[stevewilber]

Bart workers pay $92/mo for health insurance. [1]

This post is comparing the income for one Bart employee to the expenses for a family of four. I'm not sure why child care is included if only one adult is working.

Subtracting those out, I get $54,912. This seems about right for a frugal life in the burbs.

[1] http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/BART-workers-pay-plus-...

[sxywu]

Ah yes, the cost of living figures I have gathered from http://www.epi.org/resources/budget/. In my footnotes I address that for BART employees health insurance is $92/mo, but because I wasn't so sure what their co-pays and other expenses may be, I left in the health insurance figures from EPI's budget calculator.

To account for my uncertainty, I built in a "Custom" option in the dropdowns, so you can play around with what you think is a fair cost of living for a BART employee, and how those numbers compare to their salaries and the proposal figures.

[nknighthb]

> This seems about right for a frugal life in the burbs.

More than these peasants deserve, right? I mean, why should people providing a vital service to a city feel entitled to live amongst the betters they serve?

[jamesaguilar]

Yeah, unskilled, replaceable labor doesn't get paid much. That is how it always has been, and I don't see it as a huge, immediate problem. These folks are already making way more than people of similar levels of skill in other parts of the country -- in fact, they are double the median income in the US. There are plenty of other essential services, like garbage people, chefs, janitors, cabbies, etc. that get paid less and require similar levels of education.

I mean, when we remove scarcity, sure, give all the BART workers mansions. But until then, I think this is a fine wage for doing work that's on the block for being automated in ten or twenty years.

[nknighthb]

> unskilled, replaceable labor

Go get a job as a BART driver. Report back how unskilled and replaceable they are. And report your salary. It'll be lower than you're expecting. All the numbers you're being fed (including the ones on the linked page) are misleading unless you actually consider them from the perspective of a BART employee progressing through his career from the beginning.

[jamesaguilar]

I am not going to do what you suggested. If you want to explain why you think Bart driving is skilled, hard to replace labor, that would be productive, but telling me to change my career is not an argument.

It is not exactly a revelation that people just starting out in a career get paid less than experienced folks, especially in labor markets controlled by unions.

[nknighthb]

> I am not going to do what you suggested.

Then what makes you think you can argue they're overpaid?

> If you want to explain why you think Bart driving is skilled, hard to replace labor

I know absolutely no one who has not gone through significant training who I would trust at the controls of a huge vehicle like a bus or train. I also don't know many people who want to drive around at night alone picking strangers up.

[jamesaguilar]

Same thing that makes you think you can argue they are underpaid.

> I know absolutely no one ...

How many people do you know who only have a high school diploma? Who have no other options that pay more than $60k/year?

[dxhdr]

> More than these peasants deserve, right? I mean, why should people providing a vital service to a city feel entitled to live amongst the betters they serve?

No kidding, this is highly skilled labor we're talking about. Not to mention the years of schooling and study required to excel at the profession. These jobs aren't easy to fill.

[nknighthb]

Are you willing to do the work? And who cares if it's highly skilled? Isn't price decoupled from cost? If you're going to argue from a capitalist perspective, be consistent.

[walshemj]

Theres no Big guy with a white beard who's going to reach down and say "you yes you with 2.2 in business studies from Luton University are worth X and those uppity train drivers must work for minimum wage"

Ps Luton is the Uni that props up the bottom of the university league tables in the UK

[stevewilber]

Bart serves most of the Bay Area, not just the City. As far as I'm concerned, a frugal life in the burbs is a good life. Most of the developers I know live that way.

[nknighthb]

Most of the developers you know never eat out, have poor housing, no smartphones or other luxury gadgets, old, cheap cars, a spouse, two kids, and reveal their budget to you?

You have no idea what "frugal" means.