(If it's not obvious I'm in the US).
I make $16/hr at an office job, which is high for this area and what people around here think is a living wage. All my credit cards are maxed out from previous times. Every time I manage to pay them down i end up having to use it again. Anyway, I missed two days out of this pay period for things out of my control (a medical issue and am ice storm literally breaking off my windshield wipers after I spent 40 minutes getting all the ice off preparing to drive in dangerous conditions like everybody else). The thing is, I could have worked from home that day, as I had from March 2020 until September '21, doing quantifiable work that's sent to two other people at another location and is easily verifiable, but I was denied by the current manager because I couldn't physically clock in. This was completely arbitrary and a new “rule” that was literally made up on the spot and the first time it was told to me. But it is what it is. So now I have two days missing. We got paid Thursday, my entire paycheck is gone by Friday when the first of my bills come out. I had to postpone 2 that allow it (you can move it with no penalty as long as it's within 2 weeks of the original due date) but I still have some, including car insurance, that I can't postpone. But there's nothing in my account to pay them and nothing I can do about it. I had $80 left on one card so I plan to use that for gas and I dunno. If I didn't live with my SO, I probably wouldn't be able to eat.
This is their living wage. It's basically a slave wage, the kind where you come in sick or in dangerous conditions because you have to. Because if you miss even the smallest amount of time, you can't afford to live.
Our whole system is a mess and you should be angry.