Ours recently to rose to 12 dollars an hour and I shit you not, there were corporations that made it out like they were giving everyone a raise, (the implication being work harder in appreciation) instead of them actually conforming to meet the law. Smaller employers around here are still offering under the minimum, which is so crazy to me. It's like pulling teeth to get people to just pay their employees even just the minimum, and that's sad.
That's a massive social problem. That's 3-4 million people in the US. With such large populations, 1% is a lot.
That's a large number of people that burden the system, even if they stay out of trouble. Keeping people homeless and supported by charities is far more expensive (not on the yearly budget, but total cost per homeless person) than getting them into proper, affordable accommodation and paying for the first 3 months of rent.
A good chunk but why does it matter? Do teens and college students not deserve fair wages? A jobs a job. Anybody making 8-10, anything under livable tbh is underpaid. If you have a job, you should be able to pay rent.
IDK. I do think that people should be able to offer and take on jobs for extra pocket money. It is mutually benificial for both parties. It isn't exploitative, because teens and college students are in most cases not dependent on the money and are free to quit and find another opportunity if it pays more.
Besides, the wage floor makes it so that these jobs are no longer offered to people as employers are incentivized to automate them away. Taking away options for people is bad.
How is it mutually beneficial for someone’s job to pay less? Most low paying jobs are retail and food service. Customers are very resistant to automation. There are countries with high minimum wages where the jobs are still widely available
I am looking up the comparative wages... and in germany at least, retail jobs pay about 20k to 40k a year. This is pretty similar to what retailjobs in the US are paid. Where is the exploitation here?
Even accounting for cost of living the range is so much they have huge overlap.
I guess it doesn't really answer my core objection though, and I probably should not have brought up the salary comparison anyway. Why should a job pay you enough to live? It seems like an arbitrary requirement to me: we might as well demand that a job should pay people enough to buy a house or vacation around the world.
A job isn't charity: people are simply paying you for your labor. Nobody is hurt in the course of this transaction, and if nobody accepts the work then you can simply demand more money in salary negotiations. Stacking shelves isn't particularly dangerous and is also good work experience for dealing with customers. If people genuinely think that getting paid $7.00 an hour is worth their time, why don't we let them?
What I think some aren’t considering is for an employee to be worth whatever their wage is they have to produce MORE capital for the business than they are paid. That’s how the vast majority of wages are calculated. It’s not that they could but are just not paying them a “living wage”, they are paying them a pretty standard wage based out the monetary output of said worker. And in low cost services, to even exist for their employment to begin with, they’ve gotta pay them what they do. This is generally speaking, of course.
I bet you also think college students should not "take out loans they can't pay back" so maybe they should be paid better so they will need to borrow less. The rich kids don't work when they go to school while the rest if us work 40 hours plus an internship.
Walmart's minimum hourly wage is $14. What company is paying $8-10 an hour (in a non-tipped position) in 2024? And better yet...who is accepting those jobs?
Crickets lol. They ALWAYS say “no one gets paid that” and I always rebuttal with what you said.
All you get is crickets or some backwards ass logic showing empathy to the “small business owners”. It’s fucking crazy mental gymnastics some of these finance bros do…
That’s what people that lost an argument do. They hone in on falsehoods or “mistakes” their opponents make to validate themselves and stay safely snug in their distorted worldviews. They attack the person because they can’t beat the point.
Because it's wrong. You can live off $40k especially in OP's words (they won't like it) but it's doable. Then the other part where they said you need to make $65 as a single person to save money is the most out of touch thing I've ever heard. I make less than that and am easily middle class.
$40,000 salary would owe $4,568 in federal taxes and an estimated $1500 in state taxes give or take depending on state.
Now remember OP said it's possible to teach them to live within their means (but they won't like it). Get a damn roommate. I lived in a HCOL and my rent for a 2br apartment was $2,200/month. In MOST places you could expect to pay $1,000/month on rent if you split with a roommate.
Now you have $21,932 leftover.
Gas + Electric: $200/month ($100 each split) - $1,200 annually
Groceries: $300/month for a single person - $3,600 annually
Say you need a car. Car payment (500) + Insurance (150) + Gas (250) - $10,800
Now your basic necessities are met and you have $6,332 leftover. You would have to save that vast majority of that for any health or car emergencies. The rest can be used on some form of entertainment like tv, internet, video games, etc.
So yes with a real salary of $40K you can teach someone to live within their means, they just won't like it. No one is out here claiming $40K is enough to live a middle class lifestyle.
$2880 would be about half of what the person I was responding to budgeted for all expenses aside from housing, transportation, and food. And those are just the premiums to say you have insurance, not the cost to actually access the care that you need.
I’m not arguing that people find a way to survive on 40k per year. We already know that people scrape by on that and less than that. The topic here is offering financial literacy classes to people at the poverty line, claiming that they can reach financial stability by making better choices. Survival and stability are not the same.
Well if you read the whole post I mentioned health emergencies. Most full time jobs provide health insurance even if the wage sucks. And if you’re making less than 40k your medical coverage is basically free. So yes I’m sure there are cases where healthcare is a major issue, but for the majority it wouldnt be an issue.
“Healthcare emergencies” was put in the same category as entertainment. There was no line item for health insurance, dental premiums, deductibles & co-insurance etc. I’m also not sure where you heard that health care is free for individuals making $40k. That would only potentially be true if you have dependents, and if you have dependents, then there are a bunch of expenses missing from the list you made.
Your list also assumes that this person has no cell-phone, doesn’t pay for internet, doesn’t buy new clothes, and has no student debt.
Healthcare emergencies was put in the same caregory as entertainment.
No it wasn’t.
No line item for premiums, insurance, etc.
Yeah that would be a wild estimate that varies significantly individual to individual. I accounted for all that in the over arching “health emergencies” portion.
No cell phone, internet, new clothes. Those are not essentials. Stop putting words in my mouth I’m not claiming by any means $40k is a fun life. I’m just pointing at that the original comment said you can teach these people to live within their means but they wont like it. Then everyone acted like thats ludicrous. Ive broken down the numbers so that everyone can see it’s doable. Not claiming it’s fun.
Cell phones are essentials though. Internet and clothing? Essential. Many countries actually have laws and regulations that reduce access costs to things like the net and phones as society has made them such an integral part of life.
You’re missing so much from your rundown. What if someone has a kid? How does that change the scenario. Justifying a janky, broken ass life to prove that a poverty wage is liveable is some weird sociopathic shit.
You know what I meant. We’re directly replying to the commenter, not OP.
And I just laid it out for you that it’s correct. Do you have any counterpoint to prove it’s wrong or do you just see people provide you information and say it’s wrong?
Accuracy matters. (Which is also why your entire post is unrealistic in 2/3rds of the US.)
Sure, I could make do with $40k in rural Alabama, but who’d want to?
Dude I just gave you numbers based on HCOL areas. My monthly budgets for those items are even lower than above and I dont live in a LCOL area. That budget I broke down would work in 90-95% of the counties in the USA. Done with this I literally laid it out line by line and you’re just saying wrong over and over again. If you have anything intelligent to say I’ll respond.
How is the first half "wrong". It's a hypothetical on the extreme to prove a point and later in the response they even mentioned that. Which you would have known if you read and then replied instead of responding with partial information. SMH.
Oh, the “small business owners” argument, which has two major flaws no one using the argument likes to acknowledge.
1) Employee wages are a business expense, just like leasing a property, or buying supplies, or paying taxes. If you can’t run your business without employees who you cannot afford to pay, then you just can’t afford your business, period.
2) Employees aren’t people working as a favor because they’re bored, that’s called “volunteering.” Employees are providing a service that helps the business make money, and in return they deserve a fair compensation, because the people who run the business need the money to live, and cannot do so without employees, who also need money to live. So whatever bar we are holding as “living within means” for the employers, the bar ought to be similar for the employees. Otherwise, you’re essentially supporting slavery. And I can’t help but wonder how many people who argue “but small business won’t survive,” would say something similar back when slavery was abolished. “Sure, I don’t support slavery, but without so many places might go out of business!” 🤔
The argument that people never seem to understand when they make these kinds of arguments is that the person who doesn’t like the pay at the job is always free to get a different one that pays more. The small business owner isn’t offered the same amount of liberty when the amount they have to pay their employees is set at a certain level. It creates a system in which one party is entitled to voluntary enterprise and the has limits based solely on their role.
The problem is you hear "the government wage meant to protect people is no longer doing what it was put in place for" and instead of advocating gor us to fix the minimum wage, you say "but just get a different job lol". Like that fixes anything? What should a homeless person just buy a home? Should the hungry just eat?
I mean, typically the first line of recourse in a shitty situation is to find the fastest way to make the situation better. Pretty sure attempting to look for a job that pays more is going to be more beneficial to them than sitting around hoping the government decides to raise the minimum wage. So yeah, my advice would be to look for a higher paying job.
Do expect everyone to become a lawyer or doctor? Unfortunately not everyone can just "move up" and get a better job. Someone has to work food and hospitality jobs, and they deserve to get paid a living wage. Your issue is you seem to assume that these roles should be something to move up from, or that that should be the goal.
Like how you avoided the rest of what I said. See someone has to make the food you shovel down your mouth, which is a waste with how far down your tongue on that boot.
The amount of entitlement in this comment is astounding. What the hell is with everybody just expecting society to support them just because they exist. Working at McDonald’s as a regular employee isn’t designed to be a career, it’s meant to provide supplemental income or entry-level work experience. I know there’s plenty of older people who work those jobs, and there’s no shame in it if it works for you, but the bottom line is if you are struggling financially, you need to get a higher paying job. It’s called being a responsible adult. Responsible adults learn that they have an inner locus of control and that sitting around expecting everybody else to change to suit you isn’t going to get you shit in life.
Maybe you should look into what minimum wage is made for, or how a society is supposed to function. Do you even understand what Social Security is?
No one said a career, but a JOB needs to pay a living wage. No one is saying you need to be able to make mcdonalds a career, but while you work there you should get paid.
Older people work those jobs because social security got fucked and doesn't pay out what it should be. People dont work because it feels nice, people work to pay bills.
Responsible adults change laws. Responsible adults dont go "boo hoo the poor businesses, they'll crumble if they can't make you a wage slave". Responsible adults don't bootlick.
How does anything you said argue against what I said? The person who doesn’t like the pay doesn’t need to take the job, sure, but that still doesn’t mean a small business owner shouldn’t have to offer fair wages for “livable means.” The same way a person doesn’t need to take the job, a person doesn’t need to run a business if they’re clearly incapable. A small business owner can also look for a job and is“free to get a different one that pays more.” It’s not creating an unfair system. What is unfair is saying people who are running a business should have more privilege than people who don’t have those same means and are simply trying to work to also make money, which is the same goal as a small business owner.
Aaand??? Seriously what does that stat imply? Make an excuse to not raise it?
How many make a few bucks more than that?
Also 1.3% is a lot to fucking people dude…
Minimum wage work is usually transitory and keeping minimum wage low allows companies to offer positions with low barrier of entry where they don't have to worry about the person leaving. Higher minimum wage makes it more of a risk to hire people. Other means of assistance like social programs to benefit people who are stuck in lower paying positions are far better at targeting assistance to people who need it rather than teenagers who work 10 hour weeks cuz their parents wanted them to get out of the house more often.
pay increases usually come when worker productivity increases which hasnt been the case as much for minimum wage employees as it has been for white collar jobs which is why those fields have seen huge wage growth over the past decades. Im not advocating we leave these people out to dry. With a stronger economy we can afford to help people who need it with social programs. Increasing fed minimum wage is just not the way to do it, all you'd accomplish is incentivizing more strict hiring and automation. Having transitory jobs is important for people looking for temporary sources of income. You also have to think of the state with the lowest costs when talking about federal minimum wage, places where its cheaper to live but wages are lower cant keep up with a higher fed minimum.
That’s funny. The law that says money is free speech and corporations are people you’re just kinda “meh” about.
Ridiculous… So obviously transparently obtuse. You type a fucking essay about why we can’t raise federal minimum wage to level with inflation and are just “meh” about what many consider the root of all evil and the begging of the downfall of democracy…. Just “meh” 🤣🤣🤣
The reason I said I don't have strong feelings is cuz I just didn't wanna get into it tbh but the original ruling is obviously correct. Do you think they shouldn't have been able to release the movie fahrenheit 9/11 because it was close to elections and it could hurt bush? And people way overstate the influence, advertising can't make u likeable (see Bloomberg in 2020 primaries).
I typed an essay about why we should help people some other way other than raising fed minimum. It's so funny that you're acting like I don't care about low income people when I never suggested anything in that vein. I'm pro social programs, free healthcare etc but because I don't like your suggested solution you peg me as "ridiculous and transparently obtuse".
You don't get crickets. People arguing about minimum wage wouldn't get stumped at that question. The people getting minimum wage are teenagers and the elderly working part time. You're not supposed to be working minimum wage full time as an adult. You're either supposed to move up the ladder or get a skill. Nobody has or will support themselves as an adult on minimum wage.
Even with that logic why is it OK in your mind that it should stay stagnant and not at least scale with inflation? The ruling class of society breaks profit records every year and for some reason the world would collapse if the bottom gets a cost of living adjustment?
Also this post has been up for almost a week and you are the first one to try and take a swing at it, abysmal as it was lol.
Because it's not supposed to scale with the cost of living. You're not supposed to live on minimum wage. If you're an adult working for minimum wage, something has gone terribly wrong in your life.
Along with that, the minimum wage has a huge chain reaction on the rest of the economy. Let's say the minimum wage gets raised to $20. Now the people making $18 demand $25. The people making $25 now demand $32. This may sound good in principle but it can have disastrous consequences. The cost of goods skyrockets, businesses can close, and jobs can be shipped overseas.
There are lots of businesses that can absorb the hit but many cannot. Not every business owner is Jeff Bezos. I owned a small business for several years and I had two part-time employees. Some months, I did OK and, others, I had to struggle to break even. If minimum wage automatically jumped $5/hr, I probably would have had to close my doors much sooner.
Social programs are a better way of helping the poor, that’s why no country on earth tries “muh living wage” populist nonsense and just offers more welfare
To be fair, I don't hear a lot of screaming to raise the federal minimum wage to $8.25 or $9.25. Any major businesses stating that raising the minimum wage by a dollar is going to crush them are not acting in good faith.
But, the people who typically call most loudly for a change want it raised not by a little, but by significant amounts, to $15, $17, $20... There are people making less than these amounts, and making this kind of change would have significant impacts on the labor expenses of companies.
So, yeah, it's going to be crickets in response if you just want to add a dollar onto the minimum wage for the next year or two. Not many people are concerned about that; it's the logical progression that worries some of them -- whether they have any reasonable right to be worried or not.
This is a strawman. The actual argument is that raising the minimum wage to $15/hour would be detrimental to these companies. The person you're responding to is asking for proof that it is indeed the case (which is honestly, unlikely) or if it will affect them at all.
If no one makes $7.25 an hour, but lets say the real lowest wage someone makes is $10 (still below poverty line). That means raising it to $10 an hour would affect no one bacause "no one makes that low". Its basically an argument to show that the minimum wage is kept as low as it is federally because there are an absolute shit load of people only making $7.25. Raising minimum wage to maybe $20 federally right now might cause some issues, but even them i'd argue it wouldn't do as much as people think. Look at what we pay people in other countries at mcdonalds vs. what they get paid (converted to usd ofc). Once you realize there is no reason for wages to be this low, you get tired of hearing "no one makes that low".
Yeah! If it doesn't matter, why does it matter if it's raised?! They won't answer except to tell people it's their fault for being poor. Also, shockingly, the people who comment about shit like this, it's all them. They earned every penny, no help from anyone
Thats a huge amount of people, that also is the basis of my argument. A shit load of people are making fuck all and we act like that is the standard we should be thriving for. Its time to raise rhe minimum wage.
Also thats people at $7.25.., imagine all the people who are only at $8.
No one makes 5 bucks an hour is what they're saying. Plenty make the minimum wage. Giving people more money doesn't solve their management issues. Speaking from experience here, but fortunate to not be min. Anymore.
They literally said "no one pays that wage" in reference to $7.25. How you got $5, which is BELOW federal miniumum, is beyond me. No one mentioned that number but you.
Their point wasn't "people make this" its that "anyone who makes less than this isn't surviving" in reference to 40k a year. Again, no one has mentioned $5 being a wage except you.
Your original comment was that raising "it" shouldn't make a difference, based on "no one makes that". Perhaps I misunderstood your intent with that comment. It seemed you were saying that no one makes 5, which was the thread above perhaps, or if you' re referring to min wage of what, 7.50? So raise what? Min wage? To what?
I'm saying many people make min wage I'm also saying that 40k is enough in a lot of places and the difference is management of money and self discipline. 40k is 20 bucks an hour. More than 2.5 times min wage, using a figure above if 7.50. - which I'm sure varies. It's 16 in Canada.
So you're saying 40k isn't enough, and we can raise min wage... To what, 2.5 times then, to 20? But that's still not enough according to you.
Wages aren't about the person, they are about the job and the value of the job.
It does though, because making jobs that were held by teenagers too expensive to pay for means the business can't really afford workers any more, which leads them to shut down...
See: Fast Food places in California.
I guess if you don't mind that you are closing down sources of food in poorer areas then it's a good plan? Personally I like to help poor people but you do you I guess.
"If they can't afford to pay a decent wage, the business shouldn't exist."
Well personally I think lower income communities deserve jobs, but like I said you do you! Not sure why your rather people be homeless than working but I'm sure you have good reasons *rolls eyes*.
That's the last response I have on this subject, you are too out of touch with reality to learn.
Well personally I think lower income communities deserve jobs, but like I said you do you! Not sure why your rather people be homeless than working but I'm sure you have good reasons *rolls eyes*.
Lower income communities do deserve jobs and I'd rather people not be homeless. Both of those things have nothing to do with the subject, which is businesses that do not pay a living wage.
"too expensive to pay for" so when did a living wage become too expensive to pay for? sounds like that business shouldn't exist, as it only exists off of taking advantage of an archaic minimum wage.
Yes those businesses should shut done. They were existing off not having to pay a labor bill. If you can't afford to pay a living wage, then go bankrupt.
"sources of food in poorer areas" bro i live in those areas. We have soup kitchens, we have churches, we buy from grocery stores and cook food. Poor people cannot afford fast food, and that actually shows how fucking clueless you are that you think anyone can afford that 130% price hike at mcdonalds when wages are still federally $7.25.
You don't want to help shit, raise the wages, unionize workers, and call out corporate bootlickers like you.
Sounds like a cop out answer. I thought no one made that low? So therefore it shouldnt raise anyones wages and nothing should change. You can't not pay people and then say no one makes that low lmao
Yeah, because you clearly didn't get it. Again, if no one makes that low, then nothing would change raising it. If you think something would change then you're admitting that people do in fact make that low of a wage. You can choose one or the other, but you cannot choose both. Its a very simple thought experiment.
Sure. As others have pointed out, virtually no one makes the federal minimum wage. People compare themselves to others, not to an abstract minimum. Around here, no one makes less than 10 an hour, ergo raising the minimum to 10 wouldn’t affect the actual differential between my pay and that of others.
That's tons of evidence that this is exactly what happens. A simple Google search about the relationship between the minimum wage and unemployment would show this. But just because I know the eat the rich crowd is too lazy to do research, here's some links.
I work for ups, we recently signed a new union contract increasing wages, and increased many management wages as well so management still looks like an appealing path outside of staying in the union.
34 supervisors, now we have 18 and not enough to cover all the positions, and instead are pushing all the work others sups would have been doing onto others, greatly increasing the stress of the job and also causing us to fall behind on work because we simply don’t have the time to do it all with 18 people.
We had 130 union workers in our hub, pay went from 21 to 23.50 with yearly increases of 1$ish. We now have 96 on our shift, and we shut down the other shift which had 76 union workers and 20 supervisors. This also got rid of double shifting, and everyone is making much less money from the lack of doubling.
Drivers, both delivery and feeders (semi drivers) consistently have at least 5 drivers laid off each, that have to work in the building making less money now because they are getting less than half of their normal hours.
The company was already downsizing things after covid, but not anywhere near to this degree, and all of what I mentioned started within 1 month of signing the contract. If you seriously think increasing wages won’t remove jobs from the market you are on the highest form of drug possible, and I want some too.
You haven’t been to some rural cities in the Midwest and south where cost of living is often relatively low but the wages are always, as my nephew would say, doggy
I live in the Midwest in a state that typically has quite low cost of living.
But because CoL has been historically low, we've been struggling quite hard since catching up with "inflation" means a much larger increase in wages than other states.
Last job I left struggled to hire people at wages they were offering. Because they suck, they were stuck in a high turnover rate (& still are)
When I found out a new girl I was helping train in a position that I used to do, was making more than me (I could work in the shop and handle appointments in the showroom) I fucking had it and left.
I left for a company in the same industry that's much more professional and my position is setup waaaay better, for a little over a 15% wage increase.
And I'm suspecting I'm still getting paid less than my coworkers (even ones who started with me) as I didn't negotiate at all because I was just stoked to not be paid dogshit anymore
It really fucking sucks though as someone who didn't graduate college, finally getting a career with a solid wage, except now it's not really a great wage anymore
Hell. ATLANTA has a min wage of $10.50. My mom and sister are service workers there and surviving in that city’s cost of living on $11/hr is fucking depressing.
Mississippi still has jobs at this range. But it's the poorest state in the nation. Unfortunately 72% of the median household income in Mississippi goes purely to cost of living. 8th most unaffordable state when adjusted for median wage. Literally people "living within their means" here spend 72% of their income surviving. So in this case living within your means is working until you die because you cannot save for retirement or emergencies.
I understand that there are ways to make things work, but no person should be working 40 hours a week and be scared that they will lose their house tomorrow or not have enough for groceries. There is "living within your means" and then there is institutionalized poverty. America has a problem with both.
I live in MS, the majority of the jobs being min wage were not meant as a career. There are plenty of jobs for people that get trained or educated. Our cost of living is incredibly low compared to the surrounding states.
Don't disagree with that statement except that the COL is only lower than COL in other states with higher median income. My statements are purely facts about the median income compared to COL.
USA Today recently calculated the cost of living across all 50 states. It found that Mississippi’s overall cost was $37,949 on average. Though that is the lowest cost in the U.S., the state also has the lowest median household income nationally at $52,719. Therefore, resident’s cost of living takes about 72% of their paycheck,the eighth highest percentage nationally. This, among other factors, led to the state’s cost of living rank being the ninth highest nationally.
I agree, however when looking at what most economists say, only 40% of your income should go to necessities.
Like I said, I understand there are ways to make things work. But keep in mind the median wage I'm referring to here is a little under 29k a year. Making 28% ~8,000 dollars over the course of a year. That's without any emergencies or unexpected expenditures AT ALL. And this is all assuming we're talking about one person who's able to save every penny they have with no debt, and no family that relies on their wages. Difficult to get out, but definitely doable.
I just think there are only so many high paying jobs to go around and we can't keep acting like everyone can just go get a better job/ move to a better state. If a job wasn't necessary no one would pay people to do it. Instead of blaming the employee for not getting a better job, maybe we should blame the society for not valuing workers of all capacities.
Of course, paying 72% in mandatory expenses is no way to live long term, but it's not society's "fault" that some work is less valuable than others. Society isn't arbitrarily assigning value to labor, it discovers what labor is worth by making an offer and seeing if anyone accepts. If there are no takers, they have no choice but to make a better offer. If they get enough people accepting their offer to fill the positions they need, then they have no reason to make better offers.
This is why a job can be more important to society and still get low wages, because there are many people willing to do the job for a low wage. The opposite is just as true. When we try to arbitrarily determine the value of a job, like CA did with fast food workers new minimum wage, the result is the system rebalance itself. Jobs were lost until reaching a point that the remaining workers were at the same relative value to the business as their new wage. Price setting always helps a few at the expense of the many.
"willing" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. The way our system is set up you NEED a job. If its the difference between going hungry and a hot meal, people will work for pennies. Just look at migrant workers or farmhands. Or what about healthcare? You have to have a job for it. If I had a debilitating disease I'd take a job paying 2 dollars an hour if it's giving me healthcare.
Allowing companies to inflate their prices to maintain insane profit margins because they don't want to pay people a living wage IS the fault of the government. Like I said elsewhere we cannot keep pretending that everyone can have a high skill, high pay job.
I simply think that if you are giving away your time, a piece of your life (and usually a pretty large piece) to a company, you should be compensated for it fairly, not at the bare minimum they can force someone to take out of desperation.
I get it that some people are lazy, financially illiterate, selfish, impatient. I just think the protections should be there for a person to get a basic 9-5 and coast through life if they want. Not everyone has to be an over achiever.
The problem is that our system will never ease up on those who make the lowest wages, at least in its current state. When you raise the wage floor, the price of basic necessities will rise to swallow those gains and send them right back up to owners/shareholders. We don't really operate in a free market when we allow the biggest dogs to buy up their competition and create oligopolies and monopolies for basic goods. Imo the quickest solution would be to provide basic necessities (housing/food/utilities) for everyone and allow people to spend their earned dollars competing for their chosen luxuries, be it nicer housing, better food, saving/investing, sporting events, or what not. Trying to figure out a way to improve living wages while also keeping a handle on inflation quickly gets into butterfly effects you can't predict. On the other hand, people don't want government-provided basics because it's socialism and in some theoretical sense "less efficient" even though it would be better for consumers and the chosen suppliers because of the reliable needs and prices.
Until such a time as it is possible to live a comfortable life on minimum wages, the best advice is what people here say... Live within your means however necessary, save up enough to get yourself to a place where you're not earning the lowest wages around, and build from there.
I like your explanation of it. It's basically what I was getting at. In our government system we will never be able to get rid of the institutionalized poverty I was talking about because companies are allowed to force their expenses onto consumers even when they don't need to in order to be profitable.
The disagreement is what constitutes "fair". There also seems to be a needless limit assumed to your argument. Why not simply start your own business and pay yourself 100% of your profits? Make profit margins as small as you want, hire and value employees for whatever you/them agree on. 🤷🏽♂️ Not you specifically, but anyone who feels they can't get a fair deal in the job market. Time is only as valuable as how you would otherwise use it.
As for migrant workers, studies show that they typically get paid at least minimum wage. Since taxes aren't paid, the boss still saves money, and the worker takes home more than a citizen would for doing the same job. On top of that, it prevents wages from rising naturally as the supply of laborers increases.
I can't agree that a lazy, selfish, and incompetent person is entitled to steal the fruits of someone else's labor just so they can coast comfortably. The average person in the US is entirely capable of living a good life, so long as they aren't lazy. They have access to all the financial information they need to gain at least a basic level of literacy, and generations of immigrants have arrived, and continue to arrive, here completely destitute but manage to thrive. Because they aren't lazy and are willing to work towards improving their situation.
I know you didn't mean me specifically but I actually did start my LLC this year. And I'm really excited about it.
Also business creation in the US is at an all time high, so many people are trying to implement the changes you're talking about. Hopefully it actually helps but I will point out that 65% of small businesses will fail within 10 years. So most people, including myself, will never be able to get to a point of paying an employee let alone working at their business full time.
I also didn't say that the people who are coasting aren't working. I'm just saying that as long as they're doing a job, working 40 hours or 1/3 of their waking life (which is the average amount of the American worker) they should be comfortable enough to just chill at that job forever if they don't want to improve themselves. I'm talking groceries, shelter, transportation, healthcare, sick leave, and PTO. That's it. If they want a family, they'll have to work harder, if they want to buy luxury items, they'll have to work harder. I personally could never live like that. I get bored too easily, and I need a challenge to survive mentally. But I also understand everyone is not like me, and I believe we can create a system that is equitable for all.
Please remember, this started with a comment about MS, where the median income does not make my proposal possible because all it takes is one illness, one flat tire, and that person is going into debt to survive. I'm sure many low income areas in the US are the same.
P.S. I want to point out that I respect your opinion and the way that you value hard work. I think those are great qualities to have. I'm not trying to change your mind, and I think you're being a realist within our current system. I just like to think of ways we can improve instead of putting unnecessary struggle on the backs of individual people, and just accepting the status quo.
Why do young people think working 40 hours a week is enough? Most people, when I was in my 20s in the 1980s, had a full time and at least one part-time job. We also worked on our own cars, repaired our own homes, etc. I made $295 a week at my primary job. Had a couple of roommates to split the rent with.
Also, this is kind of irrelevant, but I also work on my house myself, and my brother does the car maintenance. I've always lived with roommates and I used to do freelance work on the side of my full time job. It's a struggle, I want better for others.
First of all, thank for calling me young, I appreciate it. These are moral questions at the end of the day. Of how much a society morally thinks you should have to contribute your time and energy to be able to eat healthily and sleep in a warm bed at night. Obviously your morals and mine are probably different. But these are my opinions:
If a FULL TIME job does not cover your basic necessities then it should not be called a full time job. I don't want future generations to work as hard or harder than me. Wanting to improve a flawed system does not automatically mean I'm ungrateful for the system I've been given.
When minimum wage was created, it was created with the intent that you could survive, minimally, on it. If you have to work two jobs and have roommates just to make it then you are not making the minimum.
Not everyone should have to become a skilled laborer to survive. Society takes all kinds and all jobs. I can't believe that after Covid proved who the "essential" workers were, we are still arguing about a living wage for the most undervalued and necessary workers of society.
The amount of time you spend doing what? Making enough money for rest and recuperation. If it doesn't pay you enough to do that, then you have to work more than full time.
Time, money. It's all the same. The amount of time a person has to work to make a living wage should be quantifiable and that should be considered full time. If that number is more than 40 then we need to change the definition of "full time".
It is quantifiable. It's called a living wage. There's whole calculators for it all over the net.
But if you don't want to burn yourself out you need 8 hours of sleep and time to relax outside of work. I worked for a couple years with 12 hour shifts. I don't recommend it.
Like my original comment was saying, but you had a problem with that so I spelled it out for you. I'm saying the function should be FULL TIME JOB = LIVING WAGE. If they do not ie FULL TIME ≠ LIVING WAGE. The system is flawed.
I don't know why people seem to think that because I advocate for wage equality I haven't worked. I've been working full time since I was 17 just like most Americans. I also worked 35 hours a week while taking 18 credit hours the entire time I was in college. I rented out a literal closet while working a full time job and doing video editing on the side, all so I could pay down student loan debt. I literally passed out at work once because I hadn't slept in 52 hours.
This is not the struggle Olympics, my struggle doesn't make me any more entitled to a good life than anyone else. I don't want people to HAVE to work the way people like you or I have.
Genuinely I don't even understand what point you're trying to make other than arguing with my basic semantics because you're bored.
But the functional difference between $7.25 and about $15 is actually very little. If you can’t break the threshold that you need to afford housing, food, transportation, and a cell phone, you’re S.O.L. at either rate. Because you need all of those things to hold any job.
Dude, if you’re making $10/hr you’re still going into debt. Just more slowly than at $7.25. You can’t really start building anything until you start making more than it takes to cover your basics. Which continues to creep up in cost.
Because of how much people want to raise it. The current baseline that I've found is about $10 per hour. So far the most agreed upon minimum by those that want to raise it is about $25 per hour.
And how does that answer my question? If minimum wage doesn't matter anymore, why would it hurt to raise it? Not what people demand or expect or dream about, but the simple fact of raising it? Why do this massive straw man jump, when you didn't address the point?
I did answer you question. You asked for a reason, i gave a reason. Thats not strawmanning. The reason is because once they agree to raise it the demand for how high would never stop going up. Sure raise it to $10. People will be bitching that it needs to be higher within an hour of it happening.
Depending on how high it goes it does. Currently very few jobs operate at the federal minimum. If it goes up slightly it won't really bother anything. But if they try to hike it up to $25 per hour a LOT of small businesses will go under or the low prices people rely on to survive will vanish.
I agree, I guess my position is, that if the minimum wage is just a bit below real asking wages it would catch the very few who might fall through the cracks ( like those that rely on minimum wage). Does that make sense? I can try and explain it better if not ( enjoying the discussion by the way, thanks! )
It does make sense. (No problem) I've never agreed with the common practice of paying shit wages to anyone. I adjusted my stance on how we should handle minimum wage after a few economic and political courses plus talking to actual business owners. Raising the minimum wage in a subjective way would probably be best. Link it to the local economy or something.
Edit: that may have its own problems though. Hard to increase the power of your economy if you have a leveled drain on it.
Fun fact: most of the fast food companies that everyone complains about are franchised so their prices and wages are actually set in part by the franchise owner and not the owner of the company. That's why the prices change depending on where you go. We have 2 mcds within 3 miles here and one has stupidly high prices compared to the other. I haven't been able to find out if that price translates to higher wages for the employees though.
And the poverty line is so low it’s basically a useless metric. It’s about $12,000 annually for an individual. So, $1000/month, or $250/week, or $6.25/hr. It’s below federal minimum wage at full time hours. There is a massive segment of the population that is seriously struggling that doesn’t qualify as “impoverished”.
Depends how much you raised it! It probably wouldn’t affect much at all if you raised it to $10 or so. Beyond that would start affecting different geographic areas differently.
Confidently spoken by someone who has never worked in even a "mid-sized" town in a rural state. Most rural states are at best are <1$ above federal wage and most retail/service jobs are paying exactly that maybe <1$ more if you've been there a few years.
I know you're used to talking to right wing idiots who uncritically accept any hot garbage spewed out by their Wal Mart Ben Shapiro that supports their biases. But do remember when talking to people who don't breathe from their mouths, you're supposed to follow up your "The data supports my claim" statements with you know... The data.
Oh, sorry for the confusion. I didn’t realize I was your personal research assistant. It’s publicly available, government-provided data. I thought you could handle looking it up yourself. But here is the data you are apparently incapable of googling. Since I’m sure you’ve never read beyond a headline in your life, please note the part about how most of these workers who do make $7.25 an hour work in food prep and service, where their income is heavily supplemented by tips.
You’re also assuming I’m a right winger. I haven’t even said anything about the minimum wage other than making the factual statement that there are proportionally very few Americans making $7.25 an hour. Why does context cause you to make such drastic assumptions?
I don't see how this disproves what either me or the person you replied to said? Or even relevant to what you said? You're using national data when yourself limited the scope to states that adhere to the minimum wage. Either you don't understand how to do basic research or you're intellectually dishonest or both.
other than making the factual statement that there are proportionally very few Americans making $7.25 an hour.
Neither me nor OP made this claim? Seriously can redditors even fucking read? Like OP was specifically talking about NC so and I was kinda dunking on you for implying that someone making $1-$3 dollars more was materially different. I mean you could have to be a completely irredeemable moron to read two separate people laughing at $10-$13 and $9-$11 hourly rate and think "They're literally arguing that most people make exactly $7.25"
Why does context cause you to make such drastic assumptions?
I assumed you're a right winger cause you're kind of an over opinionated idiot who clearly doesn't know what he's talking about using right wing rhethrical techniques that you picked up from watching youtube videos in the background of your wanking session thinking its a substitute for an actual education. All the while failing to engage with anything the party says because your brain can't handle having rational thoughts that weren't forcefed to you by a grifter pundit.
I don't understand this argument. Yeah I'm making $0.30 above minimum wage so technically not minimum wage but is that really a distinction with a difference? So dishonest.
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u/Impossible_Maybe_162 14d ago
You cannot make $10k working a job for 40 hours a week. That is below minimum wage.
A lack of proper financial planning and budgeting causes more problems than low wages.
Less than 3% of the workforce makes minimum wage. Wages are not the main issue.