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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
You keep harping on this $600 a month rent in a great school boundary, so let's do some math together.

Our hypothetical family is a single mom and her two children, ages 2 and 6. Mom works 50 hours per week making the federal minimum wage of $7.25/hour (you said you're in the south so I'm going to assume that your state doesn't have a higher minimum wage). She makes $362/week, pre-tax (for the purposes of our exercise we won't worry about taxes). She works 52 weeks a year since she doesn't have any time off, so she makes an untaxed $18,850 per year. Her $600 rent is $7200 per year. Daycare for her youngest is $100/week since you are in a low COL area, or $5200/year. She's spending $12,400/year on rent and daycare. That leaves $6,450 left. That breaks down to $537/month to cover food, all bills, transportation, insurance (her minimum wage job obviously isn't providing insurance), before and aftercare, and everything else that she might need for her family to survive.

So no, that $600 a month rent in the best school boundary no longer seems so affordable. It's all relative. [/quote]

What a bs numbers.

Low income single mothers get free day care, WICs and other forms of financial support.  Possibly free housing because we have free public housing and someone is living there.

I have a niece who's a single mother of two. She doesn't even work, both of her kids get free daycare, she receives food stamps, and other benefits.   She also is eligible for free college education, but is she getting it? No.  I think we all know why.  Because it's a question of motivation.[/quote]

Also, if she's working 50 hours a week, she's making OT at 1.5x her hourly rate for 10 of those hours, so $398/week.  While I am NOT trying to say this is a great way to live, let's at least be honest about the numbers.
[/quote]

no minimum wage employer is going to pay overtime.  she is working two jobs, one 20 hours a week and one 30 hours a week.  Or she is a salaried manager who has to be on the clock for 50 hours a week though she will likely make more then minimum wage in that situation but not much. I know someone who works retail, manager, scheduled 53 hours a week, 36,000 a year.  And this isn't fast food - this is at a better retail place.  you guys have no clue how grim the numbers really are[/quote]

If a single mother of two kids earns around 18,000 dollars a year she will qualify for the earned income credit of 5,400 dollars. That's around 450 extra dollars a month. She would most likely get free or subsidized health care, food stamps, WIC for youngest child, free school breakfast and lunch, and probably free daycare too.  It still isn't a life I would want to have but it is far from the grinding poverty of a third world country.[/quote]

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