I am very, very familiar with how the poor and poverty stricken live considering I've been there and have been very public about my and my family's experience.
Which is precisely why I find framing arguments around removing minimum wage as some benefit to the poor to be rather disgusting, because it does absolutely nothing to solve the problem.
A job which can't pay shit isn't going to help you survive when the rent is due and you're earning $5 or less an hour. Even moreso if you're disabled and companies further take advantage of your desperation to work you into the ground until you break.
This isn't about helping the poor, it's about allowing companies to fleece them harder.
Because the way the American social safety net works, you often wind up losing more than $5/hour worth of benefits to get that $5/hour job.
Many low wage jobs are physically demanding, have terrible (or no dependable) schedules, and offer limited hours so as to avoid having to offer benefits. It's not uncommon for low wage workers to juggle two or three jobs in order to get enough hours of paid work to survive. The problem then is that it is very hard to manage schedule conflicts between the jobs when they occur. Too many conflicts can cost you your job. I've seen this happen many times.
> Because the way the American social safety net works, you often wind up losing more than $5/hour worth of benefits to get that $5/hour job.
Yeah, the marginal tax for the underclass is a huge problem!
If you lose $12/h in benefits by taking a $10/h job, most people won't take the job. Not because they're lazy, but because they're sensible rational people.
Which is precisely why I find framing arguments around removing minimum wage as some benefit to the poor to be rather disgusting, because it does absolutely nothing to solve the problem.
A job which can't pay shit isn't going to help you survive when the rent is due and you're earning $5 or less an hour. Even moreso if you're disabled and companies further take advantage of your desperation to work you into the ground until you break.
This isn't about helping the poor, it's about allowing companies to fleece them harder.