But that has nothing to do with GP's claim? GP was talking about your "net pay is below zero", meaning that the job itself pays negative. eg. you get paid $50/day but spent $55/day to earn it. Your comment seems to be about the minimum wage not being able to sustain a given living standard, eg. you get paid $50/day but you need to spend $55/day to survive.

I read their comment differently than you did, but even if I hadn't I don't quite understand your objection. By definition if you're spending $55/day to survive, you're spending $55/day to earn your pay, if nothing more. The situation you describe is not sustainable either. Please clarify.

He is making a distinction between cost to survive (I.e. food, shelter, etc) and cost to have the job (I.e. transport).

"net pay is below zero" means (In his interpretation) that the cost of having the job is greater than the amount the job pays. This is unrelated to the cost of surviving.

First off, it's not $50 per day, because you're probably paying income tax. But let's assume it is.

Second, it's not really "per day", that's an average. Most bills recur monthly. Assuming a month of four weeks, and working 5 days per week, that's 20 * $50 = $1000 per month. Doesn't that seem like an extremely low number to pay for rent, transportation, food, health care, kids, utilities, etc? I pay more for that in rent every month.

>seem like an extremely low number to pay for rent, transportation, food, health care, kids, utilities, etc?

everything in that list except for transportation are sunk costs. In other words, you're paying for those regardless of whether you have the job or not.

> you're paying for those regardless of whether you have the job or not.

...unless you're not paying for those because you literally don't have any money.

So yeah, food is a sunk cost, sure. But that sinking will kill you without a job.

>...unless you're not paying for those because you literally don't have any money.

That's not how accounting works. If you got a FAANG job that paid $300k/year, then proceeded to blow $60k on a tesla, your net pay for the job isn't $240k.

Right, but at that minimum wage job you're not going to blow that $60k on a Tesla. You're not even going to blow $10 to go look at a Tesla. You're going to blow $2k on a root canal because your food is crap and your medical coverage is worse.

Also, that $60k on a Tesla for the FAANG worker amounts to a small percent of the worker's disposable income. But that $2k amounts to over 100% of the minimum wage worker's disposable income.

> Right, but at that minimum wage job you're not going to blow that $60k on a Tesla. You're not even going to blow $10 to go look at a Tesla. You're going to blow $2k on a root canal because your food is crap and your medical coverage is worse.

Way to miss the point. Whether the item is a tesla or a can of beans is irrelevant. The point is that if previously you couldn't afford X, after getting a new job you could afford X, then you can't say that X is a cost/expense of getting the job.

What point are you trying to make? The federal minimum wage is not enough to cover people's expenses, whether those expenses come from holding the job or not is irrelevant as to whether such a situation is "sustainable." This feels like pedantry.

> The point is that if previously you couldn't afford X, after getting a new job you could afford X, then you can't say that X is a cost/expense of getting the job.

Sure I can if X is a basic necessity of life.

They're not "sunk costs", they're "basic necessities". They have to be paid for every month (or whatever period), so if a job doesn't provide enough money to pay for them, it is not paying a living wage.

You can't just say "they need those to live" as if that absolves you of explaining how to pay for the things they need to live.