Minimumwageexercise

Living on Minimum Wage
For this assignment, one person (the "scribe") will submit your team's completed assignment in
Blackboard. A completed assignment consists of a completed budget spreadsheet, which you must
upload, and answers to four questions, listed below, which you must answer in the space provided on
Blackboard. You will also hand in a sheet in class, indicating which team members participated and who
submitted the assignment online.
Your Hypothetical Situation

You are a single parent of two children; a seven year-old and a 9 year-old. The mother/father of your
children is not in the picture for a host of reasons. The mother/father also does not pay child support
and you do not have the financial resources to hire a lawyer to force her or him to pay.
You work at a large retail store as a cashier and make the federal minimum wage. Luckily you are able to
work 40 hours a week. At $7.25 an hour you make approximately $1,256.67 a month, which after taxes
is roughly $838 a month for you and your two kids. [Note: New York State has set a higher minimum
wage - $8/hr – but for this assignment we will use the federal minimum wage].
Roles on Your Team

Assign roles to different people on your team.
 One person must be responsible for downloading a budget spreadsheet, filling it in with the
information that your team decides to use, and uploading it to Blackboard. This person must
also write up the team’s answers to the questions in Blackboard.
 One person must search for housing costs online.
 One person must search for grocery, phone, and other expenses online.
 All team members must help to make decisions about the family budget and approve the
budget that is submitted.
 All team members must discuss the questions at the end of this assignment and approve the
answers that are submitted.
Download Your Budget Spreadsheet

An Excel spreadsheet that will serve as your family’s budget is available on the LMS. One person on your
team should download it now and agree to be responsible for filling it in and submitting it on behalf of
the team. To submit the spreadsheet, upload it in the designated area in Blackboard.
Now Create a Real Budget

For this activity you’ll need to create a budget for your hypothetical family of three. You will live in Troy,
NY (but not on campus) for this assignment. On the back of this sheet are the directions for each of the
budget line items on the Excel spreadsheet.
1. Housing Costs
Search online for a rental property that has at least 2 bedrooms. Remember you’ll live in Troy, NY, off
campus. Once you find a listing, copy the URL (i.e. web address) and paste it into your family budget
spreadsheet. Finally, enter the cost of monthly rent.
2. Utilities
For simplicity, we will just assume your utilities costs are $200. However, if the rental property you
selected has all utilities paid, you can put a zero in the budget.
3. Groceries
This is up to you to determine, but keep in mind that you need to feed three people. You may refer to
the Living Wage Calculation for Rensselaer County for estimates of grocery and other costs.
[http://livingwage.mit.edu/counties/36083 – see Blackboard for link to website]
4. Phone/Cell
If you can afford to have a home or cell phone, go online and find a website advertising the cost of the
phone and plan you will purchase. Copy the URL (i.e. website address) and paste it into your family
budget excel spreadsheet.
5. Transportation
You are fortunate to own a car, but unfortunately it is very old and needs to be fixed. A friend of yours is
a mechanic, but he said it would cost you at least $200 to fix. Plus you would need to renew your car
insurance, which is $63 a month. If you don’t fix your car you need to figure out how you will drop your
children off at school and get to work in the morning.
6. Clothing
This is up to you to determine.
7. Entertainment
8. Holidays/Birthdays
Note: You may not use any local, state, or federal welfare programs. Also, you must pretend you don’t
own any of your current possessions. Finally, you may not rely on family members for assistance. You
are alone, but this is America, so if you work hard you’ll be fine, right?
Final Note: You may find it’s very difficult to afford all of the things your family needs within the budget.
You may even find it’s impossible. However, you must make every effort to come in under budget. If you
blow the budget by hundreds of dollars or appear to not have made a good faith effort to come in under
budget you will not receive points for the activity.
Living on Minimum Wage
[hand in this sheet at the end of class]
Team # _____________
Team Members Present Today:
Part I. Upload your team’s budget to Blackboard. Put the name of the person who uploaded the
budget here: _______________________________________________
Part II. As a team, discuss and answer the following questions. Appoint a scribe to type your team’s
answers and submit them in Blackboard. Put the name of the person who submitted the answers here
(should be the same person who uploaded the budget): ______________________________________
1. Were you able to come in under budget? Describe your experiences putting the budget together;
where did you struggle?
2. Where will your family struggle to stay within the budget you set? Which expenses are missing from
this budget? What would you do to meet expenses that you did not account for?
3. Now imagine that you are in an accident and can’t work for 3 months. What will happen to your
family?
4. If someone told you that people who are poor are lazy and that living off of minimum wage without
government assistance is easy, what would you say to them after putting this budget together?

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Living on Minimum Wage

Your Hypothetical Situation

Roles on Your Team

Download Your Budget Spreadsheet

Now Create a Real Budget

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