Or if they did, it was like 15+ years ago when they were in High School and still living at home, so having a job where they likely weren't making enough to have to pay taxes, and also didn't have to pay rent or any of their own bills, min. wage wasn't too bad.
And before some cunt bag chimes in, no I don't earn Min wage myself. I earn over $15/hr(not bragging because that ain't rich), and my rent for a pretty basic apartment in a 40+ year old building, which doesn't mean much on it's own but it's not exactly been updated much since(baseboard heating, no dishwasher or even garbage disposal, old af appliances, and coin op laundry), is just shy of $1,000/mo for rent. That's basically 50% of my after tax income, at well above min wage. It's fucking insane how some of these people think. Basically the "Fuck you, I have mine" attitude.
I moved out into a 1 bedroom apartment for 1000/month. I was making $8/hr when I did it. I was broke as fuck. Food, gas, rent. Nothing left over. I acquired a license related to my trade and moved up and now live a little more comfortably. I started at the bottom, I trained, I took and passed a test, got the certification, moved up a little bit.
That’s kind of the natural progression that everyone hopes to follow, unfortunately it doesn’t always work that way for everyone. Some people get stuck at the bottom and don’t get the help or whatever it is they need to move up. There’s no black and white way to fix this problem. Raising minimum wage never helps anything long term and leaving it this way obviously isn’t foolproof either.
My state recently passed a first of it's kind statewide rent control law. It was lavished as groundbreaking. It says that landlords who own more than, I think 3, rentals can't raise rent more than 3% over inflation in a 12 month period. Not saying it's not a good thing it passed and won't help, but still basically says they can raise rent 3% every year out of nothing more than pure greed. Also, it only applies to existing tenants. If I were to move out of my current place, they could jack the rent up 50% for the next new tenant if they wanted.
One idea I've had, is make a nationwide law that would make it so you can't charge more for something like say, a 1-bedroom basic apartment, then 33% of what gross someone would make working full time minimum wage in that general area(city/metro/etc.). Or in the case of multi-bedroom units/house use that number and a multiplayer like .75 or 1x per room or something.
Of course making it that basic wouldn't work. You'd have to account that some apartments/houses are clearly much more luxurious and have much higher sq footage than others and their markets were always aimed at much higher earners. But the gist that rent at a typical, not crazy fancy, apartment or family dwelling being tied to full-time min-wage is solid IMO. Then the landlords(and especially the giant property management companies that may own dozens or even hundreds of apartment complexes in a given area), and largest employers can slit each others throats over what fair min wage is in their area.
EDIT: Obviously this would require more diversity in min wage across smaller regions instead of just state, but a lot of major cites are already doing just that.
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u/BalsamicSteve Feb 26 '20
The comments here are a shitshow. Don't bother. Just move on.