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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

#131

Post by leetcrew »

titusjohnson wrote: post #127
leetcrew wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because people will always consider a "living wage" to be 1.5-3x whatever the current minimum is.

I'm confused, are you saying that the tendency for people to want more means we should never re-assess what is considered enough? I hope I got it wrong -- how would you ever improve anything in your life if you live by that rule?

I'm mainly objecting to the term "living wage". people who use it are usually unwilling to commit to a specific set of things that a "living wage" should pay for, but are perfectly happy to exploit the term as a rhetorical technique to smear anyone who slightly pushes back on them.

if by "living wage" you mean "able to afford food and shelter", I'm 100% with you; any full-time job should support that. if you bump it up to a modest studio/1br, I'm still with you. but somewhere along the path to "a living wage is enough to rent a 2br+ dwelling, support a stay at home spouse, arbitrarily many children, and have some left over for eating out and putting away in savings" is where you've lost me.

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

#132

Post by sdinsn »

titusjohnson wrote: post #124
sdinsn wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a livable wage If someone can live in a 2/3 BR with roommates, that sounds pretty livable to me. I used to live in a house with 6 other people during college. I lived just fine.

This is kind of a tone-deaf comment, don't you think? It manages to highlight its posters success (went to college, left), humble brag about how frugal & uncomfortable the poster situation once was (lived with 6 roommates), and dismiss other experiences (I was just fine) in two sentences. The common definition of a livable wage is enough income to "secure food, shelter, clothing, health care, transportation and other…

It seems like you are trying to dismiss my comment based on silly ideas and projection. Overall, your comment is incredibly ignorant and offensive.

> It manages to highlight its posters success

I did not intend to do that, I was clearly just providing context to my situation.

> humble brag

I don't see how I was bragging.

> how frugal & uncomfortable the poster situation once was

I never stated I was uncomfortable; I was perfectly comfortable. Of course it was more frugal than living alone; that's the entire point of this conversation.

> and dismiss other experiences

I wasn't dismissing other experiences, I was sharing my own.

> If you _need_ to live with roommates because you cannot afford even a studio on your own, you're not making a livable wage.

I absolutely disagree with that definition. A roommate is not "assistance".

> There is nothing remotely livable about $290/week (federal minimum)

State and local minimums are far higher. Areas that do not have a local minimum wage are often magnitudes cheaper and are more affordable than areas with higher cost of livings and higher wages.

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

#133

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

hellisothers wrote: post #128
oconnore wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether or not they can afford a bottom quartile home is a different question than whether it's reasonable to expect them to afford a median home (and I don't think we have any evidence regarding that question here). They certainly aren't expected to be able to afford a top quartile home, for example, so I agree that the headline is a bit fishy. The whole situation is being drastically oversimplified, though. Whether…

This leaves out all the trade professions (plumber, electrician, etc) which I keep hearing are doing quite well.

While that doesn't require the big 4 year commitment, that still requires education or an in to working with a skilled tradesperson, and their wages aren't great starting out.

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

#134

Post by djschnei »

the_gastropod wrote: post #101
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.

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.

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

#135

Post by sdinsn »

notacoward wrote: post #119
sdinsn wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> some semblance of a decent life Having roommates is fine and not a big deal.

Maybe not for you. For the 37-year-old average retail worker, who might have kids and might not have many other skills, maybe not so much. Not everyone is like you. In particular, many people in the demographic we're talking about might not be like anyone you've ever spent any time with.

I'm aware not everyone is like me. And also not everyone is a "37-year-old retail worker". If you want to dismiss my comment, that's fine, but you should delete your own to avoid hypocrisy.

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

#136

Post by notacoward »

titusjohnson wrote: post #124
sdinsn wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a livable wage If someone can live in a 2/3 BR with roommates, that sounds pretty livable to me. I used to live in a house with 6 other people during college. I lived just fine.

This is kind of a tone-deaf comment, don't you think? It manages to highlight its posters success (went to college, left), humble brag about how frugal & uncomfortable the poster situation once was (lived with 6 roommates), and dismiss other experiences (I was just fine) in two sentences. The common definition of a livable wage is enough income to "secure food, shelter, clothing, health care, transportation and other…

Thank you. What people are willing to tolerate for a few years in college might be quite different than what they can tolerate as a permanent condition later in life. It might not even be possible to find dependable roommates once one moves a couple of miles away from the nearest college full of similarly situated students. Then there are schedule mismatches. Roommates partying until all hours every night is a little less welcome when you can't join in because you regularly work a 7am shift. There's the lack of an option to go back "home" (i.e. parents' house) for a break, or to store extra junk there, or borrow stuff from there. There's cooking real food due to lack of college meal plans or spare funds to eat out all the time. And then there's kids. I know not all college students enjoy these benefits, but for those who did to blithely say "I did it in college" is just unspeakably callow.

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

#137

Post by sdinsn »

alistairSH wrote: post #63
sdinsn wrote: post #24

Why would a minimum wage worker be trying to buy a 2-bedroom home? Edit: Meant to say rent instead of buy

They aren't. The article is about renting a 2-bedroom home. And nowhere do they limit the definition of "home" to "free standing, detached dwelling" - I believe their figures include 2-bedroom apartments as well.

Apologies- I meant to write rent. Even if their numbers include 2 BR apts, my point still stands: a single person affording rent for a 2 BR apt is not a reasonable baseline for a living wage.

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

#138

Post by leetcrew »

notacoward wrote: post #130
leetcrew wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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? suddenly becoming unable to provide for your kids through no fault of your own is quite different from deciding to have children when you know (or should know) you already have no ability to support them. in both cases, we need to at least do something to help the children…

> I can look at what I spend to sustain myself every month ...and in doing so you make certain assumptions which might not be true for others. Like that your circumstances can only get better, never worse. The GP specifically asked about the latter, in the form of job loss. What if you decided that you were ready to have that child, quite reasonably acccording to those assumptions , and then those assumptions turned…

I wasn't very clear. if you make a reasonable effort to plan ahead and something totally unforseen causes you to be unable to support your children, that really sucks and I would be happy to contribute tax dollars to help people in this situation. I don't think minimum wage is the best way to solve this though; probably direct aid would be more suitable.

also, my heuristic is meant to be more like a bloom filter. you can't know for sure when you are ready to support a small human for the next eighteen years, but it's not hard to tell when you are definitely not ready. making barely enough to support your single self is a pretty strong signal.

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

#139

Post by [deleted] »

bluGill wrote: post #122
SomeOldThrow wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The homeless have problems mostly unrelated to minimum wage.

[deleted]

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

#140

Post by titusjohnson »

leetcrew wrote: post #131
titusjohnson wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused, are you saying that the tendency for people to want more means we should never re-assess what is considered enough? I hope I got it wrong -- how would you ever improve anything in your life if you live by that rule?

I'm mainly objecting to the term "living wage". people who use it are usually unwilling to commit to a specific set of things that a "living wage" should pay for, but are perfectly happy to exploit the term as a rhetorical technique to smear anyone who slightly pushes back on them. if by "living wage" you mean "able to afford food and shelter", I'm 100% with you; any full-time job should support that. if you bump it…

Awesome, sounds like you're on board with the common definition of Living Wage (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_wage): "secure food, shelter, clothing, health care, transportation and other necessities of living in modern society".
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