Heather Mac Donald’s claim, that a single mother with two kids, working at a minimum wage of $8.25 an hour, would somehow take home $63,000 in salary and government benefits, is a fabrication (“Welfare Warriors Attack New York,” PostOpinion, Jan. 27).

Minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. Someone working 40 hours a week for 52 weeks (assuming no sick days and no vacation) would earn a $15,080 salary for the year. Add to that a potential for about $5,000 each for the value of food-stamp benefits and an Earned Income Tax credit, and the family’s annual buying power would reach a mere $25,000.

Less than half of the eligible low-income people in New York City receive any government help at all for housing, and the vast majority of those who do still have to chip in significant amounts for rent out of their own pockets.

It is no wonder that so many working families in the city are poor.

Joel Berg, Executive

Director, NYC Coalition Against Hunger, Manhattan