I just started a new job, but they only pay as little as they are legally allowed.
What is the minimum wage in your area?
In Oklahoma it is $7.25 an hour.
I am not sure what it is in my state, minimum wage is hard to live on.
That's the truth. If it didn't cost so much to move, I'd go to Washington. They have $11.50/hour pay.
Well the problem with the minimum wage being higher is that the cost of living is also higher, so really it equals out
Well, that may be true to some extent, places that raise minimum wage tend to see a decrease in poverty.
The decrease is only based on earned income, wages may be higher but people do not have more because it costs that much more to live.
some nations such as the United Kingdom and New Zealand, generally means that a person working 40 hours a week, with no additional income, should be able to afford the basics for a modest but decent life, such as, food, shelter, utilities, transport, health care, and child care. Living wage advocates have further defined a living wage as the wage equivalent to the poverty line for a family of four. The income would have to allow the family to 'secure food, shelter, clothing, health
economists posit that the minimum wage is in part to blame for structural unemployment, although structural unemployment does exist even in the absence of a minimum wage. They assert that because the governmentally imposed minimum wage is higher than some individuals' marginal revenue product in any given job, those individuals remain unemployed because employers legally cannot pay them what they are "worth." Others believe that in such cases (for example, when a person is intellectually disabled or suffers a debilitating physical condition) it is the responsibility of the state