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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

#151

Post by the_gastropod »

djschnei wrote: post #134
the_gastropod wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wooosh. Yes, I am specifically speaking to the fact that declaring an arbitrary "minimum wage" does not effect the true minimum wage which is $0. By enforcing an arbitrary floor all you're doing is making it illegal for someone to work unless their output is more valuable than the floor. Good intentions, completely illogical.

I respectfully disagree. The U.S. has safety nets for those in poverty (e.g., TANF, Medicaid, CHIP, SNAP, EITC, Supplemental Security Income, and housing assistance). Having the U.S. tax payer subsidize businesses unwilling to pay their workers living wages seems illogical to me. This is happening right now. Walmart, Amazon, and McDonalds, for example, all have huge numbers of employees dependent on welfare programs. Why is that logical, and how would dropping the already low minimum wage help this?

One solution gaining some attention is UBI. What are your thoughts on it?

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

#152

Post by dagw »

Damorian wrote: post #115
mgraczyk wrote: post #15

On the other hand, if this weren't the case I think it would be even more strange. "Law requires companies to automate or illegally hire any job worth less than a 2-bedroom home"

Is there anything wrong with this? If a job can't provide for a person at some (philosophically debatable) level, it's not a job worth doing, free market be damned. We could take this to a logical extreme and think of all the jobs that could exist in the absence of a minimum wage and basic human necessity, but the reality is both of these exist. Either it's "worth" more for an employer to pay them more, or automating…

Not everybody needs a two-bedroom apartment. I mean I was 30 and practically married before I ever had something that big. If you want to argue that every full time job should pay enough to afford a small 1 room apartment within a 30 minute commute, then perhaps I'd agree. But a two bedroom apartment is a straight up luxury in the grand scheme of things and a ridiculous minimum standard to set.

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

#153

Post by imgabe »

mlevental wrote: post #149
imgabe wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that means just over 50% of minimum wage earners are older than 25 (well outside the typical age where you're still living with your parents or just entering the workforce) And making minimum wage over the age of 25 is also outside of the typical pay, so it would make sense that they might be in the atypical situation of, say, still living with their parents. Only 2.7% of ALL workers are even making minimum wage to…

you linked to 2016 when i linked to 2018 report. why? >since we're talking about probably less than 1% of all workers. cool. congrats on proving it's an edge case. A+ case analysis. so what? it's cool with you that 1.3 million people can't afford housing? even if it were 0.1% of workers? why should literally anyone be unable to afford housing? we're not talking iphones and gucci bags here - we're talking about the ba…

> why should literally anyone be unable to afford housing?

Because it costs money? It takes time and effort from other humans to create and they need to be compensated for that? Anything that costs any amount of money will have someone that is unable to afford it. The article is not even talking about being able to afford any housing, they are talking about 2-bedroom apartments. There are smaller apartments. There are rooms in shared houses. There are other forms of housing.

Again, we're talking about the majority of the people earning minimum wage probably not depending on the job to pay for their housing. Maybe they are getting something else out of it. It's cool with you to eliminate a lot of their jobs by raising the minimum wage?

If the problem is some people can't afford housing, we can fix that by providing housing vouchers to those people, or changing zoning laws so more housing can be built to bring down the price, or nationalize the housing industry and just have the government build housing for everyone and we all get assigned a government issue apartment to live in, comrade.

Either way, we address the problem of housing by dealing with housing, not by manipulating the labor market which is only tangentially related to housing.

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

#154

Post by SomeOldThrow »

TylerE wrote: post #146
SomeOldThrow wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at singapore for an alternative that isn’t associated with anti-socialized scare tactics. Soviets had a lot of issues but lack of housing wasn’t one of them. Same for cuba, although the sanctions have crippled the economy to make quality housing difficult. I can’t speak for venezuela housing as i have not researched it, and it seems weird to clump a country with a mostly private economy in with self-proclaimed c…

A somewhat ironic example given the subject at hand https://www.propertyguru.com.sg/property-management-news/201... "House prices in Singapore are considered “seriously unaffordable”, with a median multiple of 4.6, which means that the median house price is 4.6 times the city-state’s median household income, according to an annual survey."

I was referring to the public housing, not the market housing. If you’re a citizen it’s not terribly difficult to get your own unit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_housing_in_Singapore

This is how you preserve existing communities--it should be harder to move into a city than to stay there.

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

#155

Post by mlevental »

imgabe wrote: post #153
mlevental wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you linked to 2016 when i linked to 2018 report. why? >since we're talking about probably less than 1% of all workers. cool. congrats on proving it's an edge case. A+ case analysis. so what? it's cool with you that 1.3 million people can't afford housing? even if it were 0.1% of workers? why should literally anyone be unable to afford housing? we're not talking iphones and gucci bags here - we're talking about the ba…

> why should literally anyone be unable to afford housing? Because it costs money? It takes time and effort from other humans to create and they need to be compensated for that? Anything that costs any amount of money will have someone that is unable to afford it. The article is not even talking about being able to afford any housing, they are talking about 2-bedroom apartments. There are smaller apartments. There ar…

>Because it costs money?

the question was "should" not can't. your answer is therefore normative rather than descriptive. let's agree to disagree that market forces shouldn't interfere with people's abilities to survive (healthcare, housing, justice system).

>Maybe they are getting something else out of it. It's cool with you to eliminate a lot of their jobs by raising the minimum wage?

you wrongly believe that raising the minimum wage will lead to mass lay offs. ny raised minimum wage in 2016 and 2018 and the only sector that cut jobs was food service.

> we can fix that by providing housing vouchers to those people, or changing zoning laws so more housing can be built to bring down the price, or nationalize the housing industry and just have the government build housing for everyone and we all get assigned a government issue apartment to live in, comrade

facetious nonsense. not a single one of those things is a current policy practice (section 8 is not a housing voucher).

>Either way, we address the problem of housing by dealing with housing, not by manipulating the labor market which is only tangentially related to housing.

like i told the other guy: go ahead and build housing at cost. until then i'll vote for minimum wage increases.

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

#156

Post by plufz »

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?

I don’t think that would ever function. Poor people ARE going to have children too, even if you could argue that they can’t provide well enough for the kids. Are there any countries in the world where poor people don’t have children? Personally - even though having children is no right - I much rather live in a society where it is possible to have children even if you have a very low income. Like you can in my country (Sweden). We still have a well functioning market economy.

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

#157

Post by imgabe »

mlevental wrote: post #155
imgabe wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why should literally anyone be unable to afford housing? Because it costs money? It takes time and effort from other humans to create and they need to be compensated for that? Anything that costs any amount of money will have someone that is unable to afford it. The article is not even talking about being able to afford any housing, they are talking about 2-bedroom apartments. There are smaller apartments. There ar…

>Because it costs money? the question was "should" not can't. your answer is therefore normative rather than descriptive. let's agree to disagree that market forces shouldn't interfere with people's abilities to survive (healthcare, housing, justice system). >Maybe they are getting something else out of it. It's cool with you to eliminate a lot of their jobs by raising the minimum wage? you wrongly believe that raisi…

> let's agree to disagree that market forces shouldn't interfere with people's abilities to survive (healthcare, housing, justice system).

Fair enough. I mean, market forces do interfere with people's ability to survive whether we care to agree with it or not, at least until we can develop a post-scarcity economy.

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

#158

Post by mlevental »

imgabe wrote: post #157
mlevental wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Because it costs money? the question was "should" not can't. your answer is therefore normative rather than descriptive. let's agree to disagree that market forces shouldn't interfere with people's abilities to survive (healthcare, housing, justice system). >Maybe they are getting something else out of it. It's cool with you to eliminate a lot of their jobs by raising the minimum wage? you wrongly believe that raisi…

> let's agree to disagree that market forces shouldn't interfere with people's abilities to survive (healthcare, housing, justice system). Fair enough. I mean, market forces do interfere with people's ability to survive whether we care to agree with it or not, at least until we can develop a post-scarcity economy.

again you're missing a key normative word: should. i said should. i'm well aware that they do. i don't think they should. like i keep saying - which is why i will vote always vote for minimum wage increases.

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

#159

Post by AnimalMuppet »

throwaway98434 wrote: post #97
kemitche wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither the title nor the article use the word "median" - they appear to be using the concept of "Fair Market Rents" (FMR), which is a 40th percentile[1] of non-sub-standard units. The article calls out that even the _average_ wage earner can't afford an FMR unit in many states: > For a two-bedroom rental, the Housing Wage is $22.96—a figure that’s higher than average renters’ wages everywhere, and at least $5.00 hig…

There are multiple points where averaging is employed. FMR is a close to median value. From the linked definition: "The FMR is the 40th percentile of gross rents for typical, non-substandard rental units occupied by recent movers in a local housing market" Additionally, FMR is itself statewide average, covering both high and low cost of living areas. Low cost of living counties have units available for far below FMR…

Valid points. Unfortunately, there are also people earning minimum wage in high cost of living areas...

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

#160

Post by imgabe »

mlevental wrote: post #158
imgabe wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> let's agree to disagree that market forces shouldn't interfere with people's abilities to survive (healthcare, housing, justice system). Fair enough. I mean, market forces do interfere with people's ability to survive whether we care to agree with it or not, at least until we can develop a post-scarcity economy.

again you're missing a key normative word: should. i said should. i'm well aware that they do. i don't think they should . like i keep saying - which is why i will vote always vote for minimum wage increases.

What I'm saying is, raising the minimum wage does not make market forces go away. It just changes the input to those forces. Look at San Francisco. Even people who earn far, far above minimum wage have a hard time affording housing there. The existence of high incomes didn't magically make market forces go away.

The only way a market goes away is if the supply of something is so high that it is effectively worthless, because everyone can freely access all they could ever want. For instance, there is no market for breathable air. We can all breathe as much air as we want without impacting the ability of anyone else to do so. Hence, there is no reason for anyone to try to sell air to anyone else (for now, anyway...).

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