For most people cell phones are a necessity because they don't have landline phones, and if you're a single parent, you need to be accessible if something happens to your kid. Doesn't have to be a smartphone, but a working phone. I'd argue internet is important because it's a way to look for more work and to improve skills to help you find more work. I'd add cable because I'm not cruel. Just maybe not HBO.
But fine, let's work on YOUR definition of what a living wage is. The cheapest possible apartment (let's say in your neighborhood that's $700 a month for 1BR, all utilities included, which is probably ridiculously cheap in most areas), no designer clothes, but clothes wear out, would you say $50 a month per person is fair for a pair of jeans or a shirt and some socks? And let's say this is a single parent with one kid, so that makes it $100 a month. $100 a week for food for the two people. They'd probably get subsidized health care from the ACA so no cost there, but she has to cover a copay. Let's say $10 a month set aside for copays, assuming parent and child each need to see a doctor twice a year, once for an annual physical, once because they're sick, and the rest of the money covers copays for medicine. Luckily, this single parent has access to a direct bus line to her job so she doesn't even need a car, just a monthly bus pass, which is $75. No TV, or at least no cable TV, no cell phone, no internet, no toys for the kid, no birthday or Christmas presents, no because life is hard.
That's $1285 a month, and it's a wildly conservative beyond-the-realm-of-possibility estimate for a parent and child to live on, with no government assistance and no incidentals. Assuming they only have to pay payroll taxes and state because they're too poor to afford federal taxes (are you one of those "you gotta have skin in the game" types?) they'd have to make about $1542. Which, BTW, is less than the current minimum wage. And technically that's 40 hours a week for 4 weeks, most months you may work an extra day or two, but I averaged all the expenses to weekly as well. So we're talking about someone making $9.64 an hour
What jobs do you think are not deserving of $9.64 an hour? What PEOPLE do you think are not deserving of earning $9.64 an hour for the work they work?