Reading the above makes me think there should be universal support for a $15 minimum wage with automatic adjustment to inflation and an outcry it’s not higher ($15 an hour means under 30K pay, and much less net. ) How do people who make $15 an hour find any place to rent, let alone pay for childcare while they work? Is competitive bidding for rentals forcing essential workers to become homeless? How is that even possible in the US - those aren’t “first world problems”.
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The starting salary for office support staff at the selective private college where I work is $15/hour and the pay goes up ~1.5-2% each year. Full-time is considered 35 hours/week for 42 weeks/year. I’ve been here several years and my gross is still less than $24k. We get 2 weeks paid vacation that we can use in the summer, but we’re not paid for the other 8. I’ve only been here a few years, but most of the others have been here for many years so they’re making more. The majority are (or were) married and many of those seemed to have had family to help with childcare when the children were little. The only reason I’m here is because I’m working on a second degree and take classes at night and during the summer. If I was single I wouldn’t be able to afford school on this salary. I’d need roommates and a second job just to make ends meet.
It’s interesting to me that in discussions like these people say they happily spent on their kids’ educations because they value education. Many middle and low income families value education too, but it’s difficult to afford it on $15/hour. Ironically, the college gives tuition benefits for dependents to the highest paid staff (faculty and management). Those of us who are paid the least aren’t eligible. It’s apparent from discussions with some of the faculty and management team that the 9.9% here value education, but only for a select few.
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There are many places out there with homeless tent cities or RV/camper cities - oodles of them - because many can’t afford places to live.
Those with money usually complain about them too, and could be among those complaining about the lack of workers in restaurants, retail, and other low paying jobs. Then they complain that taxes are too high. (Not meaning this board for complaints).
Connecting the dots seems difficult to some of those who feel having > median amount of income isn’t enough to live on.
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Many people living in NYC homeless shelters work full time.
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I work at a private university and the tuition benefits are available to all (it used to be immediately upon hire, but now there is a 2 year waiting period), regardless of position. Many office support, custodial and groundskeeping staff work here just for that benefit. I have worked at two other schools in my career, and browsed or pursued jobs at several others, and it was the same way at those institutions, as well. I assumed it was the norm throughout higher ed. Can I ask the geographical region where you are located?
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This is misguided because it fundamentally ignores the reasons why employers hire: Employers hire when they expect it will be profitable to do so.
Consider an unskilled position like a front door greeter at WalMart. That person is not there to give you a warm smile and a cart. That person’s primary purpose is to keep people with unpaid goods from walking out the front door. I am sure WalMart has a very good idea of how much theft deterrence is happening, and if that value is less than $15 per hour plus benefit costs, that position disappears (not all WalMarts have front door greeters). And if that person cannot find another job, unemployment increases as do government costs to support that person.
Does this mean that a higher minimum wage always creates more unemployment? The answer to that is no, as David Card showed in his Nobel Prize winning research. Specifically he showed that in a high wage area, raising the minimum wage did not increase unemployment.
The problem is extrapolating that to a national minimum wage of $15. In some areas, $15 per hour is closer to the median wage, and imposing that will substantially increase unemployment.
A much better approach would be a regional minimum wage, set to about 60% of the region’s median wage. This provides a floor but adjusts for local conditions.
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I know 
(well, I “know”, but not from personal experience, so I don’t really “know”, and I realized how much I didn’t really know from reading and listening to reporting - the more you learn the more you realize you don’t know 
)
I just don’t understand why people who make 10 times more and (relatively justifiably) feel they’re barely making it aren’t up in arms about the minimum wage and housing issues. I suppose they don’t know.
but from our lawmakers and journalists, who should know better, I don’t understand why it’s not in the national conversation every week. 
But this is off-topic.
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The other dots to connect are that if even the top 10% income or wealth people feel “poor”, then that suggests a society with a tiny upper class with a vast majority of the people in the lower class, and any remnant of a middle class is likely to fall (or see their kids fall) to the lower class. That does not seem to be all that pleasant a society, and could have more social and political instability as well.
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Well, $15 as a ground level wage (it’s not even living wage in some parts of the country and it’s survival elsewhere, which states is it close to median wage nowadays) and then adjustment to 60% of median wage everywhere. It’d really help in NYC and coastal cities. I’d also automatically index minimum wage to inflation.
I admit I never realized Walmart greeters were there to stop thefts. I thought they were a cheap marketing ploy to make people feel welcome and that the store is a “nice store” so they come back rather than go to Giant Eagle.
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Of course they do. I posted above that my own family which was middle to low income when I was growing up certainly did. Admittedly, it’s much harder for families without means to do that these days. The cc I attended charged around $100/semester tuition (I found an old receipt a few years ago), tuition there is now $5000/year (I looked it up). Wages have not gone up proportionally.
Just because I am fortunate enough now to be in that 9.9% does not mean that I don’t recognize that. My spouse and I have never complained about others receiving FA or complained about paying taxes to support public schools (including higher education).
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I agree…I highly doubt that Walmart expects elderly employees to confront shoplifters. Most retailers these days tell regular employees to not engage with shoplifters (or break up fights, etc)…they are supposed to call store security and/or the local police.
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It is not only at Walmart that there are greeters whose presence is to deter shoplifting, although they may also do other useful things like directing customers who ask where in the store they can find something.
An employee watching the door means that shoplifters are more likely to be observed and have the store security and/or police called on them. In addition, the employee at the door can act as a deterrent against shoplifting attempts, if the shoplifter decides that it is too difficult to shoplift something without being observed by the employee at the door.
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It’s perhaps worth remembering why minimum wage was invented in the first place. It was to protect good ole boys from the uppity minorities who, in a fair labor market, might outcompete them for jobs.
Personally, I am for a higher minimum wage. A million dollars an hour! If $15 is good, why isn’t a million dollars better?
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That’s can’t be a real question. Or you’re not really an MIT Alum.
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Note that 60% of $25 is $15.
In May 2020, the median hourly wage in the US was $20.17, according to https://www.bls.gov/oes/2020/may/oes_nat.htm . 60% of that is $12.10.
However, there is considerable variation by occupation. Size and median hourly wage of various occupations:
| Occupation | % of employment | Median hourly wage |
|---|---|---|
| 43 Office and Administrative Support | 13.3% | $18.62 |
| 41 Sales and Related | 9.4% | $15.15 |
| 53 Transportation and Material Moving | 8.7% | $16.38 |
| 35 Food Preparation and Serving | 8.1% | $12.26 |
| 29 Healthcare Practitioners and Technical | 6.2% | $33.59 |
| 51 Production | 6.1% | $18.00 |
| 25 Educational Instruction and Library | 6.1% | $25.18 |
| 13 Business and Financial Operations | 6.0% | $34.73 |
| 11 Management | 5.7% | $52.77 |
| 31 Healthcare Support | 4.6% | $14.40 |
| 47 Construction and Extraction | 4.3% | $23.37 |
| 49 Installation, Maintenance, and Repair | 3.9% | $23.44 |
Bold → above $25
Italic → above overall median, below $25
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I think the point is to show that $15 per hour was an arbitrary number that was disconnected from the economic reality of many locations.
Exactly this. The point of my front greeter example was to tie employer hiring back to specific profit and loss decisions. There could be positions that are profitable at $10 per hour but not at $12, positions profitable at $20 but not at $25. This is how hiring is done, and it is not based upon what it costs a person to live.
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This discussion ignores the reality that in many parts of the country the “true” minimum wage is already close to $20/hour because at whatever the mandated rate is, you can’t hire and retain people at that wage.
Market, economy, blah blah blah. Mandating $20/hour in a rural area with high unemployment and lots of low skilled workers won’t change the structural dynamics of the local economy. And mandating $15/hour in an urban area where you can’t find people to unload boxes at Walgreens at that wage is just a “suggestion”.
Amazon need 150,000 workers right now. They will discover the “market” wage in each place they compete in, that’s for sure.
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Exactly.
Let’s take it a step further. We got off on this tangent because of the high cost of housing in some areas. I maintain that the reason the cost of housing is high is because there are more people who want to live there than there are spots for them. I further maintain that there is no value one can set the minimum wage at where this will no longer be the case.
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Lots of data (and theories) to show that there are many externalities which lead to housing crises (i.e. high cost of housing and lots of workers who can’t afford the cost of living). Density regulations (if every house takes up a fifth of an acre, you’re getting different results than a 12 story high rise on a two acre plot), the various “Props” which limit property tax increases-- which theoretically ought to make things more affordable, but which in practice in some parts of the country discourages older people from selling their homes (since they’re priced out of the places which have market tax rates), redlining, NIMBY, zoning out accessory apartments in single family neighborhoods, etc.
So the “value” of the minimum wage is only one factor…
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I don’t think it’s even a factor. It does have an influence on who are the haves and who are the have nots , but it doesn’t affect the fundamental issues (many of which you raised) which influence supply and demand.