I'm kind of more shocked at $16,000 a year is considered above poverty.
this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2025
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The poverty line was historically measured simply by multiplying the USDA's cheapest food plan for a household to buy groceries with adequate nutrition, and multiplying by 3.
Then, in the intervening 6 decades or so, food inflation has gone up significantly slower than housing inflation, to where that simple assumption of "barely enough to eat, times 3" began systematically understating actual poverty.
Today, feeding the reference family of 4 (2 adults 20-50, 1 kid aged 6-8, 1 aged 9-11) costs $996.20 per month (as of March 2025). That's basically $12,000 per year, so the poverty line for a family of 4 is $32,150 (updated every January with September data).
Ain't seen nothing yet, price adjustments after tariffs gonna make middle class in great depression queues.
But eggs'll be cheap, right?
President Felon will change the poverty threshold to $0.15 to prove everyone is doing excellent.
$15k a year??? That wouldn’t even cover my food let alone a shitty hotel room. Anything below $50k as a single earner is deep in poverty.
Yes, it sounds bad. But there is a bright side, too! The week has 168 hours, which means if you work four full time jobs, you can make $60k a year and you still get eight hours of sleep! /s
IIRC, the federal poverty level doesn’t account for housing, transport, utilities, etc… It basically only accounts for food. And even then, it only accounts for the cheapest of the cheap food; You’d basically be eating white rice and instant ramen every day.
$7.25 has been poverty wages for over a decade.
That’s been a poverty wage for at least 15 years.
Yeah, the “$15 minimum wage” conversation has been going on for so long that the actual number adjusted for inflation would be well into the mid $20 range. IIRC, it would currently land somewhere around $24.75 per hour.
And if the idea of a $24.75 minimum wage makes you balk, maybe you should consider how little you’re being paid for the work you do, when compared to what the minimum wage used to cover. It used to cover enough for a single full time worker to afford housing, utilities, food, and a car. If you’re struggling to do that and you’re making in the mid $20’s, then congrats you know how it felt to be paid minimum wage when it was introduced.
CEOs read "minimum wage" and they think "maximum wage".
It's just a branding issue. /s
For an individual supporting themselves. For anyone with a family, it's been a poverty wage for a very long time. Spoiler, more than a third of minimum wage earners have children to support.
Um? I'm making more than twice that and I can just barely afford rent, food, etc. I'd hesitate to call anything below $15/hr even remotely livable, and that's out in the sticks.
The solution is obviously to abolish HHS.
The criteria must be wrong because by these metrics half of Americans are below poverty!