About

The Modern Slave is a blog about work, pay and the real cost of living.

The premise is simple. A full-time job used to cover a life. For a lot of people it no longer does, and the reasons are measurable: wages against productivity, rent against income, and what childcare, healthcare and a commute take out of a paycheck before anyone gets to spend it. Those numbers are published every year by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Federal Reserve and the Census Bureau, and most of them never make it into the conversation about why people feel broke.

So that is what gets written here. One number at a time, sourced, with the year attached, in plain language. No budgeting advice. No suggestion that anyone failed at a game whose rules changed.

The store

There is also a small shop: a short, hand-checked list of things that make a workweek cheaper or more bearable, from desk gear to ways to move while you work to kitchen kit that replaces takeout. Every item is an Amazon bestseller with thousands of buyers behind it. How we pick products explains the rule in full.

Buying through one of those links is what pays for the site, and it costs you nothing extra.

Who runs it

The Modern Slave is published by The Modern Slave LLC. You can reach us at info@themodernslave.com — corrections especially. How we work is set out in our editorial policy.