I became curious what the numbers are and did some very basic math. Federal poverty line is $14,580 a year and if you work full time at minimum wage of $7.25 you’ll be making about $15,080 a year.Before any taxes. Barely making it over that line. What’s more, since you have to make $19,720 for a family of 2 to be over the poverty line. So if you’re making minimum wage you’ll fall more than $4,000 dollars short. You have to be making at least $9.50 to not be considered in poverty if you’re a single parent.
Average rent for a 900sq. ft. apartment in the US is $1,702. With Arkansas the lowest at $987. If you’re making anywhere near minimum wage you can’t even afford close to the average rent and even if you lived in Arkansas you’ll have less than $400 dollars a month for every other necessity you need to survive.
The fact you can work 40 hours a week and still be in poverty in the US is such an incredible failure in our system to our people.
This all from basic googling and napkin math so if any figures are wrong please feel free to make corrections.