Poverty in America...Living Wage Calculator

Check out this tool to put more perspective on what people in America are facing in these days of high unemployment.

The living wage shown is the hourly rate that an individual must earn to support their family, if they are the sole provider and are working full-time (2080 hours per year). The state minimum wage is the same for all individuals, regardless of how many dependents they may have. The poverty rate is typically quoted as gross annual income. We have converted it to an hourly wage for the sake of comparison. Wages that are less than the living wage are shown in red.

It's pretty eye-opening.

www.livingwage.geog.psu.edu...

[edit on 22-6-2010 by ~Lucidity]

reply to post by ~Lucidity


Your link isn't working.

reply to post by mblahnikluver


Thanks...should be now.

Interesting. In my region only doctors, architects, programmers and corporate management earn a living wage. Everyone else is SOL.

This link have the manual one, you know get state, county and have to read the information.

www.livingwage.geog.psu.edu...

Interesting to point out that in America we are losing the top pay jobs in the nation and they are been replaced by service jobs but what the government doesn't tell is that most people in service jobs still need government help to feed the families, welfare, food stamps or Medicaid.

Families find themselves working two and three service jobs eroding the nuclear family.

30 years ago it only took one parent (usually the father) to support a family while the second parent (mother) tend to family needs and children.

Then people ask what is happening to the traditional family life in America.

Still families working both outside the home can no make enough to keep up with cost of living.

New breed of American emerges in need of food

www.usatoday.com...



[edit on 22-6-2010 by marg6043]

I guess there is an upside to living in the deep south. According to this thing just about most McDonalds employees are probably above the curve. Though now I'm trying to figure out why things are so tight even though I'm doing way better than the "living wage".

Under housing, for my county, they are way off! Not only does rent, or house payments far exceed their estimate, but water, electricity, and gas should double their figure. And if you're a home owner, the property taxes run in the thousands.

reply to post by mythatsabigprobe

Wow...that's not a lot.

In mine, these do...

Management, Business and Financial Operations, Computer and Mathematical, Architecture and Engineering, Life, Physical and Social Science, Legal, Education, Training and Library, Arts, Design, and Healthcare Practitioner and Technical.

Here is another wage calculator, but it compares your wage with the rest of the world.

A bit eye opening really...

www.globalrichlist.com...

reply to post by darkelf

As near as I can tell, they are using 2008 figures for all that, and we all know that everything's getting more and more expensive lately...food, heating oil/gas, electricity, insurance...all that. That may explain some of it?

reply to post by ~Lucidity


I used the 'two adults, two children' table. Maybe because I remember when you were able to support a spouse and two kids..

reply to post by Chadwickus


Using this one it told me, and I quote...

You are the 260,000,000richest person in the world!

I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Originally posted by Chadwickus
Here is another wage calculator, but it compares your wage with the rest of the world.

A bit eye opening really...

www.globalrichlist.com...

I'm not concerned with the rest of the world, and that is not the topic here. If you're not American AND don't want to participate in this thread...don't.

Call me whatever you want, but I disagree with the globalists and do not happen to believe that to raise the wage in the "rest of the world" wages in the more well-off places such as the U.S. and the U,K. need to come down.

That is simply not logical or necessary, and the only reason for it is to get all the slaves to a barely surviving place so they are easier to control.

We in this country worked hard and smart for many years to get to where we were and we don't have to like what's going on.

Please keep your globalist agenda out of my topic.

reply to post by Hefficide


The gap between the poor and the rich is massive.

Even a low wage by American standards is huge compared to most third world country wages.

reply to post by mythatsabigprobe


Yeah, I've seen people argue that we did that to ourselves when women went to work and we all started "needing" more. But needing more doesn't really seem to factor into these charts. Not that I can tell anyway.

reply to post by Chadwickus


Please respect my wishes. We're all smart people here. We know there are countries where it is worse, but that is not the topic here. Thank you.

reply to post by Chadwickus

Originally posted by Chadwickus
reply to post by Hefficide

 

The gap between the poor and the rich is massive.

Even a low wage by American standards is huge compared to most third world country wages.

This is not necessarily about wages, it's about wages vs. cost of living. I could cut out cable and internet but I still have to pay electricity, gas and water. I have a swiming pool and hot tub that I didn't even bother to open this year. We do our best to cut back on our usage, but the costs just keeps rising.

Originally posted by marg6043
This link have the manual one, you know get state, county and have to read the information.

www.livingwage.geog.psu.edu...

Interesting to point out that in America we are losing the top pay jobs in the nation and they are been replaced by service jobs but what the government doesn't tell is that most people in service jobs still need government help to feed the families, welfare, food stamps or Medicaid.

Thanks, marg. I think I fixed the link...don't know what was happening there.

You're right. The "service" industry was the rationalization to people when they started the real push in offshoring our "brain" jobs (vs. manufacturing) in the early 90s (before that in the 80s, it wasn't all that concerning or alarming yet, as it only effected "some" people in relatively lower paying jobs, so no one cared much). Thing with service jobs though is that if no one is left earning a living wage, who is going to pay for these services, eh?

I recently tried to help a friend apply for foodstamps for her and her two children. It was pretty alarming that she didn't qualify because she lives rent free with her mother and only earns $12000 a year and rarely has a penny leftover for anything. Her medical insurance alone for the three of them costs about that much?

[edit on 22-6-2010 by ~Lucidity]

reply to post by ~Lucidity


Many reports when it comes to government statistics and independent sources they are old by two years.

It is because some reports takes that long or have a limit of years before posted.

reply to post by darkelf


Exactly. I guess they're assuming renters?