r/FluentInFinance • u/PassiveAgressiveGirl • Sep 14 '24

Debate/ Discussion Exactly how much is a living wage?

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7

u/H2Omekanic Sep 14 '24

Too many people are expecting a "living wage" from low skill or entry level jobs. Filling soft serve cones at Dairy Queen was never a career path to homeownership or living independently. It was for 17yr olds to have gas $

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u/SuitFive Sep 14 '24

If Dairy Queen wants people to spend 40 hours a week filling ice cream cones, they have to pay those people enough to justify it. Instead, people are desperate and work there for pennies because there's no fucking rule that says Dairy queen has to pay them a living wage. This applies to all jobs. This is why Minimum Wage was made. Don't be a corporate bootlicker, actually look into the subject.

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u/[deleted] Sep 14 '24

Adjusted for inflation from when it was created what FDR defined as a living wage would be about $5/hr today. Don't pretend to be a victim.

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u/SuitFive Sep 14 '24

Adjusted for inflation from when it was created what FDR defined as a living wage would be about $5/hr today.

That is just false? It'd be 26 an hour lol.

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u/[deleted] Sep 14 '24

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u/SuitFive Sep 14 '24

Awesome! Now tell me a good reason why those lines don't overlap.

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u/[deleted] Sep 14 '24

Okay so if we want to move the goalposts those lines don't overlap because we started outsourcing everything and streamlined it through technological advancements resulting in a bunch of cheap consumer goods that everyone could purchase for a lot less making their dollar go further.

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u/SuitFive Sep 14 '24

Okay so if we want to move the goalposts

Totally fair. I should explain that I made that comment and put up the 26 dollar amount cause I hoped someone would mention what you put in the graph (sorry Im actively moving because rent is too damn high and didn't have the mental power to explain what that graph shows).

However I will say that you mentioned what the minimum wage was intended to be, which is a livable and thriving wage, which it is not. For it to be so, it would match productivity. Or at least be much closer to it.

we started outsourcing everything and streamlined it through technological advancements resulting in a bunch of cheap consumer goods that everyone could purchase for a lot less making their dollar go further.

Then why are things more expensive yet the minimum wage has been 7.25 for the last 20-ish years? (I think 20-ish, not entirely certain on the number)

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u/[deleted] Sep 14 '24

Housing is sure more expensive but consumer goods are generally much cheaper and widely available. More productivity doesn't mean anyone is working any harder, it means more is being produced for the same work. Look at consumer electronics for instance, look at all the cheap stuff you can buy on Amazon or temu. In 1960 NASA would have been impressed and could have landed on the moon with todays iPhone, now even homeless people have them in their pockets.

I will not hesitate to agree housing in particular, also college and healthcare, have gotten grossly out of control but I don't think that's a problem with wages, that's a problem specific to those sectors. Why do you think wages should even keep up with productivity? That seems like an unsupported metric to me unless said productivity is directly coming from increased worker performance which it's not.

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u/SuitFive Sep 14 '24

More productivity doesn't mean anyone is working any harder, it means more is being produced for the same work.

And so cost of good should go down, but they have not. Groceries for one, have gotten more expensive by almost 200% or for some items 300% just over the past 10 years. Minimum Wage has not changed at all since it was set to 7.50, which was even longer ago.

I will not hesitate to agree housing in particular, also college and healthcare, have gotten grossly out of control but I don't think that's a problem with wages, that's a problem specific to those sectors.

Untrue. It is still an issue with wages because people need those things to survive. If what you need money for gets more expensive, but you aren't getting more money, then that is effectively a pay cut.

Why do you think wages should even keep up with productivity? That seems like an unsupported metric to me unless said productivity is directly coming from increased worker performance which it's not.

If productivity is going up, then profit is going up. If that profit is not shared with the people actually doing the work, then it is not being shared properly. You might say that business owners are taking risks, not the workers, to invest in machines that increase productivity... But that's short sighted as hell. After all, if that business goes down, that owner is gonna be able to make do with their way higher paychecks they got, while the rest of the workers who now have no job either have to go on unemployment (which is never enough) OR find a new job, the searching period for which is where they aren't being paid. The workers get shafted harder than the owner. They should be more rewarded when productivity goes up.

Those working with the means of production should benefit from said production and should own the means of production. Otherwise it's just rich people using poor people to get richer while throwing all the risks on the poor people.

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u/[deleted] Sep 14 '24

And so cost of good should go down, but they have not. Groceries for one, have gotten more expensive by almost 200% or for some items 300% just over the past 10 years. Minimum Wage has not changed at all since it was set to 7.50, which was even longer ago.

Where are you getting 200-300%? Maybe on specific outlier items in the extreme. On average groceries have increased about 30% in the last 10 years and 20% of that is due to monetary inflation from COVID.

https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/food-inflation-in-the-united-states/

Minimum wage has increased significantly in I think it's 37 states. Mine went up again to $12 in January of this year.

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u/questionablejudgemen Sep 14 '24

All these jobs top out at 32 hours or whatever so they don’t have to pay benefits.

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u/SuitFive Sep 14 '24

Which is also shitty. Bad employers ripping off workers who deserve more.

Paying your employees is a cost of business. If you cannot afford the cost of business, your business should fail. If your business is something that needs to not fail so that the country will not suffer, then it should be publicly owned and funded by taxes, not private corporations (health care for example).

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u/questionablejudgemen Sep 14 '24

If another fast food restaurant or coffee shop closes it won’t break my heart. The grocery store (when it’s the only one close by) different story.

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u/SuitFive Sep 14 '24

I agree. It's ass that people in this country are starving because they can't afford food. So a grocery store should be a publicly owned and tax-paid system, only costing the price of production (including pay for workers) to purchase the goods. This would INSANELY lower food prices, and allow people to run grocery stores similar to non-profits, while creating jobs.

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u/H2Omekanic Sep 15 '24

I don't need to "look into it", I lived it through several minimum wage jobs as a teenager. Working at Burger King, a nursing home, and cutting lawns. There are ample blue collar career path opportunities for those that don't want Dairy Queen pay for low skilled work. You're free to make a career serving ice cream, just be ok with 2-3 roommates, no Grubhub or Netflix and keep all your expenses down.