Livable wage

There is a lot of talk about a livable wage.
What is your definition of a livable wage?
If some one makes enough for food , shelter, and clothing, is that a livable wage?
What would you add to that list as being necessary and not what some one might want?
Minimum wage in my state goes to $11 per hour on January first. That will easily pay for necessary food, shelter, and clothing, with some left for wants.

There is a lot of talk about a livable wage.
What is your definition of a livable wage?
If some one makes enough for food , shelter, and clothing, is that a livable wage?
What would you add to that list as being necessary and not what some one might want?
Minimum wage in my state goes to $11 per hour on January first. That will easily pay for necessary food, shelter, and clothing, with some left for wants.

What is your definition of a livable wage?

Depends on your state and your family size. Might also depend on your health and how much meds you have to pay for every month.
Personally, $11 an hour wouldn't be a liveable wage for my family of 10.

Food, bills, house, clothes, and extra to fix things or allow the kids to take extracurricular classes. Though the latter isn't necessarily necessary. It would also be nice to have enough for charity.

Considering I can get a gallon jug of water for $3 that will last me a few days easy, up to a week....
And that I can get enough food at McDonald's (yeah I know not healthy but it's still food) for a day for $10 and eat very well? (2 burgers, 2 fries, and 20 pieces of chicken nuggets).
And that's not being frugal with groceries. If you work 8 hours at $10 an hour, even with taxes factored in at 20% an hour and a half should easily pay for your food.
Then again if you are working a $10 an hour job maybe it's better to work at a food joint. At least then you get discounts or free meals. If you don't want to work at a food joint, aim for something that pays $3 or more an hour.

Atop that, don't get things you can't afford. At $10 an hour a car is going to be rough. You're going to be taking a bus a lot. And probably renting a room or having a roommate.

It's called minimum wage for a reason. There's no such thing as a livable wage, the amount of money you need for the lifestyle you desire or have is variant for everyone. It's nothing more than pretty language to hide the term "minimum."

Don't shoot for or even care about minimum wage in your life.
If you want livable, improve yourself and your skills, learn how to bring value to the business (instead of making employment with them about you). You are being paid to provide a service. So bring value and find those who appreciate it. If you live somewhere where this is not possible then maybe it's time to migrate somewhere with better opportunities (and please leave the "progressive" mindset back in the failing state you are leaving, don't try to change places that you move to that are working fine. They work for a reason.)

We aren't entitled to anything in this life. Our rights simply mean the government isn't allowed to try to take them from us. What you make of life is up to you. Sometimes yes, you will not reach those lofty heights.
It's easy to demand government help and be charitable when you're using other people's money. But it's not charity when you force it on people with increased taxes and prices go up to make up for it or businesses shut down because it makes no sense to keep operating in that city. (then states try to go after you if you spend 60 days in their state and demand you pay them income tax anyway for the next 10 years while really giving you nothing in return when you leave). California is actually attempting to do this.

All this started with the "livable wage" nonsense.
Livable is something you work to attain. Minimum is what you are owed. That raise in minimum wage won't go far when the local prices rise to compensate for all the other employees they have to pay citywide too (after all it's not just you getting that raise).
Meaning that $11 an hour will probably buy as much as what you're being paid now.

Considering I can get a gallon jug of water for $3 that will last me a few days easy, up to a week....
And that I can get enough food at McDonald's (yeah I know not healthy but it's still food) for a day for $10 and eat very well? (2 burgers, 2 fries, and 20 pieces of chicken nuggets).
And that's not being frugal with groceries. If you work 8 hours at $10 an hour, even with taxes factored in at 20% an hour and a half should easily pay for your food.
Then again if you are working a $10 an hour job maybe it's better to work at a food joint. At least then you get discounts or free meals. If you don't want to work at a food joint, aim for something that pays $3 or more an hour.

Right. Which is why my husband kept working and while working, searched for a job that would better support our family.
He now has a job that takes care of all our needs. We have some debt, but that's our fault and we're budgeting and dealing with it.

As to a car, we went about 15 years with one. Now, thankfully, we have 2. A gas hog that holds our whole family and a little gas efficient car that my husband drives to work. Because he DOES have to drive to get to his job. No buses available. And a taxi is ridiculously expensive. We could move back to one vehicle if we had to.

We get McYuckys once a week as a treat. Buying from the cheap menu, it costs us $40 for ONE meal. To ONLY ever eat from a restaurant it would cost us roughly $120 a DAY.
Instead, we eat healthier options that I cook, for cheaper (oatmeal or waffles for bfast, sandwiches and fruit for lunch, veggies and rice and a little meat for dinner). My menu costs us around $40/day. Sometimes less.

I wasn't saying everyone needs to give. Charity (or tithing) is something our family feels led by Yahweh to do, as we're able to.

So, yeah. Everyone has different needs. Not everyone needs the same amount of monthly income.
There are many variables that determine a living wage. I agree that if a person needs more to survive, they should get a second job or a better job.
Often easier said than done, I know. But we have had to do that.

I was raised in a family of thirteen (eleven brothers and sisters, plus parents).

Family history is something my siblings and I love to discuss My closest sister was telling me recently that when she and at least three other siblings plus our mother lived together (following the passing of my dad), and shopped every week for their grocery needs, they went to the store with forty dollars Forty dollars to feed at least five people (and possibly six) for a week! (That would have been the late 70s ) Now when I grocery shop, one bag of groceries, for one person, is about $30.00 And it certainly does not last a week

PS~~ kudos to you and your husband

Every time I look at my grocery cart I think, "This can't be more than 'x' amount." And then it ends up 3x that much. Food has gotten expensive.
I would love to eat out all the time (I really don't like to cook; love baking, though) but it's just too expensive for our family. Even our weekly treat has to be cut out sometimes, due to budget.

There's a woman on youtube I like to watch. She has a family of 6 family and her budget is something like $40/week. But she has an Aldis, her husband apparently makes a good wage, and they live in a an area with a veeeeery low cost of living.


Another one I love to watch is "Our Tribe of Many". She has a family of 11 and her budget is closer to mine. Though I'm still a bit envious that she has an Aldis. I used to live near a Costco and that was a blessing on our budget.

When I was growing up, things like milk and bread were home delivered regularly. We would go through maybe 20 loaves of bread a week, mostly white, because only the adults would eat the whole wheat. My mother never learned to drive, but she always did the grocery shopping because she was the one who knew what was needed, and the driver, whoever it was, would be the helper. My dad, aside from working full time factory swing shifts, was also an entrepreneur: we would go to weekend farmer's markets and sell produce, mostly apples and potatoes and other seasonal produce as well, especially peaches in the summer, so we always had produce for the table from that. One of my sisters would complain that we always got the seconds, but she was almost on a mission always to discover whether we were eating real butter, or margarine, real orange juice, or Tang, and/or real milk, or powdered skim milk. My mother also pickled and jammed and canned all sorts of things (we had a real earthen-floored fruit cellar in the basement), and we loved helping out with the grinding of the fruit and boiling/sterilization of jars etc. We baked almost all our own goodies: pies, cakes, and cookies, and coming home to large bowls of cinnamon bun dough rising on the heating vents was always a treat. I was an expert fudge maker As a teen, I would come home from working at the farmer's market after school and make fudge every Friday night. None of us eleven kids know how our mother did it. LOL. Only one of my siblings who had children had more than two (she had four) and her house was a mad house all the time while they were growing up, ha.

I love hearing stories like these.

I love to can and I want to be more self-sufficient. Even with all these modern conveniences I just can't seem to get much done. I'm amazed by people like your mom. ❤️

There is a lot of talk about a livable wage.
What is your definition of a livable wage?

There is a lot of talk about a livable wage.
What is your definition of a livable wage?
If some one makes enough for food , shelter, and clothing, is that a livable wage?
What would you add to that list as being necessary and not what some one might want?
Minimum wage in my state goes to $11 per hour on January first. That will easily pay for necessary food, shelter, and clothing, with some left for wants.

Minimum wage in my state goes to $11 per hour on January first

$11 p/h... I can't believe how amazingly low that is...
Here in Australia the minimum wage for a full time employee working a 38 hour week is $19.84 p/h.
And even at that rate i cannot see how it is at all possible for somebody to one day own a home.
Even at $1,000 a week it is still impossible to one day own a home on your own.

When I was growing up, things like milk and bread were home delivered regularly. We would go through maybe 20 loaves of bread a week, mostly white, because only the adults would eat the whole wheat. My mother never learned to drive, but she always did the grocery shopping because she was the one who knew what was needed, and the driver, whoever it was, would be the helper. My dad, aside from working full time factory swing shifts, was also an entrepreneur: we would go to weekend farmer's markets and sell produce, mostly apples and potatoes and other seasonal produce as well, especially peaches in the summer, so we always had produce for the table from that. One of my sisters would complain that we always got the seconds, but she was almost on a mission always to discover whether we were eating real butter, or margarine, real orange juice, or Tang, and/or real milk, or powdered skim milk. My mother also pickled and jammed and canned all sorts of things (we had a real earthen-floored fruit cellar in the basement), and we loved helping out with the grinding of the fruit and boiling/sterilization of jars etc. We baked almost all our own goodies: pies, cakes, and cookies, and coming home to large bowls of cinnamon bun dough rising on the heating vents was always a treat. I was an expert fudge maker As a teen, I would come home from working at the farmer's market after school and make fudge every Friday night. None of us eleven kids know how our mother did it. LOL. Only one of my siblings who had children had more than two (she had four) and her house was a mad house all the time while they were growing up, ha.

There is a lot of talk about a livable wage.
What is your definition of a livable wage?
If some one makes enough for food , shelter, and clothing, is that a livable wage?
What would you add to that list as being necessary and not what some one might want?
Minimum wage in my state goes to $11 per hour on January first. That will easily pay for necessary food, shelter, and clothing, with some left for wants.