#WithABuckFiftyAWeek

About

#WithABuckFiftyAWeek refers to tweets making fun of a tweet by Paul Ryan in which he celebrated a story about a public high school employee seeing a raise of $1.50 a week as a result of Ryan's signature legislation, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. The tweet was mocked with the hashtag #WithABuckFiftyAWeek, in which people stated the various different, inconsequential things they could accomplish with an extra dollar and fifty cents a week.

Origin

On February 3rd, 2018, Ryan tweeted^[1] a link to a story from AP News saying workers were starting to see larger paychecks following the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (shown below).^[2] Ryan celebrated a tidbit in the story about Julia Ketchum, a secretary at a public high school in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who said her pay went up $1.50 a week, or $78 a year, "which she said will more than cover her Costco membership for the year." Ryan's tweet has since been deleted.

Spread

Online, people quickly mocked the tweet for its boastfulness about the modest gain while economists still believe it will add $1.5 trillion to the national debt while giving tax breaks to billionaires. Twitter user @nickiknowsnada^[3] tweeted that with the extra money she could take a bus to a Panera, then busk outside that Panera until she has enough money to eat at that Panera (shown below, left). Twitter user @Darlene40968981^[4] said that the extra dollar-fifty would help her pay off her mortgage in 29 years and 11 months instead of 30 years, gaining over 270 retweets (shown below, right).

The tweets were covered by Daily Dot^[5] and Uproxx.^[6] Ryan's primary challenger in Wisconsin Randy Bryce used the opportunity to call for donations of $1.50 to his campaign (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable

External References