Minimum wage is not the same thing as a living wage. The minimum wage should be a living wage, but it isn’t.
See: NY. We just got our minimum wage increase and it’s 15-16/hr depending on where you are in NY… That’s what we were fighting for more than ten goddamn years ago. $15-$16/hr is an absolute joke on Long Island and NYC. I finally managed to claw my way up to 60k/year and as a single guy the thought of homeownership on long Island is as fantastical and far-fetched as a unicorn, forget about 15/hr… You can’t even rent most illegal apartments at that income alone.
The conversation needs to be about what constitutes a living wage and how to calculate it at a given time for each area not just blanket minimum wage increases to specific numbers that sound nice to chant like “fight for fifteen.”
I feel like if the rates at which minimum wage increased (or hypothetically decreased) matched the rate of living wage then it would be no issue. I’m not accusing you of this, but some people try to argue raising the wage makes things more expensive but the charts show very clearly that things can get more expensive completely independent of wages.
A method to tackle the problem you discussed is to just enforce anti-monopoly and anti-oligopoly laws to break up large businesses, then the market competition will naturally keep prices low.
But in order to make that possible we would need educated voter participation unlike anything we’ve ever seen, or election and campaign finance reform.
Lol getting down voted out of pure tribalism. The complete unwillingness of their base to seriously criticize Democrats is such a massive fucking turn off to voting for them.
Minimum wage is not the same thing as a living wage. The minimum wage should be a living wage, but it isn’t.
See: NY. We just got our minimum wage increase and it’s 15-16/hr depending on where you are in NY… That’s what we were fighting for more than ten goddamn years ago. $15-$16/hr is an absolute joke on Long Island and NYC. I finally managed to claw my way up to 60k/year and as a single guy the thought of homeownership on long Island is as fantastical and far-fetched as a unicorn, forget about 15/hr… You can’t even rent most illegal apartments at that income alone.
The conversation needs to be about what constitutes a living wage and how to calculate it at a given time for each area not just blanket minimum wage increases to specific numbers that sound nice to chant like “fight for fifteen.”
Achieving a living wage starts by raising the minimum wage.
I feel like if the rates at which minimum wage increased (or hypothetically decreased) matched the rate of living wage then it would be no issue. I’m not accusing you of this, but some people try to argue raising the wage makes things more expensive but the charts show very clearly that things can get more expensive completely independent of wages.
A method to tackle the problem you discussed is to just enforce anti-monopoly and anti-oligopoly laws to break up large businesses, then the market competition will naturally keep prices low.
But in order to make that possible we would need educated voter participation unlike anything we’ve ever seen, or election and campaign finance reform.
Oh look! All of those things are DNC platforms!
Lol getting down voted out of pure tribalism. The complete unwillingness of their base to seriously criticize Democrats is such a massive fucking turn off to voting for them.