What is the current minimum wage?

[Floogeldy]

Please?

[kc.ink]

1. $5.15 per hour

http://www.dol.gov/dol/topic/wages/index.htm

[DieboldMustDie]

20. Though if we took the 1968 minimum and adjusted for inflation...

it would be $8.78 today.   The current minimum of $5.15 represents a 41% decline. :grr:

[kc.ink]

33. Really? That is INTERESTING. . . . .. . so the poor were INTENTIONALLY

kept poor.
I being one of the poor lack some things but not much. I could not afford a Christmas tree this year but was very blessed to have been able to buy both my kids one gift. I was elated because I also could afford to buy extra toilet paper,(I had more than 2 rolls in our 2 bath house)an extra gallon of milk and some canned goods to be able to prepare for the coming winter storm which dumped 15 inches on us here in northern ohio.
I am blessed because we have a warm home and some food, I have work, the telephone and internet still work and I still have the ability to decipher right and wrong.

I may be looked at as the working poor but in my heart I know I am truly blessed.

eom

[loafie]

2. $5.15

[JohnKleeb]

3. 5.15$

[AZCat]

4. Depends on your state

The federal minimum wage is $5.15, but some states have set their minimum wage higher than that (California and New York to name a couple).

[Pooka Fey]

5. $5.15??? WTF??? I thought they raised it to $6.25

[JohnKleeb]

11. Kerry wanted to raise it to 7.15

but its not even gonna come close to happening now.

[StrongbadTehAwesome]

36. I wish - that'd give me a raise!

Most places pay above the minimum wage, but my employer doesn't pay more. At least it's not Wal-Hell, where cart-pushers and starting cashiers get $5.40...after taxes that's a grand total of $800/month.

[RevolutionaryActs]

6. Go here and click your state:

http://www.dol.gov/esa/minwage/america.htm

:)

[Bouncy Ball]

9. Hey in Kansas it's $2.65!

Yee-fucking-ha!

[hfojvt]

13. which is probably meaningless except for waitresses

Any state minimum wage which is lower than the Federal is still held to the Federal minimum wage, but some states have raised theirs above the Federal level.

[flamingyouth]

14. WTF??? Do they think it's 1965 or something?

:grr:

[Pooka Fey]

15. I thought you were kidding, but you weren't. WTF????

How the fuck is somebody supposed to fucking live in the U.S. on fucking god-damn fucking ass $2.65 an hour??? I worked for 2 years at a music/video store on AZ minimum of $5.15 back in '93. I would talk about how shitty everything was back then, but I think I'll spare myself the pain.

[tyedyeto]

35. It's still $5.15 in AZ but if you work in the service industry where

you receive tips, the amount is much lower. Your employer has to guarantee the minimum wage if your hourly + tips do not make the minimum, which sucks!!! $5.15 per hour is NOT a liveable wage!!!!!!!

[flamingyouth]

7. $7.16 in Washington state n/t

[Bouncy Ball]

8. $ 5.15 is a fucking crying shame.

:cry:

I'm ashamed of my country. You can't live on that. And you sure as hell can't raise a family on it. That's why so many people have three and four damn jobs.

[JohnKleeb]

12. No, you can't live on it

Thats why many including myself favor a living wage.

[hfojvt]

16. Actually, you can, but maybe not long term.

Up until August of this year I had lived the past two years on 113% of the full-time minimum wage salary. I am sure I could cut out 13% of my expenses too, things like DSL internet and Kiwanis club and Ancestry.com.
Of course, I went without running water for a year, just for the hell of it, because my regressive water bill pisses me off. I showered at work and took home two gallons of water a day and saved rainwater and got along just fine. I did not even tap into my reserves.

[sandnsea]

17. List your bills

I note you have reserves. What assets did you have before going into your $1,000 a month life as well.

[hfojvt]

18. I was talking about water reserves

But I always have a few thousand in savings. Plus a building that I sold for a huge loss, and I own this house. Thanks to my recent raise, I am going to be able to avoid the five year balloon payment.
I was not living off of my savings though, but I was not saving as much as I used to. I am sorta raising a family too, since I have 3 dogs.
The poorest I ever was, it was August of 1988. I had $1000 in savings in the bank and $2300 in stocks which I broke even on in 1989. Then I went to graduate school where I was paid $5700 a year as a TA and $6100 the following year. Thankfully, there were no FICA taxes on that income. After I graduated, I got a job paying $8100 a year (part-time instructor). When that job ended, I had about $12,000 in the bank. So, yes, it is possible to live on very little, and even save money. That is not the same as today's money, but my income at the time was at or near the official poverty level.

[sandnsea]

19. You're full of it

Either you inherited family income or assets, never had to pay housing, or you're full of shit and not telling the entire truth about your economic situation. I was making $700 a month in the early 80's, $1,000 a month in the late 80's. There was no money left after I paid my bills, even with just one child in the early 80's. Housing was alot more reasonable then too. Minimum wage is still $900 a month in most states, and the true cost of living has tripled since then. I don't need statistics to tell me, I can compare the difference because I remember. Nobody can live independently on $900 month, nobody. Let alone raise a family. I don't know why it makes you feel better to spew this delusional crap, I wish I understood people like you.

[hfojvt]

21. my room-mate was from India, near Calcutta

he compared me to 'the man who lived on air'.
In my 2nd year of grad school, I moved in with him and split the rent. I think it was about $150 (my share) with utilities included. I think my rent before that was less than $250, utilities included. I had no phone, and no car, and I needed neither (I even taught a class on the ag campus, and biked to it). One of my fellow grad students gave me a huge old TV. After grad school, I rented a room for $160 a month, utilities included. I had to share a bathroom and a kitchen (with ex-cons, no less).
Plus, since I had savings that went from $3500 to $12000, I was getting some interest income, which was somewhat significant. I lent my sister about $3000 at 8% interest (she was paying 12% on a car loan, so it helped her out). I did not get my 1st dog until 1996.
It is true, although I have no way to prove it to you, but I was living independently (and then with a room-mate) on $590 and $610 a month in the late 1980s, and on $1,000 a month recently. But you are deciding that I am full of it and delusional on less than solid evidence, particularly since you are wrong.

[sandnsea]

22. That's not independent

Which is what I said. Sharing housing isn't indepedent. Nobody can live independently, let alone raise a family, on minimum wage. Besides, I don't know of a place that had rent of $200, without utilities let alone with, in the 80's. I can't imagine where you lived. The cheapest amount I've ever paid in my entire life, which was my own home, was $140 a month in the 70's. And that was no palace, believe me. I still say you're full of shit and not telling the entire truth about your economic situation.

[Nikia]

23. Depends where you live

There are places around here for under $300/month rent. In Ohio during the mid 80s, my great grandparents rented some of their places, large houses converted to multiplexes, for close to $100/month. It is true that these neighborhoods weren't the greatest because they were one of the few landlords who didn't discriminate against newly released prisioners, but everyone needs housing.

[sandnsea]

25. I lived in Arkansas in the 80's

There was noplace for $100 a month. And they even turned full trailers into half trailers and rented out both halves. I paid $125 for a crappy little one bedroom 30 foot trailer in Mississippi in 1975. Really, you people are just full of it.

[Nikia]

29. This is data from 2000 from the referenced town

http://www.city-data.com/housing/houses-Tiffin-Ohio.htm
Included among it is rental prices. Some people were still paying low rents five years ago.
I am not saying that it isn't difficult to live on minimum wage and probably impossible if you have any dependents and don't take advantage of charity or public assistance. I am just saying that the poster's story of low rent might not be all that far fetched. I remember my own situation of overhearing my great gandmother offering one of my mother's probabtioners the apartment for "One hundred and a quarter" in the 80s too. Whether this was what places like that normally were rented for or if it were partially charity, I don't know. That's just what I remember.

[StrongbadTehAwesome]

38. can't do that today

even here in Missouri, which has one of the lowest costs-of-living in the nation, landlords (especially those in poorer neighborhoods) want to verify that you make 3 times the rent in a month, to guard against deadbeats. I got my mom to say she gives me money every month (when she doesn't and could never afford to), otherwise I would not have been allowed to move into my $400/month in-the-ghetto-where-you-see-crimes-happen-daily apartment. I've never been late on the rent, but my monthly income wouldn't have convinced them of that. I'm 23 and working my way through college, which is the only reason they believed my "mom gives me money" story. Other people in my situation are pretty much just screwed out of housing unless they have family they can move in with. They don't let you split a one-bedroom here either except with a spouse, so getting a roommate isn't a solution.

[hfojvt]

24. House sharing is an option for everyone

In fact it seemed to be Charlotte Perkins Gilmans idea of independence. In her short stories, the women become independent by taking in boarders. I was not forced to move in with my roomate, it just helped me to save more money. I originally suggested it because he was worried about being able to support his wife and two kids on a graduate school salary. Then he asked if I would move in when they went back to India. (That is a point I would like to make, poor people can help each other.) I cannot remember what I paid in Nebraska, but my apartment was the Ambassador right across from the State Capitol. My apartment in the former Honeymoon Hotel in Clearfield, Utah in 1986 was $205 a month, utilities included, and I am quite sure on the room in Wisconsin for $160 and no utlity bills.
Admittedly, I know little about the expense of raising a family, except for my three dogs, but my house has 3 bedrooms and my house payment is only $215 (but this time utilites are not included, nor is insurance, but property taxes are).
Maybe I under-estimate the amount of help I have gotten from my prosperous family. I know I could not have gone to NY or Deutschland without my parents taking care of my dogs, but I do not think any help takes away from the fact that I saved about $8500 on total income over 3 years of less than $22,000. Anyway, forgetting some help here or there does not make me deliberately dishonest. Maybe only 1/8th full of sh*t, or partially deluded.

[sandnsea]

26. Forgetting some help here or there

From your prosperous family. Exactly what I thought. :eyes: People just have no clue how much that coat on their birthday, or knowing they'll never really have to worry about medical bills, helps.

Or the fact that the reason your house payment is $215 is because you made a huge down payment, because you were able to save, because of that forgotten help from your prosperous family.

[hfojvt]

27. Please do not flatter yourself too much

Sheesh, I gave you a micrometer and you want to take a parsec.
I do not believe my family provided $8500 of help over the three years. In fact, poor me was actually able to help my sister some, and to help my roommate. I never worried about medical bills because I foolishly thought I was immortal, and why should a guy in his 20s get sick?
Actually my down payment was only $8200 which I saved from my previous temp job. True enough, the main reason I could survive so well at $12,000 was because of the money I put away when I was making $18,000 a year, and that was set up from the previous seven years that I had been saving while I had my business. My earnings record says $3,109 for 1995 and $5,629 for 1996, but my business was covering most of my living expenses, but even for those years if you figure $500 a month for housing and utilities, I was living on less than $12,000 a year. Heck, even when I was making $8.57 an hour in Utah in 1986, I was living on about $9,000 a year because I saved about $800 a month.

[sandnsea]

28. $8.57 in 1986?

Single? And patting yourself on the back because you were saving?? I was raising 4 kids on that income in 1986, not all mine. Your business covered your living expenses? Shut the fuck up. You have no clue about living in poverty. I'm done.

[StrongbadTehAwesome]

41. only if you can afford to split a big enough place

again, most landlords won't rent to multiple people in one place unless it's a family. They wouldn't even let my 18-year-old SISTER move in with me unless I was her legal guardian!

[hfojvt]

43. true enough

at the time it never even crossed my mind that it was the landlord's business, but I can see that it would be. Still, in this instance he/she should not mind since the occupancy went down from my roommate's family of four to just two people. I have no idea what the housing laws are. Maybe different in a college town because it was typical for three or four people to share an apartment where I went to school.

[Celeborn Skywalker]

40. Here in Southwest New Mexico

there are plenty of fairly decent apartments for $300-$400 bucks. The cost of rent just isn't that high around here, although I do agree with you that the minimum wage is way too low. Even with our low rental prices, most people living on minimum wage have to get a roommate.

[Floogeldy]

10. Muchas, muchas gracias. That sucks.

I hate fucking republicans.

[yewberry]

30. I make $2.63 an hour in MA

Proof that you should tip the nice waitress!

[CatholicEdHead]

31. Still $5.15 in Minnesota

Stinks that the GOP here refuses to raise it. I even think Wisconsin is beating us.

[Cuban_Liberal]

32. Depends on the state.

It will be $6.50/hr. in Illinois, starting 1/1/2005.

[WMliberal]

34. Two pounds, fifty-seven pence.

[u4ic]

37. Curious...

so if a state has no minimum wage, does that mean they can pay you as low as they want?

[guitar man]

39. only for jobs

that are exempt from the Federal Min. Wage.

[UdoKier]

42. It's the amount required to get a basic apartment and food...

...in Bangladesh.

You do the math.

[madison2000]

44. Madison WI is raising it to $5.70 on Saturday, Janurary 1, 2005

Madison will raise its minimum wage starting the first of the year. Wisconsin hasn't increased the minimum wage since it rose to 5.15 an hour in September of 1997. Businesses in Madison will have to pay their employees at least 5.70 an hour starting Saturday. The wage jumps to 6.50 an hour in 2006 and 7.25 a year after that. Several business groups challenged that decision in court, questioning the city council's authority.

According to Kucinich there are currently 112 cities and counties in the United States with living wage laws providing a higher wage standard to a limited group of workers, usually those at companies benefiting from public contracts or subsidies.

http://www.kucinich.us/issues/mad_min_wage.php