No 2-3x the amount of money spent per month. As a Diesel truck owner, my weekly fuel cost is about $50. We used to spend $150-200 for a two week supply of groceries. Now it is easy to spend $150 for just a week supply. Lets not forget this last winter we paid nearly 2x the cost of natural gas from last year... I'm thinking of replacing my two central air AC units with the heatpump versions, as natural gas is not the cheap fuel it once was. And who knows if it will go back down, not when they are making money hand over fist.
While I agree that the low income earners was never the big issue in this country, and that jacking their wage while not jacking the middle class wages it part of this whole issue. $12/hr isn't enough ATM. Even at 22/hr you are nothing more than a labor slave. You could work 50hr's are just have enough to simply be allowed to keep living. Min wage needed to be increased, but I don't know of a single entry level job that was paying those wages. $12/hr seemed like the way to go, now we have people starting out at $16-20/hr.
Hell me and the wife have a combine low 6 figure income. The less than $130k kind. It is pretty much paycheck to paycheck, and that is the reality of the world we live in. Even someone making a modest $50K, unless you already owned a home rent is out of control, housing prices are wild (I bought last year and it was crazy), food and gas is nuts, the only decent thing people are getting are cheap crappy TV's to drown out their nearly slave existence. If I'm scared to go to the doctor, in fear of what something simple is going to cost me. I'm sure they simply do not go.
Also lets be real, supermarket cashiers have been ran out of this world. You are the supermarket cashier now.
The problem starts at the top. So we shouldn't point fingers at the bottom blaming them.
Apple made 25 billion of net profit last quarter. A Billion is a crazy amount of money, especially compared to a single million. They don't invest any of the money back into country. At least companies like ATT spend some of the money in infrastructure improvements.
I work 50hr's a week, sometimes more. Anyone that knows the life of a Controls Engineer (Think Allen Bradley) knows it can be stressful at times. I understand people need middle class jobs, they are there. But not in the numbers needed. Sure the Trades are understaffed, but you can only have so many managers, etc.
The Tech industry as a whole is partly to blame as well. It is a bubble and it will pop. Money is being invested in the wrong things. America has a problem, and brainwashing is one of them.