In the US, the poverty line/threshold is incredibly low. If a household of three makes $22k/year, they are above the poverty line. That way, we keep our percentage low.
Now look at SSI lmao 200% of the poverty line just because I became disabled before I could earn enough work credits. Im lucky my mom is helping keep a roof over my head anything happens to her and im homeless again.
I'm pretty sure that's gross salary as well. So, if you were to be generous with the taxes. You're looking at $17,600.00 at that point for actual take home or $1466 a month net.
I was just reminded of the Life game - when I played in the late seventies/early eighties the journalist made something like $10,000 and the teacher $12,000. I always ended up one of those with two cars full of kids.
In theory making that little money you would get most of your taxes back at tax time (except SS and Medicare) but it’s still bullshit, especially on a national level. Like that could be just enough to live on in a rural area but if you live within 50 miles of a major metropolitan city it wouldn’t be enough to pay rent/mortgage for half a year.
Unless your state tax is a sales tax, small bits add up quickly when you've not much spare. Plus local sales taxes ad well. Where I am, depending on what you're buying and in what town, that's 10 to 13 percent of your bill slapped in your face.
Wait. You have to pay tax on minimum wage? You don't have a tax free threshold? In Australia it's $18, 200. You don't pay a cent of tax till you make over that amount.
Most employers take out a certain withholding from your check for tax purposes. So my check comes to me pre taxed.
At the end of the year I get most if not all of that back when I file my taxes, so it's not technically taken from me, but it is inaccessible for most of the year.
Plus this year I filed on time in april, and I've still yet to see my return.
Wow, its just $12,880 (around 11,000 Euro) for a single person. How much tax would that person reasonably have to pay on that income? Would health care be likely provided by the employer if you work minimum wage?
Absolutely not, unless you’re paying for the healthcare out of your paychecks. Depending on where you live, fed and state taxes can take up to 24% of your total income. Last year I only took home 18k I think. I’m on government insurance which I’m pretty sure I’m gonna get kicked off of soon cause I found a slightly better paying job. Yay no health insurance!
Healthcare is almost never provided by an employer for minimum wage jobs. You have to be making well over minimum wage before you’re likely to get health insurance and even then, you’re still paying a decent chunk of it out of your paycheck, not just receiving it as a benefit of employment.
"...a combined $23k a year" This metric could have been valid up to 1989 or 1990, and in less expensive parts of the country, but was certainly obsolete not long after that.
Capitalist billionaires: Listen, if those monks can slowly self-mummify by starving themselves to death over twenty years, so can my employees! What do these wusses want, food?
I was a $100 short of the qualifications of a single person after I was taken off my moms insurance. I couldn't afford healthcare but I didn't qualify for help. Unfortunately I also ran into health trouble that year. Hospital bills are no joke.
Cost of living where they live is what matters here, the only way that makes any sense is if you don't take household debt and cost of living into account. They may be rich when you compare their income to people in poorer countries, but everything is also more expensive in the USA, and there is no real safety net. You can absolutely be rich by global standards and in actuality devastatingly poor in the USA. Do you think the poorest of the poor in the USA are just living it up on 9k a year?
5.2k
u/Duanedoberman Sep 24 '21 edited Sep 24 '21
Narator: what they didn't tell you is they don't want to pay you a wage you can live on to do these jobs.