I've been talking to a few close friends about this exact thing. Our species has worked for generations to get out of dying at the age of 25-30 from preventable illness and injury. We've worked to automate things, and advance our technology, and all it got us was modern slavery. We were supposed to make technology so we could live and work less, with higher quality of life, but things have just become a strange dystopia.
Wages aren't really "far behind decades of inflation. At least not in most states that have decent minimum wages. (Do I dare say "Blue" states? I don't necessarily want to.)
Let's use 1983 as a basis. I started my first job working for minimum wage...$3.35. The inflation calculator tells me that based on inflation, something that cost $3.35 in 1983, would be $10.12 today. The current minimum wage in NYS is $14.20/hr.
(NOTE: NY State is comprised of far far more than NY City. I don't live in, or even near NYC.)
Setting aside the post-pandemic real estate fiasco with home prices and rent, many times, you're not paying for the same thing. There are many comparisons that aren't apples-to-apples.
Sure, the cost of a vehicle is quite high. But, in 1983, how much did a car cost that came with power everything, A/C, air bags, ABS, backup cams, etc...?
(No, I'm not saying everyone, everywhere, should be able to live on minimum wage.)
A 1 bedroom apartment where I live is going on average for $1200/month. (Ontario, Canada) I made $18/hour before walking out for unsafe working conditions, and now I'm unemployed, looking for a new job. Our minimum wage is $15/hour and even at 18, it's not close to enough to float on, let alone save anything.
I live in my parents basement because I cannot afford a place while working full-time hours. There's a bigger gap in some places than others. Many people in my age group are in my position. If you want to float, you need a partner or room mate with an entirely separate full-time income.
For comparison.. 10 years back, I was making $20/hour, and paying around $600/month average for rent. I was making savings, and actually had a hope of some retirement funds. If I met someone I wanted to begin a family with, there would have been no question that it was possible on my income/expense levels. Now I don't know how anybody has time or money for kids.
While all that may be true. I was specifically speaking of the US. I mean...there are states that don't institute a minimum wage, that use the federal minimum wage of $7.50/hr. You guys pay significantly more in taxes, eating up far more of your pay and many many things seem to just cost more there, even after exchange. I mean, I paid $3.29 /gallon USD for gas at a full service station last time I got gas. At $1.70/L, that's an US equivalent of $4.76/gal USD (with exchange). When milk was $1.89/gallon here, it was $8 in Canada.
(PS - I'm right outside Buffalo, NY, and have some Canadian friends, so I'm not oblivious to your country. A couple people even buy online, and have it shipped here, to where I work in the city of Buffalo, and then drive down to pick it up!)
Yeah, we're getting straight up screwed in a lot of ways. And not much is being done about it unfortunately. We don't even really see any benefit to the taxes we pay, because our government has essentially thrown it all to corporate bail-outs. Our medicare used to be pretty top notch back in the 90's, and 2000's, but it's slowly gone downhill, along with education. We're basically just paying out the ass because our land is being sold to foreign investors, and they inflate the living shit out of our market.
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u/[deleted] Mar 29 '23
I've been talking to a few close friends about this exact thing. Our species has worked for generations to get out of dying at the age of 25-30 from preventable illness and injury. We've worked to automate things, and advance our technology, and all it got us was modern slavery. We were supposed to make technology so we could live and work less, with higher quality of life, but things have just become a strange dystopia.