I guess if you think someone working in a small town in the midwest is being exploited by making less than $15/hour, where rent is $400, and a dinner at the local diner is $4, then I would say paying someone less than $30/hour in Calgary is exploitative.
You don't want to shut down all the businesses in a local economy that is built around cheap land, cheap rent, cheap labor, and cheap goods and services and turn a perfectly happy small town into a ghost town, do you?
I don't think $15 min brute force min wage will clear congress for these reasons. I don't think that it is good for the democratic party if they implemented something that shuts down a lot of business and puts people out of work in many areas across the country.
Where is this magical place you speak of?
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This individual is not affluent and more of a member of that shrinking middle class. It is likely the individual does not have a high paying job, is limited on benefits, and has to make due with those benefits provided by employer.
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I've stopped in small towns in Virginia and West Virginia where dinner is well under $10 and been shocked when I pay $25 for my 2 kids and I. Rent is easily $400-500 each for a 2 bedroom with a room mate in a lot of smaller towns even around here. I'd assume the mid-west prairies would be as cheap or cheaper.
Haven’t checked into the $4 dinner yet. Not entirely sure why we should legislate to make sure the absolute poorest in the cheapest conditions is the high water mark. Economics I guess.
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Haven’t checked into the $4 dinner yet. Not entirely sure why we should legislate to make sure the absolute poorest in the cheapest conditions is the high water mark. Economics I guess.
A minimum wage tied to the cost of living seems fair to me. I have a business and I couldn't imagine paying people so little they needed public assistance as well. I echo those who have said anyone who does needs to evaluate their business model.
The BBC produced this documentary a few years ago that lays out America's sordid history with labour. Henry Ford is known for paying his workers enough to buy his product. He's also known for having strikers gunned down so he wasn't perfect though.
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When I started working just over 20 years ago the minimum wage in Alberta was all of $4.90. I moved out at 18 and worked 3 jobs while sharing an apartment with two other guys. I ate Kraft Dinner many a night because it was all we could afford. I made my way through that period, but I had to scrimp and save, and even than that wasn't enough some months.
Basically, minimum wage has almost never been enough to be a living wage. I managed to get promoted time and again purely out of necessity for survival. It helped me to develop myself as a professional and mature person.
However, I would not recommend this as a method for self-improvement.
I had to do a debt consolidation loan at least once in my 20s because I couldn't keep up with my debt payments appropriately. That kept me permanently stuck financially without the ability to even think about buying a new car or even purchasing an apartment, even though I made okay money.
Quite frankly, if minimum wage alleviates just some of those problems for people starting out in life, I consider it to be a great thing. Putting people in debt before they even have a chance to develop a career is a great way to destroy the possibility of a middle class. It's another reason why tuition for students needs to come way, way down. Student debt continuously restricts the buying power of young professionals, and again, no middle class.
Give people a chance to make enough money so they aren't worried all the time living hand to mouth. The upwards effects to the rest of the economy should be felt.
We've tried trickle down economics for so long with horrible results in wealth disparity, why not try a bottom up solution for once?
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When I started working just over 20 years ago the minimum wage in Alberta was all of $4.90. I moved out at 18 and worked 3 jobs while sharing an apartment with two other guys. I ate Kraft Dinner many a night because it was all we could afford.
Luxury! I was paid $3.00 per hour to wash dishes until 4:00 am, and the only thing I could afford to eat was croutons!
Haven’t checked into the $4 dinner yet. Not entirely sure why we should legislate to make sure the absolute poorest in the cheapest conditions is the high water mark. Economics I guess.
Arkansas, where the minimum wage is $11/ hour.
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Setting aside market specific daily expenses, these people still have to buy consumer goods, fuel, durable goods ect that are pretty much the same price everywhere.
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When I started working just over 20 years ago the minimum wage in Alberta was all of $4.90. I moved out at 18 and worked 3 jobs while sharing an apartment with two other guys. I ate Kraft Dinner many a night because it was all we could afford. I made my way through that period, but I had to scrimp and save, and even than that wasn't enough some months.
Basically, minimum wage has almost never been enough to be a living wage. I managed to get promoted time and again purely out of necessity for survival. It helped me to develop myself as a professional and mature person.
However, I would not recommend this as a method for self-improvement.
I had to do a debt consolidation loan at least once in my 20s because I couldn't keep up with my debt payments appropriately. That kept me permanently stuck financially without the ability to even think about buying a new car or even purchasing an apartment, even though I made okay money.
Quite frankly, if minimum wage alleviates just some of those problems for people starting out in life, I consider it to be a great thing. Putting people in debt before they even have a chance to develop a career is a great way to destroy the possibility of a middle class. It's another reason why tuition for students needs to come way, way down. Student debt continuously restricts the buying power of young professionals, and again, no middle class.
Give people a chance to make enough money so they aren't worried all the time living hand to mouth. The upwards effects to the rest of the economy should be felt.
We've tried trickle down economics for so long with horrible results in wealth disparity, why not try a bottom up solution for once?
I'm not arguing against raising the min wage. I just think doubling it nationally or more than doubling it if you take into account all the exceptions some states have, would be harmful to a lot of communities.
There is some level that you can raise a min wage to that you will put a lot people out of work. Is that a worthwhile trade off? I don't think it is, but maybe some do. I think it is a good thing to raise it up to that threshold, but you don't want to go too far past it. I think $15 is past that threshold in a lot of areas, and I don't really think it is a good thing to make some parts of the country non-viable to work and live in.
Setting aside market specific daily expenses, these people still have to buy consumer goods, fuel, durable goods ect that are pretty much the same price everywhere.
This. Keeping the minimum wage at or near the cost of living in communities where most jobs are minimum wage jobs virtually assures zero growth in those areas and a standard of living that is likely below the national average.
The problem I have is why is $15 this magic number that is the right number for the whole country? $15 is nothing in NYC, while it let you live very comfortably in Iowa.
Why not look at it this way:
You get paid $15/hr in small-town Iowa because it is hard to find workers in small-town Iowa, as living in small-town Iowa doesn’t appeal to most, so the $15 is sorta like hazard pay or money to keep you in small-town Iowa.
You get paid $15 in NYC because it is expensive to live in NYC.
As in, treat the $15 in small-town Iowa as a cost of living adjustment that is meant to incentivize people to stay there and improve the overall local economy.
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Getting health care done might have more a financial benefit than the minimum wage ever could. I still remember golfing out in Banff with a couple from Atlanta (this was maybe 2012) and even after Obamacare came in they were paying $18,000 a year for coverage for a family of four. To me you really can't start solving the income related issues until you give people a chance at even mediocre health care that is free, or at least not paying the yearly equivalent of lease payments on a Mercedes for any coverage.
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You get paid $15/hr in small-town Iowa because it is hard to find workers in small-town Iowa, as living in small-town Iowa doesn’t appeal to most, so the $15 is sorta like hazard pay or money to keep you in small-town Iowa.
You get paid $15 in NYC because it is expensive to live in NYC.
As in, treat the $15 in small-town Iowa as a cost of living adjustment that is meant to incentivize people to stay there and improve the overall local economy.
This. Also, wouldn’t gross product cost essentially the same nationwide? So, businesses who are saving in rent can’t afford to pay decent wages??
Granted, I’m economically illiterate.
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I'm not arguing against raising the min wage. I just think doubling it nationally or more than doubling it if you take into account all the exceptions some states have, would be harmful to a lot of communities.
There is some level that you can raise a min wage to that you will put a lot people out of work. Is that a worthwhile trade off? I don't think it is, but maybe some do. I think it is a good thing to raise it up to that threshold, but you don't want to go too far past it. I think $15 is past that threshold in a lot of areas, and I don't really think it is a good thing to make some parts of the country non-viable to work and live in.
I don't really think your conclusions are founded, but I also don't entirely understand what you're for... just that you're against $15 minimum wage nationally. Could you answer these questions to clear it up?
- Do you support a nationally mandated minimum wage, or do you prefer it is left to individual states?
- In the case of a nationally mandated minimum wage that was changing from the current state, what would you set it at and why?
- If you had two options (because, in many cases, that's kind of just what happens in politics), would you rather the minimum wage stay the same? or raise to $15? (again, hypothetically, "neither" not being an option)
You get paid $15/hr in small-town Iowa because it is hard to find workers in small-town Iowa, as living in small-town Iowa doesn’t appeal to most, so the $15 is sorta like hazard pay or money to keep you in small-town Iowa.
You get paid $15 in NYC because it is expensive to live in NYC.
As in, treat the $15 in small-town Iowa as a cost of living adjustment that is meant to incentivize people to stay there and improve the overall local economy.
Not to mention if there is more money in the economy then the diner can charge you more than $4 for a meal. I can't imagine many restauranteurs make a decent living with meals that cheap.
I've stopped in small towns in Virginia and West Virginia where dinner is well under $10 and been shocked when I pay $25 for my 2 kids and I. Rent is easily $400-500 each for a 2 bedroom with a room mate in a lot of smaller towns even around here. I'd assume the mid-west prairies would be as cheap or cheaper.
With a roommate? Well that's certainly moving the goalposts on what renting costs. I'm looking at renting in Calgary and those $400-$500 shared living spaces come up all the time.
I don't really think your conclusions are founded, but I also don't entirely understand what you're for...
Not to put words in his mouth but it sounds to me like he's for a nationally mandated minimum wage that isn't a fixed dollar value, but instead is calculated in each state according to some sort of local CPI-esque measure. So the national standard would be "you have to pay a reasonable living wage", and that standard would apply everywhere, but the definition of "reasonable living wage" would vary by state.
So it's not left to the states - the states in fact have no say whatsoever in what their minimum wage is - it's a mathematical exercise. Damned if I know where you find the figures to plug into the math equation, though.
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You could use some kind of purchasing power parity equation to have different minimum wages in different states, but that seems needlessly complicated. I also think people are overstating the differences, at least on a state to state level. $15 in Oregon (which is right at the US average) is more like $16.50 in the cheapest states (North + South Dakota, Kentucky, W. Virginia, etc.) and more like $13 in the most expensive states (New York, California, Hawaii, etc.). So the difference isn't that great.
In fact, I'd argue there's just as much variance within states as there in between states. If you go to a small town in West Virginia and compare it to Manhattan, then yes, there's a huge difference. But there's also a massive difference in cost of living between Manhattan and suburban Utica, yet they manage to operate under the same minimum wage, being in the same state.
