[SomeOldThrow]

> Minimum wage earners can often afford two bedroom homes priced at the lower end.

[citation needed]

Looking around the bay they appear to simply become homeless, especially if there's any interruption in work, and if they're lucky they're able to move away before this happens.

[leereeves]

Obviously not in the Bay Area. People making six figures can't afford homes in the Bay Area.

But homes are cheaper almost everywhere else in the US.

[SomeOldThrow]

...and that's the economy working, where you can be run out of the city because a rich person wants your house?

[leereeves]

No, that's NIMBYist government regulation preventing the economy from working by building high density housing in a city that needs it.

[SomeOldThrow]

YIMBY pro-developer stances like Weiner's SB-50 aren’t going to help working class families and individuals either. I am very pro-development but we need high allocations of affordable and social housing to make the development work for the existing community.

[TylerE]

Yes?

Supply and demand is basically the fundamental law of economics.

[SomeOldThrow]

No, it’s not. It’s the foundation of market economies, which are not the only way to distribute goods and services. There are many alternatives to this.

[leereeves]

Like Venezuela, Cuba, and the Soviet Union? Those alternatives aren't better.

[SomeOldThrow]

Look at singapore for an alternative that isn’t associated with anti-socialized scare tactics. Soviets had a lot of issues but lack of housing wasn’t one of them. Same for cuba, although the sanctions have crippled the economy to make quality housing difficult. I can’t speak for venezuela housing as i have not researched it, and it seems weird to clump a country with a mostly private economy in with self-proclaimed communist countries.

[bluGill]

Location location location. Try looking around some city not well known for insane housing prices.

[SomeOldThrow]

Try moving cities without a home or a job, looking to survive on the street.

[bluGill]

The hard part about moving is leaving family, friends, and stuff behind. Once you are willing to do that a bus ticket across the US is cheap.

[SomeOldThrow]

> The hard part about moving is leaving family, friends, and stuff behind

Tell that to the homeless, I dare you. It's certainly the attitude of a sheltered existence.

[bluGill]

The homeless have problems mostly unrelated to minimum wage.

[SomeOldThrow]

This claim is based on... what? Your wandering around the tenderloin and judging people?

Try visiting shelters, especially in the south bay. There are plenty of families without the problems you mentioned.

This attitude is intentional neglect of reality, and its prevalence is literally killing people.

[magashna]

the bay is not lower end is it

[SomeOldThrow]

Every market has a working class. You can’t just pretend supply and demand will provide labor with perfect elasticity. Part of why development is so difficult is the labor pool in the bay area is massively outstripped by demand for labor driving up costs and slowing down development.