Question

The author of Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich, found that she could not survive on $7.00 per hour—not if she wanted to live indoors. Consider how her experiment would have played out in your community. Limiting yourself to $7.50 per hour (which is approximately the minimum wage today in most states), create a hypothetical monthly budget for your part of the country.

Answer 1

Answer:

$7.50 per hour for 40 hours a week, times 4 weeks gives us a monthly salary of $1,200 per month.

Explanation:

The chosen state is Wisconsin.

In Wisconsin, the average monthly rent for a 1 bedroom apartment is $680.

We can expect to spend $250 in groceries per month, by being very savvy.

The utility bill for the month can be $200, in winter it can be higher because of heating bill.

So with these three items we already have a total monthly expense of $1,130, leaving only $70 left, which could be used for gas, in case we own the car, because there would be no money for both gas and car payments.

We can conclude then that this 1,200 monthly salary is hardly a living wage.