How much longer can you afford $3.50/gal gas to drive to a minimum wage job with no benefits?

[Skidmore]

We haven't even gotten to the point where we are talking about paying the mortgage or rent or buying milk at $5/gal. or bread at $3.50/loaf, or meat at $4-$5/lb for what used to be the poor cuts. Oranges at $.90/ea., apples at $1.58/lb (that would be 1.5 apples in that pound), or potatoes at $5/3 lb. bag? God help if you get sick and need a doctor.

Are you hurting yet? We are.

[AlCzervik]

1. i bought a loaf of wheat bread today, not fancy just some Sara lee and it was $4.18

"holy shit! are you kidding me?"

[TomInTib]

6. Try checking out some locally-baked bread.

Here, I am seeing really great breads are now priced pretty much the same as label stuff.

[SoCalDem]

9. Smart & Final is where I do most of our shopping these days..

Costco has too much stuff I always seem to "need".. Smart & Final is smaller & I can get out of there for under $200 a pop

Their Sara Lee "healthy" bread was $3.29 a loaf

[AlCzervik]

11. thats exactly what i bought, thanks for the tip.

[Selatius]

12. I remember some equivalent whole wheat bread used to run for half that price

Of course, this must've been about 5 to 7 years ago. Inflation is truly becoming a problem despite government's gimmicked reports.

[elocs]

17. Sara Lee bread is way overpriced.

If you are hell bent on having Sara Lee, visit one of their thrift stores and you can easily get it for half that price. I would never pay more than $2 for a loaf of bread and there are many places I can get it for less.

[Breeze54]

18. Exactly! I buy the store brand.... it's just as good and cheaper.

I actually prefer their Honey Nut Oatmeal over Pepperidge Farm brand. ;)

And there are baked good outlets all over the place.

[elocs]

25. The thrift stores are great for bread and other baked goods.

Sara Lee stuff has a self life of about forever and what is on sale at the thrift stores is not even dated, so at half the price it is a good value. They have good deals on other things too. At the supermarket I always buy the store brand which is often made by a bakery such as Sara Lee anyways. (I used to work for Sara Lee, so I know a little bit about it.)

[Breeze54]

28. All store brands are made by the Brand names! Peter Pan is your store brand and

many others! I've always bought the store brand for years
and all my kids are healthy and slim and I saved money. ;)

With young kids that are infatuated by the brand name cereals?

I bought one box of the brand name and then would refill it
with the store brand and they never knew the difference! :P

[RebelOne]

43. I bought bread from the Kroger bakery section and only paid $1.99.

And it was fresh baked. Guess bread is cheaper here in Georgia.

[AlCzervik]

26. i'm not married to that brands, it just the one i always seem to buy.

i'm going to check out the other brans the next time i'm at the store.

[roguevalley]

34. its bad enough in my part of Alaska but I can't imagine what it is

like in Barrow and other bush places. Milk has always been nearly five bucks a gallon. Now? I don't know.

[roguevalley]

35. start making it. get a basic recipe and make it every sunday. it is

better and much cheaper.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

2. hemorrhaging from a major artery....

[TomInTib]

3. We haven't seen $3.50 gas in a month.

$4 today.

Things are hard, here.

But I can make do on two or three $11 bottles of wine and be fine for the day. Nice thing about living right by Wine Country is the price of decent wine.

But I'm getting tired of rice.

[Breeze54]

7. That's a liquid diet!

Lose weight and be happy! :P

:hi:

:toast:

[TomInTib]

13. Hey, I've lost 25 pounds since October.

Actually, I lost that much between Oct-Now.

Plus the 135 pounds I lost when I moved out of my house in January.

And I do not miss her one bit.

[Breeze54]

16. That is damn awesome! I lost 139 lbs. in 1983....

I got divorced! :P

:toast:

:yourock: and keep up the good work!

[MikeNearMcChord]

4. Or what if you are looking for a job?

Even if there is a good public transportation system place, would unemployment agencies help with the fares?

[Breeze54]

5. The prices for food aren't that high yet but they're edging up and Yes!

We're hurting some but buying mostly food on sale.

Not much fruit though nor any meat since last week.

Pasta is a cheap meal. :(

I'm doing a lot of re-thinking and calling it a diet. ;)

[Javaman]

45. In the nations where there are food riots, the people pay an average

of 50%+ of their income on food.

here in the states, currently we are paying on the average 10-15% of our income on food (remember this is an average, not the mean)

when it hits 20% of our income, that's when things will get really freaky.

[Selatius]

8. I'm fucking bleeding dollars as a college student with little financial support from home.

Some of my other friends are living waiting for the power to be cut for overdue bills.

[hobbit709]

10. I'm glad we got a freezer.

I buy what's on sale. The other day they had round steak on sale for less than ground beef if you bought the family pack. My wife's 86 Subaru gets about 29mpg in town and my 92 Toyota truck gets about 26. We limit our driving to making as few trips as possible.

[Bluzmann57]

14. I drive 16 miles round trip

and make more than minimum. And things are starting to cramp up in this (former) middle class worker's budget as well. Those who make minimum have my sympathy. These high prices certainly took away the minimum wage increase.

[The_Casual_Observer]

15. Well if you put it that way,

Nobody.

[EVDebs]

19. Don't forget, no health insurance either in most of those jobs either

Only now is the extent of the corporatocracy's unloading of all their obligations since the '70s come home to fully roost.

[Breeze54]

22. I had full health coverage and a $1 M life insurance policy from my corporate employer in the 70's.

And I was an hourly wage worker. Most everyone had that, that I knew....

I am not understanding your reference to the '70's. :shrug:

It got really bad in the '80's though and that's when all that took a down turn for workers.

[EVDebs]

46. Corporations unloading and related deregulating began in 70s

First under Carter with the airline and trucking deregulations; then when Reagan came in they started privatization etc (the Naomi Klein book Shock Doctrine's agenda under Milton Friedman/Chicago Boys) in earnest, world-wide.

[Thothmes]

20. How many people in the coutry

exist soley on a minimu wage job.

[haele]

33. I know a couple people who exist on several minimum wage jobs -

And they're not high-school drop-outs/GED type folks, they were skilled workers with years of experience who couldn't afford to move when their job dried up.

A neighbor who used to be a draftsman/tech writer with a BA and a "steady corporate job" now works at a fast food restaurant (night shift) while she's taking gigs at a temp agency and looking for another permanent job with health bennies for her and her two kids - dad died a few years back without insurance and while she gets survivor's benefits for her kids, $465 a month per kid isn't that good.
She also just found out - as we did - that she owed an extra $700 in federal taxes this year because SSI for each kid ended up being over $5425 a year - and is now taxable. The most "income" a kid can have a year is $5300 and SSI supplemental is considered federal income.

BTW, States have their own minimum wage. In California, it's over $9.00 an hour. If you worked for $5.45 an hour here, a 40 hr. a week job wouldn't get you a refrigerator box on a empty lot near a busy street corner.

Haele

[Breeze54]

37. I knew I was in trouble when they started hiring Phd's to work beside me, at my job...

:grr:

Minimum Wage

* DOL Web Pages on This Topic
* Laws & Regulations on This Topic

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

"The federal minimum wage for covered nonexempt employees is $5.85 per hour effective July 24, 2007.

The federal minimum wage provisions are contained in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

Many states also have minimum wage laws. In cases where an employee is subject to both the state
and federal minimum wage laws, the employee is entitled to the higher of the two minimum wages..."

[elocs]

21. As far as the price of food goes, lets be real here:

in the U.S. we pay less for food as a percentage of our income than anyone else in the world.

"Americans Spend Less Than 10 percent of Disposable Income on Food"
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/july192006/food_prices_71906.php

The U.S. consumer is spending a bit more of their disposable income to purchase food than the previous year, but they still enjoy the cheapest, most abundant food supply in the world, according to new statistics released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

USDA's Economic Research Service (ERS) has recently released food expenditure statistics for 2005. They show that Americans are spending, on average, 9.9 percent of their disposable income on food.

That's up slightly from 9.7 percent in 2004 but very consistent with figures over the past five years. The percentage dropped to single digits for the first time in recorded U.S. history in 2000.

Twenty years ago, American consumers spent 11.7 percent of their disposable income on food. Thirty years ago, that figure was 15.1 percent. Going back in history, Americans spent about 20 percent of their income on food about the time today's baby boomers were born. In 1933, the figure was more than 25 percent.

I am sure that higher food prices as well as higher fuel prices hurt the working poor more than the rest of us, but overall we have some of the lowest food and fuel price in the world. I only take home less than $16000 a year and although I live very thrifty, but better than most of the rest of the people of the world, high fuel prices have not hurt me much.

[Breeze54]

24. I don't live in the rest of the world, so?

It's not relative to me and my buying food HERE!

[elocs]

27. Well, I don't live in MA so it's not relative to me and my buying food HERE!

Now isn't that special?

My point is simply that I live better and more cheaply than most of the rest of the world so I appreciate what I have and don't feel the need to bitch too much. Not only is my food cheaper, but I make more money to buy it. Simple concept.

[Breeze54]

29. I got your point but it doesn't matter, I live here and have to deal with 'here'.

I'll bitch all I want! Prices are high and times are tough for many!

[Breeze54]

31. BTW? If part of your point is we aren't as poor as other nations and should be grateful?

I agree but it still doesn't take away from the fact that
prices are higher here now and it is a burden on the poor HERE!

We don't have to be dirt poor to empathize with other nations poor.

[PinkyisBlue]

39. The numbers you cite are from 2004 and 2005.

It is 2008 now, and prices have increased considerably in the last two years.

Even though we pay less of our income on food than the rest of the world, that doesn't mean a lot of people in our country aren't hurting. If you look at people whose income is at the poverty level, I'm sure they're paying double or triple as much for food, gas, heat and electricity today as they were two or three years ago.

[CTyankee]

23. A good thing about living here in New Haven is our public transportation.

Hubby has been taking the bus downtown to work and back every day for several years now (he used to carpool withme in the a.m. when I worked but I quit at the end of 04).

I love living in a college town. It is enlightened and has many cultural offerings. Yale has great stuff, despite my objections to its other shortcomings (don't get me started!).

I have just slashed my driving habits over the past 2 years. Everything is planned out so I don't have to make repetitive trips. Thank god I have the time to do it. It's a little unnerving, but I stay in my house all day sometimes just to not be out burning gas...

[hulklogan]

30. I can't even afford to drive to my salary job with benefits!

I'm going to be in such good shape this summer riding my bicycle.

[Q3JR4]

32. I make more than minimum and

I don't drive so haven't really felt the whole cost of living thing. I have, however, notice a marked price increase in food. After I get laid off for the summer I think things are going to be much worse.

Q3JR4.
In spite of the cost of living it is still popular.

[leftofthedial]

36. do you know where I can find a job like that?

I can't even get a burger flipping job. I'm WAY overqualified for anything at the low end and WAY too old (over 45) for the jobs I'm qualified for.

I'm screwed.

[Snarkoleptic]

38. I drive a 110 miles round trip each day in Chicago traffic to support my single income family of 3.

All to work my "the U.S. economy is robust" job where I make barely half what I made one year ago.
Not a pretty site in my car with 130K+ miles. No air conditioning, electical problems, and clunking transmission.
I'm REALLY FUCKING BITTER and will vote for Obama as he represents hope.</rant off>

[MadinMo]

44. Can't imagine living in Chicago now

(Or any other large city with lots of commuter traffic.) Visited my sister there in March and was horrified by the cost of gasoline, the traffic and the distances necessary to drive.

I sincerely hope things get better for you!

[WhinsChap]

40. the repukes are starting to blame it on Congress

Got an email from BIL this morning (who is always sending me right wing crap). They had a comparison of what things cost before the democrats took congress last year. I was so mad that I deleted it before I would reply with something that I regretted. He's a good BIL, who always helps us out when needed; he just has his head mixed up. He goes to some big 1st Baptist church who preaches nothing but right wing this and that, nothing but hate if you ask me. Now I wished I would have kept that email so you guys could see what kind of hate these people are sending out.

[WhinsChap]

41. The facts ( I found the email from BIL)

These are not my thoughts, they were sent to me. Will this make you as mad as it made me? Notice how they didn't compare the price of gas, or any of these things to before Bush took office.

A little over one year ago:

1) Consumer confidence stood at a 2 1/2 year high;
2) Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon;
3) The unemployment rate was 4.5%.

Since voting in a Democratic Congress in 2006 we have seen:

1) Consumer confidence plummet;
2) The cost of regular gasoline soar to over $3.50 a gallon;
3) Unemployment is up to 5% (a 10% increase);
4) American households have seen $2.3 trillion in equity value evaporate (stock and mutual fund losses);
5) Americans have seen their home equity drop by $1.2 trillion dollars;
6) 1% of American homes are in foreclosure.

America voted for change in 2006, and we got it!

Remember it's Congress that makes law not the President. He has to work with what's handed to him.

[NNN0LHI]

42. Forget that stuff. We need to worry about God, guns and gays

Seems to work for the Rethugs too.

Don