Yes, absolutely. During and after college (4 year university), I worked at a bakery in a fairly major Midwestern city. For working ~45 hours a week, I made roughly $1,200 after taxes. One room in a 2-bedroom apartment was $350, leaving me with about $850 for everything else. Definitely enough for cheap beer, groceries at Aldi, and other budget entertainment.

It certainly wasn't a luxurious lifestyle and I wouldn't wish it upon anyone, but it also wasn't much different than living in a dorm at college...or even the startup lifestyle, seeing that this is HN. Absolutely doable for a young person (as the original link is about) and not a straight ticket to homelessness.

For what it's worth, I also spent quite a bit of time traveling around Europe and had many art student friends living on half as much money in smaller cities in France, Germany, etc.

Thank you for replying. I live in the EU and indeed wages are lower, but of course prices are also lower.

When I was 16, I worked at a bakery too, as an apprentice. I made a pittance and lived in a squat because I couldn't afford rent, but I enjoyed the work and I could eat of the produce to my heart's content (I have a big heart). This was in Athens, Greece, btw.

On the other hand, neither I nor you had a family at the time we worked such low-pay jobs and I suspect that a minimum wage job would not be sufficient for two adults wanting to start a family.

Did you have any significant medical issues?

This guy's story doesn't track, for so many reasons, but I'm gonna stick to the basics

1.) median wage in America for ALL workers is around $28k a year -- meaning this guy was, supposedly on his "minimum wage" job, earning more than fully half of all Americans. Think about that. He was in the upper half of the income distribution, on "minimum wage" ? really?

(A typical minimum wage job pays $10k a year BEFORE taxes -- 28 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, $7.25 an hour. It is extremely rare for low wage employers to allow an employee to work more than 29 hours a week, as it may oblige them to offer benefits at the 30 hour mark, and extra pay at the 40 hour mark.)

2. There is not a single state in the union where median rents are as low as he describes -- did he just rent the very cheapest room in the entire 50 states?

https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/research/median-...

Americans love telling each other stories about how they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, but they also love to omit the details of how they got things like 45 hours a week, or made more than 50% of American workers, despite working for a "minimum wage," or got paid time and a half on his "minimum wage" job, or found housing near a job center at below the median cost for even the most rural and blighted parts of the country.

All of these, individually, are staggeringly unlikely. Together, they come off as the luckiest man alive. It seems impossible unless he was working in his uncle's bakery and living in his brother's apartment.

(The refreshing thing about this comic is that the author didn't blow smoke up our asses about "bootstraps," it's very plain he felt lucky to escape his situation.)

I have not done this myself, but 2-3 of my friends are doing this currently in the midwest. One is working at a warehouse; one is working at a major home improvement store; and one is doing part time work which effectively amounts to minimum wage. Like the GP stated in his other post, their lifestyles aren't fantastic and they definitely are constrained in their spending, but they are hardly living in squalor: they have adequate, safe, reliable housing; they have functional vehicles; they have health insurance; they don't go hungry; they take driving trips; they come out to our group events and bring their own booze; and they are not in danger of becoming homeless. There is a huge delta between solidly middle class / upper middle class and poor / precarious or homeless which doesn't seem to be acknowledged.