> What's your monthly healthcare premium? What's that, your employer provides that for you? Mine is almost $750/month. That's just for me. yes, my employer pay

> What's your monthly healthcare premium? What's that, your employer provides that for you? Mine is almost $750/month. That's just for me. yes, my employer pays the premiums for my HDHP. the coverage is comparable to something at the boundary of a typical silver/gold ACA plan. these cost $450-480/month for an individual, but someone making $30k would likely qualify for a federal credit of $100+/month (not to mention that their tax burden would be significantly lower than your quick estimate). > What's more, as I pointed out, many folks earning minimum wage don't get 40 hours/week. As such, their income is less than the numbers I stated. "many" being about 6% of workers making the minimum wage, according to BLS in 2017.[0] > in the end, it comes down to how we choose to deal with this situation. Do we require employers to provide a (theoretical, remember many don't get 40 hours a week) living wage, or do we as a society pay to subsidize those employers who don't pay enough to allow people to support themselves? > But the issue goes beyond just the dollars and cents. The hoops that many government programs force those who need help to jump through is often demeaning and tends to dehumanize people. What's more, those programs have overhead too. The costs of administering these programs need to be considered part of the subsidy to employers. as a taxpayer, I'm not happy about paying for it, but I tend to think this is society's problem more than any particular business's. inevitably, there will be people who do not produce enough value to sustain themselves. in my ideal world, we would do away with minimum wage entirely, give people UBI sufficient to at least subsist (perhaps coupled with a public option for affordable heathcare), and let businesses employ anyone who wants to work for a market wage. [0]https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2017/home.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2017/home.htm