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In 2025, the federal minimum wage is officially a “poverty wage.” The annual earnings of a single adult working full-time, year-round at $7.25 an hour now fall below the poverty threshold of $15,650 (established by the Department of Health and Human Services guidelines). The limitations of how the federal government calculates poverty understate how far the minimum wage is from economic security for workers and their families.
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The federal poverty standard is horribly low. Like you’re still on the brink of homeless at twice that wage.
Trump disbands DHHS
No more poverty!
I’m kind of more shocked at $16,000 a year is considered above poverty.
The poverty line was historically measured simply by multiplying the USDA’s cheapest food plan for a household to buy groceries with adequate nutrition, and multiplying by 3.
Then, in the intervening 6 decades or so, food inflation has gone up significantly slower than housing inflation, to where that simple assumption of “barely enough to eat, times 3” began systematically understating actual poverty.
Today, feeding the reference family of 4 (2 adults 20-50, 1 kid aged 6-8, 1 aged 9-11) costs $996.20 per month (as of March 2025). That’s basically $12,000 per year, so the poverty line for a family of 4 is $32,150 (updated every January with September data).
So cost of rent/mortgage is excluded.
Then the state provides a shelter, right?You can maybe wait three + years for a Section 8 voucher!
If applying for that is anything like applying for unemployment, good luck lol.
$7.25 has been poverty wages for over a decade.
$15k a year??? That wouldn’t even cover my food let alone a shitty hotel room. Anything below $50k as a single earner is deep in poverty.
Yes, it sounds bad. But there is a bright side, too! The week has 168 hours, which means if you work four full time jobs, you can make $60k a year and you still get eight hours of sleep! /s
those are some top-tier grustle tips
IIRC, the federal poverty level doesn’t account for housing, transport, utilities, etc… It basically only accounts for food. And even then, it only accounts for the cheapest of the cheap food; You’d basically be eating white rice and instant ramen every day.
What absolute dumbass thought that would be a good metric to track?
Manipulative liars/vampires who don’t think of poor people are deserving of any kindness or luxury.
Builds strong deficiencies
Dont forget to thank Mr. MSG
That’s been a poverty wage for at least 15 years.
Yeah, the “$15 minimum wage” conversation has been going on for so long that the actual number adjusted for inflation would be well into the mid $20 range. IIRC, it would currently land somewhere around $24.75 per hour.
And if the idea of a $24.75 minimum wage makes you balk, maybe you should consider how little you’re being paid for the work you do, when compared to what the minimum wage used to cover. It used to cover enough for a single full time worker to afford housing, utilities, food, and a car. If you’re struggling to do that and you’re making in the mid $20’s, then congrats you know how it felt to be paid minimum wage when it was introduced.
Ain’t seen nothing yet, price adjustments after tariffs gonna make middle class in great depression queues.
Pretty sure that’s the point of project 2025, so everyone is too poor and stuck to fight the dictatorship and no one else can get ahead forcing the them to be a cog in the machine for the 1% until they’re dead
But eggs’ll be cheap, right?
For an individual supporting themselves. For anyone with a family, it’s been a poverty wage for a very long time. Spoiler, more than a third of minimum wage earners have children to support.
Um? I’m making more than twice that and I can just barely afford rent, food, etc. I’d hesitate to call anything below $15/hr even remotely livable, and that’s out in the sticks.
Poverty wage is not anywhere near a liveable wage. It’s the federal definition for “too poor to survive without assistance.” A living wage is enough to support yourself, a family, and leaves enough to find personal fulfillment. That’s at least two to three times the poverty wage, depending on where you live and how many dependents you have.
FDR intended for the minimum wage to be a living wage, not a poverty wage. The oligarchs that run America prefer a minimum wage be below a poverty wage, because poor people are easier to exploit.
President Felon will change the poverty threshold to $0.15 to prove everyone is doing excellent.
CEOs read “minimum wage” and they think “maximum wage”.
It’s just a branding issue. /s
The solution is obviously to abolish HHS.
The criteria must be wrong because by these metrics half of Americans are below poverty!
by these metrics half of Americans are below poverty!
I mean yeah sure, if we just throw around a random percentage, the metrics are the problem.
With most states having their own minimum wages higher than the federal one, how relevant is this really?
20 states, or 40% of the country, do NOT have higher minimum wages than federal. That seems pretty relevant, especially since a stagnant minimum wage is what’s keeping your own higher than minimum pay suppressed.
I would like to introduce you to the two million people living in Idaho. Federal minimum wage and the state prevents counties or cities from setting a minimum wage different from the state’s.
Boy, fuck Idaho apparently
Yeah it’s bleak there for a lot of reasons. Fun fact Idaho potatoes involve a lot of prison labor
Extremely
Thank you for the response from the Democratic Party.
Fuck workers in red states. They deserve it for being outnumbered.
- A state can just repeal their own minimum wage
- The existence of states using the federal minimum wage means it matters to the people who live in those states
- Poverty anywhere indicates the possibility of poverty everywhere. Being somewhere “without poverty” does not make you safe from poverty. It just means you are less proximate to poverty for now
A lot of those states with higher minimum wage also have a higher cost of living, though, so it’s not all cut and dry.
Nowhere in the country can you afford rent on minimum wage. Not in cities, not in small towns, not in bum fuck nowheresville cheapest red state with no single public services .
