Well over $100k in the higher cost of living states, too. And as the article states, that’s typically about double what the median salary is for a single person in most states.
I’d like to point out that AES states - while maybe they didn’t have all the same quality or quantity of consumer goods - were able to able to to provide a comfortable life for everyone without all the predatory that US workers currently have. And don’t take my word for it, take it from the neoliberal queen herself, Angela Merkel. When asked about life in the former GDR, she described it as “almost comfortable”. Now before you mention that “almost” is an important qualifier, note that the context of her quote was her trying to criticize the former GDR but she grudgingly conceded the comment above.
Federal minimum wage is under $16,000 a year.
Yes, though where I live that number isn’t relevant due to both state laws and market conditions. There are entry level jobs at places like Target, Amazon, McDonalds, etc that pay around $17-$18 per hour.
But even that is still about HALF of the minimum salary needed to live comfortably. Incredible because it doesn’t feel like it was that long ago where there was the push for $15/hr as a living wage (because it was back then).
I don’t have the numbers or anything but when the push for $15 was happening, that was already well below what a min wage should be. It always cracks me up whenever you get into the min wage argument and the chuds are all screeching about $15 being too high, and I’m just like “you sweet summer child…”
Here in TX, the min wage is still $7.25 and places do still exercise that when posting jobs. It’s a disgrace.
Something like 0.04% of workers make minimum wage. This country effectively doesn’t have a minimum wage anymore.
Precisely minimum wage, yes.
I bet if you tweak it just a little you’ll get a dramatically larger percentage: below $8/hour.
This will include three new groups:
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People that work minimum wage but got their mandated $0.10 wage increase or got a job that at least wants to be able to claim it’s not minimum wage on paper. I remember being stoked for getting a $0.50 raise above minimum wage at one point… got way fewer overdraft fees that way.
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People who are exempted like tipped workers. The finances of this are fucked, with people doing constant math on what they should and shouldn’t report to the feds, but at the end of the day these people are not paid above minimum wage by their employers.
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The economic underclass paid under the table at or below minimum wage (they wouldn’t show up in these statistical sources either way).
