It may not be in rich West Coast cities with NIMBY problems where the cost of everything is 3x what it should be, but $10/h is easily livable in flyover towns. The primary cost of living is rent and rent in places with functioning city councils is low. I'm talking $500/mo for a decent sized apartment. $10/h is $1600, you're not paying taxes with that low of a wage. Add in car payments, car insurance, health insurance, and food and you've probably got $100 to spare every month.
Seriously, the only reason wages need to be so high for low skill jobs in California is because the idiots governing here can't wrap their head around building more housing and every little social justice issue blocks construction approvals. If you cut the rent prices by 5x in the Bay you'd make $10/h a living wage.
> Add in car payments, car insurance, health insurance, and food and you've probably got $100 to spare every month.
So... you put up with a difficult job (flipping burgers), you have no job security, no or limited health insurance, no career prospects... for a $1.200 by the end of the year.
No wonder no one wants to do any work anymore. They were basically wage-slaves.
Your reward for an entire year of miserable work is maybe being able to afford car maintenance and xmas gifts or a brief and cheap local holiday! Relax on holiday for a few days and then it's back to the grindstone for another 360 days.
Most people are wage slaves, they biggest difference between them is the quality and quantity of beads and trinkets they receive to sweeten the misery.
Flyover towns certainly have $10/h jobs. Amazon pays $15/h and it's in plenty of flyover towns. If you live in a bubble where you think flyover towns somehow don't have $10/h jobs you need to get out of the Bay. They don't have high paying 6-figure salaried jobs, though.
The people in places where living expenses are high are getting $18 minimum and often times $22-25/h. The $15 "living wage" myth is garbage because HCoL areas already have higher wages and LCoL areas aren't that expensive that you couldn't live on $10/h. If you raise the minimum you won't change the shitty living situation in HCoL areas and you'll just drive closures and automation in LCoL areas. Source: Bay Area restaurant job listings
> The idea you're going to cut rent prices by a factor of 5 is about as detached from reality as it's possible to get.
I never said you'd be able to cut rent prices by 5x, merely that doing so would alleviate basically every concern about a "living wage". I know that West Coast NIMBYism would never let the level of density needed to achieve that happen. In China you can get an apartment for <3k RMB/mo even in a city like Shanghai, but in China the government can tell you to GTFO and bulldoze your apartment and replace it with skyscrapers which would never happen in the U.S. If you just tore down anything in SF under 10 floors and replaced it with 40 floor towers you'd instantly increase density by 20x.
You are correct that fixing housing policy is a major thing that we aren't doing to help people at the bottom. We absolutely need to put far more effort and political will into fixing this.
However, I don't think your math works out. There isn't any money in there for child care, healthcare deductibles, education, utilities, paying down debt or any of the other costs that tend to be much higher to people with less money and/or bad credit.
Edit: Your "500 a month for a decent sized appartment” seems inaccurate. Take a look at craigslist for St Louis or Omaha and you will struggle to find anything at that price point.
Raising wages without corresponding increase in productivity just leads to inflation, which disproportionately benefits asset holders. If everyone's wages go up, no one's wages go up, barring an increase in productivity. We are seeing that play out as we speak across the United States. CPI grossly underestimates real inflation, particularly in inelastic categories like housing, education, and healthcare. Massive improvements in technology have hidden the inflation of basic needs like food. A loaf of bread is still the same loaf of bread 20 years later so CPI doesn't adjust its price downwards even though in real terms that loaf costs much less to produce and ship in 2021 than 1980 due to technology. But the real price of land and the real cost of a skilled human's time (for housing, education and healthcare) haven't changed so we see massive inflation there, even though food prices seem like they're following CPI. In effect, the wage for unskilled workers in the 1980s was artificially propped up by the minimum wage, and now we're seeing the market reset to the true real (in an economic sense) value of their productivity as real world inflation outstrips CPI but minimum wage indexes to CPI. Meanwhile the nominal wages for skilled professionals have kept pace since their real value wasn't artificially propped up by minimum wage.
You can argue for a higher minimum wage now (say $25/h) but 10-20 years down the line you'll be back where you started. Housing, education, and healthcare will increase faster than CPI until the new equilibrium is reached and the minimum wage represents the true real value of the productivity of an unskilled job. The real solution is to automate all of these jobs away and fund free community college for STEM majors and trade schools so that you get real productivity gains rather than more monopoly money to play with.
$100 a month is really not that much. It would take years to save up enough money just to cover a financial emergency, let a lone save anything for retirement. So, even if you are diligent, you are only a few large expenses away from falling into a debt cycle
And now you see why no one is having children nowadays. It's the natural order of late stage capitalism. Having children is just not rewarding from a cost-benefit analysis
You can’t live out of poverty in the average American city on $10/hour, even if you’re single.
I see your name mentions Boise - believe me when I say Idaho, ranked 39th in state population size, is decidedly not representative of the US at large.
I'd advocate the same path I took: Better yourself and stop being worth minimum wage.
I worked fast food, Walmart, etc. I was worth minimum wage. I got an education, developed skills that are hard to find and become worth more.
My other posts point out that my phrasing was wrong (people are hung up on the word lazy) but my points remain: The US has a perverse benefit system that makes it worth more to work less before a certain point.
Main skill is Programmer although I can do Admin and Network Support. 10 years+ experience and growing. Took years of school and a few low paying jobs to get the experience.
Seriously, the only reason wages need to be so high for low skill jobs in California is because the idiots governing here can't wrap their head around building more housing and every little social justice issue blocks construction approvals. If you cut the rent prices by 5x in the Bay you'd make $10/h a living wage.