That’s not how supply and demand works. If you raise minimum wage so that it can pay for a two bedroom apartment, then demand for two bedroom apartments will skyrocket pushing the price put of range once more. The only way to do this is to couple the wage increase with artificial availability by creating rent controlled, minimum wage housing.
I live in the “Greater Jackson Hole” metro area which includes two Teton counties. One in Wyoming and one in Idaho (Wydaho). Our area is full of billionaires as well as double and triple digit millionaires. You will never see a “conservative” area with more aggressive nature conservation efforts than here. Why? Because the area is paradise and the billionaires have bought all the land in order to keep it pristine (and get a nice tax break). Unfortunately, everyone tried to move here during and after lockdown and now prices are ludicrous. The thing is that the rich still need services and workers to keep that quality of life up. What was the fix? They built affordable housing for the local workforce. Some of these include store/shop spaces on the first floor for practically zero rent as long as your business is helpful to the community or raises the quality of life. So many artisinal bakeries, coffee shops, yoga/Pilate’s studios, high end dog supplies and grooming, cultural artifact shops, etc. Seriously, the entire population of the area is roughly about 30k and I have access to more top tier coffee shops here than I did in the infamously hipster Austin, Texas.
If you ever want to know what systems will be effective, just look at what the mega-rich do for their own self-interest.
EDIT: During the early days of the lockdown, private jets were flying in with medical equipment (respirators) and supplies for the entire community. A billionaire couple donated some of the first COVID-19 blood test machines in the nation. If you tell me that in five years this area will have government subsidized living wages and free healthcare for all, I will believe you…as long as the program is tied to local service industry employment because the mega-rich won’t do anything unless it benefits them somehow.
People looking out for themselves is in their nature. Animals do the same. People cooperate when they see that it is to their mutual advantage to do so, just as many animals evolve to do. People are animals. Animals are nature!
Calling people sociopaths for looking out for their own interests is to stretch the word so far it becomes meaningless. Everyone is a sociopath, except you and your friends, right? Right.
Yes. That’s literally what I am trying to say. In a capitalist system, it is not enough to increase wages because the system will automatically adjust. Billionaires in my area inadvertently proved that the best way to increase quality of life is by introducing heavily subsidized programs. GASP…socialism
The cost of a 2 bedroom apartment always costs what someone working for minimum wage makes plus $100. Why? Because landlords don’t want people making minimum wage living at their apartments - never mind the (perceived)increased maintenance and crime - people working minimum wage are people that don’t have income security and more likely to miss payments or need to be evicted.
If you raise minimum wage, the price of rent just goes up. Now that isn’t a argument against raising it more that an argument against renting and an argument for housing reform, but that is a whole different post.
The cost of a 2 bedroom apartment always costs what someone working for minimum wage makes plus $100.
It doesn’t, though; it’s way more. You are so out-of-touch…
If you raise minimum wage, the price of rent just goes up
That’s not how that works. Landlords and property managers can ask for more, but it doesn’t mean they’ll get it. What would happen is people would have more money for literally everything but rent and the economy as a whole would improve. I don’t work for minimum wage, yet raising it would benefit me, along with everyone else. It hasn’t even come close to keeping pace with inflation.
As someone who is currently living in a 2 bedroom apartment and has seen the price change through out the years, I think I am in touch with what it costs.
It ain’t the “market” that sets prices, it’s the owners. The owners set prices to fill up the apartments, sure, but they would rather it sit empty then rent it out to someone that would cost more money to evict and repair then they would pay in rent.
They can ask for more, and they will, and someone will pay it. Because now everyone has more, and everyone still needs to live somewhere. A landlord for profit isnt going to suddenly want less profit for no reason other than to help everyone else out, or they wouldnt be a landlord for profit.
You didn’t stutter but I’m not sure you understand cost of living differences.
I mean the minimum in minimum wage is meant to be the absolute minimum wage necessary to balance cost of living.
If cost of living goes up then so should the minimum wage.
What I understand the least is how businesses need to pay for resources to make their products yet for some reason human workers aren’t considered resources and therefore aren’t treated as part of the cost of owning a business.
If you can’t make a profit while paying a living wage looks like you don’t get to own that business ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’m just saying a 2br apartment in NYC is a lot more than one in Nowhere, Kansas.
Cost of living in NY > Cost of living in Nowhere, Kansas
Minimum wage of NY > Minimum wage of Nowhere, Kansas
This has nothing to do with what minimum wage should afford
I don’t agree with OP. We shouldn’t be striving to get people to work minimum wage. The minimum should be minimum. 2 BR is not minimum.
Now I’m all for a Basic Minimum Income. And if you need 2 BR and your low paying job isn’t enough, the BMI should cover it.
But this idea that the lowest working class needs to receive “minimum wage” is false. They need to receive fair pay, not the minimum the company is required to give them.
The “minimum” in “minimum wage” literally means that nobody can pay you less.
It has no etymological relation to the cost of living.
Because the ruling class destroyed working class solidarity and gave everyone anxiety disorders so no one has the chutzpah to go to their boss and negotiate higher pay. Your boss can negotiate prices with suppliers because that’s the established culture. Everything, and i mean everything, in this world is negotiable if you understand what leverage each party possesses.
No certain I agree 2 bedroom for minimum, but definitely getting a single bedroom or studio near where they work makes a whole lot of sense.
That sounds ok until you realize how many people have kids at least half time, but no adult partner. And a lot of those people don’t make much above min wage.
Even if they make slightly more than minimum now, a rising tide lifts all ships.
Plus minimum wage was intended to be the lowest single wage a family could be supported on. Just requiring it cover a 2br apartment is a far cry from the original intent
Good point. I’d kinda expect the government to help in that situation more.
Why should the government support bad businesses? Serious question, because we socialize losses (tax-paid anssistance) and privatize profits (they keep it, regardless how many employees are on assistance).
We do that already with welfare for people working a surprising number of places (Walmart and McDonald’s are prime examples, where they have published budgets assuming you will get government assistance)
Why is that ok, but requiring living wages isn’t?
Why don’t you agree with the 2 bedroom? Why can’t the working class have some leg room?
Then we’d have to call it “some leg room wage”
It’s the minimum wage, it’s supposed to be the minimum you need to survive. Conversely, you don’t need two bedrooms to survive
No, we call it the “minimum wage” because it’s the minimum to be legally paid
It’s meant to be a living wage, and in case that’s not clear enough for you
and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.
quoted from FDR, the guy who got the initial minimum wage laws passed in the US
I know you guys are talking about the US and some things work differently over there, but why should a minimum wage cover more than… the minimum? Want more, do more.
Because the idea was always that we need a living wage.
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. -FDR
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9075220-it-seems-to-me-to-be-equally-plain-that-no
And you can’t live in a single bedroom apartment?
I mean, I would understand if someone didn’t have enough to eat or a roof over their head. A meme about it would be understandable. But why 2 bedrooms? Personally, one is enough for me and I earn a good living.
And you can’t live in a lay down cubicle?
I mean, I would understand if someone didn’t have enough to eat or a roof over their head. A meme about it would be understandable. But why 1 bedroom? Personally, a rented cage in someone else’s room is enough for me and I earn a good living.
Minimum amount that can be paid to support a decent quality of living.
Single parents with children.
Ability to have both a bedroom and an office space, for remote work that requires dedicated space. (Not even anything fancy, some call center or support line jobs.)
Like, I understand the thought of “why should minimum wage afford luxuries!?”, but that isn’t what is being implied here, and yes, minimum wage should afford some luxuries anyway.