Working Poor In Rural USA

[passiveporcupine]

29. very good OP

You wrote:
"Standard pay is eight dollars an hour, which, while being slightly above minimum wage, requires you to either work full time to barely get by, or to work full time and get an additional part time job in order to avoid the necessity of state/federal aid. If you have children who depend on you, well... you're kind of screwed, without a degree or professional career."

What is really not discussed enough is that people living on "barely able to survive" wages, usually do not have enough money to put anything in savings, so they will end up without a retirement fund, if they are unable to find a job that helps them with benefits and a 401K. Social Security only pays about half of what you make now, so retirement will likely leave you in poverty and needed assistance from the government. Hopefully, before you retire, your circumstances will improve...but what if something happens and you become disabled before you can earn more money or a better SS payout? You will be living in poverty and on assistance the rest of your life . And republicans want to cut that assistance and even cut your social security benefits, while denying cost of living raises to people on minimum wage. And minimum wage increases bump up all other low level wages.

This whole picture is just obscene. Everyone cannot have a good job that pays and offers good benefits. We need people to work all the not so good or not so well paid jobs. And it's not their fault that they aren't paid enough for the work they do...it's a fucked up social contract that allows people to work for slave wages. We will always have the lower rungs of the ladder...but now it's getting to the point that too many of the ladder rungs are below sea level and we need to fix this. NOW!