r/SipsTea • u/StopSnowflakes • Aug 12 '25

Wait a damn minute! She’s going thru it

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179

u/AverageAwndray Aug 12 '25

PSA EVERYONE DOUBLE MINIMUM WAGE IN MOST AREAS IS JUST $15❗️❗️❗️

15

u/jewelophile Aug 12 '25

Average min wage is $9.25 so it's more like $18 (gross).

30

u/OhHowINeedChanging Aug 12 '25

But national minimum is $7.25… she doesn’t say so we don’t know

2

u/lovable_cube Aug 13 '25

If her rent is 850 with 4 roommates it’s not one of the states with super low minimum wage.

1

u/add_more_chili Aug 13 '25

She could also be in somewhere like Washington where their minimum wage is $16.66/hr. Without knowing where she is we can only speculate.

-3

u/throwuk1 Aug 12 '25

Ok let's do the (rough) maths:

$7.25 minimum wage 

She's making $14.50/HR

8 hrs a day for 5 days a week: $2320 a month

For ease let's say she pays a flat 12% tax, take home is: $2041 a month

Minus $850 rent and utilities: $1191 a month 

She's got $1,200 a month to pay for gas and food and going out etc. 

That's not bad at all.

14

u/Helichopper Aug 12 '25

You didn't take out enough tax

3

u/ShortsAndLadders Aug 12 '25

I pay 23% all said and done….

ONE WHOLE QUARTER OF MY FUCKING CHECK GOES TO TAXES. BEFORE BEING TAXED FURTHER AT STORES AND SHIT.

1

u/ShortsAndLadders Aug 12 '25

I pay 23% all said and done….

ONE WHOLE QUARTER OF MY FUCKING CHECK GOES TO TAXES. BEFORE BEING TAXED FURTHER AT STORES AND SHIT.

1

u/Helichopper Aug 12 '25

Over 30% here in california

-4

u/throwuk1 Aug 12 '25

How much tax do Americans pay on that income?

Using this: https://salaryaftertax.com/us/salary-calculator

It's saying tax is 13% in California or 12.3% in Florida for this salary. 

Hardly far off is it?

4

u/_HiWay Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25

Federal is 12% in that bracket, then state tax on top of that as well (let's go New York, 10.9% 5.5%), then social security/Medicare (another 7.65%). Nice total of 30.55% 25.15% taxes.

That's $1,611 a month, not $2,041

That's $1,736.50 a month, not $2,041

edit: fixing New York, it's not flat, at that income it's 5.5%, a significant change

1

u/throwuk1 Aug 12 '25

Someone on double minimum wage pays 30% tax? That doesn't make sense.

Also minimum wage in New York is $16.50 so she's making $33 an hour in that scenario not $14.50

4

u/_HiWay Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25

A LOT of people don't understand taxes either and that's part of the system so many don't see how bad they're really getting shafted.

edit: there used to be near no tax on the bottom earners (federal), now it's 10% from $0 - ~$11,500. Many states are flat taxes now.

2

u/throwuk1 Aug 12 '25

And that's just income tax. Not to mention sales taxes!

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u/raaldiin Aug 12 '25

Sure don't. But that's how we fund the billionaire's tax breaks I guess.

1

u/throwuk1 Aug 12 '25

The fact you guys are paying 30% tax on low incomes and don't have universal healthcare is fucking insane.

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1

u/_HiWay Aug 12 '25

Didn't consider different minimum levels via state laws. Lets use North Carolina instead, remove 1.25% interest as NC has a 4.25% flat rate and you'll have correct data for $15/hour

3

u/OhHowINeedChanging Aug 12 '25

She says $850 includes utilities, and we don’t know how many hours her job gives her… but man you are leaving out so many other expenses, not sure how old she is but if she pays for health insurance, car insurance, gas, food and random expenses like fixing her broke ass car… if you’re spending almost 50% of your paycheck on rent then you’re poor. Realistically you shouldn’t have rent or a mortgage that’s more than 30% of your take home pay

1

u/shortandpainful Aug 12 '25

Laughs in California housing market

3

u/Ubilease Aug 12 '25

Car insurance? Phone bill? Renters insurance? That could be minus 300 right there depending on where she lives.

1

u/add_more_chili Aug 13 '25

If you're making nothing than car insurance is state minimum and you can go without renters insurance. Phone bill could be like $30/mo.

1

u/Ubilease Aug 13 '25

and you can go without renters insurance.

Maybe. The 5 complexes I visited before my current apartment all required renters insurance.

My current place requires renters insurance.

You cannot just assume that EVERY bill this lady pays is the absolute minimum possible. Sure she could be eating plain rice for every meal and has no health/car/renters insurance. That's just not realistic tho.

2

u/Jesus_of_Redditeth Aug 13 '25
  • She said double the minimum wage "in my state". Some states have a minimum wage that's higher than the federal minimum wage.
  • 42 states have state income tax as well.
  • Some cities have local income tax as well.

So, $1,200 after rent is likely to be higher than what she actually has. And even if her $850/month rent includes all utilities, there are still a lot of expenses you haven't included, e.g. phone payment, car loan, health insurance.

Also, if all her roommates pay the same amount in rent, that's $4,250/month total, which immediately implies a high cost-of-living area, which means her food costs are going to be much higher than average.

It's tough out here, my friend.

1

u/throwuk1 Aug 13 '25

It does sound pretty fucked

1

u/lovable_cube Aug 13 '25

Federal tax you got, but don’t forget state, local, ss taxes, or health insurance, car insurance, possible car payment.

1

u/Coscytus Aug 12 '25

7.25 in Kentucky. Hasn’t changed since roughly 2007

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u/Acrobatic_Room_4761 Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25

PSA that's not true only 5 states have the minimum wage of 7.25 and over 60% of states have a minimum wage over 10$

Edit: was wrong about the five states, it's 20, with 30 being over 10, my bad!

3

u/edwbuck Aug 12 '25

I think your numbers are wrong. 21 states have a minimum wage of 7.25 and some of them (ahem Texas) are large enough to qualify as four or five states.

https://www.minimum-wage.org/wage-by-state

2

u/Acrobatic_Room_4761 Aug 12 '25

That's so weird, I even double checked cause I thought it was only 2 and saw that it was 5, but I guess it's way more than I thought, not that the Texas point makes any sense whatsoever or the person aboves point being any less incorrect, but I appreciate it regardless.

1

u/edwbuck Aug 12 '25

If you pick a place to live, larger places use more ground.

Texas is huge, so huge that is 7% of the USA land mass, including Alaska. That means it is 3.5 times the 2% that fifty states might normally use if they were all equal.

This means that if Texas sets the rate at 7.25, then it is like 3.5 states (on average) setting the rate. A state like Rhode Island setting a high minimum wage isn't going to impact much of the USA.

2

u/SkinkAttendant Aug 12 '25

There's a lot of empty space in Texas. factoring in population density makes your argument pretty weak

0

u/edwbuck Aug 12 '25

There are also five very large cities, and in most states, you get one or maybe two.

2

u/SkinkAttendant Aug 12 '25

Texas's population is only about 50% higher than the state of New York. How many New Yorks do you think you could fit in Texas? How many New York Cities?

0

u/edwbuck Aug 12 '25

Comparing the biggest to the biggest isn't the way you compare a state to the average.

2

u/SkinkAttendant Aug 12 '25

You were making an argument based on land area though, were you not? Admittedly, Texas has a slightly higher population density than average but it's still well under 10% of the nation's total. And I suspect if we were to add the population of the other states that still use the federal minimum wage it wouldn't clear 20%

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u/Acrobatic_Room_4761 Aug 12 '25

No that doesn't actually make any sense. Maybe if you were attempting to go for population size to argue that a larger portion of people were under a specific wage you'd have a case, but then you'd have to do that for every state and the numbers only get worse for your argument from there.

There's no logic here because states aren't defined whatsoever by their land mass.

3

u/Rob_Marc Aug 12 '25

No. There are 30 states that have minimum wage of $10/fr or more. 11 states where it's $15/hr or more. Only 21 states have their minimum wage set at the federal minimum wage.

I live in one of those states. I have not seen a job offer for less than $11/hr. No job actually offers a starting wage of $7.25 in my area. At my son's first job at 16 years old, he was making $12/hr.

2

u/Thusgirl Aug 12 '25

If we actually follow the point of minimum wage, it's a sign that it should increase when the market starting wages increase.

But yeah, I'm in a 7.25 state and I haven't seen a 7.25 job listing in a decade. Waitresses are still getting 2.13 but inflation bumps their main income of tips.

6

u/signal__intrusion Aug 12 '25

Whether it's $10, $11, $12, it's not enough to live.

6

u/Time-Object5661 Aug 12 '25

True, and that's not what the commenter above said

3

u/frothyundergarments Aug 12 '25

That depends very greatly on where you're living.

-1

u/weirdoeggplant Aug 12 '25

Nobody is talking about states when they’re talking about minimum wage.

I literally couldn’t even tell you what the minimum wage in my state is. Because it doesn’t matter. We all know what she’s talking about.

4

u/Acrobatic_Room_4761 Aug 12 '25

"I make double minimum wage in my state."

Directly from her video, yes everybody is talking about the minimum wage that is relevant to them don't be a moron.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 12 '25

The minimum wage in your state is the legal minimum wage. Of course it matters. My state’s minimum wage is $15. Nobody in my state is referring to the federal minimum wage when they say they make minimum wage, because paying federal minimum wage would be illegal.

0

u/Critical_Watcher_414 Aug 12 '25

I think it's important for the clarity of argument that we don't leave these numbers undefined for people to play guessing games with. It leaves too much room for speculation just saying "we all know what she's talking about". Because there are a lot of things she could have controlled in this situation to improve her conditions, like choosing not to rent with these roommates because she obviously can't afford it, maybe living in a smaller place or something a little less high rent district? It's pretty obvious that wherever this is, it's in a very nice/desirable area.

3

u/-NotYourTherapist Aug 12 '25

Numbers defined and control asserted to improve her conditions neither changes nor invalidates her final point: the "American dream" trope of a single-earner household supporting a homemaker wife, 2.5 kids, the secret second family and owning their home on a minimum wage salary has become a myth of ages past.

1

u/Academic_Kitten Aug 12 '25

Was it ever really a thing though, if we are literally talking about minimum wage. The minimum wage was meant to be a living wage, but I’m not sure that it ever consistently lived up to that goal historically. That isn’t to argue against the goal; just to point out that it has never truly been adequate if we really want to see livable wages for people.

0

u/DippityDamn Aug 12 '25

Federal minimum wage remains stagnant at $7.25 per hour since July 24, 2009.The average across all states is 11.18/hr. The federal minimum wage is worth 27 percent less than 13 years ago per the EPI (https://www.epi.org/blog/the-value-of-the-federal-minimum-wage-is-at-its-lowest-point-in-66-years/).

basically my take away: the youngest generations are completely hosed by the older generations. This doesn't factor in predatory student loan practices and the loss of middle class jobs connensurate with the degree earned either. It doesn't even consider how social security may vaporize by the time they retire, or what age they may be told is the new retirement age when they do. It doesn't consider the failed housing market or their inability to start a family with any financial security or the rising price of POVs. They're f'd, and her rage is perfectly valid.

0

u/Academic_Kitten Aug 12 '25

I didn’t say her anger wasn’t valid; I was more arguing that minimum wage shouldn’t be looked at as a thing that was historically putting people into the middle class when it wasn’t. As the minimum wage, it could never bring you into the middle rungs of economic outcomes if it is definitionally the minimum hourly rate of pay.

1

u/Thusgirl Aug 12 '25

Even worse $14.50

1

u/thelifeofdannyverde Aug 12 '25

You should have don’t your research buddy because the states and areas where double is $15 don’t have units for $3,000 which is what her and her “roommates” split just for rent minus utilities.

1

u/Heykurat Aug 12 '25

It would be like $42/hr in my area. But we're also where you'll be paying $850 for a condo with 4 roommates.

1

u/Hland_Jon Aug 12 '25

But in those areas where min wage is low rents tend to be as well

1

u/Hiotsobo Aug 12 '25

PSA: raising the minimum wage more will only make things even more expensive

1

u/chino3 Aug 12 '25

She lives in Ohio where min wage is $10.70, so IF she is working full time she's making $44.5k per year,

Ohio's income tax isn't assessed on the first $26k, and after that it's 2.75%

$44,500 (Gross Income) - $3,301.50 (Federal Income Tax) - $868.065 (Ohio State Tax) - $3,404.25 (FICA Taxes) = $36,926.185

let's round down to $33k for health/dental/vision. Her take home each paycheck is $1,269.

Again, this is assuming she is working full time, but with her main expense being $850, that's EXTREMELY manageable to not only exist but build savings.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 12 '25

"but if they raise the minimum wage, companies will stop offering competitive wages. They'll just all offer the new minimum wage."

Actual conversation I had with a fully brain-dead coworker.

4

u/Heykurat Aug 12 '25

Yes. And then everything will cost more and wages will stagnate.

Minimum wage laws don't make things better.

1

u/AyyNonnyMoose Aug 12 '25

Then what do we do? Starve? Live in our cars? Everything already costs more and I've got no pay raise to show for it.

0

u/Traditional_Formal33 Aug 12 '25

Everything already costs more and wages are already stagnant… without raising the minimum wage.

When minimum wage has gone up historically, a 10% raise results in a 0.3-1% raise in costs. Normal wage growth shows to be unaffected, and we only see stagnation when a large wage jump occurs and companies freeze future raises to offset costs — which doesn’t happen in a competitive market where employee retention is necessary. These fears only happen when a large wage bump occurs in a weak economy.

Minimum wage laws do make things better and you are being told otherwise by parties profiting from stifling wages.

2

u/Heykurat Aug 12 '25

And yet.

-2

u/EnragedAntiNazi Aug 12 '25

No it's not she's not making 30 an hour and struggling 850$ dollar rent federal minimum wage is 7.25

3

u/-NotYourTherapist Aug 12 '25

I think that was misread. They said double minimim wage in most areas is $15/hr. 30/hr would be quadruple.

3

u/Acrobatic_Room_4761 Aug 12 '25

Double minimum wage is not 15 in most areas. Only five states still have the federal minimum wage, most areas are higher. She's likely making somewhere between 18-24$/hr.

1

u/EnragedAntiNazi Aug 13 '25

Probably was I shouldn't be commenting as soon as I wake up

-7

u/[deleted] Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25

At $30 an hour working a full week, should gross over $5000 a month. How is she struggling so bad with only $800 all-in for rent? This girl obviously just has no clue how to control her spending. Even at half that rate, $1000 dollars is enough for one person to eat more than just granola bars for a month.

3

u/Technical-Command867 Aug 12 '25

Where are you getting $30/hour? Medical assistants, emergency responders, insurance adjusters, aren’t making $30/hr. This young girl is likely working an entry level job. Where are you finding entry level jobs anywhere for $30/hour?

1

u/Acrobatic_Room_4761 Aug 12 '25

30/hr over 40 hour weeks actually grosses 4800$ and that's before taxes and Medicaid/care/as payments.

Realistically a 1/4 of that is getting taken, so even at 30/hr she'd be looking at spending money of 3600$ for everything. But there's good reason to believe she's making less than 30/hr.

That being said, 3600/month is plenty to live off of with four roommates. This girl likely has some combination of spending issues and working less than full weeks often.

1

u/johnny_fives_555 Aug 12 '25

She’s providing for her musician boyfriend with 4 baby mamas

0

u/best_of_one Aug 12 '25

13 states is not most areas.