MTG Salvation

Quote from dcartist

(1) Do people who make $14,400 a year pay 12-15% in taxes???

Your standard deduction is around $9500 if I recall, and the lowest tax bracket is 10%. So if you make $14,400 a year, you have $5000 in taxable income, which taxed at 10% is $500 taxes a year. Throw in state taxes and whatever, and I think that's going to be maybe 5% taxes at most.


(2) If you're on minimum wage, get roommates, save money. I did it when I was going to school, and don't see why people think they're too good for roommates.

Firstly, taxes are still taken out, so standard deductions don't mean anything when you're trying to make a monthly payment. Sure, it's a decent tax return, but that means little over the course of a whole year.

The standard deduction is 5,800 for a single individual meaning you end up paying more taxes than in your scenario. So, someone is probably paying around 10-15% of their taxes on full-time mininium wage.

Being on mininium wage sucks, 1,000 dollars a month is not livable, and you pay more taxes just for being single, so you have to rely on roomates, which is not always an option.

Quote from mystery45

Sorry but when you do this you cheapen the salary of other people. not only that you drive the price of goods up through the roof in order to pay the higher salary. there is no reason that a bus boy or a grocery bagger should get paid 11 bucks an hour.

I never said it should be changed, but it's where I feel someone needs to be to be able to comfortably live on their own. Perhaps a creative solution, full time mininium wage of 11, with a part-time minium wage of 8.50 or something, depending on what state your in it would change, and that would of course be in a high cost of living state like Cali.

Here in Texas, 7.25/9.50 would probably be good numbers.

I feel mininium wage should at least be enough for a single person to live on, preferably without government assistance. Probably around $11 an hour depending on where you live. Going 40 hours a week you'll be able to squeak by. With the government paying food stamps, and subsidizing housing you can get by probably on $9 though.

The problem is cost of living is way beyond what mininium wage is in some area's. I believe the current system has a federal min-wage, and then states can set above that. In Texas, 9 is good enough, but in places like California, or NYC it will have to be higher.

By no means is $9 an hour earning enough to live happily, it's enough to live though.

Working mininium wage is horrible, only because it's so low that the moment you get anything slightly better you quickly realize how bad it really is. Even now, earning a couple of dollars an hour over mininium wage is bad, as I do everything my night managers do, get pummeled by several different managers daily, and have a large amount of responsibility and am the lowest paid person in my department. It kinda sucks, and going lower would just be worse.

I can't afford to live on my own, though I'm getting closer, if I was on mininium wage there was no way I could do it, and I definitely can't do it with paying school out of pocket currently.