I did it again; I got in an argument on X. This time with a fellow ex-Denverite, now living in Las Vegas. I think my minimum wage and McDonald’s job articles are really starting to take off. I’m up to four cities after this one.

What’s really going to help Vegas over Indianapolis is that Nevada has a sweet 0% state income tax, and no county or city taxes.

The Nevada State Minimum wage is $12 per hour. We’ll use Las Vegas McDonald’s which has been our bench mark on both the $11/hr Minimum Wage Article and the Food Desert Article. Now, Indeed lists the starting wage at a Downtown McDonald’s at $14/hr starting wage. So let’s run with both pure Minimum Wage, and the ‘standard’ McDonald’s wage.

The pay at $14/hr is $560 per week, $2,426 per month, and $29,120 per year. The pay at $12/hr is $480 per week, $2,080 per month, and $24,960 per year. Below are five screenshots from various rental websites looking for affordable apartments.

Eagles Nest has studios at $650/m but no utilities included and Ciel Apartments above only water included in utilities. Desert Inn appears to include utilities as it is a multi tenant shared space, with only 1 bed and 1 bath being private to the renter. A solid place to start. Ashford Manor, unfortunately has a 2.5X monthly income requirement which neither of these pay ranges will cover. Liberty Apartments seem well balanced.

There seems to be a ton of options in a variety of ranges. Now I don’t know layout of Vegas so lets assume a higher end of the averages on these at $1,000 per month. I couldn’t find any postings that included electric besides the Desert Inn location. Using a few searches for electricity data like this: [Link]. It seems the average over a year is about $150 per month. Since we’re focused on Studio Apartments this seems to be relatively accurate from multiple sources I tried to track down. The vast majority of postings with “utilities included” included water and trash. Since my previous posts referenced $50 phone plans with hot spot, I’ve included a link to one here. There are several providers. Metro is one example: [Link]. We’ll also focus on Vegas Public Transport since we’re on a shoe string here. $65 for a 30 day bus pass.

Medical will likely fall under Nevada Medicaid at these rates, some conflicting information in my searches so I’ll just sit that one out.

So lets make our chart time.

Category	$12/hr Minimum Wage	$14/hr McDonald’s Standard Vegas	Notes
Gross Annual Income	$24,960	$29,120	40 hrs/wk × 52 wks
FICA Taxes (7.65%)	$1,909.44	$2,227.68	Employee portion only
Federal Income Tax	$886	$1,314.40	Standard deduction $16,100
State Income Tax	None	None
Total Taxes	$2,795.44	$3,542.08
Rent	$12,000	$12,000	What we calculated above
Phone/Internet ($50/m)	$600	$600	Hotspot Combo
Food ($300/m)	$3,600	$3,600	“Super spendy” single
Electric ($150/m)	$1,800	$1,800	What several sites aggregated as average.
Transportation (Buses)	$780	$780	30 day pass is $65/m.
Total Minimum Basic Expenses	$18,780	$18,780
401k contribution	$1,477	$4,870	This is specifically to zero out federal income tax via Saver’s Credit
McDonald’s 401k Match	$1,477	$1,747.20	We’ve previously tracked down that McDonald’s matches $1 for $1 up to 6% for 401k.
Subtotal:	$2,793.56	$3,242.32	Federal Taxes: $0, Post Expenses, 401k is an “expense”
Total Compensation:	$26,437	$30,867.20	401k Matches are ‘free’ salary you are giving up by not meeting the match.

Housing is rough and as always these numbers are slim. Hitting the $14/hr wage pushes you right out of the 50% saver’s credit making you contribute almost $5,000 into your 401k, simply to save $1,314 on taxes. If you only contribute to your 401k up to your capped match you’d owe $952.56 in Federal taxes, but you’re remaining cash flow climbs to $5,412.56.

The question is how realistic is that remaining money? This is clearly the definition of living paycheck to paycheck, but you’re not negative and you’re funding retirement. I generally try to avoid adding government subsidies to these posts, but Nevada has higher guidelines for SNAP requiring sub $2,608 per month. Both of these wage ranges fall below the threshold. The maximum for a single person is $298 per month which is right in line with my $300 estimate on food. If this person did qualify and got that much, then they would have $3,600 back into their cash pile more than doubling in both cases their cash on hand.

~~Miniwing~~
Optimist, Stoic, Parent