??? My comment is not particularly downvoted. Are you trying to draw downvotes to it? This is not something I am unfamiliar with. I did not grow up in America.

??? My comment is not particularly downvoted. Are you trying to draw downvotes to it? This is not something I am unfamiliar with. I did not grow up in America. I think you are putting too much of your reality on a set of numbers. Sure, housing is a lot cheaper in Romania! But it did not necessarily come with running water, or heat. Healthcare was free! If it existed for you. So you can do a heck of a lot more living in the US even without making a ton of money. I don't know what you are going on about on mutual support. Mutual support means providing housing and meals and care for people you know. Using that as justification to pass economic laws seems exploitative I think the owning your own car thing is pretty relevant here to your point - MIT's Living Wage calculator includes $7k in travel expenses for someone living in Manhattan. So in this particular case it's not reflective of local infrastructure. (It also seems unusually high - we own two cars and only budget $2500 a year for transportation). I would actually encourage you to get to know some immigrants in your area. I think you will find they are doing better off than you think, even on wages lower than you would expect. Remittances are HUGE in most communities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remittances_from_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remittances_from_the_United_St... I'm not saying that we shouldn't help people in need - I certainly have accepted my share of handouts. But I find the attempt to make a "living wage" that's a proxy for financial hardship in general is such a backwards approach to the problem.