The minimum wage has remained stagnant for decades and, let’s be honest, in no way reflects current costs or inflation.
Perhaps Chris Rock explained minimum wage best when he said:
Companies that take advantage of the minimum wage don’t want the system to change, but sometimes they really tell on themselves.
Recently, Twitter user @tastefactory shared a screenshot of a “budget” developed by McDonald’s and Visa that is meant to show how someone would survive on minimum wage in this economy.
It’s actually an old picture, but maybe because there’s a pandemic and unemployment is skyrocketing, it seems relevant again.
Forbes reported in 2013 that the budget was published on a site called practicalmoneyskills.com and unsurprisingly that page has since been deleted. At the time it was almost as hated as it is now, if not more so.
A normal job, or what should be a normal job, is 40 hours a week. McDonald’s budget shows what someone makes working for about $7/hr, around $1,105. I guess they couldn’t actually figure out how to make it work, because under income they listed money from a second job. That’s the job you do on the weekends or when you should be sleeping.
So you’re working maybe 80 hours a week? Awesome!
The out-of-touch aspects of this budget do not stop there. In this hypothetical budget, rent or a mortgage is only $600.
On what planet? Is everyone living in rural Wyoming? Even if that were the case, car payments are astonishingly low at $150, and the budget has set aside ZERO dollars for heating. Which is a problem, because it gets cold in Wyoming in the winter.
And health insurance is $20 a month. maybe they’re assuming everyone is on Medicaid because they’re below the poverty line in this scenario:
Using these metrics, the two predatory companies deduced that with this budget, you’d still have $800 leftover as “spending money.”
And as @tastefactory pointed out, “I guess food is considered ‘Other’ in this budget?”
When you see stuff like this, it’s really hard to believe that the people at the top are all that smart. No one could possibly look at this image and think it would be a good thing to share, and yet they did. At least it gave people an opportunity to lose it on Twitter again:
it’s not actually supposed to add up because whoever made it has literally no idea what anything costs and don’t actually care in the first place
— Gender Reveal Pipebomb (@ApeIsrael) July 20, 2020
Anyway, I’ve lived off that income and it works only if you live somewhere extremely cheap and, very importantly, nothing ever goes wrong
— Like a census cowboy in a star-spangled rodeo (@inICRMwetrust) July 19, 2020
i honestly hope that is how they came up with this, if an adult did this….
— David Forum 🦅 🇨🇺 (@zlingray) July 19, 2020
Isn’t it the damnedest how they just already forget about taxes?
— anti-math (@antimather) July 20, 2020
Most families spend ~$250 on groceries a month, more if you eat healthy. And if you’re working two jobs, you’re spending $1000+ on childcare a month. Then there’s those in school, who pay thousands a year on books and supplies. Wtf?
— Lara Jean (@LaandWiles) July 21, 2020
“you can totally live on this income. all you need is also another income” https://t.co/bz5TH10wZz
— sarah (@epernerne) July 21, 2020
who else is quitting their job to go work at mcdonald’s for that $20 health insurance?!
— Ms Neenan (@MadNeenan) July 21, 2020
*Medical Insurance through Fisher Price.
**Actual medical intervention not included.
***May include lead-based paint. pic.twitter.com/Ux910PzjyF— Sarah Swanson (@Sarah_Swanson) July 21, 2020
Assuming a 40-hour work week for 52 weeks per year, the level of income needed to afford a two-bedroom apartment at the HUD Fair Market Rent in Minnesota: $20.53/hr. That means TWO AND A HALF full-time McDonald’s jobs JUST TO MAKE RENT.
— Dan_Heilman (@Dan_Heilman) July 21, 2020
Also LMAO at a 150 dollar car payment or the fact that insurance is never consistently 100.
— Brooke (@BrookeLG228) July 22, 2020
I’m still looking for some of that sweet sweet $20 insurance and a $150 a month car that never needs fuel
— Carlos Spicyweiner (@KarlSpicyweiner) July 22, 2020
That’s my budget for anger today, but I’ll have more tomorrow.
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