I'm going to take the example of somebody making minimum wage. We'll call her Sophie. Let's give Sophie 38 hours a week at her job at Wal-Mart so that the company doesn't have to give her benefits, which means I can add in an extra two weeks of salary because her vacation will be unpaid, so she won't take it. Awesome.

The federal minimum wage is $5.15/hr, or around $40/day. That's $195.70 a week (before taxes) for Sophie's 38 hour week, or $10,176.40 a year. An individual person filing single is in the 15% tax bracket in 2004, meaning that before any deductions or exemptions she would pay $1526.46 in taxes. But the standard single deduction is $4,850 and the personal exemption is $3100, putting her at a taxable income of $2226.40, well inside the 10% tax bracket. After paying taxes, Sophie brings home just under $10,000. So let's leave it at that. A nice round number.

Sophie lives in Akron, Ohio, simply because I think the name Akron is silly. Thank God for the federal minimum wage law, because Ohio's minimum wage is only $4.25/hr.

I've found a studio apartment at Alphada Place for Sophie. It's 325 sq. ft.; to give you some perspective, that could be a room that is 18'x18'. It's $385/month. Heat, gas and water are included, so the only utilities Sophie has to pay are electricity and telephone. Sophie will pay $4620/year in rent, leaving her $5380 a year to spend. The average electricity cost in Akron for a 2000 sq ft home is $74/month. Sophie's place is much smaller. Let's say $30/month, or $360/year. Sophie is down to $5020 for this year.

The closest Wal-Mart to Sophie is the one at 3750 W. Market St. in Fairlawn, which means she will have to drive her shit box of a car 11 miles a day to and from work for 5 days a week. We'll say that she uses two gallons of gas a day in traffic and go traffic. Right now gas in Akron looks like it's about $1.77/gallon. That's $920.40 a year in gas. Sophie's new left-over salary? $4099.60.

Sophie needs a phone, right? Let's make Sophie hip and give her just a cell phone. Cingular has a great plan for $20, but it only gives Sophie 50 minutes a month. We're going to have to bump her up to the 250 minute plan so that she can have some semblance of a social life and won't have to pay $0.79/minute overage. So we'll give her the $29.99 plan. Say $35/mo after taxes and all of that crap. $420 a year, and Sophie is at $3679.60.

Sophie has to eat, right? Well, yes. 3 meals a day, 365 days a year... maybe $3 a meal? She can eat shitty TV dinners and drink tap water, dammit. That's 1095 meals a year, minus one dinner out for fun every week, or 1043 meals at home every year. $3129/year for TV dinners, plus one special meal with her boyfriend (dutch, of course) at Taco Bell every week for $5... Sophie pays $3389/year in food. Which now leaves Sophie with $290. And fingers crossed that Sophie is a small woman, because you don't get a lot of kcalories for $3/meal.

(Food, by the way, is the expense with which Sophie would be fucked if she made Ohio's minimum wage, because she'd
be pulling in almost $2000/year less.)

What's Sophie going to do for fun? Watch television! Surf the Internet! Um, except Time Warner wants $60/month for basic cable, and $100/month for cable plus Internet, so maybe Sophie is just better off staring at the wall or reading books that her friends lend her. I'd send her to the library but that would cost money in gas. So, yeah. We're counting on her friends here.

Sophie, I wish I could give you a pet, but at $10/week in pet food ($520 a year) that would put you in hock by $230/year.

So, Sophie, go to it! After all of your recurring expenses you have $290 a year--a smidge less than $25/month--to spend on clothes, furniture, toilet paper, soap, deodourant, toothpaste (which you're going to need, since you can't afford to go to the dentist), car repairs, entertainment, and anything else that doesn't fall under food, rent or utilities. And please don't get sick because you don't have any health insurance. Also, don't have a baby. Or any fun.

Tune in next week when Sophie gets a roommate (in her 325 sq. ft. studio apartment) and food stamps!