Minimum Wage in the
United States

The Minimum wage is not enough to live comfortably. The minimum wage in California surprises me. There’s no way they think it’s enough. Many families have struggled with money due to such a small minimum wage.

The minimum wage doesn’t pay you enough to live in California. The recommended wage to live in California is $74,371 dollars per year. With minimum wage you make $31,000 per year. That’s nowhere near enough to live comfortably in California. The minimum wage is meant to be a living wage but it really isn’t. The hourly pay has not kept up with the cost of living since the 1960’s. The minimum wage is basically being in poverty. Many families will struggle to pay their bills and feed their families. They think the Minimum wage is livable but in reality you struggle and life is always stressful. You can’t live a good life off of minimum wage.

I’ve seen many people struggle living with the Minimum wage.There’s no way you're paying for a decent house with the Minimum wage, let alone food. You won’t be able to have fun in life and you won’t be able to have a decent life. Life is depressing when you can’t provide for yourself and your family.

The Federal Minimum wage is 7.25 per hour. That’s 15,080 a year. Again, to comfortably live in California is $74,371 a year. That’s a 59 thousand dollar difference!. The minimum wage has been a problem for a long time. They would say “just get a better job” but it's not that easy. Some didn’t have enough money to go to college. I think that’s very unfair that you need money to start off with to make money. Yes college isn’t the only way to make more money but most of the other ways to make money take money too.

With a full time job with Minimum wage pay you will make $15,080 per year. That falls under the poverty line. The poverty line for only two people in a household is $17,240. That’s only for two people. Could you imagine a whole family? Sometimes the mom of the family has to stay home and take care of the kids. So most of the time it's only one person bringing in money and with minimum wage they are either not gonna get by or barely get by. They need to do something about this. I’ve watched my mom struggle so much that I want to at least try to make a change to the federal minimum wage.

The pay also isn’t the only problem. Most of the jobs in California won’t even give you full hours. You're lucky if you get 40 hours a week. I recently worked at McDonalds and they barely give you hours. I was barely getting 20-25 hours. On top of all of that we have COVID. COVID messed up so many things. You get even less hours due to COVID. It’s honestly dangerous to work during COVID, so there’s literally people that don’t work because of that. I was forced to work to help out my mom and my family. It’s scary but you gotta do what you gotta do to make money nowadays. Even if it means putting my life in danger during COVID. Many people actually lost their jobs due to COVID. Getting a job back is very difficult. Jobs are a lot more careful when it comes to hiring someone now due to COVID. On top of me helping my parents to make money we still struggle with money. Anytime I wanted to go get food I couldn’t because I had no money. I don’t even pay bills yet and I still don’t have enough money. Anytime I would need clothes I couldn’t buy them because I had no money. I barely got by with gas. Every purchase I made was literally calculated carefully because I had no money due to such small hours and the minimum wage.

Nothing is worse than the embarrassment of having to put things back because you don’t have enough money and you can’t do anything about it. If only the minimum wage was higher and we could just live comfortably. “Just work harder” they say but most of the Minimum wage workers are probably the hardest workers I know. Not everyone is lucky enough to get a job to live a comfortable life. The minimum wage needs to be raised so that everyone can live comfortably. There’s only a handful of people I know that have decent jobs. Not a single person I’ve asked has said they live well with Minimum wage nowadays. Minimum wage simply just isn’t enough.