[onewhippedpuppy]

Originally Posted by Head416

I like this question. Since you're an employer, can you help me out with some hard numbers? How much do you pay a certain employee? What is their take home pay after taxes/deductions/whatever? I want to try to put an actual number to it. $350/week take home? More/less?

How much is an apartment in your area? Let's do the math and see if we think they should be able to live without government money or not. I'm not trying to bait you, I really want to run the numbers and see.

I'll play, because I have multiple college aged sister-in-laws I'm pretty familiar with apartment costs in Wichita. We'll use $9/hr, because there are a lot of menial jobs that pay this much or more. I know a teen with no experience that started out at $10.50/hr + benefits running the cash register at a QT.

$9/hr x 40 hrs x 4 weeks = $1440/mo
$450/mo for a nice apartment in a nice area
Groceries $100/mo
Gas for car $100/mo
Water $20/mo
Electricity $40/mo

Deducting those necessities leaves you with $730/mo left over. I'm obviously not deducting taxes from the check, and not including perceived "necessities" such as cell phone, cable TV, internet, new car payment, etc. Most of my wife's siblings are living this exact life while going to college. Can you raise a family on this? Hell no. But if you're trying to, shame on you for not taking responsibility and trying to make a better life. Even manual labor around here pays much better than $9/hr.