re: True or false: it's harder to get a job that covers basic living now

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Basic living is subjective. The problem is that wages have not kept up with inflation of goods.

This is very hard for older generations to realize.

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Biggest source of conflict between me and my parents. My mom believes they could live comfortably today on $40k a year, because that's what my dad made in the mid-70's.

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Life is hard when you're dumb. As my dad always said, if you want to be stupid, you better be tough. You shouldn't be rewarded with my tax dollars because of your failures in life.

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Sounds like your dad should take his own advice. Is he aware his tax dollars don't pay another person's private employee salary?

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The living wage for BR is $10.76 for a single person.

Living Wage Calculator

While I'm sure it was easier in the past to make the living wage of an area, I'd hardly call $10.76 "hard".

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Some of the numbers on that thing seem pretty far-fetched. For a single adult:

$2983 per year on food = $8.17 per day
$2325 per year on medical = $193.75 per month
$7062 per year on housing = $588.50 per month

All these seem low. There is no health insurance you can buy for under $200 a month that doesn't have high deductibles and/or co-pays that would easily drive the "typical" expense above the $193.75 shown. I haven't checked prices in BR lately, but I'd be afraid to walk into whatever you can rent or buy there for only $588 a month. But the worst seems to be $8.17 per day for food. There is no way you could feed yourself on eight freaking dollars a day unless you just starved yourself a fair amount of the time. "Living wage" doesn't mean lobster every meal, but it should at least mean being able to have three meals a day.

It may be possible to find a great deal on groceries, medical insurance or housing like those listed above, but it would be rare to find and anything but "typical".

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cell phone, internet, student loans, transportation, insurance,

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Those are not necessary to a basic life. And you can absolutely afford a cell phone, internet, transportation, and insurance on a minimum wage job.

Can you afford a family of 4 and the latest greatest of each of those? Of course not, but I don't consider family part of basic life. That's a luxury that you have to work for

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But the worst seems to be $8.17 per day for food. There is no way you could feed yourself on eight freaking dollars a day unless you just starved yourself a fair amount of the time. "

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For a single person? That's $56 a week. That's easy as shite.

A bag of cereal $2
A gallon of milk $5
A dozen eggs $2
A bag of Lettuce $4
Salad dressing $2
an entire chicken $5
2 pork tenderloins $5
7 frozen steamable veggies $7
A bag of carrots $2
A bag of celery $2


Breakfast: cereal and milk or eggs
Lunch: chicken and salad
Dinner: pork and veggies
Snacks: carrots and celery

At that point your grocery bill is $36 a week and you're running a savings of 20 per week which you can use to splurge or go out to eat once a week.

Or if you save that $20 per week, that's $80 per month, which can pay for your cellphone or cheap basic internet.

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Compared to 30 years ago, my in-laws could afford a house (tripled in value since,

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Not the point of this thread, but how much has the dollar changed since then? This bugs me when brought up.

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Those are not necessary to a basic life. And you can absolutely afford a cell phone, internet, transportation, and insurance on a minimum wage job.

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yeah if you're on welfare

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Those are not necessary to a basic life.

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In the literal sense of the term, of course you're right.

But many people (myself included) do NEED a cell phone and internet in my home for my job. I wouldn't be able to do my job properly without it. So for me (and I know many others fall into the same boat), a cell phone and internet are actually basic necessities. And I travel for meetings, and having transportation was a prerequisite to getting the job. And you can't legally have transportation (or in many cases rent an apartment or own a home) without insurance, so...

Without all those things, I'd probably lose my job and then definitely not be able to afford shelter, food, and water. So I would consider them necessities.

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Those are not necessary to a basic life. And you can absolutely afford a cell phone, internet, transportation, and insurance on a minimum wage job. 

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bullshite that you can afford all of those on minimum wage. Especially car insurance in Louisiana. God forbid you have any speeding tickets or an accident on your record and you're probably looking at a payment that's half of your car note

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7 nights on one whole chicken? So at some point your protein is maybe 1 chicken wing. Potentially a thigh if your lucky. I literally bought a small one from albertsons yesterday for upwards of 7 dollars ON SALE.

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Yeah I usually go through half a rotisserie chicken in one sitting. Did so last night, in fact.

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A dozen eggs $2

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Also, where are you buying your eggs? Because I need to start shopping there.

Eggs are usually around $4/dozen.