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Antiwork

It’s simple math!

I'm tired of hearing that people don't want to work, are lazy, want something for nothing, etc. I just sat down and figured out what my husband and I would need to earn if we had no debt and ONLY paid for absolute necessities (shelter, food, pet care*, insurance, medical supplies/prescriptions/copays, gas to get to work, and utilities). That means no restaurants, no takeout, no going anywhere, and no doing anything fun that doesn't involve reading a free book or playing a board game we already own. We would need to net $2,944.36, which would be a gross of about $3,300 if you figure 10% withheld for taxes. If you only include rent and health insurance–no food, no phone, no internet (which I need to do my remote job), no utilities, etc.–we're already at $1,547.63. To gross $3,300, we'd have to work 320 hours per month at a minimum of…


I'm tired of hearing that people don't want to work, are lazy, want something for nothing, etc. I just sat down and figured out what my husband and I would need to earn if we had no debt and ONLY paid for absolute necessities (shelter, food, pet care*, insurance, medical supplies/prescriptions/copays, gas to get to work, and utilities). That means no restaurants, no takeout, no going anywhere, and no doing anything fun that doesn't involve reading a free book or playing a board game we already own.

We would need to net $2,944.36, which would be a gross of about $3,300 if you figure 10% withheld for taxes. If you only include rent and health insurance–no food, no phone, no internet (which I need to do my remote job), no utilities, etc.–we're already at $1,547.63. To gross $3,300, we'd have to work 320 hours per month at a minimum of $10.31 per hour, which is $3.06 over the current federal minimum wage. Fortunately, we make more, as we do have debt (a medical bill with about $3,000 left on it, plus our student loans), but even if we cut everything pretty much to the bone and never did anything for leisure, we still wouldn't be able to make it on minimum wage unless we found a place with multiple roommates.

It's not laziness. It's mathematics.

* We could reduce our pet care expenses by not getting any new pets in the future, but we're responsible for the ones we have now, so it's not an expense we can just cut overnight.

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