Also, please talk to many other grad students— I know too many people with rent burden or living paycheck to paycheck while putting in long hours of effort. No payment adjustment with inflation. My parents are aging. My health is taking a hit from stress. The future is getting bleak and we also need to establish decent pay for every single grad worker before it inflation takes us out.

By living expenses I meant other than rent and utilities, my bad. Like food, medicine, and transportation or repairs to your bike. So I meant $200-400 left to spend on things other than rent. You still do 30 hours per week or more for working as a researcher on top of a TA-ship. Your experience doesn’t capture everybody else’s.

A few hundred bucks is not much cushion for emergencies, yearly rent increase, or inflation.

If you were at my university, you’d have $200-400 per month at that salary left for living expenses lol