Up North Progressive

If you’re working a part time or minimum wage job, many regions of the United States’ cost of living is out of reach. In Michigan, where there are huge disparities between wages and cost of living, food and shelter for a single person earning minimum wage is impossible even in the poorest counties.

Find your county and take a look at the information. It shows wages for single people through two parent families with three children, and how much it costs to provide necessities every month. In Otsego County, for example, a single parent with two children needs to earn nearly $52,000 per year just to meet monthly expenses. According to Wikipedia:

The median income for a household in the county was $40,876, and the median income for a family was $46,628. Males had a median income of $34,413 versus $21,204 for females. The per capita income for the county was $19,810. About 5.30% of families and 6.80% of the population were below the poverty line, including 7.50% of those under age 18 and 7.10% of those age 65 or over.

Republican presidential candidates are stumping all over the country telling people the real issues America must address are what a woman does with her uterus, what consenting adults do in private, and people we don’t like crossing the border into this country legally and illegally.

It might be a good idea to pay more attention to the candidates who address how difficult it is for an average family to survive every day in the United States instead.