I'm replying to the poster who said that a hundred dollar grocery bill every few days is not uncommon.

It's very uncommon for my family. I use coupons and buy marked down meat. The meat is immediately put in the freezer and taken out when needed. Many other items I get free due to coupons. To find coupons, I order from the web. But mostly they come from the newspaper recycling center. In about a half hour I can usually find many, many coupon inserts and some great magazines. A few summers ago I made over $1200.00 by selling at a yard sale a lot of my surplus free coupon stuff. It did take a while to get used to couponing but now when I see a new product in the store I wait until a coupon comes out and I usually get the product either for a huge discounted price or free. So for about a half hour every week or two my house is stocked with stuff. And a lot of food. My daughter saw me donate a car load of nonperishable items to send down to Katrina victims. We often bring stuff to the food pantry and local charity thrift stores. And if we hear of someone who is having a hard time, we will either mail them a box of stuff with no return address, or leave a box or a few bags of stuff on their porch. Yeah, we don't have a lot of money, but we can still help others.

There is a fundamental disconnect between minimum wage and a living wage. Minimum wage was never meant to be a living wage. The minimum was set to prevent employers from taking (too much) advantage of under skilled or under trained or under experience folks. Not to mention just plain low wage tasks. One should not expect to make a “living wage” as a part time cashier at the local mini-mart.

I do not understand the mentality of you folks saying that a cashier in mini mart should not expect to make a living wage...that makes absolutely no sense to me...why shouldn't a cashier make a living wage? Is it not hard work? Is it not in this day and age, dangerous work? I worked in convenience stores for over twenty years and I can tell you it is no easy piece of cake job. I believe it is the responsibility of an employer to pay their employees a living wage as every workers time is valuable. I am tired of feeling like a thief when I pick up my paycheck...if it wasn't for my labor, the CEO of the corporation I work for would not be able to afford his mansion, his yacht, his month long vacation in Cancun, his five cars, two Harley's, large motor home, and his second home on the beach in Florida.

Joe Minimum Wage

This is the story of Joe M. Wage a young man of eighteen who has just moved away from home and has taken residence with Mrs. Gray an elderly lady by living in a large bedroom with bath for forty dollars a week with utilities included.

His room has a large walk-in closet where he keeps his clothing, housekeeping essentilals and a small store of food. In Joe's room he has a single bed, a large comfortable chair with footstool and a rollable stand with a 20inch tv equipped with a dvd player. His room has a large built in bookcase on the top of which he has placed a small microwave oven a two burner hot plate and a pop-up toaster. He also has purchased a six foot cubic foot refrigerator freezer for his room.

Joe is neat and orderly in his habits and these arramgements are satisfactory with Mrs. Gray. Joe assists where needed to change light bulbs and take out the trash. He usually accompanies Mrs. Gray to a neighborhood church on Sunday and she likes to prepare dinner for them afterwards.

Joe works at a fast food place for minimum wage five days per week from 7AM to 330PM.
He takes public transportation using a weekly bus pass which he purchases for five dollars which has a bus stop a block and a half from his home which drops him off downtown at the corner where he works. On Friday when he cashes his weekly paycheck at a back on the block where he has opened a savings account. He puts twenty dollars weekly in his account and also purchases a twenty five dollar EE Savings Bond.

Joe Keeps to his budget and keeps his funds in envelopes marked for his different accounts. Any left over at the end of the week when he places the budgeted amounts in their envelops the places leftover amounts into an envelope marked "ETO-Extremely Tragic Occurences. This amount, if any, he deposits in hia bank account each week

Since moving back to Vermont in 2002 (I'm a native), I have been stuck at the bottom, aged 57 with a Masters degree and many hard and soft skills, and able to find only part-time seasonal work. In my case, I ran smack into 2 facts about the Vermont job market: blatant age discrimination, and low unemployment (read: turnover). Most of the ads are for jobs in specialized technical areas such as health care.
Since last January I worked at a minimum wage in a so-called training program for over-55 income-eligible seniors, which I was able to do only because it was local and I did not have to commute. I have also worked at a $12/hour seasonal job which annualized at half that wage, with unemployment benefits to span the most expensive time of year (winter).
I truly do not think that anyone who has never worked at one of these jobs (except, maybe during summer vacation) really understands what is involved.
Theorists can theorize, hobby-workers and give-back-to-the-community types can rhapsodize, but the reality is this:
You don't work just one job, because that MAYBE covers your basic survival needs--housing, food, utilities, fuel. It helps to own your house and vehicle outright. Do the math: 35 hrs per week x $7.68 = $268.80 before taxes. Could you live on that?
And by the way, "full-time" no longer means 40 hrs. per week. These jobs invariably are part-time, since benefits do not have to be paid.
So you start checking the employment ads for a second part-time job, maybe evenings and/or weekends. But that kind of work is only offered at 10-15 hours per week, or on a "casual" or "on-call" basis. Now you might be working up to 50 hours per week, not even hitting $400 gross per week. Could you live on that?
Many of these jobs require physical stamina. Retail jobs typically require you to be on your feet all day. I have worked as a non-union "casual" with the U.S. Postal Service, at a job that varied from 10-12 hours per day--lots of overtime, yes, but as one of the union workers told me one night, "There are a lot of well-paid corpses in the graveyard."
Maybe your car breaks down or you're in an accident. There goes your job, your income, and everything else.
Meanwhile, you get home late, hungry and tired, you may have family demands you need to meet, you never have time for R & R because you're working nights and weekends. I have known people who drive hours and miles, in all kinds of weather, day or night, for a cashier's job in a convenience store.
Right now I have relatively well-paying work ($10 per hour) in the hospitality industry but it is only a "casual" position, now in the process of doing a vanishing act due to the downturn in travel. I also sell the occasional free-lance article; I work another free-lance job which is also entirely dependent on demand; and I have applied for work with a senior services agency, again, dependent on demand. At least my social security benefit covers my housing cost . . . but that's all.
People with absolutely no other obligations or responsibilities might get some emotional reward out of living like this. They would not be reliable sources for what VPR says it wants to know.
I can only say that minimum and low-wage jobs do NOT provide a living wage. What they do is to wear you out, eat up your time and gas, and leave you absolutely no room for extras, or even much of a life.
Would YOU be willing or even able to take a job where you got home at 10 pm, hustled up a snack, took a shower, fell into bed, then got up at 6 am to get to your "regular" job on time after feeding yourself and the kids and getting them off to school, scraping the snow off your car, etc. etc.? And all for under $400 a week?
Thanks for listening.

Minimum Wage is NOT a living wage in that one cannot fully support himself with it. When I was just starting out in NYC (late 60s) I earned the minimum but was able to "afford" a 2-room walk-up (a former cold water flat!) and lots and lots of rice for dinner, and a telephone. But I was self-sufficient even if just barely, whereas now I don't know how anyone could have his own apartment on minimum wage AND feed himself AND have a phone. And in Vermont he would NEED a car. No, this is NOT a living wage, it's an Almost-Get-By wage.