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Minimum wage workers cannot afford rent in any U.S. state

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Re: Minimum wage workers cannot afford rent in any U.S. state

#21

Post by fbanon9876 »

tathougies wrote: post #6

Minimum wage workers should mainly be teenagers, young single people, and other dependents who don't need to live alone or for a family, and for whom minimum wage makes sense while they advance in careers. I honestly don't care if minimum wage means you can afford rent. I'm most interested in what percentage of those with dependents are working minimum wage jobs and what percentage of those that started out with mini…

Australia does something interesting - minimum wage scales with how old the person is. Say it's $15/hr for 18 year olds; 19 year olds get $16 as a minimum, and so forth.

Curious what you think about that idea.

Re: Minimum wage workers cannot afford rent in any U.S. state

#22

Post by vangelis »

apsec112 wrote: post #14
standardUser wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Minimum wage workers should mainly be..." Because you say so? Or do you have thoughts on specific policies that will make this true? Because currently, many people who need to support a household rely on minimum wage jobs (or close to it), and often without guaranteed full time hours and no health insurance.

Minimum wage workers are only a few percent of the American labor force, and about half of them are under 25. Only about 20% were between 35 and 55. https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2018/pdf/home....

The more interesting data is low-wage workers. Making 10c over the minimum wage would pull you out of that report.

Re: Minimum wage workers cannot afford rent in any U.S. state

#23

Post by II2II »

falcolas wrote: post #5

There's an important caveat, before everyone jumps on the title by itself: > The report, released Tuesday, defines “affordable” as spending no more than 30% of monthly income on rent, in line with what most budgeting experts recommend. The second caveat is this is rent for a 2 bedroom apartment; though they do say that it's also ~95% of 1 bedroom apartments. No comment is made on studio apartments or having roommates…

If anything, the pandemic illustrates why it is important to spend no more than 30% of monthly rent. People simply do not have the savings to fall back upon in times of crisis. This forces a reliance upon some form of social safety net or homelessness in the case of lost employment. It forces people to continue working in unsafe conditions if they manage to keep their job.

Of course, the consequences go well beyond pandemics. People are forced to accept illegal labour practices, have minimal savings if they face a loss of income for personal reasons, and cannot plan for retirement even under normal circumstances.

As for the second caveat, note that the article mentions that the average minimum wage worker has to work 97 hours per week to meet that threshold. That is effectively a two income household where at least one person is working more than 40 hours per week. That is very difficult to keep up for people with children.

Re: Minimum wage workers cannot afford rent in any U.S. state

#24

Post by roenxi »

The capitalist strategy is generally to have so much wealth sloshing around that nobody is paid the minimum wage anyway. Fixating on the situation of minimum wage workers is ok and we don't want anyone to be structurally suffering - but a far better strategy than "affordable rental housing and emergency rental assistance" is to work on increasing the economic prosperity of workers so that the legal minimum wage is just a theoretical thing for underpaid children. If only 2% of people are paid the minimum wage it doesn't matter that only 5% of the housing is available to them.

It has been something like 50 years since workers say a real improvement in their wage position. The system keeps encouraging people to play shell games with debt and that really hurts over the long term.

Less mortgages. More savings. Cheaper houses. Shorter slogans.

Re: Minimum wage workers cannot afford rent in any U.S. state

#25

Post by standardUser »

apsec112 wrote: post #14
standardUser wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Minimum wage workers should mainly be..." Because you say so? Or do you have thoughts on specific policies that will make this true? Because currently, many people who need to support a household rely on minimum wage jobs (or close to it), and often without guaranteed full time hours and no health insurance.

Minimum wage workers are only a few percent of the American labor force, and about half of them are under 25. Only about 20% were between 35 and 55. https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2018/pdf/home....

I'd say 20% is not a small number! I'd also point out that "just above minimum wage" isn't much better than minimum wage. For example, if you work for many large chains that pay minimum wage you're likely to get a raise at some point. That raise may take you from, say, $10.00/hr to $10.50/hr. Hurrah!

I think a better metric might be (minimum wage + (20% * minimum wage)). That snags all those people who work at "minimum wage jobs" but have stuck around for a few years and gotten a few small pay increases, but are still being paid a wage that is a function of minimum wage.

Just riffing here to be honest, but I do get a little uppity when people claim minimum wage jobs are just for teenagers or other "less important" wage earners. Part of this was from working in retail and food service when I was much younger and knowing a lot of adults, many single parents, working for close to minimum wage. Anecdotal, I know.

Re: Minimum wage workers cannot afford rent in any U.S. state

#26

Post by jseliger »

II2II wrote: post #23
falcolas wrote: post #5

There's an important caveat, before everyone jumps on the title by itself: > The report, released Tuesday, defines “affordable” as spending no more than 30% of monthly income on rent, in line with what most budgeting experts recommend. The second caveat is this is rent for a 2 bedroom apartment; though they do say that it's also ~95% of 1 bedroom apartments. No comment is made on studio apartments or having roommates…

If anything, the pandemic illustrates why it is important to spend no more than 30% of monthly rent. People simply do not have the savings to fall back upon in times of crisis. This forces a reliance upon some form of social safety net or homelessness in the case of lost employment. It forces people to continue working in unsafe conditions if they manage to keep their job. Of course, the consequences go well beyond p…

The problem is, contemporary zoning laws make the construction of (relatively) inexpensive housing illegal, by mandating excess parking requirements and forbidding multifamily housing on the vast majority of usable parcels: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/03/the-ren....

Until we resolve that problem, we're going to keep getting headlines like the original one. We've regulated ourselves into ultra-high costs. Liberalization can improve matters.

Re: Minimum wage workers cannot afford rent in any U.S. state

#27

Post by VRay »

throw51319 wrote: post #9
tathougies wrote: post #6

Minimum wage workers should mainly be teenagers, young single people, and other dependents who don't need to live alone or for a family, and for whom minimum wage makes sense while they advance in careers. I honestly don't care if minimum wage means you can afford rent. I'm most interested in what percentage of those with dependents are working minimum wage jobs and what percentage of those that started out with mini…

Hmm wonder why you are getting downvoted for a well-written question about what data is important.

It's kind of an underhanded trick where the guy is redirecting the conversation to something else. I'd probably prefer that people meet him head on and debunk him instead of downvoting him into oblivion, but I don't blame people for just booting his bad-faith argument out of the conversation.

To meet with the comment head-on: You assert that nobody is supporting a family on minimum wage, so there's no reason to increase the minimum wage or have social welfare programs that help people on minimum wage.

That's not true. A lot of people are stuck at minimum wage and supporting themselves and supporting families on it.

You can go off the rails here and assert that "Any competent adult should be able to ..", and maybe it's true. But that argument is a VERY slippery slope. Personally, I think that anyone posting on this site SHOULD be able to go out and snag a job that pays well over 400k a year if they work hard and pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Actually I think that most of the people here should be able to start a valuable startup and become millionaires. I'm not going to roll in and take a dump on someone if they can't pull it off, though.

Re: Minimum wage workers cannot afford rent in any U.S. state

#28

Post by tathougies »

standardUser wrote: post #7
tathougies wrote: post #6

Minimum wage workers should mainly be teenagers, young single people, and other dependents who don't need to live alone or for a family, and for whom minimum wage makes sense while they advance in careers. I honestly don't care if minimum wage means you can afford rent. I'm most interested in what percentage of those with dependents are working minimum wage jobs and what percentage of those that started out with mini…

"Minimum wage workers should mainly be..." Because you say so? Or do you have thoughts on specific policies that will make this true? Because currently, many people who need to support a household rely on minimum wage jobs (or close to it), and often without guaranteed full time hours and no health insurance.

No, because this is the policy outcome government should seek, not a uniform raising of the minimum wage.

> Or do you have thoughts on specific policies that will make this true

No I don't... but I'm curious in solutions to this problem, rather than 'solutions' to minimum wage jobs.

> Because currently, many people who need to support a household rely on minimum wage jobs (or close to it), and often without guaranteed full time hours and no health insurance.

Yes... i know. We need to formulate policies that make this not true, so that the group I said should make up the majority of min wage workers actually comprises the majority.

Re: Minimum wage workers cannot afford rent in any U.S. state

#29

Post by tathougies »

fbanon9876 wrote: post #21
tathougies wrote: post #6

Minimum wage workers should mainly be teenagers, young single people, and other dependents who don't need to live alone or for a family, and for whom minimum wage makes sense while they advance in careers. I honestly don't care if minimum wage means you can afford rent. I'm most interested in what percentage of those with dependents are working minimum wage jobs and what percentage of those that started out with mini…

Australia does something interesting - minimum wage scales with how old the person is. Say it's $15/hr for 18 year olds; 19 year olds get $16 as a minimum, and so forth. Curious what you think about that idea.

I think it's certainly better than the alternative, but I would like to see minimum wage dropped for the youngest ages honestly. So much good experience could be had if the youngest and those just about to embark on their career could get some experience.

But I'm mainly interested in non-minimum wage solutions. There are even good reasons for adults to work for less than minimum wage. Think of non-volunteer tasks that a stay at home parent may be interested in working in part-time but still would like to make a modest income for.

Re: Minimum wage workers cannot afford rent in any U.S. state

#30

Post by eggsmediumrare »

rayiner wrote: post #16
standardUser wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at it from the other direction. Is working 40 hours per week but not being able to afford a 1 or 2 bedroom apartment a goal we want to set? If so, we have achieved it! I think most of us like the idea that if you put in 40 hours of work every week, regardless of the specific job, you are able to afford a basic standard of living.

You’re begging the question. Is having your own 1BR apartment a “basic standard of living”? When did we decide that? Is that a goal other developed countries have set and achieved? Those are the pertinent questions, not what ideas “we like.” According to the study, that standard would require a $30-40 minimum wage in places like New York. Is that something any country has done?

Why wouldn't we want that? Isn't the point of progress to improve life for everyone?
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