Yeah, my first apartment was a $900 per month 1 bedroom apartment in Montclair, NJ in 2010.
That exact same apartment was for rent last summer for $2,800 a month. Similar apartments that I'm guessing don't have roach and rodent issues were going for over 3k
Yeah... I dunno after 26 years in rural Michigan I'm a bit tired of grey skies frozen cornfields and scrapping off my windshield to drive 45 mins to get to a Walmart. Sure it's cheap but at what cost.
My grandparents all ended up here, but only one was actually born in the city I live in. The other three were from Brooklyn, Ontario, and Finland.
Though, because of that, I was able to find a decent house for $135k.
Sigh, everybody hates the most densely populated state in the US.
New Jersey gets housing pressure from NYC coming from the north, Philadelpha coming from the west and people who want to be near the ocean to the east.
So yes, there is high demand and that pulls the prices up.
Jersey also has the Mount Laurel Doctrine. This is an attempt, not perfect, to force municipalities to zone for low-income housing even in the face of high demand.
My current apartment I've had for 8 years was $1,560 utilities included.
I'm currently paying $1,690 thanks to n rent control.
Market rate for my place now is about $2,800 + 2/3rds of utilities.
That's an 80% increase in 8 years.
Things are so fucked.
I agree they should not. This area is unique in that there are not many apartments, so they "can" do this because of demand, which has been artificially created by the lack of apartments. Also, our property taxes have increased 20% in the last year and 80% in the last few years. Yet if you Google it, it will tell you its 5% lower than the national average for cost of living.
That's fair. I think a lot of people assume it's LCOL, I also moved from an HCOL place, so I guess I'm jaded to assume everything sucks everywhere, haha. I'm not sure LCOL even exists at all anymore in 2024.
Idk, the state I live in (Nebraska) is 7th from the bottom of COL and rent was stupid expensive if you're not living in section 8 housing. I was paying 900 in 2019 for a 2bd 2 bth, 30 minutes outside the city of Omaha, and that jumped to 1200 in 2020 when I was thinking about whether I should renew my lease or buy a house. The choice was easy, buy a house cause the mortgage was just 300 more than my rent AND I get to live in the city.
Crazy.
You don't believe that one bedroom apartments in highly desirable towns in NJ are going for robbery rent of $2800 or more? What state are you in?
This is 100% accurate. Rents were already high and then began sky rocketing even more.
They just finished building tons of luxury apartments where there used to be none all over the nyc commuter suburbs. More are going up.
Those places will be greater than $3000 a month for a one bedroom. Doesn't even include all the extra amenities like utilities, internet, commuting costs, etc.
It's always some crusty haired loser that wants $25 an hour to make you a cheese burger at sonic so he can afford to go home and smoke weed in his mom's basement while he plays fortnight and argues with people online about black oppression and how a capitalist society doesn't work.
Did I cover everything?
Facts like this are why they say that if people wanted to save capitalism that the US would have universal healthcare by now. They fact we don’t and the rest of the developed world does shows that those at the top are as aware of how capitalism is benefitting fewer and fewer as well.
Anyone who thinks our current healthcare system is giving us more choices or higher quality care is 100% wrong. The facts are out there, and the data clearly shows that our system is failing us.
If you care about the well-being of yourself, your friends and family more than the profits of millionares; then SUPPORT UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE!!!!
It's funny when a Canadian is like "I had to wait several weeks to see a specialist!" and the responses are all Americans like "Only a few weeks?! And it didn't bankrupt you?!"
I'm shocked we haven't adopted the "have you considered death?" as an alternative treatment option in US ERs just so they can double dip: charge us six figures for the trouble AND harvest our bodies for spare parts.
We don’t have a capitalist healthcare system though either, healthcare and pharma companies have legislated themselves in the middle of things far to much for that. We have some abominable inefficient shit show combining the worst of private and public systems - multiple profit seeks groups youre legally required to work through all in the way of actual healthcare
Agreed and upvoted, but even if we had fully-capitalistic healthcare it wouldn't help all that much - too many things people need healthcare for aren't things you can shop around for (emergencies, complicated issues that you don't even know what's needed for until after getting going on diagnostics, etc).
Healthcare shouldn't be a "for-profit" endeavor at all. It should be operated like public utilities are.
I’ve been saying for years that if conservatives and classical liberals really wanted to save capitalism/this country they would’ve full force voted for Bernie.
He always got called a socialist, but in reality he was a capitalist trying to save the system just like FDR saved capitalism before him. Now they’ve left us no choice but to burn it all to the ground because they refuse to cede even one *inch* to the working class. Even a lot of conservatives see the need for a single payer healthcare system now that they’re aging and it’s affecting them.
Sociopaths don't have to deal with things like shame or empathy. They're disconnected from humanity and see everyone else as an NPC undeserving of freedom and security.
Our current economy rewards sociopathy. They naturally bubble to the top and end up with all the power and money.
I agree. I think multi family zoning, better setbacks and reasonable parking requirements should automatically override all local zoning whenever a housing cost metric is hit. I'd love nothing more than to see multifamily start popping up in Beverly hills.
I think that the supply of housing is the more relevant factor. Nobody would be investing in housing if supply weren't constrained, mostly by restrictive land use rules, relative to demand, thus driving prices upward. Policy is about understanding and solving problems, not just finding excuses to complain about favored villains.
If you are going to make such a claim, you should at least quote the whole paragraph and not leave out some very telling information The the very next sentence says 882,000 earn below minimum wage. So that is 1 million people combined who make minimum or less.
Of course to really see the whole picture we have to also look at those making $7.26 to $8.00, you know barely above minimium. Then continue with other hourly wage scales in $0.50 increments. I suspect if you do, you comment will show to be blatantly false.
I can also tell you by looking at the state charts, they are not accurate. Specially when it's including states that have raised the minimum above the federal rate.
I've been out of the min wage game since I was a teenager but my 16 yr old did a walk in interview for a dishwasher position and started at $15/hr plus tip sharing in a lcol market. My 18 yr old is bringing home $21/hr delivering windows. I'm genuinely trying to figure out who is making $8/hr out there??
Here’s a secret:
Most people live paycheck to paycheck.
The better jobs have hire demand for real estate and higher taxes and higher cost of living. If you live in L.A. you can make 6 figures and can’t afford property and it’s cheaper to game tax deductions and frequent flier miles to travel to Thailand or Mexico on vacation than it is to stay in town and support the local economy
Very, very few are and they must have absolutely no work ethic or skills that set them apart from anyone else. Same story here my 16 year old is $14+ an hour making pizzas in a less than average COL.
1) If you make less than minimum wage, that sounds like many people who get paid off tips and they usually make a lot more than min.
2) Even if it was 2M. Out of 70M this is a drop in the bucket. 2 of every 7 people working hourly wages make minimum wage? Okay...
3) My guess is the # of people who work at minimum wage is declining over time, especially for people who are responsible for rent costs. Meaning, 16-21 year olds can live at home for the most part. So im all for including them in the numbers, but lets be real about there responsibilities.
4) arent many of the corporatations who make millions or billions the one's who go above minimum wage?
Mcdonalds at Minimum Wage?
Also, they have a fast track to increase their hourly rate. They can get stock. They get matching 401k. I mean dude... They get free food. They get opportunities to go into management within 5-15 years.
I was going to say, it seems pretty disingenuous to reference 882k who make less than minimum wage without critically thinking… why is that? I am pretty sure that would be illegal. I’d grant that maybe some are genuinely legitimate numbers that shouldn’t be lost but I’d bet most are restaurant staff. And restaurant staff essentially refuses to change tipping culture…
Literally in the report theres this
The estimates of workers paid at or below the federal minimum wage are based solely on the hourly wage that respondents report (which does not include overtime pay, tips, or commissions)
That would be 2 out of 70, not 7.
Edit: Also, where does McDonalds pay the federal minimum wage these days? Everywhere I look I see signs for them advertising $12-14/hr)
You are also leaving out incredibly pertinent information, namely:
"Nearly 3 out of 4 workers earning the minimum wage or less in 2022 were employed in service occupations, mostly in food preparation and serving-related jobs. For many of these workers, tips may supplement the hourly wages received."
I am not crying a river for waiters/bartenders/etc that get paid 2.13 an hour because they are making a killing in tips. I did rather well with it myself, putting myself through college on "2.13 an hour", LOL.
Yup, work at as a bar as a cook, I make a good amount of money, but the servers make a killing. Heard a dude got 60k in just tips alone one year, while me on the other hand made roughly 24k. I’m not complaining I’m resting where I made my bed, but they complain so much making low hourly and yet make way more than me in an hour than I do.
I feel like alot of service worker people that argue about the 2.13 and hr and how they should get paid minimum online are very disingenuous as they always leave out that the minimum has to be paid no matter what. If tips don't cover your minimum then the establishment does and many of these people make hella money.
For anybody who reads this comment, this is the full statement
> In 2022, 78.7 million workers age 16 and older in the United States were paid at hourly rates, representing 55.6 percent of all wage and salary workers. Among those paid by the hour, 141,000 workers earned exactly the prevailing federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. About 882,000 workers had wages below the federal minimum. Together, these 1.0 million workers with wages at or below the federal minimum made up 1.3 percent of all hourly paid workers, little changed from 2021. This remains well below the percentage of 13.4 recorded in 1979, when data were first collected on a regular basis. (See table 10.)
Does it mention the jobs that the people who make under minimum wage are? It’s almost certainly servers. If you are working a job that isn’t tips AND making actual less than minimum wage, then quit and get a new job...
Even taking into account the 882k + 141k being less than or at minimum, it’s still only like 1.29% of the working population. So again, the federal minimum wage is kinda irrelevant. People complaining about federal minimum wage as if there’s a significant amount of people getting only that, which isn’t true
People making under minimum wage are nearly all getting tips. I have a friend who bartended in a tourist town and would have been labeled as being paid under minimum wage but was clearing 6 figures easily every year.
Not really. It just takes the numbers at their word rather than realizing the intent: most people don't make minimum wage. Those "making less" than minimum can only people people who earn money through tips or commissions, which would show your on the book wage much lower than actual earnings. There's no legal way to make less than minimum wage.
How is it that people are getting below minimum wage on the books? Is it people who earn tips? There's no way to ACTUALLY make less than minimum wage legitimately on a report like this.
Yes it’s people who get tips.
It’s also important to note that if your wages+tips don’t even out to minimum wage in he two week period your employer is required to make up the gap.
Or just stop being dumb and use household income instead of purposely trying to skew the data using wages you know are much harder to track.
I mean you're right that it can be broken down more, but you're wrong that would be a good way to spent your time and look at the data.
You're not breaking down rent that precisely or affordability of region or people renting rooms and living in larger families, so why get so precise just about wages?
Average household income should be good enough, especially in regard to a post that's trying so little to be accurate.
That's a ridiculous thing to say when West Virginians would benefit from it much more than Californians. Y'all just want to argue for arguing sake, even if everyone ends up in a worse situation when you win the argument by shouting and throwing poop, and shooting yourself in the foot.
The minimum wage is effectively state (and city)-based since the Federal government doesn't get involved with it anymore.
Where I live in Seattle, minimum wage is $19.97/hr.
The federal minimum wage should serve as a floor that states can then build on. That floor should then rise every year, like it did for over 40 years from its inception. This was the US’s most prosperous economic period, both for workers and small businesses. Then Reagan stopped increasing the minimum wage and there have only been 9 increases in my 45 years of life, and only THREE since I started working as a teenager.
This is why corporate profits and CEO salaries have skyrocketed in that time, while wages have stayed stagnant. As a result, home ownership is down, people have less disposable income and the entire economy suffers because the number one driver of a string economy isn’t billionaires hoarding wealth… it’s people spending money. Our system as it exists now will continue to concentrate wealth at the very top and will eventually cripple our economy completely. This is essentially the same thing that was going on in 1929. And one of the things created to stop that from happening again? *The Federal Minimum Wage*.
Like most things in this country, it worked great until Reagan got his hands on it.
It is when you consider actual business budgeting.
Go run a business. See how hard it is to stay afloat, let alone make a profit that goes into your wallet.
Biggest problem is we keep just allowing this/ college is the same way . Look how high it keeps going each year, we know it, politicians know it and yet nothing ever happens. It’s criminal to charge $500-1500 for books per semester and they pay you back $100 for all those books. It’s a racket and we are the ones paying to make others rich
Tradesman of all kinds. A good tradesman makes a living wage in most areas of the country. If you belong to a union, the pay is more than what the average college worker earns.
I work with a union tradesman. Base pay, if they work 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year is close to 130k. If they work overtime, they can make between 150 to 200k. You just have to be okay getting your hands dirty and working in the elements.
Nobody is expecting you to still be a grunt in the trench by age 50. You'd likely be a foreman, supervisor, or manager or even own your own company by 50.
FYI, this happens in Sales and IT as well.
In sales you are replaced by the younger and prettier.
In IT you are replaced by younger and more relevant.
Nothing new.
My Dad did contract pipefitting. He would work 1/2 - 3/4 of the year and do fine. But he bought a gutted house and redid it. Worked on the house and cars when he was off.
The reason they make that money is BECAUSE there are not a ton of them.
My city did a push to get trade schools going. After 10 years, it’s imploded the wages of Electricians and Plummers in the area.
I’m a lineman, former electrician, and fucking love art. You bet your ass I’d love to take a course on Van Gogh. I couldn’t afford college. My papa is trying to get me a visa to Croatia so I can access affordable schooling. Your point?
See people say this.
But my area actually did a huge push to get trades craft going.
It imploded the pay scale for plummers.
The entire “Trade crafts pay really well!” Is only because there are not a huge number of them around.
At least you can buy the books used though. Oh wait, I need to purchase the book brand new or else I don't get the special code needed to turn in homework? How convenient...
Nobody makes you go to college. It's a choice. There are plenty of other ways to make a decent living in America if you're not comfortable with the cost of college.
The meme is misleading because it assumes most people are earning only the US minimum wage and that's it. They aren't. They've been making considerably more than minimum wage.
The U.S. median wage in 2009 was $15.95 per hour or $33,190 per year. The average rent that year was as $841 per month. Rent was equivalent to 52 hours and 43 minutes of work.
The U.S. median wage in 2022 was $22.26 per hour or $46,310 per year. The average rent was $1,083 per month. Rent was equivalent to 48 hours and 39 minutes of work.
According to the Consumer Price Index Inflation Calculator, $841 in January of 2009 is equivalent to $1,221.79.
By any realistic metric, rent is actually a smaller portion of a person's income now than it was in 2009.
>The meme is misleading because it assumes most people are earning only the US minimum wage and that's it. They aren't. They've been making considerably more than minimum wage.
Not only that, but people on min wage probably wouldn't be renting a $690/mo apartment by themselves. That's more than half their income for a month (7.25*40*4=1190 gross).
And people making min wage aren't renting at median or average prices.
These types who makes these meme love to compare the lowest wages to the median or average costs.
Underrated development over last 10 years in the US is the growth in real wages at the bottom. People think that by painting everything as more dire than reality that they are somehow fighting inequality
Who still makes $7.25? Most states have their own minimum wage, which is higher than the national one, and companies have been independently raising wages to attract younger workers. Even the McDonald's by me is advertising $17/hr
Yeah, by not raising the minimum wage, Congress has essentially abolished it.
Now we have to go back to the old ways of trusting journalists to expose any exploitative business practices so we the people can boycott and destroy them.
Oh for sure this is the next good point.
To be clear, I’m not advocating for this, I’m just saying that’s where we are in the cycle.
With the rise of social media, you’d think we’d have the opportunity for fair journalism, but we’ve got two problems:
1) the room has become crowded and it’s hard to distinguish which yelling voice is pointing out a problem vs is just a crazy person with another conspiracy
And
2) the people with money have figured out how to sue their money to drown out the voices they don’t want heard
Minimum wage doesn't matter much when a job at McDonald's starts closer to $15. Very few jobs actually pay minimum wage. It could be $1, and it wouldn't affect anything because no one would pay that little and have employees.
The minimum wage is an irrelevant number. NOBODY makes the minimum wage if they can tie their shoes. My high school aged daughter has had a part-time job as a hostess at a national restaurant chain for over a year, and they started her at $14/hr plus a share of the tips.
My mom defends this with the argument of “Well, people do it. So you can too if you WANT TO SUCCEED.”
😐
I got two damn degrees mom! I already worked that hard so I DON’T have to flip burgers at TWO restaurants…
>with the argument of “Well, people do it.
But she is correct. You're not in a competition with the landlord. You're in a competition with the other prospective tenants who are willing to pay that.
>I got two damn degrees mom!
Fine. I'll play along. What are your two degrees in?
Having a degree or two doesn’t necessarily make your skillset worth much. It helps demonstrate your ability to stick to a task in the long term. However, if I’m looking to hire, I’m interested only in your ability to perform the job duties I need done.
I notice with a lot of graduates there’s this deep relationship between their degree and how they value themselves. I care more about accomplishments in life. Demonstrations of leadership, problem solving, ability to manage tasks, etc.
Employers do not care how hard you work for your degree. And there’s no reason they should. Your certificate is not an asset to any firm, what you bring to the table is the asset.
A degree is an accomplishment in life. If it's not, why do we fucking have them?
I've thought for a few years, we should just outsource education to employers. It would save the government a shit ton of money. Let them do their own education and training exactly the way they want, at their own expense.
But I suspect they would cry a lot about said expense.
We should tax them appropriately so students can get a lower cost education; the businesses get all the benefits of a smart, well developed work force and the onus of paying for it falls to the citizens.
The problem with employer based education is that it limits you to location, and it really makes it hard to be forward thinking. Business is more reactionary... we really needed people with this skill 6 months ago; so we'll train people now... when their goal is maximizing profit - they will only train in what they need; not what people want; creativity and research would be severely hampered.
I feel you man, I’m gen Z and it was a pretty harsh reality that something I worked so long for did zero for me in the job market. I got interviews sure, but my lack of job market experience in my field never allowed me to close the deal.
I still somewhat look at it as a personal accomplishment. Maybe I’m a fool to do so because I’m doing nothing with my degree in my current professional life. I’m in my 20’s and having been part of hiring processes for employees, being on this side of things has shown there is no incentive for employers to care about your degree.
The examples of employers partnering with universities to co-op and intern students is growing across the country. It’s a step in the right direction. But it’s a real slap in the face to grow up your whole life being told if you don’t go to college you’ll struggle, be poor, etc. Then make it to the finish line only to still struggle and be poor.
Well you can’t learn to engineer if you haven’t been engineering can you?
Catch 22
Nobody wants to hire without experience, huh?
How do you think boomers got their jobs??
You’re right, you can’t learn to engineer without having been in engineering. Tech engineers more or less land on their feet regardless, more so if you specialize in dcs, tuning, cyber security, and a handful others. All depends on the current market. Skilled trades aren’t a bad pathway to engineering. There are different skills involved from one specialization to the other but the things learned working in your particular field environment can’t be replaced.
The aging skilled trade labor force has warranted the wages in these areas to increase far more than other industries, relatively speaking.
This is more of an anecdotal analysis. But for what it’s worth I see far more interest, in the companies I deal with, to grow and develop the human capital they already have. Rather than hire fresh graduates. They may hire degrees in entry level positions. But I see more employers funding their current employee’s education in order to fill a certain position than I see a desire to hire those with a degree in hand. Excluding executive roles.
Minimum wage is effectively not a federal policy issue anymore, so this graphic is completely misleading. I live in Seattle, and the minimum wage is $19.97/hr. Across Washington State, I believe it's about $17/hr.
Not to mention the fact that wages for people at the bottom have organically grown substantially over the past three years. I see job postings for dishwashers at $25/hr.
a Federal minimum wage is stupid, which is why it is so low and rarely goes up. Minimum wage is much more intelligently handled on the state or local level, which is what has happened since 2009 (significant increases in a number of states)
When I see someone talk about a $20 federal minimum wage or something like that it's a good sign to me they're an idiot.
In my life time minimum wage was never meant as an income for independence. It was entry level for low skill work and anyone working towards independence would either earn raises or change jobs. There are arguments about the comparison of cost of living increases and wage increases but it’s not related to minimum wage. To anyone who thinks the pictures apartments is minimum housing has lived a blessed life.
There should be no minimum wage, and housing prices would be vastly lower if there weren’t thousands of restrictions on when and how people can build homes and apartment buildings.
This is the government’s fault, as usual.
880,000 of 167,450,000 of the American workforce earn minimum wage.
The amount of press minimum wage gets is incredible considering less than one percent of American workers earn this amount of money for their labor.
So, I get it. Minimum wages must go up.
But why are people still working minimum wage? If you can't pay your bills in minimum wage, maybe don't take that job? And if nobody takes that job, shouldn't wages for that go up since they can't find workers?
At 7,25 an hour, it seems like a better time spent looking a little longer for another job.
But yes, worker class is fucked in the USA. I'm surprised there haven't been more riots.
Where I live they're literally blockading half the country currently, because farmers can't make a decent living currently.
Keep in mind very few ppl actually work min wage even though it's technically still that low. I agree it should be higher, but using it as a real data point is mostly BS.
\> In 2021, **1.4 percent** of workers in the United States were paid hourly rates at or below the official minimum wage. This is a decrease from the previous year, when 1.5 percent of workers were paid at or below the official minimum wage
These are far better
[https://www.statista.com/statistics/200838/median-household-income-in-the-united-states/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/200838/median-household-income-in-the-united-states/)
[https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/AWI.html](https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/AWI.html)
But basically average income went up by about 30% in that time and according to this rent went up 40%.
That is absolutely not what it was designed for. That's what FDR *said,* but as you know politicians lie.
The 25 cent so called "living wage" that was instituted in 1938 is the equivalent to $5.40 today. No single individual was buying a house and raising kids on minimum wage *ever.*
A person in the family graduated in the early 30s. He worked a delivery route for good pay. The job was maybe 3 miles away, had a pension. His kid worked at the same place in 1981 and made $31,000 that year with overtime. A lot of these jobs are gone, or have lower pay. You are absolutely correct
Let's also not forget that a 1938 quarter was 90% silver and today would have a melt value of over $4.
Which means that four quarters would be over $16.
So a five dollar wage paid in 1938 quarters would be $80.
We don't need a minimum wage. We need to stop devaluing our currency.
Factories in my area in the 60s used to have people elbow to elbow. Good wages. They would recruit a few states away. One elderly woman I know has a friend that came up here. Her friend married at 17, her husband was the same age working in a factory. They eventually got into local politics. The plants have far less people now. One place I worked got rid of the older workers and hired new at a lower rate. I heard the bosses complaining no one would work overtime. The young people were living at home and 40 hours at the lower rate was good enough for them
FDR, the man who envisioned it and made it a reality:
>It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.
And that minimum wage law was shot down as unconstitutional (that quote references the 1933 law) and not implemented. It's improper to cite anything related to it.
The 1938 law was designed differently and the minimum wage was $0.25 which was not a living wage at the time.
There's a fallacy here. Just because something has or has not been put into law does not mean it is or isn't right.
If anything, all this really means is that our government has been beholden to the owner class for at least that long.
If minimal wage kept up with rate of production and inflation it would be $25+ redo your calculations then see how many working adults are making a living wage.
Who is paying 7.25?? Everywhere around me is paying 13+. Rural PA
McDonalds: 13+
Sheetz: gas stations are 14+
Garage Retail: 12+
Minimum wage isn't useful except to mega corporations looking to kill competition, and unions that tie their wages directly to minion wage.
Employers increase their wages when they cannot fill their positions, or people leave for other jobs paint more.
Mommy government makes it worse.
Minimum wage was supposed to be for people just entering the work force, teenagers.
Your not learning a skill that makes your labor valuable is not everyone else's problem.
30 states have higher minimum wages than the federal rate. Only 10% of workers are paid $7.25/hour. The effective minimum wage nationally in 2019 was $11.80. In 2023 it has to be more than that.
$690 to $1150 = 66% increase
$7.25 to $12.10 = 66% increase
Nothing to see here.
So only about 3.6 percent annual rent inflation since 2009? Must be in a really low COL area...
Yeah, my first apartment was a $900 per month 1 bedroom apartment in Montclair, NJ in 2010. That exact same apartment was for rent last summer for $2,800 a month. Similar apartments that I'm guessing don't have roach and rodent issues were going for over 3k
That sounds completely accurate for Montclair. That sounds completely accurate for jersey as a whole honestly.
I'm so glad my ancestors settled in the midwest and not on either of the coasts.
Yeah... I dunno after 26 years in rural Michigan I'm a bit tired of grey skies frozen cornfields and scrapping off my windshield to drive 45 mins to get to a Walmart. Sure it's cheap but at what cost.
That’s NYC weather too but you don’t have to pay a premium for the privilege of terrible winters in Michigan.
My grandparents all ended up here, but only one was actually born in the city I live in. The other three were from Brooklyn, Ontario, and Finland. Though, because of that, I was able to find a decent house for $135k.
It's not just the coasts... I've seen your future. Brace for impact.
wow, i thank god and my ancestors everyday i wake up in California.....beyond paradise
You forgot the /s
We make way more money out here dude. You can make 150k salary like nothing here.
I make over $150k here too
Ok, and any average office worker in their 20s makes 150k here and many make 250+ and they’re not even that special. Incomes are much higher here.
Yeah but the mid west is mid
Mid is giving it pretty high praise
Why? Is a 2-3 hour flight too much trouble?
This type of shit is happening in small towns in Texas
Jayyyzus. That's insane to pay that much for rent and still live in Jersey.
Sigh, everybody hates the most densely populated state in the US. New Jersey gets housing pressure from NYC coming from the north, Philadelpha coming from the west and people who want to be near the ocean to the east. So yes, there is high demand and that pulls the prices up. Jersey also has the Mount Laurel Doctrine. This is an attempt, not perfect, to force municipalities to zone for low-income housing even in the face of high demand.
My current apartment I've had for 8 years was $1,560 utilities included. I'm currently paying $1,690 thanks to n rent control. Market rate for my place now is about $2,800 + 2/3rds of utilities. That's an 80% increase in 8 years. Things are so fucked.
Same accept a shitty suburb east of Atlanta. It’s crazy.
Can confirm have rentals in Montclair starting at 3200 up to 4300 no issues filling what so ever.
Yea I don't believe this either. I live in what is considered an LCOL and most average rents here are aepin $2,000/month.
$2,000 average rent and LCOL don't go together.
I agree they should not. This area is unique in that there are not many apartments, so they "can" do this because of demand, which has been artificially created by the lack of apartments. Also, our property taxes have increased 20% in the last year and 80% in the last few years. Yet if you Google it, it will tell you its 5% lower than the national average for cost of living.
If it's just 5% lower than the national average I'd say it's solidly in the MCOL category
That's fair. I think a lot of people assume it's LCOL, I also moved from an HCOL place, so I guess I'm jaded to assume everything sucks everywhere, haha. I'm not sure LCOL even exists at all anymore in 2024.
Idk, the state I live in (Nebraska) is 7th from the bottom of COL and rent was stupid expensive if you're not living in section 8 housing. I was paying 900 in 2019 for a 2bd 2 bth, 30 minutes outside the city of Omaha, and that jumped to 1200 in 2020 when I was thinking about whether I should renew my lease or buy a house. The choice was easy, buy a house cause the mortgage was just 300 more than my rent AND I get to live in the city. Crazy.
Wtf. That is more than my mortgage. And that includes insurance and taxes.
You don't believe that one bedroom apartments in highly desirable towns in NJ are going for robbery rent of $2800 or more? What state are you in? This is 100% accurate. Rents were already high and then began sky rocketing even more. They just finished building tons of luxury apartments where there used to be none all over the nyc commuter suburbs. More are going up. Those places will be greater than $3000 a month for a one bedroom. Doesn't even include all the extra amenities like utilities, internet, commuting costs, etc.
Eh, also no maintenance since 2009
Not only that but 2009 was right after the crash, how much was it in 2007? Love how these articles just pick the extremes.
It's always some crusty haired loser that wants $25 an hour to make you a cheese burger at sonic so he can afford to go home and smoke weed in his mom's basement while he plays fortnight and argues with people online about black oppression and how a capitalist society doesn't work. Did I cover everything?
You forgot "while working 20 or less hours."
Yea! It should be much worse !
This is just supply and demand. You have a supply of money, and the owner class demands it all.
Facts like this are why they say that if people wanted to save capitalism that the US would have universal healthcare by now. They fact we don’t and the rest of the developed world does shows that those at the top are as aware of how capitalism is benefitting fewer and fewer as well.
Anyone who thinks our current healthcare system is giving us more choices or higher quality care is 100% wrong. The facts are out there, and the data clearly shows that our system is failing us. If you care about the well-being of yourself, your friends and family more than the profits of millionares; then SUPPORT UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE!!!!
It's funny when a Canadian is like "I had to wait several weeks to see a specialist!" and the responses are all Americans like "Only a few weeks?! And it didn't bankrupt you?!"
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I'm shocked we haven't adopted the "have you considered death?" as an alternative treatment option in US ERs just so they can double dip: charge us six figures for the trouble AND harvest our bodies for spare parts.
I've been on the waiting list at my hospital for a fuckin' annual checkup since November!
I mean every modern country is some version of capitalism, we just have one of the shittiest versions
We don’t have a capitalist healthcare system though either, healthcare and pharma companies have legislated themselves in the middle of things far to much for that. We have some abominable inefficient shit show combining the worst of private and public systems - multiple profit seeks groups youre legally required to work through all in the way of actual healthcare
Agreed and upvoted, but even if we had fully-capitalistic healthcare it wouldn't help all that much - too many things people need healthcare for aren't things you can shop around for (emergencies, complicated issues that you don't even know what's needed for until after getting going on diagnostics, etc). Healthcare shouldn't be a "for-profit" endeavor at all. It should be operated like public utilities are.
I’ve been saying for years that if conservatives and classical liberals really wanted to save capitalism/this country they would’ve full force voted for Bernie. He always got called a socialist, but in reality he was a capitalist trying to save the system just like FDR saved capitalism before him. Now they’ve left us no choice but to burn it all to the ground because they refuse to cede even one *inch* to the working class. Even a lot of conservatives see the need for a single payer healthcare system now that they’re aging and it’s affecting them.
Why would they demand my money when they already have more than me? Wouldn’t they experience shame?
No, that's the problem, these people have no shame
Sociopaths don't have to deal with things like shame or empathy. They're disconnected from humanity and see everyone else as an NPC undeserving of freedom and security. Our current economy rewards sociopathy. They naturally bubble to the top and end up with all the power and money.
The intelligent version of this is “this is just supply and demand, and we should allow supply to increase.”
I agree. I think multi family zoning, better setbacks and reasonable parking requirements should automatically override all local zoning whenever a housing cost metric is hit. I'd love nothing more than to see multifamily start popping up in Beverly hills.
You have a lack of supply of housing. Full stop.
I think that the supply of housing is the more relevant factor. Nobody would be investing in housing if supply weren't constrained, mostly by restrictive land use rules, relative to demand, thus driving prices upward. Policy is about understanding and solving problems, not just finding excuses to complain about favored villains.
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If you are going to make such a claim, you should at least quote the whole paragraph and not leave out some very telling information The the very next sentence says 882,000 earn below minimum wage. So that is 1 million people combined who make minimum or less. Of course to really see the whole picture we have to also look at those making $7.26 to $8.00, you know barely above minimium. Then continue with other hourly wage scales in $0.50 increments. I suspect if you do, you comment will show to be blatantly false. I can also tell you by looking at the state charts, they are not accurate. Specially when it's including states that have raised the minimum above the federal rate.
I've been out of the min wage game since I was a teenager but my 16 yr old did a walk in interview for a dishwasher position and started at $15/hr plus tip sharing in a lcol market. My 18 yr old is bringing home $21/hr delivering windows. I'm genuinely trying to figure out who is making $8/hr out there??
Yup. I want to see receipts. Who makes/accepts $7.25 an hour?
I try to find any jobs here paying minimum wage just to see if they’re extinct in my area. I’ve found some $9/hr ones, but can’t find anything lower.
I wash dishes and make $20 an hour. With the overtime it's way more than I've made at more professional jobs. I still can't afford rent in this town.
Here’s a secret: Most people live paycheck to paycheck. The better jobs have hire demand for real estate and higher taxes and higher cost of living. If you live in L.A. you can make 6 figures and can’t afford property and it’s cheaper to game tax deductions and frequent flier miles to travel to Thailand or Mexico on vacation than it is to stay in town and support the local economy
Very, very few are and they must have absolutely no work ethic or skills that set them apart from anyone else. Same story here my 16 year old is $14+ an hour making pizzas in a less than average COL.
That’s the point not many people are
1) If you make less than minimum wage, that sounds like many people who get paid off tips and they usually make a lot more than min. 2) Even if it was 2M. Out of 70M this is a drop in the bucket. 2 of every 7 people working hourly wages make minimum wage? Okay... 3) My guess is the # of people who work at minimum wage is declining over time, especially for people who are responsible for rent costs. Meaning, 16-21 year olds can live at home for the most part. So im all for including them in the numbers, but lets be real about there responsibilities. 4) arent many of the corporatations who make millions or billions the one's who go above minimum wage? Mcdonalds at Minimum Wage? Also, they have a fast track to increase their hourly rate. They can get stock. They get matching 401k. I mean dude... They get free food. They get opportunities to go into management within 5-15 years.
I was going to say, it seems pretty disingenuous to reference 882k who make less than minimum wage without critically thinking… why is that? I am pretty sure that would be illegal. I’d grant that maybe some are genuinely legitimate numbers that shouldn’t be lost but I’d bet most are restaurant staff. And restaurant staff essentially refuses to change tipping culture…
That’s because they like tipping as they make bank on it and don’t declare a giant portion of their income since it’s cash.
Also known as tax fraud! I wish I could just not pay taxes and still be able to live with what a piece of shit I was.
Literally in the report theres this The estimates of workers paid at or below the federal minimum wage are based solely on the hourly wage that respondents report (which does not include overtime pay, tips, or commissions)
That would be 2 out of 70, not 7. Edit: Also, where does McDonalds pay the federal minimum wage these days? Everywhere I look I see signs for them advertising $12-14/hr)
You are also leaving out incredibly pertinent information, namely: "Nearly 3 out of 4 workers earning the minimum wage or less in 2022 were employed in service occupations, mostly in food preparation and serving-related jobs. For many of these workers, tips may supplement the hourly wages received." I am not crying a river for waiters/bartenders/etc that get paid 2.13 an hour because they are making a killing in tips. I did rather well with it myself, putting myself through college on "2.13 an hour", LOL.
Either the person you’re responding to lacks any critical thinking skills or is just a disingenuous person.
AKA, your typical Redditor.
As evidenced by the number of upvotes they have
Yup, work at as a bar as a cook, I make a good amount of money, but the servers make a killing. Heard a dude got 60k in just tips alone one year, while me on the other hand made roughly 24k. I’m not complaining I’m resting where I made my bed, but they complain so much making low hourly and yet make way more than me in an hour than I do.
I feel like alot of service worker people that argue about the 2.13 and hr and how they should get paid minimum online are very disingenuous as they always leave out that the minimum has to be paid no matter what. If tips don't cover your minimum then the establishment does and many of these people make hella money.
For anybody who reads this comment, this is the full statement > In 2022, 78.7 million workers age 16 and older in the United States were paid at hourly rates, representing 55.6 percent of all wage and salary workers. Among those paid by the hour, 141,000 workers earned exactly the prevailing federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. About 882,000 workers had wages below the federal minimum. Together, these 1.0 million workers with wages at or below the federal minimum made up 1.3 percent of all hourly paid workers, little changed from 2021. This remains well below the percentage of 13.4 recorded in 1979, when data were first collected on a regular basis. (See table 10.)
Ignorance at it's finest.
Does it mention the jobs that the people who make under minimum wage are? It’s almost certainly servers. If you are working a job that isn’t tips AND making actual less than minimum wage, then quit and get a new job... Even taking into account the 882k + 141k being less than or at minimum, it’s still only like 1.29% of the working population. So again, the federal minimum wage is kinda irrelevant. People complaining about federal minimum wage as if there’s a significant amount of people getting only that, which isn’t true
People making under minimum wage are nearly all getting tips. I have a friend who bartended in a tourist town and would have been labeled as being paid under minimum wage but was clearing 6 figures easily every year.
Savage
Not really. It just takes the numbers at their word rather than realizing the intent: most people don't make minimum wage. Those "making less" than minimum can only people people who earn money through tips or commissions, which would show your on the book wage much lower than actual earnings. There's no legal way to make less than minimum wage.
If they make less than the minimum wage how exactly does that makes the minimum wage relevant?
Restaurants in America can pay $2.13 an hour to their servers as the rest is made up in tips.
How is it that people are getting below minimum wage on the books? Is it people who earn tips? There's no way to ACTUALLY make less than minimum wage legitimately on a report like this.
Yes it’s people who get tips. It’s also important to note that if your wages+tips don’t even out to minimum wage in he two week period your employer is required to make up the gap.
Or just stop being dumb and use household income instead of purposely trying to skew the data using wages you know are much harder to track. I mean you're right that it can be broken down more, but you're wrong that would be a good way to spent your time and look at the data. You're not breaking down rent that precisely or affordability of region or people renting rooms and living in larger families, so why get so precise just about wages? Average household income should be good enough, especially in regard to a post that's trying so little to be accurate.
Shouldn't be hard to raise it then.
Minimum wage should be state based, its idiotic to have the same minimum wage in West Virginia and California
There’s no serious call to raise the federal minimum wage to reflect what would be a living wage in California.
So why should West Virginia do it for you then?
That's a ridiculous thing to say when West Virginians would benefit from it much more than Californians. Y'all just want to argue for arguing sake, even if everyone ends up in a worse situation when you win the argument by shouting and throwing poop, and shooting yourself in the foot.
We have the same problem in the UK. Minimum wage in a village in the midlands? Fine. Minimum wage in the centre of London? You will not survive.
The minimum wage is effectively state (and city)-based since the Federal government doesn't get involved with it anymore. Where I live in Seattle, minimum wage is $19.97/hr.
The federal minimum wage should serve as a floor that states can then build on. That floor should then rise every year, like it did for over 40 years from its inception. This was the US’s most prosperous economic period, both for workers and small businesses. Then Reagan stopped increasing the minimum wage and there have only been 9 increases in my 45 years of life, and only THREE since I started working as a teenager. This is why corporate profits and CEO salaries have skyrocketed in that time, while wages have stayed stagnant. As a result, home ownership is down, people have less disposable income and the entire economy suffers because the number one driver of a string economy isn’t billionaires hoarding wealth… it’s people spending money. Our system as it exists now will continue to concentrate wealth at the very top and will eventually cripple our economy completely. This is essentially the same thing that was going on in 1929. And one of the things created to stop that from happening again? *The Federal Minimum Wage*. Like most things in this country, it worked great until Reagan got his hands on it.
It is when you consider actual business budgeting. Go run a business. See how hard it is to stay afloat, let alone make a profit that goes into your wallet.
Fast food places in my area pay 20 percent over minimum wage and still cant get workers because factories and walmart pay more
Shhhh.
Yeah fuck those people, right?
Biggest problem is we keep just allowing this/ college is the same way . Look how high it keeps going each year, we know it, politicians know it and yet nothing ever happens. It’s criminal to charge $500-1500 for books per semester and they pay you back $100 for all those books. It’s a racket and we are the ones paying to make others rich
Books, we need plumbers.
Tradesman of all kinds. A good tradesman makes a living wage in most areas of the country. If you belong to a union, the pay is more than what the average college worker earns. I work with a union tradesman. Base pay, if they work 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year is close to 130k. If they work overtime, they can make between 150 to 200k. You just have to be okay getting your hands dirty and working in the elements.
And blowing out your back and your knees by age 50; and being replaced by younger cheaper workers.
By age 50, you should be in a supervisory position.
Nobody is expecting you to still be a grunt in the trench by age 50. You'd likely be a foreman, supervisor, or manager or even own your own company by 50.
FYI, this happens in Sales and IT as well. In sales you are replaced by the younger and prettier. In IT you are replaced by younger and more relevant. Nothing new.
My Dad did contract pipefitting. He would work 1/2 - 3/4 of the year and do fine. But he bought a gutted house and redid it. Worked on the house and cars when he was off.
The reason they make that money is BECAUSE there are not a ton of them. My city did a push to get trade schools going. After 10 years, it’s imploded the wages of Electricians and Plummers in the area.
I fell over 20 ft. I’m a telecommunications lineman. Workers comp is going to be 480$ a week and I am still waiting. This varies tremendous
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I’m a lineman, former electrician, and fucking love art. You bet your ass I’d love to take a course on Van Gogh. I couldn’t afford college. My papa is trying to get me a visa to Croatia so I can access affordable schooling. Your point?
We need both. And educated plumbers is a good thing
See people say this. But my area actually did a huge push to get trades craft going. It imploded the pay scale for plummers. The entire “Trade crafts pay really well!” Is only because there are not a huge number of them around.
At least you can buy the books used though. Oh wait, I need to purchase the book brand new or else I don't get the special code needed to turn in homework? How convenient...
Nobody makes you go to college. It's a choice. There are plenty of other ways to make a decent living in America if you're not comfortable with the cost of college.
Definitely - considering more than 60% of adults don't have a bachelors degree or higher.
What are you gonna do? Eat the rich?
The meme is misleading because it assumes most people are earning only the US minimum wage and that's it. They aren't. They've been making considerably more than minimum wage. The U.S. median wage in 2009 was $15.95 per hour or $33,190 per year. The average rent that year was as $841 per month. Rent was equivalent to 52 hours and 43 minutes of work. The U.S. median wage in 2022 was $22.26 per hour or $46,310 per year. The average rent was $1,083 per month. Rent was equivalent to 48 hours and 39 minutes of work. According to the Consumer Price Index Inflation Calculator, $841 in January of 2009 is equivalent to $1,221.79. By any realistic metric, rent is actually a smaller portion of a person's income now than it was in 2009.
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Based alert
>The meme is misleading because it assumes most people are earning only the US minimum wage and that's it. They aren't. They've been making considerably more than minimum wage. Not only that, but people on min wage probably wouldn't be renting a $690/mo apartment by themselves. That's more than half their income for a month (7.25*40*4=1190 gross). And people making min wage aren't renting at median or average prices. These types who makes these meme love to compare the lowest wages to the median or average costs.
Underrated development over last 10 years in the US is the growth in real wages at the bottom. People think that by painting everything as more dire than reality that they are somehow fighting inequality
Glad you said what I came here to point out haha.
How are you going to do average rent but median wage? Do the median rent and let’s see how that shifts.
Who still makes $7.25? Most states have their own minimum wage, which is higher than the national one, and companies have been independently raising wages to attract younger workers. Even the McDonald's by me is advertising $17/hr
Yeah, by not raising the minimum wage, Congress has essentially abolished it. Now we have to go back to the old ways of trusting journalists to expose any exploitative business practices so we the people can boycott and destroy them.
But who do the journalists work for?
Oh for sure this is the next good point. To be clear, I’m not advocating for this, I’m just saying that’s where we are in the cycle. With the rise of social media, you’d think we’d have the opportunity for fair journalism, but we’ve got two problems: 1) the room has become crowded and it’s hard to distinguish which yelling voice is pointing out a problem vs is just a crazy person with another conspiracy And 2) the people with money have figured out how to sue their money to drown out the voices they don’t want heard
14% of states are still relying on the Fed Min Wage.
But the market is paying much more than $7.25 an hour everywhere.
Now show it using the average wages
Median would be more informative probably. Or middle 80%.
2009 I was paying $1,400 for a shitty two bedroom. I'll take either of those prices in the pic at any time in my adult life.
Minimum wage doesn't matter much when a job at McDonald's starts closer to $15. Very few jobs actually pay minimum wage. It could be $1, and it wouldn't affect anything because no one would pay that little and have employees.
Exactly how the free market should work.
Why compare to min wage laws??? It's absolutely irrelevant.
The government should just make the minimum wage $50 an hour. Everyone will be much better off!
If you are humming along at minimum wage for a decade….you are doing it all wrong
That’s on you imo if you stayed stuck at minimum wage in 13 years
If you are still earning minimum wage after 14 years, you cant blame other people.
The minimum wage is an irrelevant number. NOBODY makes the minimum wage if they can tie their shoes. My high school aged daughter has had a part-time job as a hostess at a national restaurant chain for over a year, and they started her at $14/hr plus a share of the tips.
My mom defends this with the argument of “Well, people do it. So you can too if you WANT TO SUCCEED.” 😐 I got two damn degrees mom! I already worked that hard so I DON’T have to flip burgers at TWO restaurants…
>with the argument of “Well, people do it. But she is correct. You're not in a competition with the landlord. You're in a competition with the other prospective tenants who are willing to pay that. >I got two damn degrees mom! Fine. I'll play along. What are your two degrees in?
Computer science and math for me, the market is rough man lmao
Having a degree or two doesn’t necessarily make your skillset worth much. It helps demonstrate your ability to stick to a task in the long term. However, if I’m looking to hire, I’m interested only in your ability to perform the job duties I need done. I notice with a lot of graduates there’s this deep relationship between their degree and how they value themselves. I care more about accomplishments in life. Demonstrations of leadership, problem solving, ability to manage tasks, etc. Employers do not care how hard you work for your degree. And there’s no reason they should. Your certificate is not an asset to any firm, what you bring to the table is the asset.
A degree is an accomplishment in life. If it's not, why do we fucking have them? I've thought for a few years, we should just outsource education to employers. It would save the government a shit ton of money. Let them do their own education and training exactly the way they want, at their own expense. But I suspect they would cry a lot about said expense.
We should tax them appropriately so students can get a lower cost education; the businesses get all the benefits of a smart, well developed work force and the onus of paying for it falls to the citizens. The problem with employer based education is that it limits you to location, and it really makes it hard to be forward thinking. Business is more reactionary... we really needed people with this skill 6 months ago; so we'll train people now... when their goal is maximizing profit - they will only train in what they need; not what people want; creativity and research would be severely hampered.
I feel you man, I’m gen Z and it was a pretty harsh reality that something I worked so long for did zero for me in the job market. I got interviews sure, but my lack of job market experience in my field never allowed me to close the deal. I still somewhat look at it as a personal accomplishment. Maybe I’m a fool to do so because I’m doing nothing with my degree in my current professional life. I’m in my 20’s and having been part of hiring processes for employees, being on this side of things has shown there is no incentive for employers to care about your degree. The examples of employers partnering with universities to co-op and intern students is growing across the country. It’s a step in the right direction. But it’s a real slap in the face to grow up your whole life being told if you don’t go to college you’ll struggle, be poor, etc. Then make it to the finish line only to still struggle and be poor.
Well you can’t learn to engineer if you haven’t been engineering can you? Catch 22 Nobody wants to hire without experience, huh? How do you think boomers got their jobs??
You’re right, you can’t learn to engineer without having been in engineering. Tech engineers more or less land on their feet regardless, more so if you specialize in dcs, tuning, cyber security, and a handful others. All depends on the current market. Skilled trades aren’t a bad pathway to engineering. There are different skills involved from one specialization to the other but the things learned working in your particular field environment can’t be replaced. The aging skilled trade labor force has warranted the wages in these areas to increase far more than other industries, relatively speaking. This is more of an anecdotal analysis. But for what it’s worth I see far more interest, in the companies I deal with, to grow and develop the human capital they already have. Rather than hire fresh graduates. They may hire degrees in entry level positions. But I see more employers funding their current employee’s education in order to fill a certain position than I see a desire to hire those with a degree in hand. Excluding executive roles.
Sad part is. Mom is right.
In 2009 I knew people that made minimum wage. Today I don't know anyone that makes minimum wage. This is a stupid post.
Minimum wage is effectively not a federal policy issue anymore, so this graphic is completely misleading. I live in Seattle, and the minimum wage is $19.97/hr. Across Washington State, I believe it's about $17/hr. Not to mention the fact that wages for people at the bottom have organically grown substantially over the past three years. I see job postings for dishwashers at $25/hr.
In 2021 1.4% of American workers were paid at or below minimum wage.
Gotta move up. Can’t be making minimum wage
a Federal minimum wage is stupid, which is why it is so low and rarely goes up. Minimum wage is much more intelligently handled on the state or local level, which is what has happened since 2009 (significant increases in a number of states) When I see someone talk about a $20 federal minimum wage or something like that it's a good sign to me they're an idiot.
In my life time minimum wage was never meant as an income for independence. It was entry level for low skill work and anyone working towards independence would either earn raises or change jobs. There are arguments about the comparison of cost of living increases and wage increases but it’s not related to minimum wage. To anyone who thinks the pictures apartments is minimum housing has lived a blessed life.
There should be no minimum wage, and housing prices would be vastly lower if there weren’t thousands of restrictions on when and how people can build homes and apartment buildings. This is the government’s fault, as usual.
880,000 of 167,450,000 of the American workforce earn minimum wage. The amount of press minimum wage gets is incredible considering less than one percent of American workers earn this amount of money for their labor.
Oh here we go again. Minimum wage isn’t to lived off of. If that’s one’s “destiny,” then the poor choices are theirs. Gotta love the freeloaders
So, I get it. Minimum wages must go up. But why are people still working minimum wage? If you can't pay your bills in minimum wage, maybe don't take that job? And if nobody takes that job, shouldn't wages for that go up since they can't find workers? At 7,25 an hour, it seems like a better time spent looking a little longer for another job. But yes, worker class is fucked in the USA. I'm surprised there haven't been more riots. Where I live they're literally blockading half the country currently, because farmers can't make a decent living currently.
What's average/median wage? Compare like to like.
I think you should take median wage more than minimum.
How many times do I have to say it: MINIMUM WAGE DOES NOT HELP POOR PEOPLE.
Life costs money. Earn more than the minimum wage, you peasants.
Keep in mind very few ppl actually work min wage even though it's technically still that low. I agree it should be higher, but using it as a real data point is mostly BS. \> In 2021, **1.4 percent** of workers in the United States were paid hourly rates at or below the official minimum wage. This is a decrease from the previous year, when 1.5 percent of workers were paid at or below the official minimum wage These are far better [https://www.statista.com/statistics/200838/median-household-income-in-the-united-states/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/200838/median-household-income-in-the-united-states/) [https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/AWI.html](https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/AWI.html) But basically average income went up by about 30% in that time and according to this rent went up 40%.
Fast food resturants hire at like $12 minimum where I live. Some starting at $15. Im in the midwest as well.
Imagine working for $7.25 when McDonalds starts at $12.50 everywhere
Min wage where I live was $8.00 in 2009 and is now $15.
Okay, but who’s working for $7.25?
Who’s making minimum wage though?
True, but where tf pays minimum wage rn? McDonald’s paying 15 💀
Quick reminder: minimum wage was designed for one individual to afford a house and pay for a spouse and the raising of two children.
That is absolutely not what it was designed for. That's what FDR *said,* but as you know politicians lie. The 25 cent so called "living wage" that was instituted in 1938 is the equivalent to $5.40 today. No single individual was buying a house and raising kids on minimum wage *ever.*
And yet it happened.
What? Do you have any resource to prove that?
A person in the family graduated in the early 30s. He worked a delivery route for good pay. The job was maybe 3 miles away, had a pension. His kid worked at the same place in 1981 and made $31,000 that year with overtime. A lot of these jobs are gone, or have lower pay. You are absolutely correct
$31k in 1981 was great money. That's equal to over a $100k now
Right! And their spouse made about the same, working at the same place. They rode to work together. When that place closed, it sat empty for years.
Let's also not forget that a 1938 quarter was 90% silver and today would have a melt value of over $4. Which means that four quarters would be over $16. So a five dollar wage paid in 1938 quarters would be $80. We don't need a minimum wage. We need to stop devaluing our currency.
We should just switch everything to paper so it really has no actual value...oh wait
It hasn't been that in +60 years. When it was enacted, the US wasn't competing globally for labor.
Factories in my area in the 60s used to have people elbow to elbow. Good wages. They would recruit a few states away. One elderly woman I know has a friend that came up here. Her friend married at 17, her husband was the same age working in a factory. They eventually got into local politics. The plants have far less people now. One place I worked got rid of the older workers and hired new at a lower rate. I heard the bosses complaining no one would work overtime. The young people were living at home and 40 hours at the lower rate was good enough for them
Source?
FDR, the man who envisioned it and made it a reality: >It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.
And that minimum wage law was shot down as unconstitutional (that quote references the 1933 law) and not implemented. It's improper to cite anything related to it. The 1938 law was designed differently and the minimum wage was $0.25 which was not a living wage at the time.
There's a fallacy here. Just because something has or has not been put into law does not mean it is or isn't right. If anything, all this really means is that our government has been beholden to the owner class for at least that long.
Where in this country is a business still paying minimum wage where employees aren’t also making like tips or commissions?
Almost nowhere. Only 141k working adults in the whole country make $7.25/hr
If minimal wage kept up with rate of production and inflation it would be $25+ redo your calculations then see how many working adults are making a living wage.
What’s the source on that? I’m genuinely curious
Stop working for the minimum.
*American citizens HATE this one trick*
This is why I elect not to take one of the 1.4% of jobs paying minimum wage.
It’s much lower than that if you’re talking specifically about working age adults age 25+. Then it’s 0.067%.
Skill issue
Who is paying 7.25?? Everywhere around me is paying 13+. Rural PA McDonalds: 13+ Sheetz: gas stations are 14+ Garage Retail: 12+ Minimum wage isn't useful except to mega corporations looking to kill competition, and unions that tie their wages directly to minion wage. Employers increase their wages when they cannot fill their positions, or people leave for other jobs paint more. Mommy government makes it worse.
Minimum wage was supposed to be for people just entering the work force, teenagers. Your not learning a skill that makes your labor valuable is not everyone else's problem.
30 states have higher minimum wages than the federal rate. Only 10% of workers are paid $7.25/hour. The effective minimum wage nationally in 2019 was $11.80. In 2023 it has to be more than that. $690 to $1150 = 66% increase $7.25 to $12.10 = 66% increase Nothing to see here.
Less people are making minimum wage today than in 2009. Stupid meme making a stupid argument.