Basically I'm self employed but after some health issues I accrued a lot of medical debt ($25k) and was looking around at job opportunities.
There are a few places that cry they are desperate for people to enter the profession, are offering to reimburse for the training and education, however the salary does not even pay enough to get you qualified for a basic 1 bedroom apartment within a 45 minute drive of the area. When I did the math, I wouldn't qualify for the 3x the income requirement that most apartments have to rent to you.
My brother recently graduated with no debt and my parents gave him a car, all expenses paid, and he is currently dealing with the same situation. His job pays so little that he does not meet the 3x the monthly income requirement. I had tried to warn him.
The state that we live in generally does not have any real protection for roomates, meaning that it is easy to get stuck for money and then be stuck in the lease. So a roomate situation is not something we want to enter into.
The other jobs though pay even lower but they are in a more affordable area – and even then I would barely just barely make the 3x income requirement IF we were lucky enough to find a place on the cheap side of things in the lousy parts of town. The jobs I qualify for only pay $15 to $18 an hour.
I don't have the financial ability to further my education to get higher paying jobs. There are CNA jobs in the area and offer free training but only pay $13 an hour at the most.
Antiwork because I couldn't afford to have my own apartment if I worked for the man. I dont have parents to help me or a significant other to share bills with. For single people just starting out, how are we supposed to afford to get our own simple 1 bedroom (or even a studio) on these wages? Not to mention coming home and being exhausted, running the errands then doing all the meal prep for the work week? tired of hearing “no one wants to work” when the thing really is “no employer wants to pay enough”. Everything is going up in cost and no one is paying enough.