Editing 951: Working

Jump to: navigation, search

Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.

The edit can be undone. Please check the comparison below to verify that this is what you want to do, and then save the changes below to finish undoing the edit.
Latest revision Your text
Line 8: Line 8:
  
 
==Explanation==
 
==Explanation==
βˆ’
This comic is a jab at price-gouging shoppers who spend large amounts of time checking multiple shopping outlets for the best deals. The minimum wage is the lowest possible wage that a person could legally be paid, usually only targeted at providing unskilled laborers with an equitable level of income. In 2011, when this comic was published, US Federal minimum wage was $7.25 an hour, though certain states and cities typically have higher minimum wages. Using simple math, the caption states that a person is effectively working below the minimum wage when they spend their time looking to save a few cents on their purchases. (Randall's math checks out: $7.25/hour times nine minutes would equate to just over $1.08.)
+
This comic is a jab at price-gouging shoppers who spend large amounts of time checking multiple shopping outlets for the best deals. The minimum wage is the lowest possible wage that a person could legally be paid, usually only targeted at providing unskilled laborers with an equitable level of income. In 2011, when this comic was published, US Federal minimum wage was $7.25 an hour, though certain states and cities typically have higher minimum wages. Using simple math, the caption states that a person is effectively working below the minimum wage when they spend their time looking to save a few cents on their purchases. (Randall's math checks out: $7.25/hour times nine minutes would equate to just over $1.08)
  
 
Benjamin Franklin's adage "A penny saved is a penny earned" is usually taken to mean that a person, merely by making the effort to save their money rather than spending it frivolously, has put in worthwhile effort that makes them deserving of that money. Cueball flips the meaning of the phrase, instead saying that saving money is work just like a job, and as one would not take a job that paid less than minimum wage, the compensation is inadequate for the amount of effort it would take to drive to a cheaper gas station.
 
Benjamin Franklin's adage "A penny saved is a penny earned" is usually taken to mean that a person, merely by making the effort to save their money rather than spending it frivolously, has put in worthwhile effort that makes them deserving of that money. Cueball flips the meaning of the phrase, instead saying that saving money is work just like a job, and as one would not take a job that paid less than minimum wage, the compensation is inadequate for the amount of effort it would take to drive to a cheaper gas station.

Please note that all contributions to explain xkcd may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here.
You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see explain xkcd:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission!

To protect the wiki against automated edit spam, we kindly ask you to solve the following CAPTCHA:

Cancel | Editing help (opens in new window)