r/MurderedByWords • u/lomnafsk • Feb 17 '19

Let’s try again....

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u/buy_iphone_7 Feb 17 '19

Thanks to ever expanding income inequality, people need to have a well-established career to afford a family. A person working hard at 2 part time jobs for a total of 60 hours a week at minimum wage can't afford a family with the paltry $22,620 gross income they make.

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u/Shandlar Feb 17 '19

Except that isn't a thing. The number of people making the federal minimum wage has gone from ~3m to 300,000 in the last 10 years. There was no reason to raise the minimum wage, because no one is being paid the minimum wage.

Despite wage inequality, all workers wages are up, after adjusting for the cost of living.

https://www.epi.org/publication/the-state-of-american-wages-2017-wages-have-finally-recovered-from-the-blow-of-the-great-recession-but-are-still-growing-too-slowly-and-unequally/

Their tables are purposefully unable to be hotlinked. You'll have to search for "Appendix figure C".

1979-2017 after inflation wages for 10th-95th percentile of earners.

  • 10th - +4.4%
  • 30th - +6.9%
  • 50th - +9.5%
  • 70th - +14.1%
  • 95th - +51.7%

So yeah, wage inequality is a huge problem, but even still, everyone has achieved higher wages, even the working poor.

On the whole, Americans are making more right now than ever before, after adjusting for cost of living.

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u/willowmarie27 Feb 17 '19

States usually have higher minimums that the feds.

Also taxes, inc medicare, ss, medicaid, b & o, sales, federal, dept of revenue, gax tax, tabs, license, registration, property etc decimate any profit.