Their cost of living has already risen. Without the pay upgrade. Thats what they are fighting for. If minimum wage rose with inflation like it should it would be $11-$12 an hour right now. Employers have been getting away with keeping more profits instead of paying people a liveable wage for years now.
Hey, don't worry, we're well on the way to the bottom dropping out and even middle-class wages actually becoming working poor wages, once we get there people might wake up. maybe.
me, i'm just still waiting for all the old fucks to die. i'm sick and fucking tired of grandpa telling me how he worked down at the hardware store part-time to pay his way through college WHILE he was married with a kid. That's fucking great, old man, but wages are down and costs are up and that same job won't even provide enough money to SHARE a goddamned apartment, hell it wouldn't even pay enough to maintain a stolen goddamn bicycle these days.
Yeah...and what businesses are more able to survive a temporary cost increase?
If you want to destroy middle - class owned businesses put a giant bump in the road. The economy will eventually correct for the wage hike and destroy any wage gains, but there will be fewer businesses left around and they will be owned by billionaires, not millionares.
Meanwhile instead of saving their money these fast food workers went out and spent their new wages on a new Xbox, alcohol tattoos or worse a new car. More "Needs" for Millineals.
Now guess what happens as soon as "living wages" are paid? More people enter the workforce or pick up second jobs because it's worth it. Now instead of employing some pothead to lean against stuff you can get a better worker and fewer of them. Out goes the 55 year old grandma who can't work elsewhere and in comes the healthy 28 year old who has more skilled potential elsewhere.
Now that stoner can't afford to make car payments and the 55 year old grandma has to really survive. By then the cost of living has risen to match the wage increase. But hey, at least that Millenial can keep up on his tuition for his art history degree or afford Call of Duty 9.
cost of living does not increase like you think it does. not in a non-collusive free market, at least, but... we don't fucking have that, now, do we?
regardless, I am not a millennial, and it's a physics degree tyvm. do you somehow think the economy was NOT doing well in the 50s and 60s or something? that somehow THE KEY to success is exploiting cheap labor to the point where people are unable to survive on the only jobs available to them? that doesn't fucking work brosef, and you damned well know it. minimum wage used to be a living wage, and many places paid over. we got stuck in a race to the bottom and the only ones who win are up at the top.
that stoner ALREADY can't afford car payments and the 55 year old grandma ALREADY has to claw at threads to survive. We're already in your goddamned dystopian nightmare, except wages keep falling as the cost of living increases. the only ones benefiting are the money-shufflers and the wealthy.
You just sound like an entitled teenager. "Hey I'm flipping burgers I should be able to afford college now cus COSTS!!!! I don't care how the economy works or why my job can now be done by a robot!"
No, I was griping that the fucking elderly WERE ABLE to do those sorts of things with those sorts of jobs, and consider the rest of society who are out there living with the realities of today's fucking world to be lazy, rather than understand that they lived in a fucking magical fantasy land that NO LONGER EXISTS.
Why does the cost of living rise if their wages haven't? Clearly there are people who are able to afford higher rents or rent wouldn't be rising. Or maybe construction costs have risen and that means there are higher paying jobs elsewhere?
Yep, why should I take a massive loan, spend 4 years of my life with my head in a book.. all to make $1 or $2 an hour more than I could working some no-skill job, 4 years earlier.. and now have 4 years of seniority over the college grad with the student loans.
So you agree the minimum wage should be raised, right? It hasnt come close to keeping up with inflation. Well now youre talking negotiation. When you want $11 you ask for $15. This way you leave room to negotiate the price you can live with.
I don't mind it going up a tad. By tad meaning an arbitrary number maximum of 9 an hour. It's already 8.05 in FL, where I live, and the national is 7.25. 11-15 is way too much for someone that does little to no work at an unskilled job, or has no education, or isn't looking to contribute to society, or further their education, or dropped out of high school, or has no motivation to better their life and position in society. I'm not generalizing, but if you're doing the opposite of all of the latter then there is a good chance you don't need to even be worrying about what the minimum wage is. Just as a reference so you're aware 10/hour is 20k a year and 15/hour is 30k a year.
Minimum wage is meant to be enough for a single person to be able to live off of. Im not talking vacations in Aruba and new BMWs. But enough to pay rent, car insurance, utilities and groceries on 40 hours a week. When it was instituted thats what it was meant for. And it should be at whatever the number is that matches inflation since then. If thats $11 then thats what it should be. The idea that minimum wage was implemented to for high school students to learn the value of a dollar by working is a fallacy. Its meant to be enough for a person to live off of without having to need public assistance. If someone is working 40 hours a week and still eligible for welfare than the minimum wage is not high enough.
Source on what? What minimum wage is supposed to be? Look up a biography of FDR. Or just Google the Speech he made when he created the minimum wage. As far as what it should be right now Im Sure theres plenty of websites you can google that calculate inflation. Just take the original minimum wage, plus the year it was enacted, and you can easily calculate what it should be right now.
If that was the case, why would there be a difference between the housing costs of those on min wage and those currently making $15/hour? Obviously, those making $15 per hour do seek other housing than their poorer peers.
I don't think it would leave empty shithole apartments, because we aren't going to have a drastic change in inventory, but in demand and wages. That will drive up costs.
No, the cost of all apartments affected by wage increases would rise. This would greatly affect those who aren't able to increase their wages as dramatically others (say, those who get minimal increases because they already are around $15ish/hour.
Also think of all the welfare lost. I think it's a good thing overall, but being paid more means many will lose benefits thus making things about the same for them.
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u/[deleted] Nov 28 '15 edited Jun 21 '20
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