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Subscribe to RSSMost Americans know the facts about low-wage work, but many have been lucky enough to avoid actually having to live on $8 or $9 an hour.
A computer game called Spent gives you the opportunity to see what it would be like to walk in a poor person’s shoes.
The game, by an advertising firm called McKinney and Urban Ministries of Durham, N.C., starts with a choice: Would you like to be a server, a warehouse worker or a temp?
From there, the choices get more difficult.
Should you pay to get your pet medical care, or let the animal suffer?
Should you go to the dentist or suffer yourself and save some bucks?
Should you let your child and a friend get ice cream, or do you need that $5 for bills?
The game is interspersed with facts about the choices people with very little money are making every day, and the consequences of those choices.
Want to see how well you could manage your money on a very low wage? Play it yourself.
Tip of the hat to MarketWatch, which alerted us to the game.
Leave a Comment:
It's a good thought experiment, and brings up some issues and points about living in low income. However it's full of False Ultimatums, it's not as simple as one or two outcomes based on one or two decisions.
Lot closer than you think, apparently you don't have to live on that income.
I lost the first time but made it through the month the last time. I actually have been living as a single mom on 9.00 an hour, so believe me I know the ups and downs and hard choices of living on this income. PS yes its true that life does throw you curve balls but some of my bills are lower than the ones mentioned in the game, and some are higher.