Earlier quoted context omitted.
How dare single parent families expect to live somewhere decent.
A single parent would also be getting child support, making it a double income.
Child support does not equal a second income.
Mapping the Hourly Wage Needed to Rent a 2-Bedroom Apartment in Every U.S. State
51–58 of 58 posts
Re: Mapping the Hourly Wage Needed to Rent a 2-Bedroom Apartment in Every U.S. State
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
So then by your logic, all the single income families are consigned to only living in one bedroom apartments? This seems like a logic fail to me.
It's not logic fail. It's emotional fail. Logic fail is claiming there is a logical reason why all single wage earners SHOULD be paid enough to afford a two-bedroom rental in their current location. Emotions might tell you that but logic does not.
For much of the 20th century and perhaps as far back as the 19th a single earner was capable of not only providing a multi bedroom apartment but also a house. You should look into why this has changed and ask yourself why you are OK with that change.
Re: Mapping the Hourly Wage Needed to Rent a 2-Bedroom Apartment in Every U.S. State
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who is actually building these barracks-style accommodations for minimum wage workers? That is something that occurred in the early days of industrialization, and still occurs in factory towns in newly industrializing economies, but not in the contemporary US. Where everyone is expected to finance a car and a single-family detached house.
This is a deep problem -- but not one to solve by messing with the minimum wage. It's largely a zoning issue. High-density housing lowers nearby property values (for many reasons), which means people tend to vote against policies that would allow it. See also the recent HN discussion about trailer parks: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9592812
Yes, the original other way to read the image in the OP is as "localities with an insufficient supply of housing".
Barracks-style housing is just so much further than higher-density housing though. About the only time true barracks accommodations are built is for factories or similar institutions in specific circumstances.
Re: Mapping the Hourly Wage Needed to Rent a 2-Bedroom Apartment in Every U.S. State
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a deep problem -- but not one to solve by messing with the minimum wage. It's largely a zoning issue. High-density housing lowers nearby property values (for many reasons), which means people tend to vote against policies that would allow it. See also the recent HN discussion about trailer parks: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9592812
The problem is letting local people vote for it at all.
There are real external costs that impact the neighborhood, but what's needed is a more rational way of managing local real estate externalities. A bad solution is a solution of a kind, even if it's not a very good one.
Re: Mapping the Hourly Wage Needed to Rent a 2-Bedroom Apartment in Every U.S. State
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not logic fail. It's emotional fail. Logic fail is claiming there is a logical reason why all single wage earners SHOULD be paid enough to afford a two-bedroom rental in their current location. Emotions might tell you that but logic does not.
For much of the 20th century and perhaps as far back as the 19th a single earner was capable of not only providing a multi bedroom apartment but also a house. You should look into why this has changed and ask yourself why you are OK with that change.
Both of my grandfathers built their own homes in 1951 or 1952. Both original houses were around 800 sqft, and eventually expanded to around 1600 sqft over the course of decades. According to the US census bureau [0] the median new home constructed in the US is around 2100 sqft. If you dig deeper into the data [1] you'll find that the characteristics of housing in the US have changed drastically since the days of mostly single-income households -- homes are much larger, with more amenities. The average dwelling for someone below the poverty line right now is bigger and has better amenities than the average dwelling for Americans as a whole in 1970.
One pair of my grandparents is still living, in the same house. Houses that have sold on their block in the last few months were all around 800 sqft and went for an average of $95,000 -- which is an affordable 3.2 times the median income in the neighborhood (it's a poor neighborhood.) A single earner can provide a house, provided it's a house similar to what single earners could provide decades ago -- but there aren't many of those on the market. We keep building bigger houses and then wonder why the poor can't afford to keep up.
[0] https://www.census.gov/const/C25Ann/sftotalmedavgsqft.pdf
Re: Mapping the Hourly Wage Needed to Rent a 2-Bedroom Apartment in Every U.S. State
#56The article doesn't address why the hourly wage for 2-bedroom is relevant in relation to say, a 1-bedroom, studio, or mansion. Looking briefly at the BLS data, it seems that there are about equal numbers of single- and double-earner households. It's not clear to me that a single-earner household should expect to be able to rent a two bedroom apartment.
So then by your logic, all the single income families are consigned to only living in one bedroom apartments? This seems like a logic fail to me.
No, that is not what I meant to imply. My point is that increasing living space will obviously require more income, and it seems arbitrary to assume that 2-bedroom is the point of comparison when you're only looking at one-person incomes. I know a lot of single people without families who are perfectly content to live in a one bedroom or studio (myself included). If you simply assume that everyone must live in a 2 bedroom, then of course you can tell dire stories about how unaffordable housing is.
I don't want to diminish the very real struggle some families have with finding adequate housing. But I do think that the linked article has no real clear thesis other than that they wish housing was cheaper. I'd venture that everyone wants that to be true, always, and forever.
Re: Mapping the Hourly Wage Needed to Rent a 2-Bedroom Apartment in Every U.S. State
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
I dunno, I don't think it is an unreasonable aim of society that if you are supplying your labour to someone (why shouldn't this include McD's?), that you are able to at least live a reasonable life. By that I mean secure accomodation (not large, but comfortable), food and transport.
The issue what is a reasonable life? We make our enlisted soldiers live in a barracks and eat cafeteria food. Minimum wage could afford that sort of lifestye. And I think it's fair to expect a job to provide for that. It could provide a dorm experience. But I don't think it's fair to expect it to support a family or a solo apartment. Because a lot of minimum wage workers do live with mom and dad or live in a bunch of…
And a lot of minimum wage workers are trying to support families. And they got minimum wage work because that's all that was available. And they can't go back to school to get a better job because they have mouths to feed and rent to pay.
Re: Mapping the Hourly Wage Needed to Rent a 2-Bedroom Apartment in Every U.S. State
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A grown adult(lets say 25) shouldn't be working the entry level position at MickeyD's. That should be an outlying case and policy shouldn't be decided on corner cases. Maybe you think they shouldn't be, but statistics show they are . Good jobs are hard to come by and the median age of fast-food workers is 28[0] (meaning half are older than that). It's absolutely not a weird corner case. It's a very common thing, an…
Uniquely, it seems the act of grilling meat, and putting that between slices of bread, is harder to automate than driving a car. Or at least it's hard to automate for less than $15 an hour. Err $8 an hour.
I would argue that if the FEDs mandate 15$/hour, the impetus to automate the grilling and sandwich making will increase.