end.
HOUSING: There's a general rule of thumb that affordable housing should be no more than one-third of a person's income. That's getting
harder to achieve in an age of flat (
or declining) incomes and skyrocketing housing costs, but let's just run with it for the sake of comparison.
Food, housing, and fuel costs alone soaked up nearly two-thirds (64%) of the monthly earnings of the $7.25-an-hour worker. The $15-an-hour worker spent less than half (48%) of their income on the same needs.
Again, this is PRE-TAX. So these figures are a little more generous than the reality.
But food, housing, and fuel aren't the only things we spend money on, right?
We have utilities, phone bills, car payments, insurance premiums, and medical bills. We pay for all sorts of small necessities that can really add up. And if you do have a family, then you definitely don't need me to tell you that
raising a kid is not cheap.
And what about savings and planning for a better future — that whole "pursuit of happiness" thing? It's looking pretty impossible on $7.25 an hour.
But it wouldn't just be a win for the workers — it would be for all U.S. taxpayers:
- According to Americans for Tax Fairness, "Walmart pays its employees so little that many of them rely on food stamps, health care and other taxpayer-funded programs" — to the tune of $6.2 billion a year.
Call me old-fashioned, but an honest day's work should provide for everything workers need now with some left for their future — not leave them grasping for welfare straws.
The TRUTH will set you FREE.
Five years ago today, an explosion on board the oil rig Deepwater Horizon killed 11 men and unleashed one of the largest and costliest offshore oil disaster this nation has ever experienced. By the end of 2014, BP, the company primarily responsible for the disaster, estimated the overall economic losses from the spill at over $43 billion.
