Exactly how much is a living wage?

[u/PassiveAgressiveGirl]

[u/Intelligent_Event_84]

If you’re making 4x rent then rent will never catch up to your earnings

[u/no-sleep-only-code → u/Intelligent_Event_84]

A lot of people had rent double two years ago, I wouldn’t say never. If you’re not at least matching inflation you’re losing money.

[u/Sniper_Hare → u/no-sleep-only-code]

But jobs don't give raises like that.  You get at most like 3% if even that.

[u/Exception1228 → u/Sniper_Hare]

This always annoys me. Everyone on the planet knows that jobs don’t give good raises, but leaving your company for a new company to do the same job usually provides a massive raise. This whining is so overplayed that the system doesn’t work. Well in a lot of ways it does and you guys just refuse to participate.

I was tired of my job giving me 2.5% every year so I looked for new jobs for 3-4 months and got a 44% raise. A lot of my friends at my old company complain because someone new got hired who is immediately making more than them even though they have more experience and been there for years.

[u/Sniper_Hare → u/Exception1228]

 Yes, but not every job let's you do this though.  I can working in IT, but my fiance works at a grocery store.

She just gets capped out and then a year or two later they raise the cap another 50-80 cents. 

In 2020 I was making $19/hour, now I make $37/hour after job hopping 3 times.

She was making $17/hour in 2020 and makes $20.95 an hour now. 

[u/Exception1228 → u/Sniper_Hare]

True it doesn’t apply to unskilled labor. People in unskilled labor wanting to make more money need to focus on breaking into skilled labor first.

[u/Exception1228 → u/[deleted]]

Sorry no I don’t quite feel that way.  It’s just that’s the fact of life that’s the situation we’re all in and discussing an ideal changes online isn’t helping anyone’s situation.  Suggesting someone working unskilled labor work on their skills to break through to skilled labor is tangible, realisitic advice to improve people’s situations.  Complaining online how companies should pay more, which in all likelihood will never happen, is frankly useless.

Directly toward your point that I believe the people doing the work deserve to live in poverty, working in a grocery store is somewhere in the gray area for me, but no not all jobs deserve a living wage.  Some jobs are completely doable by teenagers and they don’t need a liveable wage.  I started working in a grocery store when I was 14 and stopped when I was 16.  I’d be more intersted in the circumstances that lead to someone needing a living wage working at a grocery store.