Living on minimum wage, 50s to present

[Luddly Neddite]

Minimum Wage and What It Buys You: 1950s to Now

Interesting to see what minimum wage bought/buys now.

 

[merrill]

Today's minimum wage should be about $17.50 per hour or $33,000 a year = not much money. No buying a second home in Aspen on this wage or a first home for that matter.

 

[Noomi]

$7.25 an hour is something a teenager in school should be earning, not an adult!

 

[The Rabbi]

$7.25 an hour is something a teenager in school should be earning, not an adult!

Heck why not $50/hr?

 

[Noomi]

^not appropriate for a low skilled job. $10 an hour should be enough.

 

[The Rabbi]

^not appropriate for a low skilled job. $10 an hour should be enough.

Why isn't $8/hr enough for a low skilled job?

This will be fun. You don't have the slightest idea why $8/hr is too little or 50/hr too much. It just sounds like a good number to you, so you throw it out there. This is why we say libs can't think or reason.

Let's add to the fun.
Do you think $10/hr is enough in Dubuque IA, with a low cost of living, as well as in Los Angeles, with a high cost of living?

 

[emptystep]

How about a minimum wage adjusted for type of work and cost of living for that area?

 

[rckirby]

How about a minimum wage adjusted for type of work and cost of living for that area?

Or <gasp>, how about we let nature take its course and keep the idiots in g'mint butt out? Everything out of whack right now is directly as a result of g'mint meddling.

 

[alan1]

$7.25 an hour is something a teenager in school should be earning, not an adult!

And that is exactly who most minimum wage workers are, teenagers, not adults, not people supporting a family, but teenagers.

Some would like to claim (pretend) that there is some large class of people trying to support a family on minimum wage, but that just isn't reality.

 

[slackjawed]

How about a minimum wage adjusted for type of work and cost of living for that area?

Since congress passed a law in 2007 that allows states to set their own min wage, that is exactly what we have.

FYI Wyoming has the lowest min wage at 5.15 and Oregon the highest at 9.19

 

[emptystep]

$7.25 an hour is something a teenager in school should be earning, not an adult!

And that is exactly who most minimum wage workers are, teenagers, not adults, not people supporting a family, but teenagers.

Some would like to claim (pretend) that there is some large class of people trying to support a family on minimum wage, but that just isn't reality.

Not your reality maybe.

 

[AmyNation]

$7.25 an hour is something a teenager in school should be earning, not an adult!

And that is exactly who most minimum wage workers are, teenagers, not adults, not people supporting a family, but teenagers.

Some would like to claim (pretend) that there is some large class of people trying to support a family on minimum wage, but that just isn't reality.

Most minimum-wage workers are not teenagers | Economic Policy Institute

Actually that's not true. Only about 20% of min wage earners are teenagers.

 

[alan1]

$7.25 an hour is something a teenager in school should be earning, not an adult!

And that is exactly who most minimum wage workers are, teenagers, not adults, not people supporting a family, but teenagers.

Some would like to claim (pretend) that there is some large class of people trying to support a family on minimum wage, but that just isn't reality.

Not your reality maybe.

Reality....
There is no large class of people trying to support a family on minimum wage.

 

[emptystep]

How about a minimum wage adjusted for type of work and cost of living for that area?

Since congress passed a law in 2007 that allows states to set their own min wage, that is exactly what we have.

FYI Wyoming has the lowest min wage at 5.15 and Oregon the highest at 9.19

That's $10,712 and $19,115 respectively. Annual, full time.

 

[emptystep]

Reagan raised taxes 11 times I recently learned. Not that it's relevant.

 

[slackjawed]

The arguments for and against a minimum wage are many and have a long history. There are economists on both sides of this issue that have valid points backed up with data. Yup, that's right, there is data and empirical evidence to support both sides of this argument.


Kinda makes me think that the "one size fits all" approach of the federal government is not all it's cracked up to be.

 

[alan1]

$7.25 an hour is something a teenager in school should be earning, not an adult!

And that is exactly who most minimum wage workers are, teenagers, not adults, not people supporting a family, but teenagers.

Some would like to claim (pretend) that there is some large class of people trying to support a family on minimum wage, but that just isn't reality.

Most minimum-wage workers are not teenagers | Economic Policy Institute

Actually that's not true. Only about 20% of min wage earners are teenagers.

I'll give you that.
What I said is still mostly true. By the way, minimum wage earners make up about 2.3 percent of all hourly workers. Include all workers and that number drops. Doing anything for minimum wage workers is naught but a feel-good move.

 

[emptystep]

The arguments for and against a minimum wage are many and have a long history. There are economists on both sides of this issue that have valid points backed up with data. Yup, that's right, there is data and empirical evidence to support both sides of this argument.


Kinda makes me think that the "one size fits all" approach of the federal government is not all it's cracked up to be.

It is kind of one of those things where one would prefer to err on the side of caution but that is probably always the case.

 

[blackhawk]

You all do know minimum wage was never meant to support a family right? It is basically for high school kids or people right out of high school just starting out in the workforce.

 

[slackjawed]

You all do know minimum wage was never meant to support a family right? It is basically for high school kids or people right out of high school just starting out in the workforce.

no, I disagree.
You can find the same information almost anywhere in a internet search but this comes from here;
History of the United States Minimum Wage | Minimum-Wage.org
snippet;
"After winning the historical 1936 election by a landslide, President Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) into law in early 1938. The FLSA introduced sweeping regulations to protect American workers from being exploited, and created a mandatory federal minimum wage of 25 cents an hour in order to maintain a "minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency and general well-being, without substantially curtailing employment". This new law was welcomed as a godsend by the thousands of workers who were previously forced to work for a fraction of that amount, but was violently opposed by many employers and fiscal conservatives who argued that a minimum wage could hurt employers. In addition to establishing a mandatory nation-wide minimum wage the Fair Labor Standards Act introduced many other worker's protection laws still in effect today, including banning child labor and establishing workplace safety statutes."


It seems it wasnt just for kids...