The median income is $32K. The joker in the story is being put up as some kind of typical employer and is offering $12/hr and up and you know thats marketing s

The median income is $32K. The joker in the story is being put up as some kind of typical employer and is offering $12/hr and up and you know thats marketing speak for all new hires get $12/hr and not a penny more unless he's the bosses cousin or something. Huh. $12/hr assuming full time pay is a whopping staggering $24K and I bet there's no bennies. If the median income is in that city is at least 30% higher he must be one of the crappiest paying employers in that entire city. Lets keep rollin with the analysis. Zillow for that city is a mess, but we'll call the "average home value" is $120K for this "average employee" making a staggering $12/hr. Now we run the numbers and that means housing costs five times annual income. Thats not survivable at lower incomes, its not like health insurance or car repair or food is any cheaper merely because your boss is one of the cheapest employers in the entire city. I can see why he gets very few applicants that aren't high... anyone who's sober enough to do the math can figure out his pay is literally unsurvivable yet his competitors pay quite a bit more making them, if not survivable, at least less unsurvivable. Wikipedia notes "Scottdale's crime rate is less than 40% of the national average". Its not that the people are bad, its that they tried to imply the cheapest sweatshop is somehow indicative of ... anything. Wikipedia further notes that "About ... 8.3% of the population were below the poverty line" so the article implies everyone there is unemployed or has the world's cheapest boss, yet 90+% of the population seem to be doing too well financially to work at the steelworks, its not a significant policy problem so much as one dumpy employer.