I was in the middle of writing about rabbits and sunbeams and crap when I realized that, in order to post a bunch of stuff I've got planned for the future, I need to get the following subject out of the way:
"Have You Met the Poor?"
Warning: I like the poor. They're charming people. However, the two pennies they haven't got left to rub together at the end of the month and the amount of complaining I hear from rich politicians about the plight of the impoverished got me thinking about the "Poor Budget." Now I'm sure somebody is going to get angry and think I'm being offensive, which, at some level, I'm sure I am. Just not intentionally. My real goal? Get to the absolute, bare, bleeding, shiny truth about how much money the poor make, what they can buy, and what that means. So here goes the most boring post in the unbearably long history of this blog. (Boring, of course, unless you're some sort of economics buff, or some other sort of heartless asshole. If so, be sure to put on socks before continuing, 'cuz you're gonna love this crap!)
For those of you who are prone to thinkin' money is not everything, here's a glipse into life with the least acceptable amount of work, the lowest legal pay and the most amount (130 hours) of free time:
- We're going to pretend that a mother - we'll call her "Rusha" - has a job as a Professional LiveLinks Chat Line Decoy and her pay is, of course, the federal minimum wage. That was $5.15 (Before July 24th) per hour for, let's say, 38 hours per week. AND she's got a deadbeat boyfriend and two young kids to support.
So, there's the setup. Let's figure out exactly what poor mother Rusha can buy while living in one of the country's varied-cost living areas, Phoenix, AZ.
- $5.15 per hour * 38 hours per week * 52 weeks per year = $10,176 annual income
- This translates to: $848 Monthly
So, how much do the necessities cost per month?
- Horribly tiny apartment: $329 + Electricity = -$389 (Even less after income qualification)
- Food: -$320* (Add more Ramen to reduce this number...)
- Family computer: -$22 (Financed through everyone's favorite con company, Blue Hippo. I'd post a link to the company, but I hate them. In reality, the family should just go to Savers and make do with a Pentium II + dot matrix for $50...)
- Clothes and crappy toys for the kids: -$50 (That's $600 a year, at Savers...)
- All Health Care costs w/ Medicaid + Family Health Insurance: Free. (Qualification cutoff, by the way, is $20,652 for our family here...)
- Milwaukee's Best for deadbeat boyfriend: -$14
- Cell phone plan (Includes free crappy phone): -$39
- Riding the bus to work everyday: Priceless. ...You saw that coming...
* The Food expense consists of what I eat, monthly, multiplied by four, which is actually a lot of [admittedly unhealthy] food... (My diet is pretty much entirely the following, depending on the month: chimichangas, burritos, fettucine alfredo, rice, fruit, chocolate, string cheese, hamburgers, pizza pockets, and, to maintain pristine health, a daily vitamin and an assload of raisins...) Wow. What a lame excuse to blog about my favorite foods, just like all them teenage girls...
And that leaves about $14 to be spent on more Milwaukee's Best. Fortunately, no family of four actually makes this amount of money courtesy of our federal government, which is a government that is nice enough to provide Easy Welfare if you're an immigrant, Food Stamps if the family of four makes less than $20,000 a year, and, most importantly, the Earned Income Tax Credit, which brings the family's income up to about $14,600.
So, if the family utilizes the EITC and food stamps, that'll free up (provide, really) about $700 in extra spending money every month, which can buy you full coverage insurance and a 2007 "Family Size" Toyota Prius Hybrid which, according to my yuppie (recently converted) roommate, really does get more than 50 miles per gallon in the city. Of course, If your gross income is less than $11,000 for a family of four, I'd recommend spending the extra money on a larger living space.
Interestingly, poor mother Rusha and her family would also qualify for true low-income housing, which frees up even more income, not to mention the fact that the minimum wage in Phoenix is $6.75, not $5.15... (That's an extra $3,162 per year... Of course, steeper competition at the low-wage level, but we'll get into that later... In fact, this minimum wage increase cuts into the federal EITC - Now I've got make a new post about this...)
Anyways, the point to all this is that without any monetary assistance from a deadbeat boyfriend, with only one job and two kids, a computer, a cell phone, enough food, clothing, toys and some alcoholic relaxation medication, a family of four can survive in more relative luxury in this country than they could almost anywhere else on the planet.
Most importantly, this worst-case scenario only applies to less than 3% of the population. Not only that, but the majority of that 2.43% who are currently making the federal minimum wage are teenagers or otherwise-supported individuals, like these folks.
Just kiddin'. The autistic bar code scanners at the Walgreen's distribution centers make more than the minimum wage. (Click the link to see the company propaganda!)
Boy, this sure is a long post. Time for some red text to eff up the old attention disorder...
So, three questions:
1. How likely is it that our poor mother Rusha's family exists in our society, legal citizens or otherwise? People aren't going to agree, but I propose that this family does not exist, except for small pockets of around 1% of the population, and those pockets exist for a maximum of 3 to 6 months (courtesy of almost universal probation-period pay raises at minimum wage jobs...) before "rotating out."
2. Shouldn't we be more concerned about alcoholic mothers with psychologically and physically damaged bastard children that may be living on a "reasonable" income and accepting government benefits, but are mostly illiterate, law-breaking, and doomed to repeat the lifestyle for generations to come?
Yes.
3. Where'd you get your lamo statistics?
From my future employers, and some hippie blog that looked authentic. Interestingly, I got the 2.43% number from the pro-minimum-wage-hikin' hippie blog, which I didn't expect to provide such anti-minimum-wage-hikin' statistics. Thanks, hippies.
One final note:
I bet I'm missing some important stuff in my "Poor Budget," but I just can't seem to figure out what else a family could need that they couldn't afford. All told, I find it absolutely fantastic that the worst possible scenario (monetarily, not psychologically) for poor mother Rusha, while she supports her entire family on one income, includes a "reasonable" apartment, food, clothing, entertainment, transportation and modern technology, and pretty much everything that is required to survive relatively comfortably.
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Of course, the real flaw in this entire post is that we're assuming middle-class monetary responsibility on a "poor budget." I'd assume it's common knowledge that middle-class sense doesn't get stuck very often in the poorest class, and that is exactly why poverty is such a tough problem: It's not necessarily a money issue, but rather an issue of skills, drive, responsibility, concern, social awareness and knowledge of available opportunities. If our country could write a welfare check that could only get cashed at school, a self-help seminar, money-management classes, Room 101 from Orwell's 1984, library access and internet subscriptions, respectively, then the poorest class would not be as poor - regardless of the amount of money in the welfare check. Remember, though, that the most important and efficient item in the list above would have to be access to Room 101, as the most important thing our country can't force people to do is care.
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...And yes, that was a quote from Time Bandits.
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