Go read Roy Edroso, the whole thing:
Ah, Megan McArdle is at Bloomberg now. Let’s see what she’s up to — oh yeah, that McDonald’s how-to-survive-on-our-shitty-pay thing. Guess what, McArdle sides with McDonald’s! (Herhusband’s right, these scripts are getting awfully predictable.)
Moreover, a number of people are claiming that this budget is not merely unkind, but downright Draconian — “the amounts specified in this budget just aren’t enough to get by, at least not safely,” Irregular Times says.
This seems overdramatic; $24,000 in after-tax dollars is not princely. But it doesn’t put you at significant risk of death or dismemberment. While $800 a month is not a lot to have for clothes, entertainment, groceries and sundries, even taking inflation into account, that was a lot more than the disposable income I had when I first started at The Economist. After student loans, rent and taxes, I had about $300 for everything else, including utilities and MetroCards.
Young career-tracker with a starter job at The Economist, McDonald’s employee = pretty much the same thing.
If you are a middle-class professional, and you attempt to imagine replicating your own lifestyle on McDonald’s wages, you are bound to feel panic and outrage. But that’s not actually the task facing people who work at McDonald’s, or people with a household after-tax income of about $24,000 a year.
Yeah, they’re never going to need just the right shoes for a gala reception, so their needs are different.
Read the rest.
I think I am going to abandon atheism in favor of reincarnation because the spectre of Megan’s return as a dung beetle is just so damn satisfying.
Yes MickeyD’s is verry generous. So what kind of flat is available in most major cities for $600/mo? I wonder what kind of dingy place Ms. McGargle flops in??
Megan McArdle. Seriously? This is what you’re doing? That’s why I don’t come here much any more. You’ve got to be kidding me.
We’ll really miss you, tsi.
Good luck in all your future endeavors.