agreed the numbers change with location and if youre in a location that pays lower or has a higher cost of living, GUESS WHAT?
MOVE!!!!
A couple making minimum wage should not have 2 children, if they choose to have children that is their issue not yours, mine or anyone elses. I should not be responsible for their shitty decisions, nor should you or anyone else.
I agree on healthcare costs, we could add another say 50-100 month for health insurance, so add 600-1200 a year for that expense. If we are going to get detailed we should also note that they will get a decent tax refund from the govt as well.
The point being a single person making minimum wage working full time, SHOULD BE ABLE TO MAKE ENDS MEET IF THEY ARE JUST BUYING THE NECESSITIES.
So it would seem, your answer to everything is to simply move. To hell with being where your family is. Can't afford to rent a moving truck? Sell all that shit and get new....oh wait, you don't have a job yet, so you won't be able to do that.
Likewise, if your job doesn't pay enough quit and get a new one. Oh wait on this too, what if no one is hiring. You'd be out of a job with no prospects. BTW experts advise that employed folks are much more likely to be hired then someone who is unemployed. Guess you better rethink quitting that old low paying job until you find the new one, huh?
I am in complete agreement that people making minimum wage probably cannot afford to have kids. What about people who make a good wage, have kids and then something changes like they get laid off or fired and they take a lesser or minimum wage position as a stopgap so as to not end up on welfare? I guess they could sell their kids if they are still young enough to be marketable.
I don't know if a person making minimum wage should be able to make ends meet these days. I am not sure I ever made minimum wage even in the days when I thought my wages were too little. I always made ends meet somehow. but that was a very different time then it is today. How do you know that a person making minimum wage should be doing just fine? Have you ever been in this situation and if so, when were you in it?
I see a lot of guessing and finger pointing going on here. Also a lot of exaggerations, not to mention regurgitating what others have said regardless of whether they knew what they were talking about.
I will give you that it is probably true that most of the people in the U.S. who qualify as poor are probably better off then they would be if they lived somewhere like Haiti and were poor. Personally, I hope the U.S. never reaches the point were poor people live under the same conditions as they do in third world countries. But....anything is possible, isn't it?