Thursday, July 18, 2013

Jillian Berman — $10.20 Per Hour Needed To Survive Even In America's Cheapest County

Nowhere in America does a dollar go farther than in Hanson County, South Dakota. But even there, a worker still needs to earn nearly $3 more than the minimum wage to get by....
Even a worker with no kids living in Hanson would need to earn $10.20 an hour to achieve basic economic security, according to WOW researchers.
The $10.20 wage is nearly $3 more than the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, which is also the minimum wage in South Dakota. In 2012, there were about 12,000 workers in South Dakota subsisting on paychecks at the minimum wage or below, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics....
WOW’s researchers found that it would take a minimum wage of $14.17 an hour for workers to achieve economic security nationally. In areas of the country where the cost of living is high, the federal minimum wage covers a small fraction of what it takes to afford basic needs, the analysis found. In Montgomery County, Maryland, the area where the cost of living is highest, it takes a minimum wage of $23.65 for a worker to achieve basic economic security. 
Even slave owners knew that they had to invest in subsistence.

The Huffington Post
$10.20 Per Hour Needed To Survive Even In America's Cheapest County
Jillian Berman


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