Living on the minimum
Shanghai street sweeper Dai Yusheng drags his tools behind him as he walks by a shopping mall on a rainy day. He works from 4 a.m. until 1 p.m., six days a week, for $2.28 an hour – the hourly minimum wage in the city.
Reuters photographers have created a series of pictures of people living on the minimum in different countries around the world, providing a glimpse of their various jobs and lifestyles.
Nelson Tavares, originally from Cape Verde, speaks with friends in his neighbourhood of Quinta da Fonte, Lisbon. He works at a printing company where he earns the equivalent of $642 a month.
Tavares works on a wall painting he has created of Nelson Mandela. The 24-year-old studied at the school of arts, and is now preparing his first exhibition of paintings. He lives with his parents.
Susanna Dimitri, a teacher, model and part-time performing artist, brushes her hair in her apartment in Paris
She poses for an artist in Vaux-sur-Seine, to the northeast of Paris.
Gabriella Bundi, a 44-year-old living in the eastern Hungarian city of Debrecen, has been unemployed for three years but takes temporary menial work mandated by the government in exchange for unemployment benefits. Her husband works odd jobs and together they bring home a total of about $1,200 per month.
Jorge works at "La antigua Roma," a bar in downtown Mexico City that sells pulque, a traditional alcoholic drink. He has been a barman there for over 30 years, working 11 hours a day for a daily rate of $8.
Jorge, who suffers from advanced deafness, does not earn enough to rent a house. He lives with his wife’s family on the outskirts of the city, travelling two hours to get to work.
Dai Yusheng, a street sweeper who earns the Shanghai minimum wage of $2.28 an hour, eats lunch at his home, which is a 3x4 meter room in a slum close to where he works.
Dai walks home with his bicycle after finishing his working day.
Clare Mason prepares to change the nappy of a young girl at the Gujaga Child Care Centre, La Perouse. She earns the equivalent of around $14.25 per hour.
Her duties include feeding, playing and participating in educational activities for the young children who are dropped at the centre by their parents. She says that after paying her living expenses for the week, including $134 for rent, $71 for food, $53 for a phone, $27 for petrol, and $179 for entertainment, she saves about $18 a week.
Javier Alava, 27, works at an auto store in Long Island, making under $8 an hour.
He shows his check for about 50 hours of work.
Sueli Paes Alecrin, from Brazil, takes care of her 11-year-old daughter Amanda Suellen Lima, who suffers from cerebral palsy. The 48-year-old lives on a minimum wage of $294 per month, which she receives through social assistance because of her daughter's condition.
Alecrin cries after looking at a monthly bank statement of benefit withdrawals.
Rufina Condori works as a maid in La Paz, Bolivia. Condori has two jobs, earning a total monthly wage of around $170.
Condori checks her money after being paid.
Dimitrios Zaroulas, 24, sits in his room at his parents flat in Athens. Zaroulas studied journalism, but now works as a waiter in a fish tavern, where he earns the equivalent of $5.30 per hour.
Zaroulas, 24, poses with two 2 euro coins, his hourly salary. He lives in a 90 square-meter, two-bedroom flat with his parents and his 31-year-old sister, who shares a bedroom with him.
