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I think you're exaggerating a little bit. It doesn't help whatever point you're trying to make. Average community college tuition cost[0]: $3,400/yr. $3400/yr

I think you're exaggerating a little bit. It doesn't help whatever point you're trying to make. Average community college tuition cost[0]: $3,400/yr. $3400/yr is $70/week in order to pay your tuition without a loan. Your argument is only lucky people making minimum wage for 40 hours/week, who have their rent paid for, can save $70/week? [0] https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-community-college https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-community-college

wpietri 4y ago
US minimum wage is $7.25; 40 hours a week would be $14,500 in pre-tax income. Average car ownership, per AAA, costs $10,728. Adding in the $3,400 for tuition leaves an entire $372 for food, clothing, hygiene, entertainment, and medical expenses. Seems reasonable! Setting aside quickly Googled statistics and the risks of using averages to understand individual situations, plus the wide state-by-state variation in support to community college, let's just take the minimum wage and your $70/week number. Let's also set aside how it's quite hard to get 40 hours per week these days in a lot of jobs because of corporate schedule fuckery that was much less severe when I was punching a McDonald's clock. That's circa 10 hours per week of pay or 25% of their time. Is that number a lot? I would say yes. I don't know many people who can save 25% of their gross pay. If that's you, congrats.
- googlryas 4y ago
  I see this all the time when talking about minimum wage earners. At least you admitted it is not realistic, but you still presented it anyway. We admit they're in the 0th percentile of earners, but then pretend like their expenses should be the median or mean expenses. Why would somebody earning essentially the zeroth percentile wages be paying for 50th percentile car ownership? The other common example is how minimum wage earners can't afford an average 2br rental in any state. If minimum wage earners are paying for the 50th percentile apartments, who exactly is living in 30th percentile apartments?
  - wpietri 4y ago
    Just to be clear, I presented it to mock your approach of jumping in with a quickly-googled national average number and acting like it means anything here.
diordiderot 4y ago
No other expenses in life?

wpietri 4y ago

US minimum wage is $7.25; 40 hours a week would be $14,500 in pre-tax income. Average car ownership, per AAA, costs $10,728. Adding in the $3,400 for tuition leaves an entire $372 for food, clothing, hygiene, entertainment, and medical expenses. Seems reasonable! Setting aside quickly Googled statistics and the risks of using averages to understand individual situations, plus the wide state-by-state variation in support to community college, let's just take the minimum wage and your $70/week number. Let's also set aside how it's quite hard to get 40 hours per week these days in a lot of jobs because of corporate schedule fuckery that was much less severe when I was punching a McDonald's clock. That's circa 10 hours per week of pay or 25% of their time. Is that number a lot? I would say yes. I don't know many people who can save 25% of their gross pay. If that's you, congrats.

googlryas 4y ago
I see this all the time when talking about minimum wage earners. At least you admitted it is not realistic, but you still presented it anyway. We admit they're in the 0th percentile of earners, but then pretend like their expenses should be the median or mean expenses. Why would somebody earning essentially the zeroth percentile wages be paying for 50th percentile car ownership? The other common example is how minimum wage earners can't afford an average 2br rental in any state. If minimum wage earners are paying for the 50th percentile apartments, who exactly is living in 30th percentile apartments?
- wpietri 4y ago
  Just to be clear, I presented it to mock your approach of jumping in with a quickly-googled national average number and acting like it means anything here.

diordiderot 4y ago

No other expenses in life?