[bloodyplonker22]

Minimum wage is not the problem as this article seems to imply. People move up from those starter jobs, they don't stay there forever.

The problem is that the politicians and local governments have enacted strict building and zoning laws which disallow for new housing construction. This, in combination with market forces has driven up the price of housing artificially fast.

[trainsplanes]

> People move up from those starter jobs, they don't stay there forever.

The domain of “starter jobs” is rapidly expanding. It used to just be fry cooks at burger chains as well as newspaper boys, and before that we had farmhands, but now everything is a “starter job” that barely pays enough for rent if it does at all.

Basically the entirety of retail is a starter job. Even retail management barely pays enough to live. Delivery jobs are starter jobs. Customer support jobs are starter jobs. Work at a retirement home? Starter job. Many repair jobs are starter jobs. And plenty more.

You’ll see people 30, 40, 50 years old working these jobs. Still struggling.

[mft_]

> Minimum wage is not the problem as this article seems to imply. People move up from those starter jobs, they don't stay there forever.

[citation needed]

The phrase 'starter job' may indicate where you're coming from, attitudinally. For many people, of all ages, there aren't starter jobs - they're the only attainable jobs. And I suspect many people bounce around between different similarly-poorly-paid jobs, without significant moves up. We're talking about people for whom 'the grind' is just surviving, and for whom the American dream of self-improvement through hard work has died - if it was ever alive in the first place.

[kortilla]

> For many people, of all ages, there aren't starter jobs - they're the only attainable jobs.

Citation?

I have family members that weren’t very ambitious and they work in these jobs. However, they don’t make minimum wage because nearly every company offers some raises for people who just consistently show up for 6 months+ straight.

In order to be stuck at minimum you have to additionally have stability issues or issues in general that cause you to consistently get fired or pushed out. These habitual min wage earners are not even a meaningful portion of the people earning minimum wage at any given time.

[ac29]

> I have family members that weren’t very ambitious and they work in these jobs. However, they don’t make minimum wage because nearly every company offers some raises for people who just consistently show up for 6 months+ straight.

But what kind of raises? Starting at minimum wage and grinding out a 25c/hr raise each year for a decade is still going to leave you in poverty. No one starts at $8/hr and is making $35/hr for the same position 6 months later.

[kortilla]

Do you know what “minimum wage” means?

[kylebyproxy]

> nearly every company offers some raises

I've worked at least a dozen jobs. Received exactly 2 raises: one for $0.25, the other $0.33.

> In order to be stuck at minimum you have to additionally have stability issues

Or just not be able to afford a bachelor's degree

[kortilla]

You don’t need a bachelor’s degree to become a shift manager.

[mandmandam]

Minimum wage is absolutely a problem. Maybe not "the" problem, but it's a massive and highly solvable problem which only the profoundly ignorant could possible believe has no effect on low earners ability to rent a roof over their head.

> People move up from those starter jobs, they don't stay there forever.

Please explain to me how that's different from a serf paying off their ownership debt, or a slave winning his freedom by defeating 10 consecutive gladiators.

[leppr]

Why would there not be a market for housing people with low wages? There are markets for cheap food, cheap clothes, cheap entertainment, ... Everything except lodging.

There's a hiccup somewhere in the "free market" of many countries that prevents it from providing cheap housing, even though there's clearly a huge business opportunity.

[mandmandam]

There are multiple hiccups, which don't seem quite independent of each other as they all make similar groups of people massive amounts of cash.

Some words that come to mind are "cartel", "regulatory capture", "lobbying", "government contracts", and "artifical scarcity".

[glassconclusion]

Maybe there is a bare minimum on comfort what people are willing to accept? I lived in Asia for a while. There were some many options. From a 3m2 room (if you wanted to sit, you had to open the door and sit on your bed) to a full mansion. I'm back in a major capital in Europe and there is pretty much nothing you can rent under 1000EUR (70-80% of minimum wage)

[leppr]

Yes, the problem with those bare minimums is that they're imposed from rich people (legislative class) onto poor people.

This results in a cut-off point, below which you lose the security of a stable, regulated, lodging situation, and are instead forced to operate outside the protection of the law, into a variety of more or less precarious situations.

Everyone has different priorities and aspirations. I personally would have preferred securing a stable space, even if it's closet-sized, than carrying my luggage between temporary accommodations or sharing my living space with strangers. Some people prefer the later options. There's no fundamental reason the basic freedom of having agency over your living accommodations should be denied to those below a certain level of wealth.

[skohan]

I think it's a combination of factors. More home building would help, but also regulating housing speculation might be a good idea.

[Fricken]

The speculation is a symptom. The systemic factors compromising the our ability to meet demand are the disease.

[reilly3000]

The US housing market has been a parking lot for global capital, some of which isn’t always clean money. I saw it first happen to Vancouver BC when Chinese stock market winners started buying up condos until prices were insane, but it continued to expand to the states with little to no resistance. Now Mexico and Columbia are in the top 5 countries leading foreign investment in US real estate. It’s a cash flow positive way to park drug money, along with a generally stable asset for any global investor.

The supply issue is very real. Per the article linked below, 1 housing unit is being created for every 6 new jobs. It’s absolutely unsustainable.

https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/foreign-purchase...

[leppr]

Market forces = unprecedented liquidity injections into the economy increasing inequality faster than ever the past two years. Of course the lower classes are going to struggle. The most ironic part of this is we've had demonstrations against everything except that, yet almost every country in the world has been affected.