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Minimum Wage Still Can’t Pay For A Two-Bedroom Apartment Anywhere

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Re: Minimum Wage Still Can’t Pay For A Two-Bedroom Apartment Anywhere

#101

Post by the_gastropod »

djschnei wrote: post #21
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure why people think minimum wage must be enough to afford a two-bedroom home. Ideally minimum wage should comfortably allow one person to support... Themselves, minimally. Which means a studio or one bedroom. People should not aim to remain at minimum wage long, but use it as an entry point for somewhere better.

Eh I'm not positive it should even be able to support a single person... Why do we insist on raising the bar for employment so high? If a 16 year old wants to get their first job, they shouldn't be required right of the bat have a productive output sufficient to support themselves. That's not the point of minimum wage jobs - or at least it never was until we started arbitrarily setting a minimum value.

FDR proposed the minimum wage to guarantee anyone who works 40 hours a week a "living wage". It was signed into law in 1938. And, adjusted for inflation, the minimum wage has never been higher than it was in 1938. In other words, it's precisely the point of minimum wage, and it's increasingly failed to live up to its purpose ever since.

Re: Minimum Wage Still Can’t Pay For A Two-Bedroom Apartment Anywhere

#102

Post by imgabe »

suby wrote: post #81
imgabe wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we need to handle those edge cases by mandating what employers have to pay ALL employees? Maybe there is a better way to help people in needy situations without distorting the labor market for everyone.

16 year olds working min wage is the edge case. The average retail worker for instance is 37. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/...

Not all retail workers make minimum wage.

Re: Minimum Wage Still Can’t Pay For A Two-Bedroom Apartment Anywhere

#103

Post by true_religion »

Kalium wrote: post #94
true_religion wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minimum wage doesn’t track inflation. If it did, I would have no complaints. But it’s hard for me to understand people saying minimum wage should only be for one person eking out a bare existence, when it’s value in real money has fallen over the past 70 years.

Would you be happy if minimum wage was CPI-indexed to track the cost for one adult's bare-bones existence? Obviously this also requires defining what that minimum is, as social norms are also subject to inflation - when a US minimum wage was introduced boarding houses were common. Now they're unheard of.

That would be fine, as it would mean that we as a society explicitly agree what minimum wage should be about. And we would probably have massive campaigns to get adults with families off the minimum wage, as well as ensure that adults never have to take a minimum wage job in the future.

We could leave minimum wage to children, and charity workers.

As it stands, it used to pay better but has slowly slid to being subsistence living.

Re: Minimum Wage Still Can’t Pay For A Two-Bedroom Apartment Anywhere

#104

Post by bluGill »

SomeOldThrow wrote: post #95
bluGill wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Location location location. Try looking around some city not well known for insane housing prices.

Try moving cities without a home or a job, looking to survive on the street.

The hard part about moving is leaving family, friends, and stuff behind. Once you are willing to do that a bus ticket across the US is cheap.

Re: Minimum Wage Still Can’t Pay For A Two-Bedroom Apartment Anywhere

#105

Post by Broken_Hippo »

viklove wrote: post #100
antidaily wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With kids, though?

If you're working a minimum wage job, maybe don't have kids?

So, if you had kids while you had a decent job and the place closes, you should give away the kids because your replacement job is minimum wage? Is it the same if you wind up disabled and suddenly become a low earner?

Or, I know, celibacy for everyone and hope you don't get raped? Free abortions when birth control fails, if you can afford birth control and aren't unlucky enough to have issues with it?

Do you happen to know the income level when kids are affordable? Is this well above the average wage in the area (or in general)? Is this higher or lower than low-level military salary? Knowing this sort of number would really help folks out.

Re: Minimum Wage Still Can’t Pay For A Two-Bedroom Apartment Anywhere

#106

Post by true_religion »

xienze wrote: post #99
true_religion wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minimum wage doesn’t track inflation. If it did, I would have no complaints. But it’s hard for me to understand people saying minimum wage should only be for one person eking out a bare existence, when it’s value in real money has fallen over the past 70 years.

What everyone fails to realize is that every job has a maximum value associated with it, and therefore a maximum wage, assuming your employer isn’t in the business of losing money. When you raise the minimum wage to $X/hr, by necessity employers (again, in the interests of not losing money) will no longer be able to offer jobs that generate less than $X/hr in revenue. This becomes a problem for people who lack the sk…

I know what the minimum wage does. I would prefer directly supporting the unemployeable to increase their skills, rather than forcing them to accept multiple minimum wage jobs and have no free time to learn.

Re: Minimum Wage Still Can’t Pay For A Two-Bedroom Apartment Anywhere

#107

Post by simonsarris »

ginko wrote: post #44
djschnei wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh I'm not positive it should even be able to support a single person... Why do we insist on raising the bar for employment so high? If a 16 year old wants to get their first job, they shouldn't be required right of the bat have a productive output sufficient to support themselves. That's not the point of minimum wage jobs - or at least it never was until we started arbitrarily setting a minimum value.

If that 16 year old works 40 hours a week, then they definitely should be able to live on it.

Why? What if the 16 year old wants to partly make money, partly learn the ropes of some job, and some place could use "some" help but not get meaningfully enough work to pay a kid [current minimum wage]? Right now, these kids and businesses are out of luck.

What if a 60 year old is feeling lonely and wants to be a greeter or lecter or something, more than they need money, but it is definitely not worth minimum wage for 99% of places to have such a job? Right now, these old folk and businesses are out of luck.

Why do you think money is the only operative thing here, or the only one ever possible, for all possible jobs for all possible people?

The sheer amount of work you exclude when you require all jobs to be livable is huge. Not everyone is trying to strike it out on their own. Some people want to help in small ways and are fine with commensurate pay. Why force these jobs out of existence? Are you sure doing so is solving the problem you want to solve, while creating no others?

Re: Minimum Wage Still Can’t Pay For A Two-Bedroom Apartment Anywhere

#108

Post by SomeOldThrow »

bluGill wrote: post #104
SomeOldThrow wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try moving cities without a home or a job, looking to survive on the street.

The hard part about moving is leaving family, friends, and stuff behind. Once you are willing to do that a bus ticket across the US is cheap.

> The hard part about moving is leaving family, friends, and stuff behind

Tell that to the homeless, I dare you. It's certainly the attitude of a sheltered existence.

Re: Minimum Wage Still Can’t Pay For A Two-Bedroom Apartment Anywhere

#109

Post by maxlybbert »

suby wrote: post #79
djschnei wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh I'm not positive it should even be able to support a single person... Why do we insist on raising the bar for employment so high? If a 16 year old wants to get their first job, they shouldn't be required right of the bat have a productive output sufficient to support themselves. That's not the point of minimum wage jobs - or at least it never was until we started arbitrarily setting a minimum value.

The average retail worker is 37 years old[0]. If it is possible to structure our society in a way that those who work a minimum wage job are able to support themselves, then we should do so. I'm kind of flabbergasted at the resistence to this. If the purpose of a minimum wage is not to guarantee a person a minimum standard of living, then what is the point? Keep in mind that minimum wage jobs often make it hard to ac…

> If the purpose of a minimum wage is not to guarantee a person a minimum standard of living, then what is the point?

In the US, minimum wage is defined as “the least you can pay anybody for any reason” with an exception for people who receive tips. As I understand it, some countries allow some people to make less than minimum wage.

I’m not entirely sure what the current point of the minimum wage is. The original idea was that it didn’t apply to everybody and was meant to make businesses less likely to hire people who were covered.

The minimum wage is not, and never has been, defined as “what an average worker should get for average effort.”

I agree that the average worker should have enough to live on, but I don’t see any connection between that and the minimum wage. People here are complaining about using “edge cases” to keep the minimum wage low, but by definition (“minimum”), the minimum wage is an edge case.

Re: Minimum Wage Still Can’t Pay For A Two-Bedroom Apartment Anywhere

#110

Post by Broken_Hippo »

sdinsn wrote: post #27
hello_tyler wrote: post #7

Minimum wage workers can't afford a 1 bedroom apartment or studio where I live.

So perhaps they should split a 2/3 bedroom with roommates? If someone makes the absolute legal minimum, why does every expect them to live alone?

This isn't something that is common in all areas if you are over a certain age - namely, when other folks start having children or living with romantic interests. Seriously. Especially in a small town. And it doesn't work if you don't have friends that are in a similar situation.

The more prudent thing is to make sure that the single person can afford a one-bedroom apartment. Unfortunately, these are often not much cheaper than a two bedroom. Where I lived in the states, a studio wasn't much cheaper either, mostly because they were all in apartment complexes instead of divided up houses.

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