It’s basically impossible to survive on minimum wage in the states these days unless you’re living with your parents or something like that.
The federal minimum wage for non-tipped workers is only $7.25 per hour. It hasn’t gone up since 2009!
Even in those states where the minimum wage has gone up recently (individual states can set a higher minimum wage than the federal one), life can be rough.
Incorrect. Take San Francisco where I'm from for example. Minimum wage is $18. My friend opened a restaurant and they pay $18/hour BEFORE tip (I think California as a whole is 16 minimum for tipped workers). Some of these servers are taking home $300 a day for a 12 hour shift.
Yes, you will need a roommate unless you live in a microscopic studio (which I did in my early 20s), and no, you will not be able to afford many luxuries, if any, but you can survive.
The idea that you can make minimum wage and live a baller lifestyle is a problem that arises from gen Z delusion and social media addiction. Eating out is a luxury, when you're making minimum wage you're never supposed to eat out, but Gen z thinks that eating out is a part of life. Marketing psychology is so powerful and pervasive in society that people now think luxuries are a standard part of life, and if you're unable to afford them then you're not living (this is by design)
You're also not supposed to make minimum wage your whole life, you're supposed to work your way up and eventually make a salary that can support a family. HERE lies the problem, because rapid outsourcing of many jobs (particularly jobs that used to be de facto apprenticeships, like legal work, are being outsourced to India and now to AI) causes people to hit a pretty low ceiling for salary, and be forced to accept that because getting paid anymore means their company would transition to Indians or AI.
People who complain about minimum wage are bums looking for handouts. Small businesses, the backbone of any healthy society, can BARELY support these crazy high minimum wages as they currently are, if they go any higher all you will have access to is Amazon and Walmart.
It's hard, and only going to get harder. Wealth will accumulate into the hands of fewer people because it's natural that power concentrates itself. This is a problem, but raising minimum wage has the EXACT opposite effect for the common folk that you think it will, it destroys small business owners (who are the "champions" of the working class, the mom and pop owners that managed to climb out of the peasant class) and makes multinational corporations even stronger. That's why dems are always pushing for "higher minimum wage". It's effective at tricking stupid people into voting for them, and simultaneously helps their corporate masters in the mid-long run.
You want to take power AWAY from multi-national corporations, not force some 60 year old business owner lady to pay your unskilled ass $50/hour to flip burgers because that's the minimum wage you need to afford $26 justin bieber smoothies at Erewon.
My family is very strict and conservative.
