Assignment 3

My Budget

Car Insurance--$115

Car Payment--$200

Gas Money--$30

Housing--Living with parents

Food--$50

Hygiene--$30

Clothes--$60

Phone Bill--$100

Money for Family--$300

Art Supplies--$50

School Supplies--$70

Savings--150

Total--$1155

1. Now that you have made this budget, is it possible for a person to survive on minimum wage? Why or why not?

Even when I was trying to save as much money as possible, I still managed to go over $1000. Which means even living with my parents and paying as little as possible, I still couldn’t survive with minimum wage. If I can’t manage to survive on minimum wage, how is someone with a family supposed to survive on minimum wage. It’s just not possible. Even if it was a single person living in a dingy old apartment, they still wouldn’t be able to survive. $7.25 an hour is way too little money for someone to survive.

2. If you completed your budget as a single person with no children, how do you think a single mother or father would be able to survive on minimum wage?

A single parent would have to pay very little on most of the essentials to care for themselves and their children as much as possible. They would have to pay less on food, they would have to live in old houses with poor sale value, and at some point the parent would need to get another job. Which would mean they parent would need to get their child a babysitter and they’ll have to pay more. It’s this neverending cycle, no matter how hard someone of the working poor works, they’ll always end up back in this rut they want and need to get out of so badly.

3. Has this exercise changed the way you think about the working poor? Explain.

No this hasn’t changed my perspective. Technically, my family is a part of the working poor family. My mom has worked four jobs at the same time at one time to try to take care of me, my siblings, and our Nana. I have been trying to get a job since the summer of last year, and only recently have I been able to actually get a job. Of course the pay is minimum wage or maybe even a little over that. But I need to help all I can. So no, this assignment hasn’t changed the way I feel about the working poor, because I know almost exactly how most of them feel.

#Sociology #Spring2016