If you have a minimum wage job ($7.25/hour), you need to work 55 hours to buy an iPhone 6 Plus (64 GB), and 149 hours for a year of Verizon service; 74 minutes gets you a Sara Lee Frozen Apple Pie.
Pfft! Those are all luxuries that poor people shouldn’t even think about buying. Except maybe to incentivize them to work harder. I know, because my Republican congress-critter told me so.
That pie says it has 21 portions.
I suspect Sara Lee is using a formula similar to that of the Federal Govt.
edit: I see now that is 2 !, not 21.
Sara Lee treats people better than the Federal Govt.
Is the answer to the question “one day older and deeper in debt”?
Math is wrong here.
If you think about it, you still have taxes - which likely make up for anywhere form 1/4 to 1/2 of your income, depending on if you actually have to pay for healthcare.
So reality is that you have to work 82 hours if half of that salary is available. It should also be noted we are talking 100% of take home pay explicitly towards the iphone. Or if you can only save up 10% of your take home pay to put towards the iphone, then hey it takes you 16 weeks to save enough for an iphone!
What minimum wage gets you is not a whole lot.
Well the iPhone IS a luxury. I would agree one needs a phone of some kind these days. Because of my uncertain future work prospects, I am still on a “dumb” phone with a small data plan I barely used. But even if one wanted to get a smart phone with a data plan there are many more economical choices out there.
We all need cars to dive too, but an economical used one makes more sense than buying new.
If you will please note my usage above of the word “all,” the consternation provoked in you by my comment may well be alleviated.
What is and isn’t a necessity is a social distinction.
Take mobile phones, for instance – once they’d become common enough, employers would expect that each employee had one and could make or receive telephone calls at almost any time.
Smartphones are a little fuzzier, since their capabilities overlap with several other now-common items. Employers, government agencies, and other institutions assume that everyone’s got more or less continuous access to telephone, email, and the Web; you can accomplish that with a smartphone, or with a desktop computer, or with some combination of other devices, but you’re going to have significant practical difficulties if you don’t maintain access to these services. You’ll also be socially isolated.
Sure, smartphones are debatable, but keep your hands off my Sara Lee frozen apple pies!
I am guessing the author is not a minimum wage earner, as these comparison’s seem geared towards people who think about life in billable hours with the luxury to choose when and how to work, and autonomy to decide how much effort will be invested in each billable hour. This is not the case with minimum wage, where workers are conscripted and pay is compensation for lost freedom and mobility. The incentive for minimum wage earners is to not lose the job under constant threat and fear of losing all income, versus the much different task of self-employed and salaried workers seeking rewards above and beyond base earnings.
You bought a car that can DIVE and you’re criticizing OTHER people for spending too much money on luxury goods??
@mister44 is Elon Musk.
You’re right about the situation of minimum-wage workers, but I’m not sure there’s a fault to be found with the original article, which makes the simple point about how expensive things are when you only make $7.25 per hour, with a punchline about how disgustingly rich the Koch brothers are.
I just heard that if combined into one, they’d be the wealthiest person on earth. And that if the Keystone Pipeline happens, they stand to make about a hundred billion more.
I remember a little buzz some years ago about The Trump’s (Donald Trump) time being so valuable that it was not worth it for him to pick up a $100 bill that he happened to notice lying in his path.
The time to stop, stoop, and scoop, few seconds though it might be, was calculated to be worth more to him than a measly Benjamin.
Reminds me of another little buzz a year or two ago:
ETA: Why aren’t there TV shows that pathologize people like this as “hoarders”? (A rhetorical question, I guess.)
…another day older and deeper in debt…
Great minds work alike 
Lyrics to Sixteen Tons.
Should be rewritten to “Sixteen tones” about phone phreaking…
Know what else minimum wage gets you? Medicaid and food stamps. God bless America!
