My dream retirement job happens to be greeter at Walmart. I can socialize all day "Hello! How are you today?" with no pressures and no responsibilities. I can't wait...

This thread is interesting. If you believe everybody on here, then hardly anybody makes minimum wage but it's going to cost businesses more to raise minimum wage so we're going to have major inflation. If nobody is making minimum wage anyway, then it should have no effect on prices of anything to raise it. In fact, if hardly anybody makes minimum wage, then it will have no effect on anything to raise it.

In Michigan, if you don't have children, the only form of welfare is food stamps. I guess Section 8 housing could be counted as welfare, but even that is too expensive in many areas.

When I tried to get a 3 bedroom apartment here, I found out that the only ones in my area are "moderate income housing" and you had to make less than $35,000 with 2 kids to qualify for it. The rent was $875 a month. If I had two kids and only made $35,000, I couldn't afford $875 in rent! Ridiculous!

Anyway, I rambled and got off topic.

Well, that's not *quite* fair. Not all of those things are choices. Though I agree with the sentiment - a lot of life IS about the choices you make (if nothing else, then about how you deal with the hand you're dealt) and making poor decisions about career, living situation, family, debt, etc. isn't going to help.

Ha. You might have an easier time making the $875 in rent, though, with the help of food stamps, free child care, etc.

Clearly, the answer to this problem is for you to start making babies.

Uhh.. I have two kids and that's enough for me! You have to be below poverty level to get food stamps. I'd have to make less than $15,000 a year. Free day care? What world is that in? Only if you get ADC do you get free day care and that's only while you're LOOKING for a job, not once you get one.

I make quite a bit more than minimum wage but it's hard to make ends meet with only one income in a family. I honestly have no idea how people can live on less than so little (even if they make $9 an hour, that's not much).

The numbers I provided are for a certain age group - generally the group that is working those jobs as a way to make a living. Teenagers and college kids that are working to make date money often work these jobs. And the places they work at are often the places that cater to less wealthy individuals.

And don't forget the earned income tax credit that you may qualify for when you get a job at Walmart.

The apartment thing is strange. In Chicago, you can get a nice 1 bedroom for 1200 and then if you made a low amount of money i think it dropped to 400 or so. Strange.

-Rudey

Tonight my book club is discussing,Random Family by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc . It documents 3 generations in one family who "oopsed" their way through life.

I'm mostly being a smart aleck. I'm grumpy today. The apartment thing WAS weird and really frustrating because I was forced to buy a house when I didn't really want to yet. Anyway, they weren't LOW income housing, they were MODERATE income housing.. very odd.