Increase minimum wages and tax the renters.

wha?

No landlord pays rent for unit and doesn't charge the cost in the unit's rent.

It's just a way to denigrate renters to the ignorant who want to think they're superior.

Taxes are part of the costs, just like the interest on the mortgages, maintenance, etc.

The owner isn't running a charity and takes a profit above all of that for his own living.

But in reality the ability to pass the cost of taxes on to renters is dependent upon whether rental properties are overbuilt.

The one bedroom apartment I lived in a decade ago still rents for about what I paid in rent when I lived there - about $500 a month. The home I own is about a half mile from that apartment. There have not been any significant changes in the neighborhood. But there have been a lot of new apartments built in the city. Too many new apartments.

Local business news reports that the average occupancy in rental properties across the city is about 70% - and has been at that level for several years now. That kind of occupancy rate creates significant downward pressure on rental pricing.

While the rent on that one bedroom apartment has remained virtually unchanged in last last decade the property taxes on my home have doubled. I live in a small older home in an established neighborhood where property values had maxed out before I purchased my home. My increased tax liablity is not due to an increase in the value of my home. If I were to sell the home I'd be probably be able to get about what I paid for it.

Meanwhile, voters here have elected to use property tax funds for several purposes other than the traditional ones related to public education. The tax funds are used to help fund public parks, a museum, the costs of litigation and settlements against the county, a community college, a technical school, a minor league baseball park, health care services, emergency services, emergency warning systems.

These are the kinds of costs that all taxpayers should share. But they don't. And the reason they don't is because those who own rental properties are largely unable to pass on any increased tax costs in an overbuilt market with significant downward pressure on rental pricing.

Property taxes here are a factor in depressing property values and encouraging those with resources and money to move even further out into suburban areas in other counties. I can move across the county line (20 minutes from downtown) and have a new and significanly larger home on a one acre lot with a considerably higher assessed value - and pay less in property taxes than I paid on my current home when I bought it a decade ago (before my current taxes doubled).

Someday (hopefully soon) I'll do something like that. And I will not be particularly concerned about recouping the initial cost of my home. If I am reasonably certain that I will experience a $5,000 annual reduction in property taxes and cost of living and if I am reasonably certain that I will be able to recoup that savings for two or three years then I can comfortably accept an offer on my home that is $10,000 or more below its purchase price a decade ago. I will fairly quickly recoup the funds elsewhere.

Both the tax rates and the way property taxes are used here encourage those who are able to flee the metropolitan area to do so. Oh, well. Whatever. The city/county metropolitan area can and will reap the consequences of its policies. My first obligation and priority is to myself and my family.

pay any taxes at all, I suppose.

In other words, tax the property owner, not the person who uses it for short periods.

We - the consumer - pay every tax associated with every facet of every object we consume. Charge the landlords and they simply fold that cost into the rents WE pay which further inflames the situation.

To rectify the disparity in the graphic, we can only do one of two things:
Leave the minimum wage where it is and cap the rents - which will kill the housing market completely, and those who would normally rent will have to find a cozy 2 BR cardboard box.
Let the FMR for housing do what it will and adjust minimum wage accordingly - which will translate back into the costs of goods and services which will bring about another graphic on FB showing how little minimum wage earners can afford.

Does anyone else see where this takes us?

That is a right wing talking point.

Increasing the minimum wage is good for everyone. It's only opposed by assholes like the Chamber of Commerce and repukes.

The business has to pass on increased costs to the consumer. The money doesn't magically appear in the business bank account to pay higher wages from.

Most business operate on a net profit margin of about 5%.

If you adjust for inflation, my $3.10 after school in 1977 would be the same as $11.50. In other words, people are raising families on less than what I made putting bikes together at Ace Hardware.

According to a study by Moody's, every dollar the government gives out in food stamps results in about $1.73 of economic stimulus. Minimum wage increases probably create a similar stimulus. I can't find a study that provides any numbers, though.

And every dollar of tax cuts for the rich results in about $0.39 of stimulus.

It's all about incentivising investment over profits and investment income. Tax policy is unfortunately not being utilised as it should be.

Raising MW or a slight increase in tax base does not have the snowball effect you right wingers dream of. In the real world the tax cost comes from the profit side since they have to remain competitive.

They were greatly enamored of American incomes, including mine, which at the time was in the high 30k's. They were quite sure that I was very well off. At one point the conversation turned to the price of housing. I asked what percent of their (mostly staff members of the Russian Academy) incomes was spent on housing. The answer ranged between 5% and 10%. They found it incomprehensibly ridiculous that Americans like me spent ~30% of our incomes on our housing.

I wonder what they will think about the goodness of American capitalism as a socio-economic model when they run across this on the web.

NO successful business can stay in business without a 50% mark up on all goods and services. The only way small businesses can compete with this model is to have the owner and his family work longer hours for little to no extra pay. The larger businesses buy in bulk, get a larger break on products and charge less thus forcing small business to cut even further into their profitability as such working even longer hours for less profit. The average small business owner sees overall profits of 120,000 but the owner generally works 70 plus hours per week, does their own accounting & managing, as well as staying open weekends and holidays to play catch up.

Hahahahahahah!

40-45%, these days...

Honest question.

different gendered teen/adolescent children?

Not being a mother -- or intending to -- I saw no further than my own experience of having a roommate in college and then getting married.

Single mom to 2 girls. But she actually lives with my mom in a duplex. They have a pretty good arrangement. But I could see folks in her situation.

I lived both alone (I did have a one bedroom/den once - but I wasn't working minimum wage) and with roommates prior to getting married. When you're young roommates can be a good situation both for saving money and having company.

In any event, this OP is not the argument I'd use to argue for better conditions. Few recent high school/college graduates need their own 2-bedroom apartments. They do need job opportunities and some relief on student debt (I wouldn't say wipe it out - but I would argue for lower interest rates).

This is a perspective on how life looks for a low income single parent.

Now the question will be why should a low income single parent have one or more children?


And the answer would be, because they haven't been able to do the proper vulture capitalism thing. Which is to say they haven't yet sold said child(ren)--either intact, or as medical replacement parts.

shades of Jonathan Swift.

There are LOTS of women who are "left behind", or who have to leave a bad marriage.

Those kids do not cease to exist when a family moves from 2 incomes to 1 income

Our great space takers are the books, we have every available wall filled with bookcases and I still can get the car in the garage. We have three bedrooms because we also have an office here.

Single parents. Couples who have children where it's cheaper to have one parent at home than to pay childcare. Couples with a disabled family member who needs special equipment. People who are caring for a parent. People who work out of their home and need an office. People who have lots of friends who visit or stay while they try to find jobs.

A little imagination please.

BTW, where I am there is very little difference in price between a 1 and 2 bedroom. I have a feeling minimum wage would still be insufficient for a 1 bedroom in most places.

You know, all that paperwork and product that our system says we need to keep. Every receipt (for 7 years), a place for archives. Accounting and bookkeeping. Gotta keep the boxes and styrofoam from every purchased item, the boxes can sometimes be folded.

You could also throw all that stuff away and do without, but good luck proving you purchased something should someone special signal notice.

my husband and i have to keep our dressers in the second bedroom because the rooms are so damn small.

.

Maybe the point is the government should stop propping up housing values which are still unaffordable.

gasoline and farm products. The subsidies and prop-ups are incentives to the rich to produce and provide.

Personally, I would prefer it if the government would offer low-cost, decent housing subsidized by taxpayers for low-income people. In addition to really helping low-income people while raising inflation very little, it would provide some competition for greedy private landlords. Of course that won't happen because it would mean that the bankers and very wealthy would lose a cash cow -- renting at exorbitant prices to the poor.

Right now, the wealthy spend a lot of their extra money from the Bush tax cuts gambling in the rental housing market. It's a pretty sure thing. Everybody has to have a place to live. A renovated rental unit is a cash cow.

And since, the rich think that housing prices are low, they figure housing is one investment that will gain in value over time. In fact, who knows? Americans may just get used to living in cramped spaces. As I mentioned, it's another gamble.

But a lot of right-wingers do not trust the dollar, so property investments look good to them.

The problem is those programs are woefully underfunded and inadequate. If they spent money on those programs like they do with the Pentagon, I'm sure they'd look very nice and be very safe, instead of something found in a crime-ridden ghetto.

Isn't that more a problem of too much supply of labor?

When extremely wealthy people pile up more and more money that they don't spend then the velocity of money drops, it has now dropped so low that it's really hurting the consumer economy that drives the job creation cycle.

Take the money away from those who are just piling it up to no use and put it back in the consumer economy.

or Boston (I am moving for work) and I have a master's degree and a lot of experience. Unless, of course, I wanted to live somewhere that was an hour or two hour's commuting time away.

In New York I have a roommate and in Boston I'll have a studio that's almost 50% of my income. It's ridiculous. I can't imagine how anyone on minimum wage can afford to have a roof over their heads.

Doesn't 40 hrs == benefits? At least some places?

Benefits are a different issue. Most minimum wage jobs do not offer benefits, no matter if you are full time or part time. Or if they do, the employee pays 100% of the cost.

It is my understanding that lots of jobs nowdays simply do not offer benefits.
It is my understanding that some jobs can lable you a "manager" and thus make you exempt from any overtime wages while paying you minimum wage "salary".
and it seems that minimum wage earners can and do work 2 "part-time" jobs, each one at 20 hours a week.
So they are working 40 hours per week at minimum wage.
If they are lucky enough to get mimimum wage.

I could be mistaken tho...

I have worked in those capacities and have worked with lots of people who made minimum wage. I was a manager who made a salary BUT I was required to work 45 -60 hours/wk. So then when I would work - oh say 55 hours/wk., I made little more than the minimum wage workers who I was managing. I did, however, get medical/dental benefits.

The workers rarely got close to 40 hours and most had 2 -3 three minimum wage jobs to total 40+ hours/wk. None of them had benefits. I remember driving a couple of workers home late at night when the restaurant closed and they lived in a 1000 square foot house with 10+ people. It's a hard life.

We don't pay rent on a weekly basis. So in most of those states, there is plenty of income left over in the MONTH to afford utilities, food and other necessities. At 88 hours for rent there are still 72 hours at minimum wage (approximately $522 before taxes) to make ends meet. Unless you are eating steak regularly or having 20mbps internet, you can easily do that, even as a single mother.

Tell us another story, please. That one was a good good one!

When I was a renter, I had a 2 bedroom townhouse (2 floors) that was 1000 ft sq and had been recently renovated with new appliances for $497 per month.

more rent....

There are places where housing is more affordable - Maine, particularly the more rural parts, being one of them. However, in every other State I have lived in or been to visit for a length of time, the cost of renting so much as a studio apartment is well above the means of the minimum wage, 40 hour a week worker. I think it needs to be acknowledged that, for the most part, renting a home or apartment in the USA throughout the vast majority of our Country is absurdly expensive and more than most workers can afford (unaided).

My best friend went to grad school in Boston, studio apartment, 950 a month. My girlfriend lives in a suburb of MA, average cost of a studio apartment (the few that are rented out in her town) is about 800-850. Generally, this does not include utilities.

It is also clear to me that many college grads, some of whom I know well, cannot afford the rent on a half decent apartment either. Perhaps with rental assistance, a partner or a room mate... a spouse. Alone though? Unlikely.

I once paid $70 a month for a 2 bedroom house, but hamburger was $.25/lb and gas cost $.29 a gallon.

is 1600 a month. I'm a working mother with two small kids. And I have a deal given that a similar apartment in my neighborhood goes for 2100 and up. Thank you rent control.

Rent is ridiculous. Buying a home more ridiculous. Wages have been stagnant for 15 years. Yay, love this economy......

What about care insurance, maintenance on the car, and also health insurance premiums, cost of food etc.. I think you've miss-spoke without thinking.

My car insurance was $35 per month.
My food bill (albeit, just for myself) was $30/week. =120
My Gas and electric were $65
My Internet and cable was $80.
Gas was about $20 per week = $80

That's $380. If you used public transportation, got rid of cable, worked more hours, or got a room mate, you'd be doing quite well.

I stopped being able to buy meat or special things a long time ago. Even so I spend 70 per week for very very simple food. milk, bread, vegetables, the basics.

That's a huge if.

In many parts of the country, public transportation is very limited or non-existent.

Many people can't work more hours, because the work (in the form of a second job, or extra hours at their current job) is unavailable.

Roommates bring a host of other issues, as it can be hard to screen for someone you can truly live with. What you can tolerate in college or your 20s--a roommate who might smoke, drink, smell, party--can be intolerable when you're older and need a decent place to sleep and de-stress. And if you have children, you have to worry about their safety from either the roommate, or friends the roommate might bring by.

Getting rid of cable is the only genuine option for many people (and many people have dropped cable over the last few years; I've seen articles about it), but that only nets you an extra $50 a month.

Where I live in California, a two bedroom apartement is approximately $1200.00/month (http://www.showmetherent.rentlinx.com/Listings.aspx?State=CA&County=Contra%20Costa&MinBedrooms=2&MaxBedrooms=2)

The California minimum wage is $8.00/hr. 40 x 8 = $320/wk. 320.00 x 4 = $1280.00/month

How can someone afford a two bedroom on $1280.00/month if it costs $1200.00??

The vast majority of the country is <88 hrs.

They are using a hypothetical amount of hours that a minimum wage worker would need to work in order to reasonably afford a 2 bedroom apartment based on the state they live in. The question then becomes what kind of calculation did they go by to base what "reasonable" is?... Chances are, they used the type of income to debt ratio (or income to 'cost' -as in the case of an apartment) that banks typically use (or used to use) to determine if a prospective home buyer is a safe bet for a mortgage loan. IIRC, it was 33% for my SO and I back when we bought our place in 1997.

As an aside, most people do not work 74 hours a week (or whatever it is in your state). Not saying they don't want to; often they can't get that many hours, even IF it is 1, 2 or 3 crappy minimum wage jobs combined... For example, job-A) may give 22 one week, job-B) 30 and job-C)16.

Here is why: Most people who work minimum wage jobs are beholden to their employers to work whatever shift and how many hours the employer needs out of them. It's very common for these employers to rarely offer any sort of consistent set of hours or even any consistent day, or time of day--- Therefore to get those 74 hours in, a minimum wage worker has to try to juggle their 2 or 3 job schedules the best they can or face termination.

are going to tear our buildings down next year. I am hoping that there is a possibility of finding a one bedroom an hour out of town for around 1000 or 1200 in a place where I wont feel afraid. There are hardly one bedrooms available for 1200 in good neighborhoods.

Considering the fact that the OP is referring to a two bedroom apartment chances are that it's for a good reason- as in one of more children living there with this minimum wage worker. Not some single person household w/expenses related to only a single person. That would mean higher food costs, higher utility bills, higher car insurance (if a teen w/a license is in the house, ect.) school related expenses- On and on... And then there are childcare costs for people w/young children.

I wanted to know what people pay these days, so I did some googling on 'Average cost of childcare in Indiana'. Unfortunately, reliable sources were hard to find for your state, so I broadened the question to include the entire US and chose from what appears to be one of the better sources. It sounds about right to me based based on #'s I've heard anecdotally from nieces and nephews w/children of varying ages.

reported. The chart represents the minimum number of hours one has to work @ minimum wage every week in order to pay FMV rent.

Designed to be sensational and distort the facts.

Follow the link, visit the HUD statistics and do your own math.

Those are total hours required to pay the Fair Market Rent amount in each state, not weekly.

There are three graphics like this and the accompanying data, and you're just wrong.

Go here and see for yourself. Start with this 39K .PDF, How to use the numbers/Where the numbers came from.

"Multiply the FMR for a unit of a particular size by 12 to get the yearly rental
cost (2BR: $949 x 12 = $11,388). Then divide by .3 to determine the total
income needed to afford $11,388 per year in rent ($11,388 / .3 = $37,960)."

The whole study is based on the idea that you can only spend 30% of your income on rent, which is regoddamndiculous and has no basis in the real world. If you are starting out and making minimum wage, you are going to have to spend a hell of a lot more than 30% of your income to afford a 2 bedroom apartment.

"2012 Renter Household Income
Estimated Median $33,363"

So the estimated median income of renters is $33,363, but they can't afford $11,388 in rent? Bullshit. That leaves $21,975 annually or $422 per week, which is a fuck ton more than minimum wage.

These numbers are meant to be sensational, and the hurt the argument for a fair wage. When you can do the simple math to make a household work on minimum wage, it makes all these bullshit analyses where rent can only be a certain amount look stupid and unrealistic.

at least use the same numbers to argue with. I've given you the links.

Hence the " and ".

Argue with them now.

minimum wage. Where do you live? You seem to assume 'renter' means low income. This is not the case. In many cities, most people are renting and leasing and some of those rents are six figures a year and up. The top 'renters' in the US make millions a year, and the median of that group reflects that.

I lived in apartments for many years. I always lived in tiny one bedroom apts, unless I had a roommate.

If you are single with kids, and you're that poor, don't you qualify for food stamps and Section 8 housing or other assistance with housing? It's a long wait, but I think it's there, IF you are employed but don't make enough to pay for rent.

And just try finding Section 8 housing, or living there.

So before having that last kid, get on the list. Better yet, don't have that last kid until you are able to afford it. Then try to get a better paying job. This may mean learning a skill. For a woman, learn office skills, and you will likely never be unemployed. You won't get paid a lot, but you'll get benefits. Then the longer you stay there, the raises will rack up, and in 10 years, you'll be in a much better financial position.

I've been very poor. I got tired of it, so learned how to do something that would pay better. It's hard, but worth it.

If you have one child, you can live in a 1 bedroom apartment easily. When an infant, the crib is in your room. Then the child can sleep with you or in a sep single bed in your room. When even older, by then you'll have a better paying job, if you've been working at accomplishing that. If not, the child can sleep on the sofa. If you've been signed up for Sec 8 for all that time, you should have a sec 8 apartment by now. What I would not do is rent a 2 bedroom apt if it meant I had to scrimp on food on other necessities. Or have a 2nd child.

Few things are more important than learning a skill or vocation in order to earn a living. People who don't know how to do anything are always going to have trouble making ends meet, esp if they have children. Helping them to learn a skill would help them more than increasing their meager wages for non-skilled work. Free classes in office skills, after hours, where they can bring their kids, would be a good start.

I loved living there, loved loved loved. Unfortunately, it was incredibly wearing paying 40+% of my pay on rent every month and this was for a one bedroom apartment in a sketchy area. I wasn't low income, I have no idea how they coped, I was making an RN's wage well above the poverty line.

While the city offered some amazing cultural amenities, I was rarely able to take advantage of any of them because I simply couldn't afford those and rent, too. I might have been living in the midwest in a suburb.

Now I live in the desert southwest, own a house, and usually had enough paycheck left over to buy the occasional piece of art for the walls or go to the rare concert.

When I think of what could have been had wages kept place with inflation in rent and health care, I get very angry. All of us who have been working since the mid 70s have been robbed in every paycheck. I hope we find a way to grab it back. If we don't, this country is over.

This has been known for quite a while for those that work 2 min wage jobs.

I bought a 2-bedroom mobile home. I have to pay lot rent of $367, but garbage pickup and water are included.

I am living on social security, but my expenses are low -- car and home insurance, gas and electric, Internet, cable and phone. I have no credit cards, so no monthly payments.

I have a few thousand stashed in the bank, which I try not to touch, as that money is for emergencies only.

check this out for insanity.

Lot rent for a 2 bedroom mobile home in South San Franciso= 950.00 a month, increases by 50.00 a month every year.
PLUS any payments for the mobile home itself, which are selling for 200 K or more.
Plus utilities.
The mobile home park I am thinking of has a LOT of retired people in it, who moved there 15 or so years ago and did not look too far into the future of increasing lot rental prices.

part of the Atlanta metro area. I have lived here since 1994. At that time, the lot rent was only $190, but I can handle the $367 rent as I could not even rent an apartment for that and I own my home.

What's wrong with a studio?

Also, if this is based on the same data as what I read a while back, this is based on using only 30% of your income for rent, which is an ideal.

So to rephrase, are we really expecting that 30% of a student's first job should be enough to pay for a 2BR apt?

And not all 2/4 year degree students that just graduated are young 20-somethings that can start out in a Studio apartment.

One also has to consider that if the degree is above an associates, or if they got some sort of clerical or trade training, they are probably stuck with student loan debt, as well as all the other costs that come with supporting oneself - perhaps insurance (medical and auto - and renters), basic utilities, basic food - just basic utilities and the coupon-clippers trips to the market costs at least $500 a month in almost all states - perhaps more depending on how hot or how cold it can get. Transportation - unless you already have your bike or walk everywhere, even with public transportation, that's a good $50 to $350 a month. And if you get sick, you need to have savings and medical insurance - even if you're making so little eligible for food stamps and state supplimental insurance - so as a minimum wage worker, you should be putting at least one week's salary aside for the emergancies that come up.

In some states, a full-time minimum wage worker can't even afford an unfurnished studio apartment or to share an apartment/rent a room. When I owned a house, I had at different times two "rent-mates" working both a full-time and a part-time shift job to an average of 60 hours a week that could only kick in utilities and food they used, because they were trying to pay off all sorts of bills - medical bills, child support, college, bankruptcy - and it was just eating up their wages as they were trying to get back on thier feet. They ended up paying rent by helping out around the house (basically housekeeping for the room) and watching it while I was on travel, but still - minimum wage doesn't get you very far.
t usually took them two or three years before they got their outstanding debts paid down and/or they could get a better job and afford to move out - and this was in the late 1990's/early 2000's. It's even worse now, as the cost of living has gone up and creditors have been less forgiving.

The stereotype of the minimum wage worker being a teen/twenty-something starting out or a housewife taking in "pin money" has been unrealistic for quite a few years now. Many minimum wage workers are laid off with professional backgrounds or graduate degrees that can't find a job or can't afford to re-locate and are supporting someone else, so a cheap 2-bedroom apartment in a relatively safe area of town that is also close to mass transit, etc, is be a necessity - especially if one is on one's own and is looking at room-mates to help pay for that apartment.

The other issue with affordable housing (for minimum wage or just above) is that the standard in most places is the two-bedroom, which is only realistic for professional singles or couples, or a young family. There needs to be more three and/or four bedroom residences that are affordable for more established families and households where there are more than the "two to a bedroom room" members (that's the usual fire code requirement in most municipalities) - but since those types of residences aren't "cost effective" when it comes to community planning, there are not enough of them around.

Haele

... that, in itself, doesn't make a great argument for raising minimum wage.

It would, however, be ideal.

As I mentioned in an above post, my best friend spent 950 a month for a studio when going to Grad school in Boston. Now Boston has very expensive rent, this is true - but so do most other Cities. 30% of his income? No, during Grad school he worked for Block Buster... rent would have been actually a little more than the total of his monthly income if he didn't also have a work study. Even so, a conservative estimate - I'd say it cost him at least 90%. That left him 10% plus whatever he had left over from student loans to pay everything else.

He ended up doing rather well for himself in the end, the issue is that most people do not have his fortitude, his resources, or the high GPA that got him into a decent school to begin with. Do I expect that he should have had a 2 bedroom apartment with his first job? For 30% of his total income? Not at all. I'd settle for it if he could have gotten a studio, once completing undergrad, for let's say 55-60% - which is still very expensive.

I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make here. Rent is way too expensive whether it's a studio or a 2BR you're getting. Few people can afford it, period, regardless of whether they're students, professionals, retired, or anything else.

Last edited Wed May 30, 2012, 02:14 PM - Edit history (1)

re: "I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make here."

My point is that there are lots of good points to make about minimum wage and about housing. Saying that minimum wage (or 30% of minimum wage) doesn't buy deluxe housing is not one of them.

again....

I have met one rental property owner that isn't a conservative....

Poor people shouldn't get married or have kids. They deserve only a studio apartment or a room in a shared use house. And they should be grateful, because poor people in other countries have nothing!

...or anywhere?

I doubt that has ever been the case where I live (San Diego, CA.) The STATE minimum wage has always been higher than FEDERAL minimum wage.

I remember the state minimum was $1.65 per hour when I took my first job in 1973, just under $400 per month.

anyone in this thread who is questioning why people can't make it on minimum wage should watch this: http://www.tv.com/shows/30-days/minimum-wage-425972/

Two people trying to live on minimum wage in a one bedroom apartment can barely make it (actually they came up way short on money). Some here are lucky enough to be able to make it by sharing with others but the thread topic is about one person getting a two bedroom place. As we can see that is nearly if not totally impossible.

Some people DO need a two bedroom place. Why? They have children or other dependents.

can afford to buy a McMansion and vacation property. And car elevators. Right? That's what the GOP and the Baggers say.

provided by the community, with tax monies, the way roads, sewers, street lights, etc are? Why should shelter be a luxury?

Is there any generally-accepted principle that supports making shelter a luxury item but not roads or sewers?

a thousand years ago. So since everything is owned by them, only they have the power to grant ownership to their faithful backers. And so they, in turn have the power to demand a portion of their tenant's lives in exchange for shelter.

It was this Divine largess that has justified stealing other people's land and resources for millennia.

Of those who've actually thought about it, I mean.

have come to the conclusion that there is no way to unravel so much tradition, regardless of the criminal origins of that tradition. Same with the banking system.

Better the Devil you know and all that.

There a number of jobs that are pretty menial in nature and probably shouldn't warrant a living wage. I think minimum wage laws are just fine as a safeguard against true exploitation of workers... but I disagree that minimum wage should reflect a living wage.

I remember growing up with jobs in high school and doing alot of jobs in the summers. Had employers been required to pay living wages then ALL of those jobs that we see young people (under 18) working would basically disappear. I think it's important for young people to work jobs and get used to the world of working while still not yet living on their own. If employers were required to pay all workers $11 or more per hour (even the trivial jobs held by teens) then those jobs would certainly dry up for the young workforce.

That you already have accepted the premise that being born indentures you to toiling away to accomplish another person's dreams (unless you are born into the right family) makes it unlikely you will ever see the absurdity of your statement.

The value of labor a person provides must be at or less than the value of their wage or the system fails. Unfortunately, the value of sweeping floors and bagging groceries (or any number of other menial tasks) simply isn't up to par with the cost of the average american cost of living.

I think we can do without your misinterpretation in the future.
Thank you for your concern.

If it's not worth paying someone enough to live on then the jobs aren't worth doing, just eliminate them because they're not necessary.

I read the book when it first came out sometime in the late 90's. I knew things were tough out there for low wage workers, but had no idea just how tough. And just think, Ehrenreich (sp?) had no children involved in her year long experiment. It was a real eye-opener.

I've been careful to tip generously ever since. Hotel maids, waiters, waitresses, taxi drivers, basically any of the 'silent' behind-the-scenes workers that many people take for granted. And if I'm dealing w/someone who may not be allowed to accept a tip (such as a fast food worker) I will often go out of my way to tell whoever is in charge that I appreciate their employee. I get strange looks from manager types sometimes, but what the hell- other than temporary embarrassment, it doesn't hurt, and may help.

Too bad it has to come to that though. If I, as a consumer of services, am helping the worker at all, it's only in a small way. The worker should have been paid properly in the first place.

ignorant statement....like...

"the value of labor a person provides must be at or less than the value of their wage or the system fails." ...

just what the hell does that mean......??

I will let you try to answer that question first.....because the rest of your words don't make sense either....

From Republicans and Libertarians whenever the topic of raising minimum wage comes up.

I just believe that minimum wage and living wage are distinct and separate things... and should remain separate. This is not to say that there should be no minimum wage.

It takes a certain amount of value of purchasing power to sustain one's lifestyle - AKA cost of living. There is also a certain amount of value that a person's task or job imparts onto a good or service sold by their employer - AKA value added. If someone adds value to a product or service they are paid a wage and that wage must be less than the value added or the business looses money by paying employees more value than the product's value. For any business model to operate the wage can be no bigger than the value added. This is all true and simple economics.

It's a simple fact of life that some tasks and jobs add less value to a product/service than a living wage can be valued. The value of the cost of living simply exceeds the value added of those menial jobs. To artificially drive these wages up to living standards by fiat would cause one of 2 things:

a) The value added to the product is now higher by decree and the price of the product must increase proportionally to maintain margins. If the product has an inelastic demand the prices will raise. Now, because prices and thus cost of living have risen, employees wages are once again substandard to sustain cost of living... until the government raises the minimum wage again. As you can see, it is an unsustainable inflationary cycle.

b) If the business sells a product which has elastic demand or competes with international products then the business will be outsold by companies operating cheaper labor forces. The business will eventually go bankrupt and the employees now make $0 in wages... well below the living wage.

This is precisely why you see young teenagers working certain jobs almost exclusively... because the teenagers aren't dependant on those jobs for survival. People dependant on jobs for survival need to either look for jobs with more valuable qualifications (non minimum wage jobs) or work more than 40hrs per week.

We work because we need more cash to feed the supply and demand machine. Demand increases and we need to pay more for the limited supply. It's supposed to balance itself out eventually, but in the case of basic human needs - food, water, shelter, health, clothing, etc - as our population grows the demand will always outstrip the supply. You're stuck with the fact that only those with infinite resources will be able to maintain the cost of living indefinitely.

If you look around today, you'll see that all those menial jobs which didn't warrant a living wage a few (tens?) years ago are now staffed by older people trying to make the ends meet so they can afford to continue feeding the machine. And this problem is further exacerbated by the fact that the less menial jobs which used to be fairly plentiful and paid a decent wage are now situated in other countries where the cost of living is much lower, and the workers can be paid accordingly - keeping overall prices lower, but widening the gap between what we need and what we can afford to have.

"...as our population grows the demand will always outstrip the supply. You're stuck with the fact that only those with infinite resources will be able to maintain the cost of living indefinitely."

you can live off of "Min wage" jobs with respectability and honor. Too bad it isn't same in the U.S.

Greece comes to mind as an example of why this doesn't work. That and all sorts of talk about the imminence of EU's euro collapsing (reverting back to older systems).

The EU is simply a macro scale model of what I'm taking about. Countries that are floundering over there require more value to sustain a standard of living than the value which they supply to the international economy. Countries that are productive and provide more value than they require to subsist are currently unable to make up the value deficit created by the unproductive countries.

In the US, if the minimum wage was lawfully forced to be a living wage then the system would experience massive unemployment and/or rapid inflation. The value of labor a person provides must be at or less than the value of their wage or the system fails. Unfortunately, the value of sweeping floors and bagging groceries (or any number of other menial tasks) simply isn't up to par with the cost of the average american cost of living.

I support minimum wages wholeheartedly... to a point.

Honestly, really, really, REALLY stupid.

Nice: playing right into the hands of the robber barons.

Pay all minimum wage jobs about $11+ an hour and witness inflation so rapid that congress can't keep raising the new minimum wages fast enough? The proverbial inflationary cycle?

Or how about pay everybody $11+ an hour wage and then watch all domestic goods get utterly demolished in the marketplace versus foreign imported goods while simultaneously witnessing the whole world laugh at our new higher export prices?

Seriously... how do you propose to remedy the fact that if minimum wage any employee earns is anywhere near living wages that many of them will be getting compensated FAR more than the value that their labor is worth? Where will you get the money to close that gap? How will you keep domestic products competitive here and abroad?

Explain to me why it's stupid, Zoe.

Honestly, minimum wage can NOT pay for our needs. And if the majority of the available jobs happen to be minimum wage or just slightly higher, the American family can't stay afloat - simple as that.

OneTenth speaks fairly, if minimum wage tries to keep up with the cost of living, then the cost of goods and services HAS to rise in order for the few remaining manufacturers to sustain their profits and feed THEIR families. Their costs are YOUR prices. This doesn't just affect us but the rest of the world as well. If our prices aren't in line with, say, China's prices for the same goods, then we'll all be shopping at KMart and killing off our own suppliers since they stop being competitive.

On the other side of this argument, we simply can't rely on minimum wage to take care of basic human needs. Our current economic situation is showing that even fair wages are lagging behind the cost of living. I don't know where you folks live, but the only new industry I see in my neck of the woods are stores and restaurants. Good jobs at decent wages to be sure, but still not enough to actually live on.

This is a tough problem with a tough answer. Maybe capitalism isn't all it's cracked up to be after all.

wow - more than 88 hours of minimum wage in CA just to rent an apartment, and that doesn't even factor in the commute time.

For instance, the City of Boston has a living wage law that was (in 2008, when I last lived there) more than $11/hour. But full-time students are exempt from that law, and can be paid at the lesser federal minimum wage. As far as I know, it didn't result in a rush to fire adults and hire less expensive student workers. Instead, it made it possible for young people to get summer jobs. The city made funds available to hire youth during the summer; the city would pay half the federal minimum wage, and the employer would pay the other half.