How many mouths must minimum wage feed? Let’s start with 1.

Food assistance (snap/wic) is nice, but how can someone cook groceries without a home?

Many jobs can’t house 1 person. A full-time job needs to pay a person at least 50% of the Median Area Income (MAI) to make them ineligible (and presumably not needy of) HUD housing assistance. This is a big deal, because only 1 in 4 eligible households actually receive housing assistance. see page 13 of HUD report

According to Forbes, Holmes County, MS is the poorest in the US; even here, a single worker needs to earn at least $20,600/yr ($9.91/hr x 2080 hours) to not need housing assistance. (see MAI link below)

A full-time job that cannot house 1 person is externalizing (socializing) its operating costs onto: friends, family, neighbors, communities, charities, and taxpayers.

You can find the MAI in your area below.

https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/il/il2022/select_Geography_mtsp.odn