Quote:
Originally Posted by nfotiu
Where is the lie? You claimed that a min living wage in Mississippi is $15.60 an hour. The calculator someone posted earlier showed that Calgarians have to spend about more than double in local currency vs Jackson, MS. Why wouldn't that make $30 the living wage in Calgary if you are doing apples to apples comparisons?
San Francisco rent is nearly 4 times Cincinnati's. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44725026
There are plenty of reports of 6 figure earners living in their cars, and you can see streets lined with people living in cars, some of them pricey late model cars, if you visit.
It seems pretty obvious if you spend time in different parts of the USA that you can live a better life in a lot of rural US areas making $10/hour than making $30/hour in a big, California city.
Can you make a case that is not true? |
I'm plenty familiar with California and the Bay specifically, thanks. And I would happily argue it takes more than a "visit" to understand, whether you're talking about San Francisco, Oakland, or Soledad.
Numbeo is good for a very general, loose idea of different cities. It's user generated data. Jackson had 37 contributors over the last 18 months, the rent and apartment prices were based on one data entry. Calgary had over 500 in the last 12 months. It relies on the averages of the user inputs, so the data isn't something to hang your whole argument on.
Here's a reference for living wage in Calgary:
https://livingwagealberta.ca/living-wage/
Here's one for Jackson, the MIT methodology is pretty respected:
https://livingwage.mit.edu/metros/27140
Coming from two difference sources, their methodology likely differs slightly, but both seem reputable. $18.60 vs. $21.18 (for two adults, both working, with kids). I don't have a reference for individual (no kids) living wage in Calgary, but for Jackson it's $16.10 from the same source. If you wanted to make an assumption for Calgary, based on their data for other cities individual vs. family, it's probably around $22 for an individual in Calgary.
The reason Jackon's living wage goes up when you add children and Calgary's goes down is because Canadians and Albertans specifically enjoy a lot of child-related subsidies or subsidies that increase based on household size, such as Canada Child Benefit, Climate Action Incentive, Alberta Child Care Subsidy, and Alberta Child and Family Benefit. Calgarians also avoid much of the healthcare-related costs that having children involves, whether direct or based on insurance payments.
SF, for the record, is $30.81 individual and $40.37 for two adults, two kids. Or: $64,084/yr for an individual and $83,969.60/yr per adult, in a two kid household.
I have family without kids down there making less than $80k per year. They're doing just fine. Haven't slept in the Tesla yet, but great anecdote I'm sure.