How much does the average person earn working 11 dollars an hour for 40 hours a week?

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the average hourly wage for a fast food cook is $10.19 per hour. If a fast-food worker works 40 hours a week for 52 weeks in a year, he or she will make about $20,990 annually—before taxes.
Furthermore, an 11 dollar per hour wage would only result in an employee taking home approximately $20K annually before taxes.
However, there are many hidden costs that need to be taken into consideration when evaluating how much money someone can make by working at fast food restaurants for an hourly wage that’s almost double what they’d normally expect to get paid for such work. Let’s take a look at some of these additional expenses and how they affect your ability to live on 11 dollars an hour working fast food jobs:

Paying for your own benefits

Depending on what state you live in, you may or may not be entitled to receive health insurance benefits from your employer if you work for a fast food franchise. Even if you do receive health insurance from your employer, expect to pay for it out of your own pocket. Health insurance plans that are provided by employers are usually funded by a portion of the workers’ wages which essentially means that you’re paying for it yourself. This is why many fast food workers can’t afford health insurance.

The same goes for the money you’re putting away for retirement. Instead of your employer paying into a 401(k) or other retirement plan for you, you’re responsible for funding this for yourself if you’re working for a fast food franchise. Most fast food restaurants don’t offer retirement plans to their employees.

Transportation costs

You’ll most likely be working in an urban city where the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $1,000 a month. Compare this to the hourly wage of a fast food worker and you’re looking at an impossible situation. You may be able to find a roommate or live with your family for a while, but you can’t do this forever.

In the long run, you’ll need to find a place to live that costs less than $1,000 a month. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done. Unless you have family members or friends that you can stay with temporarily while you save up the money needed to move out on your own, you’ll most likely be stuck living in an expensive urban city and commuting to and from work every day.

Food costs

One of the biggest expenses that you’ll incur while working at a fast food restaurant is the money needed to buy food. The average person needs to eat three balanced meals a day in order to stay healthy. If you’re eating three meals a day and healthy snacks in between meals, you’re looking at about $10 a day.

This may not seem like much, but once you multiply it by the number of days in a year, you’re looking at a total of about $2,500 spent on food for the entire year. If you eat healthy and nutritious food, expect to pay more than the average person. Fast food restaurants are cheap, and you’re probably going to eat a lot of it while working at a fast food restaurant.

Let’s do a quick rundown of the additional expenses related to working at a fast food restaurant: health insurance, retirement, transportation and food. Add these up and you’re looking at a minimum of $4,500 spent on your own expenses annually. That’s on top of the $20,990 you made working as a fast food employee for the year. In total, you’ve spent $25,490 working at a fast food restaurant.

Now compare this to the $22,480 you would have made working an average 9-to-5 job and you’ll see that working 11 dollars an hour is still not enough to live on. It’s not really worth it. You’re better off finding another job that pays you more than 11 dollars an hour.

Ways to make up for the difference

If you really want to work at a fast food restaurant, there are some things you can do to make up for the difference between what you’re making and what you would make at another job.

The first thing you can do is apply for food stamps. Food stamps are government-funded benefits that you can use to buy food. You will have to apply for them and go through a screening process, but 95% of people who apply for food stamps get approved for them.

You can also apply for government-funded assistance programs like Medicaid and government-backed student loans to help with your education cost. It may not be easy to take advantage of these benefits, but it’s possible. It may be worth it if it helps you land a job that pays you more than 11 dollars an hour.

Working 11 dollars an hour at a fast food restaurant may seem like a great way to make money while you’re in school or saving up money to move out on your own, but it’s not. You’ll be spending more than you’re taking in and it’s not worth it.

If you really want to work at a fast food restaurant, there are some things you can do to make up for the difference between what you’re making and what you would make at another job. It may not be easy to take advantage of these programs and benefits, but it’s worth it if it means you get to make ends meet and actually be able to live your life.