#You're apparently rich enough to start paying taxes instead of getting tax returns

[ohhoneato]

So I applied for a position at another location of the dog daycare I was working at at the beginning of the year, just to spite my boss.

Look at the starting wage of $9 an hour got me thinking. People can't live off less than $15/hr.

My girlfriend and I lived in Colorado while minimum wage was going from about $11.50 to $12 and let me tell you, we struggled.

We now live in Texas, where the minimum wage is $7.25. I've had a minimum wage job before and I made $200 BIWEEKLY. It very rarely went above $300 and that was when I worked overtime because I wasn't told my correct hours (I worked at Subway, don't work at Subway, I've never had a nice customer and I've never met a single person who had good experiences there). I was lucky enough to be living with my parents still at the time. NO ONE CAN LIVE OFF OF THAT.

It is literally impossible to live off of that. My girlfriend is making way more than she made in Colorado, $12/hr for those who forgot, at $19/hr we still cannot afford to live on our own. We live in a poverty stricken area with shootings every few days and we still can't afford to live here without help from someone else with a similar paycheck (our roommate makes $15/hr).

THAT'S BONKERS Y'ALL.

The government is trying to off us all by making it impossible to live off the wage they set as a requirement. And most states refuse to make it higher, but even those who make it higher still won't go high enough!

My labor, as it's hard for me to do most work and I put my all into whatever job I get, is worth far more than $7.25. It's worth more than $15/hr. We are worth more than this, but besides that, we deserve the right to live safely and comfortably. And by not raising the minimum wage the government is preventing that from happening.

There's nothing to stop jobs from only paying their employees the minimum and literally nothing more. Then that'll be taxed and the employee will barely even get paid at all!

Taxation of the poor is thievery and minimum wage is thievery, just pay us what we're actually worth and stop fucking around U.S. government!

AND DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE TAX BRACKETS!

You make anything above $17/hr, you have to pay taxes instead of get returns when tax season comes around. And it puts you even further into poverty because now you have to save a bunch of that money, just to pay the government so they don't arrest you for not being able to pay your taxes. We didn't even realize because no one told us this. My girlfriend had to pay taxes this year. We are still in poverty, those taxes are supposed to help us too! Instead they hurt us even more, making it impossible to get out.

This goes back to the "tax the rich only" argument that's been going around the internet, but if taxes are supposed to help the people who need help, why the fuck are they making it so they can't get help?! Taxes are a huge thing in the way for those trying to get OUT of poverty and until we fix the bracket, they will only hurt anyone not super rich, including middle class. Everyone I know who is middle class is just barely middle class. My ex-friend's parents, who's dad is an engineer, one of the highest paying jobs on the market for those not in the 1%, is still lower middle class!

I'm tired of writing about this now, so I'm gonna just post it, but y'all get the idea. We're being screwed over by everyone.