Bad news out there for Florida job seekers: according some new number crunching, the Sunshine state is seriously lacking in jobs that pay a living wage. The findings show that for every 13 people looking for good work, there's one position that pays $16.84. The statistics complied by a Seattle-based non-profit that analyzed the state-by-state trends. Not surprisingly, Florida fared worse than the national average.
According to the Alliance for a Just Society, that lack of living-wage paying positions means that 64 percent of the work available out there is lower than the standard . . . which means the majority of the jobs around don't provide what's needed to get by.
The study also broke down the budget your Joe Sixpack Floridan needs. It's . . . a little depressing. At a $16.84 living wage, annual income is around $35,028. That includes monthly expenses of:
Food: $203 Housing and utilities: $834 Transportation: $620 Heath care: $150 State/federal taxes: $4,924
And that figure -- $16.84 -- is just for a single person. When you look at a family of three, the number for a living wage is actually $39.48. Only 53 percent of the jobs out there in Florida support that kind of demand.
So where does Florida sit on the national stage? Spread across the country, there are seven job seekers for every position that pays a living wage. Also, between 2009 and 2012, the number of available jobs with a median income of $15 dropped by 4 million.
Big picture: WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN? Well, for all his prattling about job creation, Rick Scott hasn't done too great a job of actually creating positions that allow a person to live comfortably in the state.
This squeeze on the middle and lower class -- where does it going next? Pretty soon all us normal working folk are going to have to move to Alabama and be shipped in every work day so we can sweep up after the one percenters.
Send your story tips to the author, Kyle Swenson.
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