https://livingwage.mit.edu/

Look for yourself 2 working adults 2 kids - is $15/hr a "living wage?"

No one tell old man Bernard China is leaps and bounds ahead of amerikkka on climate.

Oh and the genocide....simple "disagrements". Dude can't mention genocide.

  • roux [he/him, they/them]
    ·
    1 day ago

    The only time it felt like me and my partner was making enough to live comfortably and save, I was making over $30/hour and she was making around $20/hour. We have 2 kids.

    $15 am hour as a living wage is a fucking joke and it has been since it was first suggested.

    • Justice@lemmygrad.ml
      ·
      24 hours ago

      It should've been $20/hr when it was proposed and now it's yeah more like $30/hr before that creeping feeling of "my life is in a delicate balance" might slightly be lifted (only slightly)

      I think it's been made fairly clear that both parties have, in effect, abolished the minimum wage. It's already so low that absolutely no employer can even hire people at the minimum wage so it's irrelevant already in that way. The entire "point" of it, to put an absolute bottom that employers can't go below, like a "you can be this much of an asshole" line, is already irrelevant. The min wage, in theory, should always be made a bit higher than whatever the actual theoretical "minimum wage... to survive" is. So if it's actually lower than that number then it's meaningless. It has some meaning I guess... but not very much.

      Feel like I'm writing the same thing 100 times there, but maybe one lib will read it and connect a synapse... unlikely

      • roux [he/him, they/them]
        ·
        edit-2
        14 hours ago

        And I know it's just preaching to the choir but like I can remember doing some napkin math when the initial $15 push was happening back in 2016 and was like, "That's not a living wage at all." I'd argue about min wages needing to at least match, but should exceed the cost of living and I had more than a few people tell me "well those are starter jobs, etc etc." Basically waving away the fact that just because it's fast food, a person still deserves to live. What the fuck even is a "starter job"?

        I can remember saying $22 and closer to $30 and being laughed at by people on reddit. I can remember on FB, being told if the min wage increases then cost of things will to. Then everything doubled in price during Covid and wages actually continued to stagnate, since even $15 now is less than it was before Covid. Shit's fucked, fam.

        E: mixed up a few nerdy econ terms

        • roux [he/him, they/them]
          ·
          18 hours ago

          I've seen it a few times where I'm at but not a whole lot. If not min wage, it's sometimes like $11.50 for a 20 hour a week job or some shit though.

      • SoyViking [he/him]
        ·
        23 hours ago

        The silver lining is that the de facto abolishment of the minimum wage makes union organising more pressing. When the state and the market is abandoning workers, workers have to do shit themselves.

        There is an argument to be had that a minimum wage becomes a de facto maximum wage in many jobs and sucks the air out of collective bargaining efforts that would have turned better results for workers. I don't know if I agree a hundred percent with this but it is the reason why Nordic unions are very opposed to having a European minimum wage.