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You’re probably hearing plenty of talk about minimum wage, wage gaps, and the like as political campaigns ramp up for the next presidential election cycle, but if you’ve been tuning out the noise, you probably aren’t aware how bad things really are for the lowest earners among us.
When one Twitter user posted about the difference 10 years can make living on minimum wage, though, people came out of the woodwork with even more statistics.
And yeah…none of them were uplifting, to say the least.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index, today’s prices in 2020 are 17.96% higher than average prices since 2010.
— Bix Beiderbeck (@bix_beiderbeck) December 31, 2019
It began with the fact that, since the minimum wage in 2010 was $7.25, and it was $7.25 in 2020, the rate we pay minimum wage workers has actually decreased, once you take inflation into consideration.
That is not quite true.
Average loaf of bread in 2010 cost $1.41 in 2019 cost $2.36
— Okey Moronu (@OkeyMor57) December 31, 2019
People piled on with inflation statistics, how other countries approach minimum wage work, and how billionaires are making out in all of this.
The Australians are laughing at us, folks! pic.twitter.com/cbT7elIg4H
— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) January 1, 2020
Hint: none of it is good news for us regular folk.
Meanwhile:
You have to spend $117 today to buy what $100 bought back then
Wage should be $8.55 just to keep up with inflation.
You’ll have to work an extra 373.5 hours in 2020 to match the spending power of a 40-hour-per-week job on $7.25 in 2010.
— the toad dad (@Grickit) December 31, 2019
Yeah. We’re basically going to be working until we die.
Fifteen and a half entire extra days of your precious god damn life in 2020 if you’re making $7.25 in order to match what that same job would have bought you at $7.25 in 2010.
That’s how much more expensive everything has gotten. Half a month of your lifespan next year. Gone.
— the toad dad (@Grickit) December 31, 2019
And we won’t get to buy any fun stuff, really, either.
$15 would have been alright in the like…80s and 90s when we started asking for it.
How does everyone forget that? We haven’t even raised how much we are asking for to compensate for inflation
— Eva Dragonhart (painful depressed dummy) (@GeekyFoxy) December 31, 2019
Jeff Bezos, though, is enjoying how much we all really love to shop on Amazon.
HUH FUNNY THAT pic.twitter.com/otRLBINtMc
— sitcompsychic (@sitcompsychic) December 31, 2019
I think I need to reorder my life, guys – new year, new us? Let’s give it a shot!
But hey, those are my thoughts. What do you think? Let us know in the comments!
