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>It is caused by peoples' jobs not paying a living wage I thought this is the whole point of minimum wage laws. I see this word often but i don't understand th
by dominotw 6y ago
>It is caused by peoples' jobs not paying a living wage
I thought this is the whole point of minimum wage laws. I see this word often but i don't understand the difference between 'living wage' and 'minimum wage' .
Can 'living wage' be clearly defined so the number can be derived using logic ?
- staticman2 6y agoMIT has a living wage calculator for U.S. regions you can look up for your area if you livenin the U.S.. I have no opinion on the methodologies but it's been attempted. https://livingwage.mit.edu https://livingwage.mit.edu
- dominotw 6y agoThank you. This is very interesting. This seems to take into account number of children and adults working in the family.Minimum wage doesn't take that into account. Not sure if it would be possible to make employers pay different minimum wage based on number of children and working adults in a employees family. So I think this the idea behind paying living wage, pay based on employee's circumstances.
- adamcstephens 6y agoMany minimum wage laws have not kept up with the inflation in living costs, which is why people now use the term living wage. It likely was the original point, but very few are/were indexed to inflation. Add in the unwillingness of a large portion of politicians to raising the minimum wage, and drift has occurred.
- dominotw 6y agoLooking at the calculator posted in the sister comment, living wage isn't simply minimum wage adjusted up to inflation. It has to do with employers taking personal circumstances of employees into consideration when setting the minimum wage for that particular employee. Living wage for a single person is very different from living wage for a single parent with two children.