Working 60 hours a week with time and a half for overtime at the minimum wage of $7.25 makes for an annual salary of $26,390. That is almost two times the poverty line. Most States have a minimum wage of $9.00 or more which amounts to $32,760.

I know that 60 hours a week is a grind but it is not debilitating not sweat shop level. The work rules when I work at Kennedy Space Center were, no more than 60 hours a week, one day off out of every seven and no more than 12 hours a day if you worked a hazardous job. Office work had no limits.

Minimum wage even with overtime is maybe enough to support a family. You should not start a family until you have advance beyond minimum wage work. It can be made to work if you are creative and have some help. Two wage earning families, one working 60 hours a week and one working 40 hours a week with either some help with day care or flexible schedules. You would have $41,470 @ $7.25 or $51,480 @ $9.00 per hour. There are a lot of places in this country where that would be enough unless you have more than 1 or 2 kids. In most states that will be more than 80% of the median family income.

Single parents on minimum wage will be very poor even if they get a bunch of help. Single parent making $15.00 an hour working just 40 hours a week would be making $31,200 a year. Can’t imagine that being comfortable if you had to pay for daycare and I don’t imagine working long hours would make things much better. Single parenthood is a poverty trap.

If you end up working for minimum wage for your whole life you will work long hours your whole life and be pretty poor your whole life but that does not mean you would be unhappy. You can still have friends and go to church or fishing on Sunday or whatever day of the week you take off. If you did that your whole life you will qualify for Social Security and Medicare.

I worked with some old men in a warehouse not nearly as nice as Amazon’s and while they did complain a lot they were basically happy. I was making a dime over minimum wage and I think they got a little more.

All that said, I do support raising the minimum wage at the local level because it would improve some communities if done right, done to the right level. I don’t understand why the elites oppose it, they get all the money back as the poor spend all their income and it flow up to the rich.

TEK