Either you're trolling or extremely naive. $48k/year ain't shit when a) you'll pay some of that back in taxes and b) in places where you can get $15/hour for retail you also need to shell out $30k/year just to have a small studio apartment.

Shell out 30k/year on a studio apartment? Get off the caosts and explore America. I spend less than 30k/year on my mortgage for a house and pushing carts at Costco will net you 15/hr

All of the retail workers should move to middle America. Good plan, econ prof.

I would also add:

1. 60 hours per week at $15/hr for 52.1429 weeks per year is $47k/year.

2. In this magical world where you can get 60 hours per week on the clock, you'd also be entitled to time and a half for 20 hours per week, which would actually be $55k/year. You're underselling it here!

3. And if you're talking about two+ 30 hour / week minimum wage jobs:

3a. Chances are you're now in the world where you also don't get employer healthcare. Hooray!

3b. Good luck getting all of your jobs to schedule in such a way that you actually get all 60 hours per week, without getting fired from your second job because of scheduling conflicts with your first.

For real. I was thinking back to this thread earlier today as I realized that ~25 years ago in SF I was making $14 or $15 an hour as a network technician...but my rent (for a large room in a house share) was only about $300/mo. A studio apartment would have been around $5-600 and I think my monthly travel bill was $50 or so. I don't remember enough to think out my whole budget but offhand food was maybe half or 2/3 of what it is now so your blue collar dollar went a great deal farther than it does now.

Try working for 60 hours a week at minimum wage with kids and let me know how much time you have left to spend managing investments.

So 30 hrs/week for each parent.... ? I personally work ~50-60 hours a week and have plenty of time for investments. It takes around 10 minutes a week to manage, could probably trim that to 10 minutes per quarter

Nowadays people are lucky if that entry level retail job will give them 40 hours a week, never mind 60.

The Affordable Care Act was a blow to entry level workers in that regard. Now its probably more likely to have 2 jobs at 29.5 hours each then one at 40. Maybe the healthcare debates going on can address this