My week living on the minimum wage

New York Daily News ^ | February 7, 2004 | HEIDI EVANS

[grellis]

By budgeting properly you can easily live on minimum here in Lansing as well, but there is another little something about this article which really pisses me off: this experiment lasted just one stinking week. How many people have jobs in which they are being paid minimum indefinitely??? Only morons is my guess. If your job performance is good, your wage increases. Promotional opportunities become available to you. Does that happen in a week? Of course not! Sheesh!

My husband (FReeper AshfieldK, Happy Valentines, baby!) was hired into his company about 2.5 years ago as a temp. He worked his butt off and was hired in as permanent staff making $24,000/anno. He worked some more of his butt off and got a promotion after 6 months, up to $30k. He worked his butt off more still and in the following two years he was promoted twice more. He is now making $44,100/anno and I no longer have to work midnights at the local retailer--I stay home with the kids full time. Guess what? We still budget. I still pack lunches for everyone. We haven't eaten out in years. We live in the same neighborhood that we moved into eleven years ago, when we didn't have a pot to pee in (or kids to feed and clothe). We have never taken a fancy vacation. We brew our own beer, for crying out loud! Guess what else? Apart from a mortgage and a car payment we have no debt and, consequently, no money worries. None of this happened in one stinking week!

/rant

[varon]

For example, in order for me to work full-time, from 9 to 5, I need a baby-sitter to pick up my child from school at 3 p.m. and watch her for three hours until I get home at 6 p.m. At $10 an hour in Manhattan, that is $30 a day, $150 a week.

That leaves us with $56 in cash plus $46 in food stamps for the week.

It gets worse.

Deduct another $17.50 toward a $70 monthly Metro pass, which leaves us with $38.50 for everything else. Laundry, phone and Con Ed bill, clothes, school supplies, haircuts and who knows what else I haven't even thought of.

Maybe giving some thought to paying rent might be in line.

[BlessedByLiberty]

...if the government kept their grubby hands out of our pockets...

If they did that, politicians would never gain any personal wealth. :)

Proof of your statement about incentives to not get off welfare: We know a woman who has 5 children by two different men. Her welfare began while she was pregnant with her first child who is eleven. The only reason she went back to school for her GED - and this came from her - was that she was told she was about to lose her benefits.

The two different fathers sometime reside with her. When asked why she did not make them pay child support she said this way was easier on her!

[BlessedByLiberty]

You are proof of my assertions that pride in oneself and a work ethic means success. You both worked hard toward goals that contribute to society.

There is an additional benefit: your story will deeply sadden a liberal.

Happy Valentines Day!

[sweetliberty]

"Both had found that they were competing in a global marketplace. The high minimum wage in Oregon was pointed to as one of the principal issues that worked against their competitiveness."

Hmmm....just thinking with my keyboard here, but could this be an underlying motive for the RATs wanting to push this wage increase thing ....because by so doing they are forcing globalism? I may be way off base....economics typically bores me, but it seems to make sense, on the surface anyway, especially when you consider that their motives are never pure.

[lowbridge]

I bought lots of pasta - three boxes for $1.89 - rice, chicken, lots of salad, cheap vegetables and canned soups, something I would never eat usually. The bill came to $72.

72 bucks for a weeks worth of groceries? She isnt even trying. Just this week I got four boxes of pasta for 1.96. And I could get a whole weeks worth of groceries for about 30-40 bucks.

I had always thought that $2.99 for a quarter-pound of turkey for Alex's lunch seemed reasonable, until I did the math and realized I was paying nearly $12 a pound. A bodega on Amsterdam was selling the same brand of turkey for $6.49, as was Fairway. That and a 99-cent loaf of not-so-healthy white bread and I could make Alex's lunch at home.

No good. I can get a pound of turkey for 3.00 a pound. (2 pounds for 5 dollars on sale)

Valentino's pizza place was still there on Kissena Blvd. They had a $4.95 special for lunch - chicken parm plus a 16-ounce soda — half of which I ate. I saved half for dinner.

There were no theater outings, no restaurants (unless you count the trip to Ray's pizza for $2 a slice),

Buying takeout? This is cheating. This should be a no no.

tap water to drink

Buy a packet of kool aid for 25 cents to add flavor.

I walked to Barnes and Noble and found a book, "NYC For Free." Since there was no way I would or could buy the $12.95 paperback, I sat down on the floor and started to copy down some of the suggestions.

Try a library.

[razorback-bert]

I think The Daily News should send her to live in Zimbabwe for a month.

[DefCon]

My point was really quite simple.
I did not think it would be necessary to explain it.
Sorry about that.

[sweetliberty]

"Why, then, should we view childbirth differently?"

Partly because of the involvement of an innocent child and partly because we would like to find a way to break the cycle. Hint: we're on the wrong track. All the gerry-rigging of wages, housing costs, prices, or whatever, in the world will not compensate for moral bankruptcy. For the most part, conservatives are opposed to abortion, as we should be, so we are really in kind of a quandry. We either find a way to support these children that we've convinced women not to destroy or we abandon them with their decisions. In the meantime, what are we doing to change their minds about how they got in that position in the first place? What are we doing to assure that their children will not fall into the same trap? Absolutely nothing, that's what.

The godless liberals have raped our culture and robbed it of its values with relatively little resistance. Unless and until we set that part straight, then we are responsible for our national sins, whether it be widespread abortion or supporting the children that are allowed to live.

[DameAutour]

I am incensed by this article.

First of all, I am disabled and receive a check from Social Security each month in the amount of $750. I am single and have no children. I don't live in New York City. I chose to live with family and rely on them rather than take advantage of free grants and credits, I'm not even sure what I would "qualify" for. In lieu of paying rent to my family, we just divide up expenses so that some of my expenses are higher than they would be if I were paying for myself only. For example, I buy all of the groceries for four adults.

Most of the people in my neighborhood are best described as "lower middle class". The homes here are worth no more than $75,000. I've never been wealthy, never lived amongst even the middle class, and have no idea what it would be like to even deal with a household income in excess of $100,000. When I did work the most I ever earned was $24,000 per year (but for a single person without kids in my city, that's actually quite a bit imo). At that time I felt rich because I had more money coming in than I spent.

This woman speaks about having to put aside shame and pride. Well she should be ashamed to pay $2.99 for a quarter pound of turkey. She says she has never comparison shopped? She should be ashamed of her stupidity. I don't care how much money you have, comparison shopping is always a good idea. She is looking down on those of us who buy things on sale, go to multiple markets to get the best value, use coupons, have a budget, etc. Well I take pride in all of those things. I feel pretty good about it. And to think I should have been ashamed all of this time because I buy the Acme peanut butter instead of Jiffy.

As for bringing a child into such an arrangement, I look at my parents. They're good people but they're lower middle class black "Democrats". They're the kind of people who get the electricity cut off while driving a new Cadillac. Who think a Savings account is a Checking account with penalties. If not for my living with them and budgetting, things would be pretty bad, as they were when I was a child. And they're not the only ones.

This woman doesn't know anything about the "working poor". I'm surrounded by them. It seems like everyone in my neighborhood has at LEAST one car and it's rarely an old jalopy. There are new SUVs and Cadillacs. Everyone has a cable hookup (this is at least $75 a month around here). They go to the corner store and buy snacks with their food stamp card. When I went to the welfare office to apply for Social Security, I was surrounded by women with child after child after child and more on the way. All there applying for WIC and food stamps. And of course, they were handing out the brochures explaining the "un"Earned Income Tax Credit, which boosts your income by at least $3000 a year. The more babies the more money. One woman was caught in a scam, she actually claimed she HAD a job when she didn't. Why? Because with 4 kids she got nearly $3000 a month for childcare expenses. As long as I can't work I'm not having any children, but if I did, don't cry for me America. My brother is self-employed and I know I could have it much easier than him if I decided to live off the government for the rest of my life.

And when I did work, even without a conventional high school diploma (I was homeschooled), it was not difficult getting work that paid at least $9 an hour. Customer service, supermarket check-out, data entry. I don't understand why there are people trying to raise families on minimum wage (unless they get all of the government handouts which means they're not really raising a family on minimum wage). Or maybe these people aren't nearly as prevalent as the libs like to claim.

[DefCon]

It is a strange world.
If a business owner thought that keeping his parking lot clean;
might gain him $4/hour in increased sales;
and someone was willing to keep his parking lot clean for $4/hour;
government would prohibit the two people from striking a such a deal.

[Terry Mross]

Amen! Did you catch here "holier than thou" remark about "might as well live in Montana"? Here's an idea. Get the hell out of that filthy city!

[TC Rider]

Just a note, but if she is paying her baby sitter $10 an hour why wouldn't she baby sit instead of working for minimum wage.

My thought exactly.

Maybe the babysitters have a tough union in NYC.

[Carolinamom]

Hurray for both of you! Spunk, independence, no bellyaching, and plenty of know-how and get-up-GO! My own children learned from me the joys of shopping and cooking smart and inexpensively.

I cannot even contemplate paying $2.95 for a QUARTER of a pound for TURKEY. I've bought a whole turkey, when it was on sale, for 69 CENTS a pound. Of course, I had cook it, a task which she doesn't seem to know how or care to do.

Dried beans, rice (together a complete food nutritionally) are good eating, and those soups (delicious too) you mentioned, dawn, are staples in my menus. She doesn't even mention meat loaf.

Bottom line is that she's an educated but ignorant jerk who thinks she's become enlightened. She has quite a way to go imo.

[Drango]

I think The Daily News should send her to live in Zimbabwe for a month.

LOL...but, but they don't have color TV over there...

[Final Authority]

Years ago when someone one the William F. Buckley program complained that the minimum wage was set too low and that a "living" wage standard must be set, Buckley looked at him and then the camera and offered, "if they aren't earning a living wage, why aren't they all dead". I thought that was just great.

[ServesURight]

Good book on subject is "Nickle & Dimed" by Barbara Ehrenreich, she did same thing. An eye opener for me. I got it on ebay.

Thanks! I'll check out Overstock.com or the other sites and buy it!

[Old Professer]

Where does this generously-proportioned person

root when she doesn't have to wallow in her own self-pity?

[Timesink]

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[Drango]

How 'bout being a little more generous and sympathetic, instead of looking down your noses

Ahhhhhh yes, the compassion argument. But where is the compassion for the low skilled worker who can't get a job 'cause he/she's only worth $4.00 an hour and the minimum wage is higher? Setting wages by government fiat has no compassion at all.