Federal Minimum Wage

No one has to explain shit to you about how the market is going to suddenly have people afford housing. Don't you see how more spending money to afford housing is a better thing for society and the economy?

I also like how you just happen to pull out a profession you don't value (fast food) as if you haven't relied on that profession to get as fat as you are. Are you afraid your Big Mac is gonna cost 5 cents more?

Wow you're treading on thin ice. Just let me calculate the square footage of that ice--

USER HAS BEEN BANNED

Given the very large government-imposed supply constraints (zoning, planning commissions cowed or run by NIMBYs, etc.), yeah, the onus IS on you to explain how this is not just a landlord enrichment program to push low-income people to the boonies.

ETA: this is why I loathe local progressive politics. "Yes, everyone should be able to afford to live alone. No, there's not enough housing for that. No, we won't allow any more to be built, you're an evil capitalist gentrifier in league with the developers if you even consider allowing more development. Yes, infill is evil. Yes, we have to keep height limits low; tall buildings might cast shadows! No building up, out, down, or smaller, and that's that! WHY DO THE LANDLORDS KEEP GETTING RICHER?!?! "

Those are fair concerns on their own, but I don't see why justifying that is needed when supporting a higher minimum wage. It's whataboutism at best, and a non sequitur at worst. The problems you raise are problems that are already problems, regardless of minimum wage.

It's not a non-sequitur when you're implying there's a right to live alone.

Ok. Just stop talking.

Seriously, you're pulling shit out of your ass at this point.

I worked at a fast food joint, not as a teenager, not as a high schooler, but as a college student in an unsuccessful bid to pay for my tuition to avoid taking loans, and again later because I needed A Job, both times at the same location, which was across the street from a high school.

The high schoolers who worked there worked limited parted hours, because of labor laws, and because of limited availability. They have school, their homework, their extraccurricular activities, and social lives to deal with, and a high school job is another layer of complexity for them.

So, who's making sure the restaurant runs while they're in school? Who's feeding them when they storm the store during lunch? People like me.
You are suggesting, if not outright saying, that people like me shouldn't be making a wage that will allow us to live without making use of supplemental sources like EBT or working multiple jobs to make ends meet. Are you willing to pay extra in taxes so we can use EBT? No? Then you should be in support of a better means of pay for the workers. Asking us to work multiple jobs? It happens too often, and it's a very good way to drag someone into the ground.

Furthermore, let me ask you this: Have YOU worked fast food? Or retail? On the off chance that you haven't, it's not easy work. Despite proper precautions, it's very easy to get burned or cut in a kitchen. And front-of-house, you get to deal with the customers, be they the high school students surging through like a tsunami during their lunch period, or dealing with Karens and managers that would rather suck them off to appease them than to tell them where they can stick their BS complaint, and guess what, it's YOUR fault even though you have nothing to do with it.

Here's another truth about fast food and retail: Full time positions are the exception, not the norm. I've been working for Fred Meyer for over five years now, as one of the front end managers for the last two or so. I'm still not a full-time 40; even though it's fairly easy for me to get up to 40 on a consistent basis, I still have to fight for it. The front end, the biggest 'department', has about 50-60 people in it at my store. There are six non-management full-time positions. They don't open up very often.
Furthermore, shifts aren't typically set in stone, making juggling a second job very difficult.

You dismiss fast food [and retail] as teenager jobs. They very much are not. Because of that, the rest of your argument loses credibility.

Oh, I've definitely implied a "right to live alone," although I think of it more in terms of "no one should be forced to live with others."

If a one-bedroom apartment isn't the standard for a reasonable living wage, then what is? Renting a room in a four-bedroom house with three room mates? Sharing a room in that same house with twelve room mates? A cot in a single-wide trailer shared with twenty-eight other people?

While we're at it, is "reasonable living wage" too generous for a minimum wage? What should that standard be? Should it be "just enough that's it's technically not slavery"?

Do we even need to pay unskilled workers with actual money? Maybe we should take an other look at paying workers with company scrip? Maybe when we tried that a century ago it just wasn't implemented the right way?

Let's go with the Republican standard:

. one can of Spam daily (one extra for each child)
. Mcdonald's dollar menu on the weekends
. clothes from a thrift shop
. one cinema movie ticket per year, as long as it's G-rated
. bus fare for the 4 hr roundtrip commute
. the basement apartment from Parasite

What numbers you got for me, @Paladin?

I don't think it should necessarily be tied to living situation, potential or actual. If anything should be tied to that, it should be a UBI.

Whatever the prospective employee or their union can negotiate.

Why would anyone accept company scrip now? Company towns are kaput, and Amazon (following in the tradition of Sears-Roebuck which was responsible for finally killing scrip decades after it was ruled illegal) and every other mail-order (online or otherwise) retailer ensure entities with such geographic monopoly power can never rise again, with the exception of governments.

usually by leaving them vacant and therefore "derelict" and avoiding land taxes...

a right to or the ability to?

Ah, but you see, fast food workers don't need a raise because they're all teenagers. Haven't you ever wondered why every McDonald's in the country is only open during the summer, on weekends, and from 3:30 to 7:30 p.m. Monday through Friday? It's because all their workers are in school.

Yes, cases exist where people can be fine on minimum wage. Cases exist where people can just volunteer their time and don't need money at all. Should we base employment law on exceptional situations?

Nobody believes that. The purpose of a federal minimum wage is to say "nobody in this country should make less than this." It doesn't preclude states and municipalities from setting a higher minimum if necessary.

This is all just a temporary situation in any case. What’s coming is AI-driven automation, and it’s going to take away a HUGE chunk of current employment. Not just minimum wage type jobs, but almost every sector is going to be affected. This of course assuming that current trends continue. Virtually all low-skill repetitive motion jobs will go, transport sector driving jobs will go, almost all food service jobs will go . . . .
Y’all are worried about minimum wage earners when what’s not all that far away is massive, general loss of employment opportunities for everyone. As soon as automation is cheaper than paid workers in a given slot, then boom. Gone.
It’s also important to realize that what many “raise the minimum wage” advocates really want is centrally planned economies. Spaceturkey, for example, already believes in rigid rent control, because the person who owns the property is less important than the person living there. Ancalagon wants everyone living in high-density urban hellscapes “for efficiency.” And so forth.

A high school classmate's daughter got hired at Chipotle a few weeks ago, but that kid might as well have hit the lotto. I graduated in '04 and when the recession hit, the Target I worked for pretty muched stopped hiring high schoolers and the faces at the fast food places got older and older since they could get an adult who could work more hours.

But historically, that's how it's always been. That period between the 60s and early 2000s when teens could find after school work was overall a rare anomaly.

That's cool and all, but what's that got to do with paying the workers now? And assuming this comes to pass in the near future, are we gonna be considering a UBI to keep people from starving?

That you read that into what he said says more about you than him.

I mean....I spent 3 years in Japan where houses are a third of the size they are here and their mixed zoning allowed for more smaller businesses to pop up to serve the neighborhood and mitigate sprawl, so....

I'm a perpetually single person with no children and no chance to have any. What need do I have for a giant McMansion?

I'm happy to discuss housing shortages in another thread, but just because we have multiple problems to fix, doesn't mean we need to come up with a solution to one problem that addresses other problems. I've also said that we should have a minimum wage so that people shouldn't have to choose between shelter, food, or heating. Do you want me to also justify a higher minimum wage by proposing solutions for a less wasteful food distribution system, or justify a higher minimum wage by proposing the solution to climate change?

As a side tangent to this, I lose track of how many couples here in California specifically do not get divorce or separate because housing costs too damn much. Pretty such it's why my sister-in-law stayed with my brother after he knocked up a high school "friend" during her deployment it's also why my mom stays with my stepdad :|

It's also odd to see this take from O2C, given how infamous San Francisco has become for people having to rent by the bunk bed to afford to live within SF's city limits. I know I do not want to rent a bedroom to share with someone I'm not fucking, but that's be being a snob, I guess.

This came to mind reading your post.

No, I'm not. Teenagers living at home can get by on a lower wage because they're not working to maintain their own household.

Cool story, bro, but doesn't undermine what I said.

You must adjust your lifestyle to your income. If you need roommates, you get roommates. If you cannot live on the salary offered--and someone else can--why should you get the job?

Sounds horrible. Are people more or less likely to stay in it if their salary is increased?

If the business has to cough up more money to pay an employee, will that make full time work more or less likely?

I made no such claim. I only said--and Anc very kindly provided the numbers to back it up--that teenagers are a significant part of the bloc of workers making minimum wage.

It isn't about respect or who "deserves" what. Your labor should be priced according to its value, not government fiat.

I still await the definition of "living wage" and an explanation of how one value for that wage is suitable for all areas of the country.

When I was a teenager and worked a minimum wage job, I was able to save for a recent used car, then pay monthly insurance as well as gas back and forth to work, and STILL manage to save for college. You wonder why kids don’t work like they used, cuz it’s just not worth the time out of their studies. Now teen’s focus is to get as many grants and scholarships as possible. Your argument is invalid.

A teenager living at home can't do that still?

Teenagers don't work because they don't have to. That more of them are studying than pursuing a living wage at Burger McWendy's is a good development.

An 18 year old looking at the prospect of four or more years of study in college, and seeing the possibility of having their own place because they're getting a living wage might just decide the latter is the better option...

Teen years are supposed to be a transition from childhood to adulthood. If they never have an opportunity to ease into adulthood, to learn what it takes to be an adult, then that only gives you more ammunition to bitch about kids these day. Not to mention, everything a teen needs that the parents must pay for, is money out of the household. If the parents are making minimum wage and can’t get by, how are they going to afford to buy all the things you think they should be paying for for their teens?
your argument is invalid.

Where did I bitch about anyone?

The only thing the parents are obliged to pay for--and the state already assists if they cannot--are essentials. I make no claim that parents are obligated to pay for anything else.

No, it isn't. You just don't like it.

my son is renting a house built in 1936 - it's a small two bedroom but it has a very open floorplan and it feels much bigger than it is.

I don’t like it because it doesn’t make sense. You claim a minimum wage job is due to lack of ambition without any consideration whatsoever for putting a child in a position in which s/he feels like a burden to the family and leaves to live on the streets hoping to get two or three minimum wage paying jobs so they can rent an apartment.

A higher minimum wage encourages lower ambitions. The more comfortable a living that can be made from an unskilled job, the more likely a person capable of more will settle for staying in it.

Still waiting on a definition of living wage and an explanation for how a single wage rate is suitable for every area of the country.

FFS. You cannot possibly be seriously making this argument.

My grandmother used to say a man doesn’t look under the bed unless he’s been there himself.

would you be lazy if you made more than minimum wage?

Yes, he can. It's the same argument he's made since he joined WF, and probably made it on TBBS before that. He's got it on a loop in his brain.