4 ms·

How about enough to sustain an individual with accommodation, healthcare, transportation to and from work and enough to feed themselves on a 40ish hour work wee

by maym86 8y ago

How about enough to sustain an individual with accommodation, healthcare, transportation to and from work and enough to feed themselves on a 40ish hour work week. Some jobs don't offer that. Let's start there before talking about how much trouble it would be for businesses to support your edge cases.

patrickaljord 8y ago
I'm not talking about edge case, I'm talking about the main example in the posted article in case you did not read it which is also a very common case among people on welfare cliff. What I'm saying is that it's a more complicated problem than just "let's just give everyone a living wage", in fact most people who single with no kids or spouse to support are not on the welfare cliff as it's pretty easy to find a job that will pay for the basics even at a fast food joint these days. Just saying.
- maym86 8y ago
  Yeah that's not actually true for a minimum wage (7.25 USD per hour is fedral minimum) employee in most states. Start by at least making the minimum wage a living wage for most individuals as the bare minimum. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/budget-and-spending/2018/01/11/what-living-on-an-11-minimum-wage-looks-like/109360122/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/budget-... https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/14/only-point-1-percent-of-us-minimum-wage-workers-can-afford-a-1-bedroom.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/14/only-point-1-percent-of-us-m...
  - patrickaljord 8y ago
    There are many low skill jobs that pay above minimum wage these days. McDonnalds pays $10 per hour for example http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/01/news/companies/mcdonalds-pay-raise/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/01/news/companies/mcdonalds-pay... Unless you have severe disabilities, getting a job at McDonnald's or the tons of other low skill jobs available is not what I would call something hard to achieve.
    - maym86 8y ago
      Right but the first link I shared explained why even $11 isn't enough. And to the original point, the minimum wage should be a living wage. I hope you are clearer about what that means now.
      - patrickaljord 8y ago
        > Right but the first link I shared explained why even $11 isn't enough It is possible, I've done it and so have my wife. More on that here: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/hxwby/is_it_possible_to_live_alone_on_11xxhr/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/hxwby/is_it_poss... > I hope you are clearer about what that means now. Regardless of what your definition of a living wage is or should be, it also doesn't solve the problem of people with kids who are the most vulnerable to the welfare cliff so even by your definition, making the minimum wage a living wage would not solve the issue for most affected people.
        maym86 8y ago
        It's the bare minimum of what a living wage should be. You seem to ignore that I keep saying minimum. I am not discounting families etc. just wondering if America can at least get to this point where a 40 hour work week at minimum wage is enough to live on for most individuals. We disagree on whether that is true in general even though statstics back me up. I support welfare and free healthcare etc. to help vulnerable people at a sliding scale rather than a hard cutoff which has the strange incentives discussed in the original article.

by maym86 8y ago

patrickaljord 8y ago

I'm not talking about edge case, I'm talking about the main example in the posted article in case you did not read it which is also a very common case among people on welfare cliff. What I'm saying is that it's a more complicated problem than just "let's just give everyone a living wage", in fact most people who single with no kids or spouse to support are not on the welfare cliff as it's pretty easy to find a job that will pay for the basics even at a fast food joint these days. Just saying.

maym86 8y ago
Yeah that's not actually true for a minimum wage (7.25 USD per hour is fedral minimum) employee in most states. Start by at least making the minimum wage a living wage for most individuals as the bare minimum. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/budget-and-spending/2018/01/11/what-living-on-an-11-minimum-wage-looks-like/109360122/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/budget-... https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/14/only-point-1-percent-of-us-minimum-wage-workers-can-afford-a-1-bedroom.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/14/only-point-1-percent-of-us-m...
- patrickaljord 8y ago
  There are many low skill jobs that pay above minimum wage these days. McDonnalds pays $10 per hour for example http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/01/news/companies/mcdonalds-pay-raise/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/01/news/companies/mcdonalds-pay... Unless you have severe disabilities, getting a job at McDonnald's or the tons of other low skill jobs available is not what I would call something hard to achieve.
  - maym86 8y ago
    Right but the first link I shared explained why even $11 isn't enough. And to the original point, the minimum wage should be a living wage. I hope you are clearer about what that means now.
    - patrickaljord 8y ago
      > Right but the first link I shared explained why even $11 isn't enough It is possible, I've done it and so have my wife. More on that here: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/hxwby/is_it_possible_to_live_alone_on_11xxhr/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/hxwby/is_it_poss... > I hope you are clearer about what that means now. Regardless of what your definition of a living wage is or should be, it also doesn't solve the problem of people with kids who are the most vulnerable to the welfare cliff so even by your definition, making the minimum wage a living wage would not solve the issue for most affected people.
      - maym86 8y ago
        It's the bare minimum of what a living wage should be. You seem to ignore that I keep saying minimum. I am not discounting families etc. just wondering if America can at least get to this point where a 40 hour work week at minimum wage is enough to live on for most individuals. We disagree on whether that is true in general even though statstics back me up. I support welfare and free healthcare etc. to help vulnerable people at a sliding scale rather than a hard cutoff which has the strange incentives discussed in the original article.