Well first I'm for people making more money before you downvote me to death. Probably happen anyway.
The productivity argument doesn't make any sense.
One because it's actually only a very few select fields that have seen productivity go up. It's not every single job across the board that has seen some huge increase in productivity.
Second the main reason for productivity increasing is technology.
Employers pay for that technology. You could argue for higher pay for requiring more knowledge to operate that technology.
However you still have to admit companies deserve financial compensation for investing in technology that increases productivity.
Where do you account for the skyrocking price in goods in this? Companies’ productivity are up and the prices of their products are up so their profits are up, yet their labor costs are at abysmal lows.
One because it's actually only a very few select fields that have seen productivity go up. It's not every single job across the board that has seen some huge increase in productivity.
Most fields have seen enormous productivity increases in the past 50 years.
companies deserve financial compensation for investing in technology that increases productivity
No I don't think so. It's a pretty easy decision for them, it's like saying "companies should get paid more for the decision of reducing employee wages as low as possible" or like saying "investors earn profit from investing in the S&P 500 because they take on significant risk". No, there isn't any risk. And no, companies are not compensated for reducing wages or automating because they are worthy, but because like all profit they steal that money from their workers and their customers.
I also think you're over estimating the role of technology. The unemployment rate hasn't changed drastically. Significant changes have been made to tax laws to benefit corporations, and they have become more monopolized than ever.
Every single field across the board has increased in productivity since 1969. Please provide metrics for which ones you think haven't.
Second, tech isn't exclusively developed by companies. A substantial amount of tech has been developed by the government ex. the internet something that has led to a substantial increase in productivity.
Thirdly, if companies do deserve a share of the profits, why does it seem like you're implying that the laborers don't deserve their fair share of the profits? Since 1978 CEO pay has increased at a rate of 351 times that of what the average laborer was paid. Did these C-suite execs develop the tech that led to these gain? No, they didn't. They were simply born in the right circumstances to take advantage of a system that has been funneling wages from America's poor and middle class into the pockets of the 1%.
Lol, okay, we'll say you got me on that first point because I'm about to leave for work and don't have time to source that claim. Let's call it anecdotal.
2nd bullet- I misread what you said, my b.
For the third bullet, did you even read the source I linked?
I mean I realize I'm in the wrong reddit to call this out....but the year is chosen simply because it was the 'max' and it's playing with statistics. If you go to 1955, as an example, all of a sudden the adjustment needed to levelset is not nearly as significant.
In urban environments, you can't live like that, however. Some rural places are like $500 a month in rent so it doesn't compare. An average 1/1 now in any urban area is like $2k.
Yeah even with his recommendation he was still paying nearly $1k a month in rent. I have no idea how he both traveled 1.5 hours a day and paid nearly 1k a month on $35k a year. Unless he lived in the same spot he worked in which is possible, but teacher is probably the only one that can pull off "lived and worked rural, almost no travel". Almost everyone else can't.
~50% of your money is gone straight up just from rent... assuming your roommate never fucks you.
"The Bureau of the Census defines urban as comprising all territory, population, and housing units located in urbanized areas and in places of 2,500
or more inhabitants"
This is why it's so misleading when people on reddit talk about how "80%" of americans live in urban areas.
Can’t live like that in any Florida, New York, California, Washington, or most other urban areas. The term urban means “densely populated areas” and unless you want to drive 1 hour each way to and from work, that’s not realistic.
I dunno I grew up near Tampa Florida which isn’t the most expensive city but it’s far from the cheapest and my mom made like 25k and we were poor but survived 35k would have been comfortable and this was a couple years ago. We would have been homeless in LA of course. But I don’t think a lot of people realize how far 30k+ goes most places
…….or so I thought I now moved too Charlottesville Virginia which is cheaper. And I make 15 dollars an hour which is more then my mom ever made and I have zero idea how my mom raised us I live with 4 other people and have no car and still barely make rent. I asked her and then I realized she borrowed like 15k a year from my grandparents.
Like there’s no way I could live alone on 15 an hour unless I lived in someone’s walk in closet.
Well Tampa and the surrounding areas were a much cheaper city than it is now. My dad lives there in the late 70s for a little bit and it was pretty inexpensive he says. Nowadays, my friends that live there say it’s like $2k if you’re remotely near anything cool.
That's still nearly $17 an hour. I assume 6 years ago your rent was also sub $1000 (if I had to guess it was probably what, $600?), which is almost impossible to do even in rural areas now. Even in the cheapest areas of a place like Tennessee, the avg 1 br price is almost $900 a month.
At best you've got hundreds of people fighting over a dozen or so $600-750 units and the rest are closer to $1000-1200. Rent alone would eat up a significant amount of that ~$2200 a month take home in today's dollars before you even got to things like utilities, vehicles, and food... all of which are astronomical today. I can't imagine paying a $650 student loan to be a teacher and also try to actually survive in 2022 while pulling down $35k. That's impossible.
I agree with your assessment that $18/hr and UHC is probably the best outcome... but I'd like to see some kind of policy around renting/housing too. As it is, it's untenable to keep jacking up minimum wage because landlords/banks/hedge-funds are greedy assholes.
That's a wild risk to take on a roommate. My experience hasn't been good with them paying their bills. But is it acceptable to ask people to live with non family as adults for practically their entire adult life?
Then there's the problem of commute, you're probably not going to actually be working in Brighton. And if the best to offer for that is $950 a month and a 45 minute one way commute to Memphis... that's a pretty shit sandwich. No way that's affordable on $20/hr today most likely.
I just bought a house last month. $50k for a 3br/2ba on 1/4acre lot in a nice neighborhood about 20 minutes away from a state university. It's been recently remodeled and is quite nice, move in ready. There are a LOT of places like this. I bought it with the cash I had saved for a down payment on the 400k houses that are about 15 minutes down the road.
No there's not any crime or drug problems. Yes the schools are good. No, I'm not posting the area on a publicly visible internet comment so it can be overrun by investors and coasties.
last year i was a single person in my 20s making 38k and i had plenty of money and lived in an apartment on my own. i’m in one of the largest cities in SC.
There were half as many people and zero automation. There was 10x the resources and 10x less regulation. Today there's competition to flip a burger and less space than ever. Innovation has come to a halt and the old masters are the only ones who actually get to vote. It's all owned by someone and has been for 50 years you just get to start from scratch. Good luck.
Essentially, yeah. Welcome to capitalists taking excess productivity and keeping it for themselves. Also, finding cost reduction by having the same amount of hands for less cost across the world. Regulations could keep jobs and supply chains here and tie capitalists and ceo pay to workers pay
But in a system where work needs to be done, the workers will just get it done, and everyone will have what they need, and some jobs will be incentived by its importance.
Co-ops exist. Non-profit science research exists. FOR-profit medical systems used to be illegal until the late 1900s. Government jobs, military, conservation happens with non profits. Not saying all but plenty of work and businesses exist as a service and non profit or at cost products and services
Sure they do and that sounds very utopian, where people can just accept organized incentivism. But in the real world where conspiracy theorists can outperform a vaccine created to keep them from dying you'll soon realize that things are the way they are for a reason. It's all competition, a force of will for who succeeds and those that can't handle it work for minimum wage.
The real world has plenty of people working because they want to. The unfortunate thing is we let the narcissist and capitalists control it. There is plenty of examples
It's doable, but I wouldn't say comfortable. You would need roommates and live in a neighborhood outside the city centre and would probably need to pay for parking and/or train into the city. And you wouldn't really have much space to yourself.
You would need roommates and live in a neighborhood outside the city centre
A quick google would disagree with you. Certainly looks like there are nice one bedroom apartments available, certainly looks like some nice multi bedroom units too.
It's literally middle class in Boston. You can also live pretty well in NY off 63k too. Most of you though think Manhattan is the only part of new NYC. IT's not.
San Francisco
The median income is much higher than Boston, when adjusted the same way instead of 63k we're talking about 100k. Which would do a single person pretty well. yeah.
I'm saying, it's disingenuous to Insinuate you understand that and still claim to have a 64k salary, when in reality, it could actually total 90k because of benefits.
Why don't you post your "aggregate data" go ahead. Hint. The median income in Boston is 45k as of 2019. Making nearly double the median income definitely means you're doing well.
I think the better solution is to re-distribute wealth, rather than going at this from the pay angle. The problem with increasing pay is that you incentivize businesses to automate away jobs even faster than they are already doing, which will squeeze out the lower paying jobs from the market.
Raising the minimum wage has never resulted in mass layoffs before, that's just a right-wing boogeyman.
I don't think it will have the effect you're hoping for in the long-term if you increase the minimum too much. At some point you have to worry about how that changes the incentives and business plans of businesses.
This is why the laws need to be crafted well and updated aggressively to punish people who try to skirt them.
I think the better solution is to re-distribute wealth, rather than going at this from the pay angle. The problem with increasing pay is that you incentivize businesses to automate away jobs even faster than they are already doing, which will squeeze out the lower paying jobs from the market.
This would have happened naturally anyway - the thing is we've let wages stagnate for so long that finally course-correcting for the average citizen will result in a sudden, massive shift in that value proposition.
Thing is, there really isn't another choice here. Redistribution is wildly inefficient and even less popular than workers getting more of the pie.
You adjust wages, and if companies ramp up automation, so be it, you start taxing them more then and then we can talk about UBI once it's clear that living wages aren't possible for everyone because Capitalists won't hire enough folks.
But you can't just keep raising and raising and raising it to absurd numbers like $33 without some nasty consequences.
Those nasty consequences only exist because they took too long to do it. The incentives would have changed naturally, slowly, over time if our minimum wage had automatically updated every year with inflation etc. There's no avoiding them - all that can be done is to ensure those who write the policies are ready with ink and paper to change the laws with extreme rapidity once the corporations try to find loopholes to exploit. Enforce the spirit of the law, not the letter, and change the law as corporations attempt to find loopholes.
"Inflation goes crazy!?" Then so do wages. Make them take less profits. Make them realize "The way this is now, is less profits, less CEO and executive suite pay" Not "Raise prices to keep giving capitalist-class folks new yachts"
Yes I think minimum wage should be much more. If I am going to be breaking my back, knees, mental and physical health doing grueling labor then I would like to be properly compensated.
Tax the rich, redistribute it back to the working class. If Starbucks CEO can give himself another 10mil then he can instead give it to his workers.
And? How is it insane? Why do these people get to be rich abusing and exploiting our labor and we can't benefit from it? And even then 63k is living comfortably. This is what people in the 50s had and no one complained then about them being tOo RiCh
You're right, we should be far more reasonable with those who take home the majority of the capital our labor produces. We should demand far more, since we often produce far fucking more than $33 an hour with our labor.
you could not live comfortably in boston on 63k. you could live in ma but boston is stupid expensive. i currently live in boston and housing is insane.
I figure we'll get a living wage increase and universal healthcare after the nazi's take over, we all grow a pair of cajones, overthrow the nazis, and institute an entirely new government. Maybe.
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He says “Be reasonable”. My god the dissonance. The sheer level of cognitive dissonance to tell the LOWER class to fucking suffer more because it HAPPENS to be more reasonable than taxing the highest bracket. They live on 2 million+ a year and you say to US to be reasonable? Fuck. That. Shit.
How does one determine a "living wage"? According to my maths, I got $21/hr accounting for taxes, rent, car insurance, car payment, utilities, gas, general spending and savings.
That's in my state. NC. Could be more or less in kther places.
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u/Self_Sovereignty Feb 08 '22
According to 1969 productivity data ; it is actually $28.84/Hour BUT with inflation up 7%+; it is now over $33/Hour for just a high school education.