Employers Taking Advantage Of The Economy
Back several years ago before the economy crashed, employers used to need to pay a decent wage to get job applicants. Wages were $9 to $10 an hour for an entry level position and more for a college graduate, especially those with at least a Bachelor’s degree.
Now I have seen several employers wanting Bachelor’s degree’s that are paying $9.00 an hour. After people graduate from college they have student loans that they must start to pay off. Then they have to pay rent, utilities, food, hygiene products, etc. People working for $9.00 an hour won’t be able to afford all of this. Even people who don’t have student loans can barely make ends meet with these low salaries. I think that if you have an employee who went to college to further their education, they deserve a higher pay than this.
I look through job postings daily to see what is out there. I get really angry at employers who are offering these low wages. The economy is bad right now but employers really need to pay more. The gas prices are very high, so based on how far an employee needs to travel that is $40.00 a week on gas at a minimum. Let’s look at these expenses it cost the average person to live. A $9.00 an hour wage for a 40 hour a week is going to earn you $360 a week. Then you subtract taxes from it which varies from state to state. I am going to use my state of NH as an example. We don’t have state tax, and in most states there would be more taxes taken out.
For a one bedroom apartment it costs about $700 a month. Then you have utilities which average in about $200 a month. That is $900.00 already. Then cost of food for one person each week I would say is $70 to $80.00. You have the cost of hygiene products which can range from $50 to over $200.00 a month.
Cell phones which are now a necessity cost from $60.00 to over $100.00 a month. Then you have gas which I said is at least $40.00 a week. As you can see based on these figures this is not do-able.
I took the smallest amounts and adding them all up to $1,450.00 a month. These figures were based on the state of New Hampshire cost of living. Just think that there are other states that have a higher cost of living and take out more taxes. Now as far as other bills go such as credit cards, student loans, etc I didn’t even figure those in because there is no money to pay those. If you were to figure those in you would be probably over $2K a month! So employers, as you can see, there is no way a 40 hour employee of yours living on their own can afford to be paid $9.00 an hour! You can say “well we can’t afford to pay anything more”. Then hire someone else who doesn’t have a college degree. It’s a personal insult to people who have a degree in college when you pay them that low wage. If you want college experience but don’t have the funds, then either get someone to intern, or outsource your work to another country.