On $7.25 an hour, no minimum-wage Idaho worker will escape abject poverty unless:

• He's a minor living at home with his parents.
• He relies on Medicaid for his children and gets coverage if lawmakers ever accept the federal offer to expand coverage to able-bodied adults, for himself.
• He receives food stamps.
• He gets an Earned Income Tax Credit.

One world view says that's a lot of taxpayer-provided freebies to the worker. The other sees billions of taxpayer-provided subsidies to the employers/Marty Trillhaase, Lewiston Tribune More here.