Well thankfully we don't have to imagine, people have researched this: https://livingwage.mit.edu/. According to these data, the living wage across the US in 2019 was $16.54: https://livingwage.mit.edu/articles/61-new-living-wage-data-.... So it's not at all inconceivable that the federal minimum is a poverty wage, in fact it almost certainly is.
"net pay is below zero" means (In his interpretation) that the cost of having the job is greater than the amount the job pays. This is unrelated to the cost of surviving.
Second, it's not really "per day", that's an average. Most bills recur monthly. Assuming a month of four weeks, and working 5 days per week, that's 20 * $50 = $1000 per month. Doesn't that seem like an extremely low number to pay for rent, transportation, food, health care, kids, utilities, etc? I pay more for that in rent every month.
everything in that list except for transportation are sunk costs. In other words, you're paying for those regardless of whether you have the job or not.
...unless you're not paying for those because you literally don't have any money.
So yeah, food is a sunk cost, sure. But that sinking will kill you without a job.
That's not how accounting works. If you got a FAANG job that paid $300k/year, then proceeded to blow $60k on a tesla, your net pay for the job isn't $240k.
Also, that $60k on a Tesla for the FAANG worker amounts to a small percent of the worker's disposable income. But that $2k amounts to over 100% of the minimum wage worker's disposable income.
Way to miss the point. Whether the item is a tesla or a can of beans is irrelevant. The point is that if previously you couldn't afford X, after getting a new job you could afford X, then you can't say that X is a cost/expense of getting the job.
Sure I can if X is a basic necessity of life.
You can't just say "they need those to live" as if that absolves you of explaining how to pay for the things they need to live.