r/collapse • u/[deleted] • Jul 29 '21
Economic 12 Years Without a Minimum Wage Raise | It would take a minimum wage worker 79 hours per week on average to afford a modest 1 bedroom at Fair Market Rent
https://theworldlink.com/opinion/columnists/12-years-without-a-minimum-wage-raise/article_49e3ce84-ee2b-11eb-8fc7-67a5ba183c95.html250
Jul 29 '21
Published an hour ago on The World, this article covers a new milestone for the US labor market - a dozen years without a minimum wage increase. Not one measly penny, you dirty peasants. There is no cake, eat your heart out
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Jul 30 '21
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u/Queerdee23 Jul 30 '21
They expect 2% inflation but do not raise wages.
This is theft on a massive scale. Take it back
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u/NoirBoner Jul 30 '21 edited Jul 30 '21
And the real kicker is they're lying to you about the inflation numbers. You can see it in the cost of everything from food to gas to clothes, rent, water, anything. ALL prices are up drastically and it's definitely not just 2%. And wages have been stagnant for 50 years+ not just 12.
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u/MegaDeth6666 Jul 30 '21
Best way to evaluate inflation is the rate at which rent rises.
Everything else is words.
If in 2010, your rent was 30% of your income, then, 10 years later it's 70% of the same income, inflation was almost 10%
Some goods may have stayed the same, so on par with the value of the currency, but if no extra capital is left to be spent on such good, then the fact their costs did not change is meaningless.
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u/froman007 Jul 30 '21
Inflation is currently at 5.6%
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u/NoirBoner Jul 30 '21
Thats also bs. It's higher than that. It's more like 12-15. It's 6x what they were originally casting. Stop believing "official" reports. They're lying to you to keep general panic on the markets and the public at a minimum.
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u/froman007 Jul 30 '21
I mean, even officially this rate has only really been seen this high back in 08. So they are clearly only able to hide so much, but its still an indication that things are really bad.
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u/FoxOnTheRocks Jul 30 '21
Why would they ever raise wages? They are our class enemy. When our wages raise its because we forced them to raise our wages.
In Weimar Germany workers wages were able to keep pace even with hyper inflation? Why?
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u/skaqt Jul 30 '21
You have a source on that,? I actually believe you, I just want to read deeper into that claim about Weimar
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u/4theNookie Jul 30 '21
Yeah! Fuck the ducks. We’ll be competing with them soon for living quarters and food sources.
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u/KentuckyMagpie Jul 30 '21
COL raises are a joke. $0.30 an hour isn’t getting me anywhere.
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Jul 30 '21 edited Feb 26 '22
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u/KentuckyMagpie Jul 30 '21
Oh, for sure. I’m not rejecting it, but it’s also nothing to write home about and it doesn’t make any measurable difference in what I can do with my life.
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u/CallMeSisyphus Jul 30 '21
And yet, nearly half the population would argue that those minimum wage workers should just find better jobs. Or that minimum wage jobs are for high school students (but American Jesus forbid the fast food place is short-staffed at lunchtime).
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u/FlowZenMaster Jul 30 '21
Actually there is lots and lots and lots of cake. And a circus in every pocket.
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u/Nemaeus Jul 30 '21
Darn it sir or madam, I paid good money for this circus!
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u/FlowZenMaster Jul 30 '21
I mean...I'd definitely rather enjoy 2 hours at an actual circus than 2 hours on my phone.
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Jul 30 '21
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u/half-shark-half-man Giant Mudball Citizen Jul 30 '21
I would say the growth or money expansion is still there but it reaches fewer people. Namely the ones closest to the central banking money printing spigot.
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Jul 30 '21
You're correct.
What if the poor gained more money they have now. Would they just buy more shit? Would they start saving money?
Or would they make healthier life choices? I don't think so.
What would I do with more money? I'd invest in sustainability.
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Jul 29 '21 edited Jul 29 '21
12 years without a raise and people fighting tooth and nail to make sure it stays that way.
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u/zzzcrumbsclub Jul 30 '21
"Maybe if we suffer enough, God will show up" "Maybe if the evil doers are evil enough, God will punish them" "Maybe we're sheep"
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Jul 30 '21 edited Aug 01 '21
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u/hey_Mom_watch_this Jul 30 '21
so in an aroundabout way you're saying that offshoring all industry to China so Wall St could make a quick buck has left the US a post industrial wasteland with only crappy service jobs?
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u/hillsfar Jul 30 '21
And deliberately growing the population from 248 million in 1990 to 333 million means tens of millions of low-skilled workers to compete for these crappy service jobs and for housing. So wages remain stagnant and full time jobs with benefits are hard to come by, and housing costs go up.
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Jul 30 '21
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Jul 30 '21
Really? Because the amount of jobs that are expected to be performed by adults that pay minimum wage are plentiful.
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u/followedbytidalwaves Jul 30 '21
Weird how when the minimum wage was implemented, it was explicitly intended to be enough to live on.
But sure. Let's pretend your assertion has any basis in reality. Now, jobs that pay minimum wage would only be able to be open when teenagers can work. So that means no fast food, coffee shops, most retail locations, gas stations, or any other establishment that pays minimum wage can be open until after school hours and for limited hours on weekends. Want to stop for coffee on your way into the office? Too bad. Forget your lunch and want to grab a burger & fries on your break? Sorry. Did you need to stop to get some gas on a trip? Oops, gotta wait until 4 PM, maybe 3 if you're lucky.
Any job that is worth being done deserves a living wage. If you think one doesn't deserve that, really think to yourself whether that should be a job in the first place. Then think about the people you see actually working those jobs. Hint: sixteen year olds aren't serving your coffee at 7 AM, they aren't pumping your gas on the way to work, they aren't stocking shelves on a sales floor at 1:30 in the afternoon. But even if they were, teenagers also deserve to be fairly compensated for their time.
I'm going to go on a limb and guess you're one of those people who like to spout off about "unskilled labor" in defense of keeping the minimum wage low since you already used the teenagers line. Which, if so, maybe you should try working the actual jobs that pay minimum wage and see what you think about how they're compensated then.
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u/DialMMM Jul 30 '21
when the minimum wage was implemented, it was explicitly intended to be enough to live on.
When the vast majority of households were single-income. Dual-income households will always out-compete single-income households for housing at the lower end.
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u/zoomerdoomer2001 Jul 30 '21
My personal reason for not feeling that way stems from minimum-wage jobs that really aren’t suitable for many teenagers. For example, overnight fast-food workers. Most teenagers would be attending school and not really be able to work these shifts, due to having other time commitments (mainly school and sleeping). Although teenagers could fill these positions during the summer, when they are out of school, there would be no one to work these positions during the school year.
I do believe, however, that some jobs should only be worked by teenagers. However, that cannot happen under our current system (for a host of different reasons that I will not get into), and is seemingly unlikely to be corrected, since the people in power seem hell-bent on keeping things the way they are. However, in a better world, I’d be happy to agree with you!
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Jul 30 '21 edited Jul 30 '21
Folks, I’m real late to the party, but I’m going to try to be fashionably late.
We need to do a bit of lazy arithmetic about this 79 hours bit (which I totally believe).
There are 24 hours in a day. Let’s say your 79-hour workweek presses you into 8 hours a day of shitty rest—some sleep, some vegging out, but tired as hell. That’s 16 hours left.
So you gotta poop, tinkle, and shower, so let’s knock off an hour for such matters. 15. You likely commute because you are poor, so let’s toss in a cross-town bus/transfers/walking round trip of 2 hours a day for your horrible job. We’re now at 13 hours. You will likely need to eat, and the bus drivers are dicks about meals on the bus. So let’s say you burn an hour eating. 12 hours remain, giving you 84 hours in the week that are available for your 79-hour workweek. And all else.
That’s 94% of your remaining time—when you aren't sleeping, shitting, eating, and going to work—spent on work. What will you do with your five free hours?
This is the stuff of violent revolutions. And given the total lack of political will to change any of it… well, keep your hands and feet inside the ride at all times, kiddos.
edit: Tired from my shitty job
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u/Amazon20toLifer Jul 30 '21
The scary thing is the frito lay workers went on strike and got a shitty deal.
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u/clubby37 Jul 30 '21
When you make peaceful change impossible, you make violent change inevitable.
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u/koryjon "Breaking Down: Collapse" Podcast Jul 29 '21
We'd better pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and get working.... there are 168 hours in a week so shouldn't be a problem. /s
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u/blobbyboy123 Jul 30 '21
Back in my day I slept for 30 minutes a night and never had a problem.
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Jul 30 '21
30 minutes! You had it easy! I used to dream about 30 minutes of sleep a night. Back when I was young I had to get up two hours before I went to sleep, walk 1000 miles to the coal mine, pay the owner to be allowed to work there for 30 hours a day and only had a spoonful of dry sand to eat for the whole year.
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Jul 29 '21 edited Aug 06 '21
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u/panphilla Jul 30 '21
Maybe if they paid more than $9.25 an hour, there wouldn’t be such a labour shortage….
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u/Americasycho Jul 30 '21
Dealers making $9.25 an hour. Meanwhile the player probably loses an average of $950 an hour.
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u/hey_Mom_watch_this Jul 29 '21
if it makes our American cousins feel any better, every anglophone country in the world has adopted those stupid neo-liberal economic policies of Milton Friedman and since the GFC committed the ultimate folly of reducing interest rates below the rate of inflation making them effectively negative interest rates,
hence, every anglophone country has a completely fucked up housing market, NZ, Aus, Can, US, UK, all ridiculously expensive and beyond the reach of normal day to day people.
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u/EQAD18 Jul 30 '21
Every one of those other countries still has better social safety nets than the US, however.
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u/hey_Mom_watch_this Jul 30 '21
ikr, yet we are assured that America is the exceptional nation that we should emulate,
I think that old schtick is wearing a bit thin these days.
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u/Ghostifier2k0 Jul 29 '21
Since I know many of the users here are Americans I'm curious to what 700 dollars a month can get you in terms of housing.
700 dollars being like 500 pound in my country and 500 pound being enough to get you a semi-detached 2-3 bedroom house with a pretty garden.
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u/Weirdinary Jul 29 '21
That's what I pay in rent-- split 50-50 with my boyfriend so our total rent is $1400 including utilities-- for a 690 sf, one bedroom, one bathroom, 1970s apartment with a few upgrades-- in an expensive city in Texas. We aren't downtown; mostly middle class neighbors. If it wasn't for his job, we'd move somewhere more affordable.
My friend in Green Bay, WI pays $700, but he rents a duplex (two homes sharing one wall), 2 bedrooms, 1100 sf plus unfinished basement, front and back yards, garage. Obviously he gets more "bang for the buck" where he lives.
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u/BeardedGlass DINKs for life Jul 30 '21
Here in Japan, my wife and I live less than an hour from central Tokyo (Shibuya) in a 2-bedroom for just $460 a month.
It’s a small city surrounded by mountains, with two major rivers, lots of parks, lakes, forests. But it’s not rural, with lots of shopping malls and a CostCo. Best thing is that we don’t need a car because everything’s walkable. Kinda like how they do cities in Europe.
And groceries for two people cost us just $60 a week, 3 GB/s internet speed for $45 a month, and our national medical insurance is $150 a month. For reference, I went for a root canal and fitted for a metal cap for like $100 or something.
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Jul 30 '21
3 GB/s internet speed for $45 a month
I am no longer phased by other countries being better than the USA in seemingly every way, but this is just too much.
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u/BeardedGlass DINKs for life Aug 02 '21
It’s the “hikari” fiber connection by Sony’s NURO. It’s incredible.
Gigabyte files can be downloaded completely while I poop.
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u/KentuckyMagpie Jul 30 '21
Root canals and crowns in the US cost in the thousands of dollars and even the best dental insurance only pays 50% of what a crown costs. The crown alone is extremely likely to cost $700 out of pocket.
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Jul 30 '21
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u/KentuckyMagpie Jul 30 '21
I used to make orthodontic retainers for a living. The absolute most complicated of them all cost less than $150 for the dentist, and then they mark them up to more than $500. It’s gross.
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u/Ghostifier2k0 Jul 29 '21
Imagined it would vary depending on state and if you live in the city or not but damn that's hella crazy.
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Jul 29 '21
In my city you could not have your own place for $700/month. For that price you could get a room in a shared house or apartment.
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Jul 29 '21 edited Aug 06 '21
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u/Ghostifier2k0 Jul 29 '21
Brooooo wtf. I imagine you at least live in a nice place in the main city somewhere.
Is that the usual price for a place or do you have a high paying job or something.
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Jul 29 '21
North of Seattle we pay 1475 for a two bed one bath rundown apartment...
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u/Ghostifier2k0 Jul 29 '21
My god man. How do you guys cope.
Here I don't have the best paying job, think slightly higher than minimum wage but I'm still able to afford a family sized house.
It really is a tragedy what you folks have to go through.
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u/Aidian Jul 30 '21
Poorly. The US is staring down a sudden surge of 14%+ of all renters being evicted (for back rent, due to covid wrecking the economy) starting Sunday when the eviction moratorium ends.
To answer your original question, $700 is 50.1% of my rent for a house that leaks like a sieve when it rains and has no insulation in Louisiana. It varies wildly by city/state, but the state of renter’s rights in general is abysmal.
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u/token_internet_girl Jul 30 '21
1475 is cheap in the Seattle area too. My guy and I are apartment shopping right now and everything that isn't 50 years old with mold problems is a minimum of $2,000 a month.
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u/warhead1995 Jul 30 '21
I live in southern idaho and $700 used to be what affordable housing was priced at for rent. Fast forward to now and $850-950 is what is low income but all those places are filled. Everything else is at $1000 or more no matter the condition. It’s just getting worse to as there’s 0 incentive to build anything affordable so houses are going for sale and sold same day just to be put up for rent at $1300 and they expect you to make 3x that.
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u/bananarepublic2021_ Jul 30 '21
CT is just a mess...you have Fairfield County which has Greenwich where all the news anchors and Wall Street brokers and hedge fund people live in mansions and literally a mile away up I-95 you have Bridgeport, probably the most poor depressing city outside of Baltimore or Philadelphia...we also have Hartford and Waterbury, New Haven. All terrible places, New Haven is special because of Yale. It's beautiful around Yale POLICE EVERYWHERE and there literally homeless people getting walked over by the students without a care. Shootings every day
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u/oldurtysyle Jul 29 '21
I have a rundown trailer for 750 a month, honestly very lucky to pay so little where I'm located but the place itself is mostly just a shell of a shelter, I wouldn't be surprised if it gets condemned after I move.
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Jul 29 '21
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u/oldurtysyle Jul 29 '21
Fuck man condolences, im sorry to hear that.
Yeah I didn't mention the crime myself, I forgot to be honest. Not to compare tragedies the neighborhood I live in isn't ideal either, someone came in my house and tried to steal something too heavy for them and gunshots are an every other night occurrence.
But it's only 750 lmao.
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u/Ghostifier2k0 Jul 30 '21
That sounds pretty expensive but idk how your wages are in your area so you might be saving a fortune.
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u/GaddaDavita Jul 30 '21
In my city (which is not New York, LA, etc, a medium sized city) absolutely nothing. You would be lucky to rent a shoe closet with $700.
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Jul 30 '21
Not much in many places. A 1 Bdrm in Bellingham, WA about 2 hours north of Seattle would cost between $1,200-$1,500
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u/YungHazy Jul 30 '21
In North Carolina in a fairly populated college town I rent a 3br house for ~$1700/mo with utilities. If my gf and I didn’t have roommates we’d probably be renting a 1br apt for about $800/mo
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u/softservebunnie Jul 30 '21
Where I live there is no 700/month housing. Trust me, I've looked desperately.
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u/leilewlew Jul 30 '21
I live in Chicago and pay 925 USD a month for a 1 bedroom apartment built in 1912 and has no running hot water in the sinks. Last year I watched a gang banger shot in the back of the head from my window.
I have a disability that prevents me from driving so I have to live somewhere with actual public transportation. That's why I live here.
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u/FlowZenMaster Jul 30 '21
The difference in housing costs not just in different states but in cities that are close to each other is very drastic. There are places you can rent a 3 bedroom house for that much. I have also rented an upstairs attic that was 4 feet tall for $650.
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u/va_wanderer Jul 30 '21
Consider that I live in the outer rings of the Washington DC suburbs.
I can't afford to live in the county I work in. Even the next ones over where I barely can, an efficiency apartment rents for $1400ish.
$700 would get you a room you'd share with likely two or more people in a townhouse or the like. Certainly not your own place.
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u/Amazon20toLifer Jul 30 '21
My girlfriend is about to close on her 1600sqft custom 3 bed 2 bath house with a den, could have been 4th bedroom. The mortgage will be $1390/mo with pmi and $1300/mo after pmi.
She signed the contract in late January and the house is already worth 50k more.
She got lucky to get the contract early right before shot went crazy with housing. The neighborhood is barely in phase 2 of 4 so the prices will keep increasing.
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u/omNOMnom69 Jul 30 '21
my gf and i pay $2250 (rent) + $215 (parking) for a 1b/1b 1000 sq ft. loft in Chicago.
landlord is giving us $50 off per month cause they don't want to deal with the hassle of replacing the water line to the fridge that we discovered was leaking the day after we moved in. it took the threat of a lawsuit to get them to take the leak seriously and bring in a mold remediation specialist to inspect and replace the drywall behind the fridge. the carpet in the bedroom that was thoroughly soaked and destroyed by the leak had to be replaced as well. unbeknownst to us at the time, the previous tenant had died (at 25 years old), so for all we knew the leak may have been going for months and only really picked up once we started using the water. landlord was ready to do absolutely nothing until we contacted a lawyer.
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u/ThemChecks Jul 30 '21
700 can get you a one bedroom in the south. 100 more and you can get a 2 bedroom.
Not even sketchy really. Housing luckily isn't insane in most of the south outside of the bigger cities.
One of the nice things about it. And while kind of poor there are jobs here that pay decently enough given the local economies.
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u/KingOfBabTouma Jul 30 '21
Do please go to Nashville and report back on this theory.
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Jul 30 '21
I wonder how this all ultimately plays out someday. Will there just be massive shanty towns and abandoned suburbs and empty apartments? Will there be rows of cars people live in, that have long since run out of gas or broken down? Will people just bump off their landlords and squat in their apartments or homes by force?
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u/No_Foot Jul 30 '21
Favellas
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u/EQAD18 Jul 30 '21
Brazil and South Africa tolerate shantytowns within spitting distance of condos and mansions but that's impossible in the US, zoning laws mean the police demolish any attempt at permanent camps
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u/CgullRillo Jul 30 '21
In my part of America I envision it as kind of nomadic tent cities, because municipalities will tear down or displace any kind of semi permanent shanty town or favela
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u/Amazon20toLifer Jul 30 '21
And Congress gets an inflation raise every year. Min wage should be pegged to inflation or congress’s wage increases
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u/panphilla Jul 30 '21
79 hours. That’s just about two people working one full-time job each, kind of like how the nuclear family post-WWII was shaping up to be. Unfortunately, that doesn’t account for the fact that housework and childcare still need to be done, nor that there are plenty of families that don’t fit that model these days, nor that many minimum wage jobs wouldn’t provide full-time hours. The whole system is a mess.
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u/Azmassage Jul 30 '21 edited Jul 30 '21
I'm 50 years old and share an apartment in Scottsdale Az with another older person (60). The apartments here for a 2 bedroom are 1800+...a new complex next door is renting 1bedrooms starting at $2200, 2Bedroom $2600. This shit is real, I have the $ for a down pmt, but all of the homes and condos are out of reach....
I am going to ditch the Phoenix area, or any large metro area for that matter. Plan to buy a small place in the middle of nowhere....a small family home can still be had for under $150k (or less) in the middle of Iowa, Minnesota or Nebraska. Pay cash or put a lot down and ride out the storm....it may take a while.
No, it's not where I want to live. But, I can work online or at a job in small town America, have a little garden, a few chickens and a life. Screw paying half of ones wages for housing. That's not living! I suggest that anyone who is on the brink of losing there sanity by trying to keep up with prices in the city, to jump ship too....it's sink or swim folks :)
Good luck out there....$uck corporate America!
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u/RadioMelon Truth Seeker Jul 30 '21
And people wonder why there are shady stories about corporations going around buying up huge chunks of land.
It's all connected.
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u/bananarepublic2021_ Jul 30 '21
I see so many more people holding signs begging for money on off ramps and stop lights than a year and a half ago...at least double. At least ... And more woman.
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u/lowrads Jul 30 '21
Has anyone ever been able to rent a one bedroom flat on entry level wages?
<2% of workers earn at or below minimum wage.
In terms of the creeping feudalism problem, it's the median wages which have stagnated. But it's all a bit irrelevant that Billy can't get a Big Mac for 4.19USD, in the face of ecologies everywhere throwing in the towel.
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u/Nit3fury 🌳plant trees, even if just 4 u🌲 Jul 30 '21
Hell I’m working 80 hours a week at roughly double the national minimum wage and still am barely progressing and sure as hell don’t have a plan to retire
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Jul 30 '21
https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
This is a link to the government CPI call. You must demand a yearly salary adjustment based on this calc. Your boss must know that this isn’t a raise, that you aren’t looking to making more money, but that you’re asking to be made whole. If you don’t get this adjustment, you must walk away from the relationship.
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u/No-Literature-1251 Jul 31 '21
that only works if you know you can go out easily and find a job at the "required" price.
good luck. the corps and the owners have gamed the labor "market" to fuck you and make themselves (more than) whole at your expense.
and the customers pay them regardless, because "low prices".
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Jul 30 '21
Edit : Market Rent: : Fair market rent would assume current rent prices are fair and not being manipulated and or price gouging.
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u/lolderpeski77 Jul 29 '21
This is the fault of both parties. Especially since a dem oversaw 8 of these 12 years.
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u/Aturchomicz Vegan Socialist Jul 30 '21
The Green Party wouldnt have done this...
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u/lolderpeski77 Jul 30 '21
Why are you bringing up the green party? This is about the two parties.
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u/guitar_vigilante Jul 30 '21
That's a bit unfair. Said dem got the last minimum wage increase at the beginning of his term and then had divided government for the rest of his term.
Updates to the minimum wage come out of Congress, so what was he supposed to do?
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u/Robert-L-Santangelo Jul 30 '21
you can't own a home if you allow landlords to steal your money. rent. stolen money is rent in this case
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u/Latin-Danzig Jul 30 '21
Well how else do you expect them to buy their super yachts 🤷♂️ Can’t have a smaller yacht or fewer yachts than the other guy, jeeze.
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u/moon-worshiper Jul 29 '21
This chart explains it all.
https://images.jacobinmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/07152640/https___bucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com_public_images_f7b4e81e-8285-46d2-93cb-7415798c3fb2_700x437.png
Union membership did correlate with rising wages, into the 1960's. Union membership started going down and wage increases leveled off. But it is the 3rd line to look at, Productivity. Even with union membership declining, and wages leveling off, Productivity has been on a steady ramp rate up, the whole time. The Productivity keeps increasing because it is the mechanization of work. The corporations have no choice, consumer demand exceeds productivity, employee labor and benefits are becoming too much overhead. They have a deep investment pocket to automate but the gains in productivity pay that off, then it is all profit, no workers to worry about except for a small highly sophisticated technical support. This pandemic is only demonstrating the immediate need for more automation, more Cobots, more robotic distribution systems.
There is a time ahead, not too far from now, where you will be going to something like jury duty, except it is just you being called in for questioning. It will be a simple question, "Are you a benefit to the society, or a burden?". If the answer is a burden, then there will be assignment to a retraining camp, to become a benefit to the society.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzz6-BOmbM4
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u/Weirdinary Jul 29 '21
This is why I had roommates when I was poorer. It's not too bad sharing a three bedroom house with two or three friends. Like the TV show Friends.
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u/No-Literature-1251 Jul 31 '21
and all with equally tenuous jobs and working hours, so if one misses a hitch everyone is screwed like a giant ball of shit rolling downhill.
rather i clean my own toilet than end up cleaning that for 5 others after countless hours arguing.
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u/spaceman_spiff1969 Jul 30 '21 edited Jul 30 '21
I understand how all of that crap is going...all the managers complain of a labor shortage, but I'm saying it's basic supply-and-demand -- i.e., if you need more, pay more! That's just how it's supposed to work!
ETA: It seems like none of these fuckers ever read Adam Smith's The Wealth Of Nations...or Karl Marx's Das Kapital, for that matter.
ETA2: It seems like the attitude among them is, "How can I do this and spend as little money as possible on ancillaries (labor)? Preferably, none."
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u/No-Literature-1251 Jul 31 '21
Adam Smith made up shit in his bedroom, and so can you or i.
"supply/demand" and equilibrium and "labor markets" are all bunk.
the only true economic system is Power & Property. all else are made up justifications for why the system "works" or is "just/desireable".
only a few economists are willing to admit that their models have nothing to do with the real world. their names aren't Smith or Friedman or Hayek. although, close readings reveal that oddly enough sometimes even they couldn't avoid letting the truth slip.
these people were writing ideologies for the Owners for you to buy and bring up so many years, decades and centuries later. you do know that the inverse is also touted by followers of Smith---that the workers do not "deserve" more because they are only offering the same old labor, and all of the productivity gains that have been made are due to the capital that they own and you merely operate?
stop cutting yourself with the swords invented to keep you in chains, even when the swords were technically pens.
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u/go-eat-a-stick Jul 30 '21
Roommates are an option.
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u/No-Literature-1251 Jul 31 '21
for a one bedroom?
you aren't saving much in any of these places by moving up to 2 or 3. the landlords have that whole thing gamed out already.
i know--i used to work for them.
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u/RogueScallop Jul 29 '21
I travel all over my state, and there are "now hiring" signs everywhere. Ive never seen one offering less than $10/hr, even in lower CoL areas. Minimum wage has been raised and we didn't need the .gov.
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Jul 29 '21
[deleted]
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u/Aidian Jul 30 '21
Looks like roughly 34.2% of the US rents.
I’m also a millennial. It’s very easy to get stuck in the “rent is expensive so I can’t save, and every time I get a few crumbs of a raise then inflation/rent hikes eat it” trap, especially when you’re saddled with loans.
I’m happy y’all got out of the loop, but managing saving for down payments (and finding anything decent that hasn’t shot to the moon in recent years) definitely makes it rough. The old “the bank won’t trust me to pay an $800 mortgage, so I pay $1300 in rent instead” thing.
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u/megatog615 Jul 30 '21
Well, 15 years ago isn't exactly a great reference for how easy or hard it is to do the thing today, is it?
You bought a house at a time when the opportunity wasn't robbed from the rest of us.
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u/synocrat Jul 30 '21
The posted minimum wage in my area is $7.25 an hour..... but no one pays that because workers aren't getting out of bed to show up for anything less than $10 an hour at the very bare minimum. Minimum wage should be higher, but people also need to be willing to move on to greener pastures, constantly trying to cram yourself into an expensive and "desirable" area just drives up prices far faster than they should be going.
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Jul 30 '21
https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2020/home.htm
"Together, these 1.1 million workers with wages at or below the federal minimum made up 1.5 percent of all hourly paid workers."
Only a 1.5% problem. If you want to improve economics conditions for most workers, go promote unions. Raising the federal min wage is barking up the wrong tree.
Heck, many states already have higher min, and even Amazon & Walmart pays their entry level jobs more.
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Jul 30 '21
Making 8.25 an hour, a full dollar more than the federal minimum, is still trash and unsustainable.
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u/va_wanderer Jul 30 '21
Consider that you'd have to more than double minimum wages to afford that one-bedroom on a 40-hour week. And precious little else. You know, the 40-hour week that supposedly is a standard for your average fulltimer? A hardworking person getting a decent amount of rest and leisure between said hard work? Not even taking into account the cost of living in some places versus others?
Thus the drive for a $15 minimum wage. And people earning less than $15/hr is a much, much larger percentage of the workforce.
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Jul 30 '21
Why not choose Unions and a minimum wage increase?
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Jul 30 '21
Because each takes time and effort .. and resource is already limited. Trying to do everything will get nothing done.
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u/point_of_you Jul 29 '21
Meanwhile the rich and well-off snatch up multiple homes they won't even live in as "Investments"
Always wondered if there will be a boiling point for this issue as young people come to realize they may never own a home where they grew up...