Dawning of a New Era

$7.25 x 40 hour full time work week: $290

$290 x 4 weeks per month: $1,160

That weekly check comes to, according to you, 290. Most places DO NOT pay for your half hour lunch that is required by law. So your beginning number was wrong. $7.25 x 7.5 hours a day x 5 days a week only gets you $271.88.  Most people in America get paid bi-weekly, so let’s double it to get the budget. $543.75. That’s GROSS, not NET. Out of that comes anywhere between 10% and 15% taxes depending on state so we’ll low ball it at 10%. Automatically down to $489.38 a pay check. Now health insurance. Usually anywhere from 70-100 a pay check for the cheapest plans. Again, we’ll low ball and go $70. So now we have $419.39 a paycheck. x 2  = $839. 

Eight hundred thirty nine dollars. A MONTH.

But again, you seem to think that’s fair. So let’s proceed. You say rent is $500? Okay. This person now has $339 left to buy groceries for the whole month, pay utilities, car payment, car insurance, and gas money to get to work. 

Those are the bare needs. You have to eat. You have to pay for heat, water, garbage removal, gas and or electricity because apartments do not always include things and rarely all of the above. Most cities in America do not have public transportation. Mine doesn’t despite the fact that our population is over 15,000 people, not counting a taxi. If you have a car, you have to pay that. If you have a car, legally you have to have car insurance. You have to pay that. You have to have gas in that car to get to work to make that money.

Now if you can tell me you can get all of that out of $339 you’re lying.

You are so focused on rent that you aren’t thinking about everything else people have to pay for. Rent was an example. This is a breakdown of the budget you gave me and it’s not possible to live off that in 2017 America. 

And BECAUSE this person makes over $800 a month, they probably won’t qualify for financial aid or food stamps. $800 is the line in my state where they won’t help you. No food stamps, financial aid, or government housing if you make more than $800 a month. 

It’s not a bad thing, I just saw someone say “we never said who would eat the rich” and realized a lot of y’all might not have heard the full quote

It’s from Rousseau and it’s “When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich"

"We are starving. There is no more bread, and we have nothing to eat."

The rich man said,

"Not my problem you don't work for your bread,"

as if he did not snatch away the grain by his own greedy hands and create filling bread for his own overflowing mouth.

The poor cried,

"We are dying. There is no more medicine, and we're all ill."

The rich man said,

"Not my problem you don't take care of yourselves,"

as if he did not buy all the medicine and raise prices so high

the gods themselves would not

be able to reach.

The poor people

stopped crying,

and the rich man was satisfied...

Until they came knocking at his door one night;

their faces were sunken,

their flesh decaying,

their eyes sightless.

They were monsters

of the rich man's

own making.

As they devoured his flesh,

the rich man cried,

"Please, spare me!"

The ravenous zombies said,

"Not our fault

you fattened yourself