Quote:
Originally Posted by nfotiu
Why is $15 this magical number that is the right number everywhere?
It's easy for someone living in Calgary to say its abhorrent that people are making less than $15/hour. But I'd argue there are lots of places in the US that someone making $10/hour is living significantly better than someone making $15/hour in Calgary.
You can't just ignore the vast economic disparity across the country and say that the same min wage makes sense across the board. Because, there are going to be areas that will see stores and restaurants close at a $15 min wage, and in those areas, there aren't likely going to be any business or industry to pick up those employees. Most of the country is living in places where $15 min wage doesn't even change anything, so it's not going to help the working poor in expensive cities where $15 isn't a living wage.
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Didn’t say it was. I was using it as an illustrative example.
But even in Mississippi, which is one of the cheapest states to live in the US, a living wage for a single adult with no kids is about $15-$16. Even in Mississippi, $10 doesn’t let you live significantly better than $15 in Calgary.
So you’re right in the sense that $15 is probably the minimum and isn’t enough in other places. It should be even higher.
You can argue whatever you want though. You seem to take issue with $15 as a “magical” number and not what paying people a living wage is meant to address. If that’s your priority, fine, but the least you could do is speak in terms of what a living wage actually is in many of these places, and not random conjecture about, to speak in your terms, “magical” places where $10 is like $20 in Calgary. Or how “businesses will just close and no one to replace them” which ignores the basic fact that people will suddenly have more money to spend and any half intelligent business minded person is going to ensure they have somewhere to spend it.
Like, let’s talk real stuff if you want to talk real stuff. If you’re going to take issue with “magic” numbers don’t offer up fantasies as the backbone of your argument.