As of right now, the current minimum wage is 11 dollars per hour. This means that if someone were to work at a minimum wage job for 50 hours a week, 10 hours a day, they would be making 550 dollars a week, not including taxes and social security. This brings their total annual salary to 28,600 dollars a year, again not including taxes and social security. Taxes and social security (in the united states) takes roughly 22% of your paycheck. In total, $22308 is all that remains for a minimum wage worker annually. Even if the person working manages to find a cheap place to live (let’s say 500$ per month) and cooks every meal every year (let’s estimate 30$/week on groceries), that’s already $7560 of their paycheck gone to living arrangements, assuming they walk to and from work. This leaves about a little less than 14000 dollars for the person in this hypothetical to survive. This includes health bills, insurance, car costs (assuming they can even afford to own a car), and more. 14000 dollars sounds like a lot for a year, but the small things add up. Traveling to see family, buying soap, home repairs, clothing, electricity and water bills, etc. The minimum wage that currently exists is unsuitable for a person living in a 1st world country, and must be raised in order to combat the rise in living costs in America.
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