Minimum wage earners can't afford to live anywhere in America

Discussion in 'Economics & Trade' started by kazenatsu, Jul 15, 2021.

  1. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I disagree with you. It might be "government money" but it is taxpayer purchasing power.
    You've just engaged in what is an argument of semantics.

    If it was really all "government money", then they wouldn't have a right to force anyone to pay it in taxes, which is obviously not true.
     
    Last edited: Nov 13, 2021
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  2. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    Your entire premise is based on demanding that 'others' behave differently and all problems will be solved...this is judging...
     
  3. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    Why do you suppose when the posted speed limit is 65 nearly everyone is exceeding that speed? It's because it is logistically and financially impossible to enforce those speed limits...
     
  4. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    Again, you believe you can simply reprogram all people to think like you?? It can't be done...it won't be done.
     
  5. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    If all government income is rooted in some form of tax revenue, then all government income is taxpayer funds handed over to the government. When approximately 100 million Americans pay little to no income taxes, few of them will lose any purchasing power. There is one pot of money that is continually distributed to government then to taxpayers to government, etc.
     
  6. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    There is zero demand. People would always be free to choose.

    Meantime, if you solve a problem, the problem IS solved.
     
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  7. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    Not at all. When all applications for benefits are screened as per mortgage applications, then FAR less funding will be going to abusers of the system. Even with the additional policing, the public purse will come out way ahead - which leaves more money for those who meet the criteria. Surely that's what we want isn't it? To provide more complete and better quality assistance to those in need?

    Of course it's possible you have a different motivation. Perhaps you'd prefer to see those in genuine need continue to suffer through the loss of resources to abusers? Perhaps your goal is to support the abusers, rather than those in need?
     
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  8. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    Not at all. People would have the choice. If they want Govt to provide resources, they will do what they need to do to ensure that happens. If they don't want it badly enough, they won't. It's a self-policing system in that sense. Whatever they choose would be accepted in full.
     
    Last edited: Nov 14, 2021
  9. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Please try to stay on topic.

    You can leave a link to a new thread, if you want to carry on a debate about something else.
     
    Last edited: Nov 14, 2021
  10. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    Is economics etc not the topic?
     
  11. Chrizton

    Chrizton Well-Known Member

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    When has Minimum wage earners ever been able to afford to live on their own?

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/timwor...artment-so-why-should-it-now/?sh=3a1f6883720d

    "
    But now let's turn this around the other way. When was that Golden Age when apartments were cheap enough for someone on minimum wage? The problem here being that I can't find, using the usual statistics, any time at all when this was true.

    For this we should use unadjusted for inflation numbers, the real numbers of the time. Those for the minimum wage are here, those for rental costs are here (the second table).

    In 1940 minimum wage was 30 cents an hour, 2080 working hours in a year (that's today's full time employment note), before taxes and FICA that's $52 a month, and rent, the average for the country, was $27. In 1960, minimum wage was a buck, $173 a month gross, rent was $71. In 1980, pay was $573, rent $243.

    Even if we take that year of 1968, when the minimum wage was at its highest real value, $1.60 an hour, that's $277, and according to this the average rent in that year was $130.

    Now it's true that this is the average rent for all housing, not just two bed apartments. Just as it is also true that large houses tend not to be part of the rental market, but of the owner occupier one. So it's certainly possible that there's a bit of movement available in these prices. If anyone does have a listing of two bed apartment rentals over time it would be interesting to see it.

    But from the figures we've got it has never been true that the minimum wage rents housing using only 30% of that minimum wage income. So why on Earth should it now?"
     
  12. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    There was a very short period in the latter half of 20thC during which you could pay big city rents on a minimum wage, but it was always an anomally. Anyone who chooses to cling to that as 'the norm', is simply refusing to adjust their expectations down from that anomalous peak. In forever trying to force that peak back into existence, we're wasting huge amounts of time and resources on what amounts to a fantasy.

    It's also leading to an appearance of poverty - when in fact it's nothing of the sort. It's merely people trying to live beyond their means. If we are to predicate our understanding of poverty on what people WANT, instead of what they actually NEED, we may as well just give up now. It means we've literally lost the capacity to be rational adults.

    Meantime, up until very recently, the working classes owned their own homes just as often as did the middle classes. They just owned smaller/cheaper homes. The whole rent-slavery thing is fairly new, and plays directly to the desire to live beyond one's means.
     
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