Minimum Wage Workers Can't afford Apartment Rent

[Andylusion]

Honestly I get a bit tired of the whining about the minimum wage.

More than half the people on minimum wage, are between 16 and 24. More than half the rest, are working part-time.

To be perfectly and totally blunt, if you are an adult and working minimum wage, the problem is you.

If you do NOTHING... but show up..... ON TIME.... and work.... ALL THE TIME... and are reliable.... CONSISTENTLY... and work with your co-workers.... POLITELY....

You will move up from minimum wage.

You don't have to do practically anything. Just be on time, do your job, and work hard.

Even if you just stay at McDonald's until you die.... just doing your job, you'll move up the ladder at McDonalds. Some years back, McDonald's put out that statistically, some 80% or more of their store managers, and district managers, all started out as hourly crew members.

If you are at McDonald's for longer than 2 years straight, and you have not been promoted, that's because you suck for some reason.

You are either not getting along with your co-workers, or you show up late, or you disappear 5 times a day for a smoke break or something..... you are doing SOMETHING, that is causing you to stay at minimum wage.

Stop sucking, and get your butt to work.

Had a lady at Mejiers that worked there for a couple of years, asked to join the management training program, got in for free.... and now she's a district manager.

From separating produce and cleaning supplies in bags, to 6-figure income over 5 years.

If you are still working for minimum wage, over the age of 30.... the problem is in your mirror.

I was earning minimum wage, when I was 16... because I wasn't allowed to work more than 3 hours a day.
I have not earned minimum wage since then. Even when I was 17, I found a job that paid more than minimum wage.

 

[Bootney Lee Farnsworth]

Has a minimum wage worker ever been able to afford to rent an apartment?

Yes I did. I also was able to support myself when I went to college.

This was in the 70s before reagan and the change to putting tax cuts for the filthy rich before the rest of the people in our nation.

Did you pay for college?
What size apartment?
Roommates?
What was the minimum wage at the time?
No support AT ALL from parents?

My parents paid for everything for school. I paid for everything else.

I lived in a studio apartment. No roommates.

The minimum wage in the 70s I think was around 3 dollars an hour which was higher than the federal level. My state has always had higher minimum wage than the federal rate which was around 2.65 an hour.

I had help for my education from my parents. They believed that if you bring a child into this world you're obligated to make sure that child can be self sufficient as an adult. That required a good education. They paid for my education. I paid for everything else.

Like I said, this was in the 70s. The late 70s before Reagan and all the economic and societal changes that came from him and conservative economics.

Look, I hated Reagan too (for many reason) but unless you can point to a SPECIFIC economic policy that caused the changes you allege, you are going to be called out as a goose-stepping commie hack trying to justify Marxism.

.

 

[Andylusion]

I did. If you didn't then you did you wrong.

My son is also making six figures with his Masters. So is his wife.

The trick to doing it right is to get a MS in something that is useful. I got mine in Engineering. I had to work hard for it.

Interesting I have actually met many people who have degrees in engineering who are not making 6 figures. Some even with the degree can never seem to land a job as an engineer. One guy I know has a degree in Electrical Engineering, couldn't get hired as an Engineer so he makes webpages for a living for about 40k a year. I know another guy has a degree in Electrical Engineering, couldn't get hired in his field so he got in an Electrician apprenticeship instead. He completed his 4 years in Apprenticeship and now works as an Electrician.

I know a couple guys with Engineering degrees who were able to land degrees as Engineers, but you know what they must be really stupid because they aren't making 6 figures as engineers. They passed 8 semesters of Calculus, be they are total retards because they are not making 6 figures. Your right they must of really screwed up.

I know 3 engineers. All make 6-figures.

What is wrong with these people you know?

A: Move to where the work is. All three of the engineers I know, had to move to where the work was. If these guys are sitting where they live, and saying I want the job to come to me... it's not happening.

B: Network. All three of the engineers I know, had contacts. Contacts from their previous job. Contacts from where they went to school. Contacts from friends, and sometimes family. I knew a chick, that she just made herself known to the clients that our company serviced. She would make a point to introduce herself to EVERYONE that she came in contact with. One of those customers offered her a job, and doubled her income. Literally... $40K to $80K, because she simply smiled, and introduced herself to every customer.

C: They need to be working their butts to the bone, at whatever job they have now, or elsewhere. Your new employer wants to call up your current job, where you are unboxing dirty computer parts, and cleaning them with a rag, and hear your boss say "Crap! Yeah, he's great, but I don't want him to leave, darn it!".

Too many people treat the 'interm job' like it's a joke. But working your butt off like you were being paid 6-figures, when you are barely earning 5-figures.... is how you get the 6-figure job.

So I don't know these guys you are talking about, and if they want to end up an electrician, then more power to them.

But don't tell me that engineers can't find 6-figure income jobs, because they are being filled all the time. They need to move to where the job is, they need to both have connections, and network through those connections, and they need to be at a job already where they are the number one top performing employee no matter how low-pay or boring that job may be.

 

[JoeMoma]

Part of the problem is middle class used to attainable by one person working. Now it takes two full time people(man and wife) making at a minimum 30 dollars per hour plus full benefits just to make it into the lower middle class. Then some complain they focus on their careers and forego having kids. They say this is not a good thing or the nation. So heck they want young folk to work their tails off AND have kids. Things don't work this way anymore.

Middle class used to mean one car for the family and a modest house with only one bathroom.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Part of the problem is middle class used to attainable by one person working. Now it takes two full time people(man and wife) making at a minimum 30 dollars per hour plus full benefits just to make it into the lower middle class. Then some complain they focus on their careers and forego having kids. They say this is not a good thing or the nation. So heck they want young folk to work their tails off AND have kids. Things don't work this way anymore.

Middle class used to mean one car for the family and a modest house with only one bathroom.

Today middle-class means a big screen televisions, 400 cable or satellite channels, highest speed internet, three video game systems, a smart phone with unlimited everything.

 

[danielpalos]

There's always been taxes I don't consider that into the equation. We need police, fire departments, teachers, roads, the list goes on. I am all for paying them well. They aren't bad peoe. I refuse to be pitted against them. They aren't the issue at all.

Your opinion as to the necessity of taxes is entirely beside the point.....Fact remains that they are very much higher than the days when a family could get by on only one breadwinner.....This is undeniable.

Yep... one of the largest negative effects of feminism. Women entering the workforce literally doubled the labor supply... and the result of that is... as they say - the rest of the story.

Not all persons actually need to work to keep our economy going; they just need to circulate capital under our form of Capitalism. Unemployment compensation for simply being unemployed can let the multiplier effect do the heavy capital lifting in our First World Economy.

 

[danielpalos]

7 million good jobs unfilled.. hmmmm. There's probably alot of bad employers offering those jobs. If an employer has a hard time filling a position with the young, motivated, productive workforce we have today I would bet the employer is doing something wrong.

You should try hiring people. Its tough right now with this economy humming so well.

I can't get a high school dropout to work under almost double min wage.

Why not automate and make more money?

 

[danielpalos]

Bernie Sanders is calling it a a "National Disgrace" minimum wage workers can't afford rent for a two-bedroom apartment in any city in the US. I agree with him it is awful if our economy is doing so good, yet not even those who work very low paying jobs can pay rent anywhere. Nationally the average renter's wage is $17.57 /hour, very hard for someone make $7-8/hr to pay rent anywhere.

Well thankfully Bernie Sanders has I think a brilliant plan to bring affordable housing to the working poor. From what I am reading he is thinking of having a plan to create more affordable housing and also to impose rent control laws.

Hey Bernie your awesome buddy. Feel the Bern!

The first place to start is raising the minimum wage. If that's not done the rest of what he proposes is a waste of time.

Can you explain how that helps? Do you think somebody making $7.25 an hour today is going to find salvation in making $9.35 an hour?

Higher paid labor create more in demand and pay more in taxes.

 

[healthmyths]

Bernie Sanders is calling it a a "National Disgrace" minimum wage workers can't afford rent for a two-bedroom apartment in any city in the US. I agree with him it is awful if our economy is doing so good, yet not even those who work very low paying jobs can pay rent anywhere. Nationally the average renter's wage is $17.57 /hour, very hard for someone make $7-8/hr to pay rent anywhere.

Well thankfully Bernie Sanders has I think a brilliant plan to bring affordable housing to the working poor. From what I am reading he is thinking of having a plan to create more affordable housing and also to impose rent control laws.

Hey Bernie your awesome buddy. Feel the Bern!

FACTS are something that people like you and Bernie are really lacking.

In 2018, 81.9 million workers age 16 and older in the United States were paid at hourly rates,
representing 58.5 percent of all wage and salary workers. Among those paid by the hour,
434,000 workers earned exactly the prevailing federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.
About 1.3 million had wages below the federal minimum.
Together, these 1.7 million workers with wages at or below the federal minimum made up 2.1 percent of all hourly paid workersUnited States.
Among employed teenagers (ages 16 to 19) paid by the hour,
about 8 percent earned the minimum wage or less, compared with about 1 percent of workers age 25 and older. (See tables 1 and 7.)
Characteristics of minimum wage workers, 2018 : BLS Reports: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Now you tell me how and WHY should people that choose to work at minimum or lower should be provided housing?

 

[Oldstyle]

Bernie Sanders is calling it a a "National Disgrace" minimum wage workers can't afford rent for a two-bedroom apartment in any city in the US. I agree with him it is awful if our economy is doing so good, yet not even those who work very low paying jobs can pay rent anywhere. Nationally the average renter's wage is $17.57 /hour, very hard for someone make $7-8/hr to pay rent anywhere.

Well thankfully Bernie Sanders has I think a brilliant plan to bring affordable housing to the working poor. From what I am reading he is thinking of having a plan to create more affordable housing and also to impose rent control laws.

Hey Bernie your awesome buddy. Feel the Bern!

Ah, yes...rent control! Ask a New Yorker who it is that benefits most from government controlled rent controlled! Then ask them if it's lowered THEIR rent!

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Bernie Sanders is calling it a a "National Disgrace" minimum wage workers can't afford rent for a two-bedroom apartment in any city in the US. I agree with him it is awful if our economy is doing so good, yet not even those who work very low paying jobs can pay rent anywhere. Nationally the average renter's wage is $17.57 /hour, very hard for someone make $7-8/hr to pay rent anywhere.

Well thankfully Bernie Sanders has I think a brilliant plan to bring affordable housing to the working poor. From what I am reading he is thinking of having a plan to create more affordable housing and also to impose rent control laws.

Hey Bernie your awesome buddy. Feel the Bern!

Ah, yes...rent control! Ask a New Yorker who it is that benefits most from government controlled rent controlled! Then ask them if it's lowered THEIR rent!

Rent control is authoritarian. As a landlord, I didn't make my investment as a social obligation. I made my investments for the same reason every other person makes investments, and that is to produce a profit. If I can make the most profit that I can, it's really none of governments business, just like it's not their business if I make little or no profit. It's all part of investing.

The rental market is like I've never seen before because people either can't afford to own a house, or otherwise don't want the problems with home ownership. Like with anything else, when there is less supply and more demand, prices increase.

 

[WTH_Progs?]

Ah shucks, minimum wage should rent an apartment now. In my day we KIDS worked minimum wage jobs so we could have a car. But PROGS figure it's a family wage now, cuz it just feels right I guess. Meanwhile PROGS want open borders and high taxes (i.e. entitlements) forcing wages and the standard of living down.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Ah shucks, minimum wage should rent an apartment now. In my day we KIDS worked minimum wage jobs so we could have a car. But PROGS figure it's a family wage now, cuz it just feels right I guess. Meanwhile PROGS want open borders and high taxes (i.e. entitlements) forcing wages and the standard of living down.

Increased minimum wage doesn't solve anything once it goes a full circle. If MW doubles, then those minimum wage folks will do fine for a year or two, but after the domino effect kicks in, they are right back to where they started because the cost of living is also so much higher.

When that happens, industry takes a double look at more automation investments, more outsourcing, and even more businesses leaving the state or country. Collectively, we price ourselves further from the world market competition.