5 ms·

Full-time minimum wage workers can't afford rent anywhere in the US

77 points by oftenwrong 5y ago

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
DantesKite 5y ago
It's strange how as technology has improved, the cost of housing hasn't really gotten cheaper. TVs, computers, even cars have decreased in price and improved in quality, but college education and housing...not so much. You'd think there'd be $30,000 small, but affordable houses by now. There's some fuckery afoot.
- blamestross 5y ago
  It turns out when automation only serves business owners (and it serves the largest companies the most) it doesn't produce richer workers, only a worker surplus.
- aero-glide2 5y ago
  Could easily available federal loans be the reason college fee keep rising? disclaimer : not very familiar with US education system
  - wernercd 5y ago
    easy money (federal loans), no consequences for bad education (bankruptcy laws), disproportionate emphasis on BA vs trade skills, etc.
  - imtringued 5y ago
    When people say "money printing" they forget that the only way that money enters the economy is through borrowing. So yes, those loans are the reason prices keep (emphasis on keep) rising. Private loans would probably stop at some "reasonable" ceiling.
- MiddleEndian 5y ago
  Absurd zoning processes. If I build a computer or eat a meal, even though there are some associated safety regulations, a bunch of people within half a block of me with blatant conflicts of interests generally can't take me to court to impede me. If I want to turn a single family house into a duplex, or someone wants to turn a long-abandoned parking lot into an apartment complex, well...
- Natsu 5y ago
  Putting up a house involves a ton of manual labor by people who have to be paid minimum wage as well and this hasn't really scaled up with technology the way things like software can. If you put the cost into person-hours to create the house, and consider the relative scarcity of desirable land, there's not so much mystery here. Sure, there are vast empty areas, but not many people are willing to live in places with no utility hookups. Yes, there are prefab houses and whatnot, but that only enables so much scaling.
  - blooalien 5y ago
    > "Putting up a house involves a ton of manual labor by people who have to be paid minimum wage as well" … I don't think I've ever in my life been paid minimum wage at any manual labor job I've ever had. Everything I've ever done in that field of work (ranging from literally digging ditches with pick-axe and shovel to commercial interior/exterior remodeling) starting pay was generally 1.5-2× minimum wage and often higher. When I think of minimum wage, I think motel janitorial, burger flipping, supermarket bagger, etc, though I suppose who pays minimum wage for what job also depends on location and employer.
    - craftinator 5y ago
      > When I think of minimum wage, I think motel janitorial I find this really funny having been a hotel janitor. It paid 1.5x minimum wage, but that was offset by them wanting not only a hardworking janitor, but also a skilled handyman who could also do plumbing, fix beds and railing, etc. I've witnessed this at several other jobs as well, where they hire someone for a low paying job, then expect them to use all the skills they have at the same pay rate as what they were hired for.
      - blooalien 5y ago
        I worked janitorial once, but in my case it was for a place called "ServiceMaster" that did office buildings after normal business hours. Their starting pay was also typically 1.5-2× minimum wage, and included benefits, and our bosses treated us with proper basic human respect. All that was expected of us was that by morning the building was clean and certain areas disinfected properly (bathrooms and breakrooms mostly). How and when we got it done was left to us, as long as it got done before quitting time. (We usually just worked our butts off to get it all done hours earlier than expected and then just slacked off the rest of the shift.) It was actually one of the better jobs I've had over the years. I got the impression though that we were considered "higher end janitorial services" and that our level of pay reflected that. Where I live motel janitorial appears to be more on par with burger flipping (as far as pay, not level of work), though I could see hotel janitorial staff probably getting paid more. There is a bit of a difference between a typical motel vs even a low-end hotel though.
- paulpauper 5y ago
  Housing is location-dependent. More jobs and higher wages generally equals more expensive housing.
- avelis 5y ago
  The SF Chronicle highlights the general restrictive zoning laws and how much the zoning tax adds to housing in major metros. https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/This-is-how-much-single-family-zoning-is-costing-16305216.php?fbclid=IwAR3_lIvChSToemZppDi5EJXrBwfkVboF6kruQPoZGfQPTDvAFMgY4ECVtm0 https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/This-is-how-much-sing...
- tempfs 5y ago
  TVs haven't really gotten all that much cheaper to my memory in years. I can recall spending about $7-800 on a big-screen cabinet for our family room in the mid-90's and then recently spending the same amount flat screen LED version recently. Computers also aren't really all that much cheaper now either. I mean sure, OK, compared to the 80's sure but that was 40 years ago. Cars have absolutely not gotten cheaper. Education and housing though...yeah. The Federal Reserve has made sure that no one has been able to afford either for many years now. Housing has also been made even worse by flippers and foreign investors(invaders). Rentals also consolidating into fewer and fewer hands which is just going to drive up rents for everyone. Electronics are frankly only so important. Housing(ownership especially) and education are actually things that underpin so many other societal problems that we as a country should have *never* allowed lax interest rate policy and Chinese investors / flippers to drive prices so far beyond any semblance of rationality.
  - blooalien 5y ago
    > "Computers also aren't really all that much cheaper now either." Depends on how you define "cheaper computers". Over the years, $1000 home computer is consistently far more powerful with far more storage, memory, and features than that same $1000 would have bought you the year before. We also now have nifty toys like the single board computer market (Raspberry Pi, etc) weighing in at the $5-50 USD price range on average, and smart-phones in a wide range of prices (which are basically just a "pocket computer") far more powerful than entire desktop systems of decades past. > Electronics are frankly only so important. > Housing(ownership especially) and education are actually things that underpin so many other societal problems that we as a country should have never allowed lax interest rate policy and Chinese investors / flippers to drive prices so far beyond any semblance of rationality. Must agree with these points pretty much entirely though…
- ehnto 5y ago
  You can buy 30k affordable buildings, but you have to put it somewhere, almost everywhere and especially in these ballooning markets, it's the land that you pay for.
- thanhhaimai 5y ago
  Construction cost is only a fraction of the housing cost. The majority of the cost is for the location, which is unique and limited. That location cost is something technology can hardly help reduce. There are not many places that offer safe neighborhood s, good career opportunities, diverse cuisine, and sunshine year round like the Bay Area for example. That's regardless of technology advances.
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    > Construction cost is only a fraction of the housing cost. The majority of the cost is for the location, which is unique and limited. Then increase the construction budget and put multiple units on the location.
- wernercd 5y ago
  "Fuckery" aka: government interference. Zoning restrictions, requirements to get everything inspected, rent controls, etc, etc, etc. Look at other places government butts in? Schooling? Health care? Day care? etc... all more expensive and worse than ever.
- dlsa 5y ago
  New land can't be produced. Well, until we start digging. Land and location are linked. People want to go there. They want to live close to there. Demand spikes and goes up. Yet other locations people don't want to go so demand goes down. At least thats the theory. But now, the prices are just going up. Seemingly everywhere. Something is certainly going on. Its as if demand is increasing everywhere.
- bravoetch 5y ago
  | There's some fuckery afoot. Not really. Inflation is one culprit. And housing is already about the cheapest thing you can buy by weight. Housing isn't more expensive. Wages are less. If the money printer would stop for a few years, the price of housing would stop dead at that moment too.
- imtringued 5y ago
  You can't make land. By the way this goes both ways. Forcibly lowering the price of land doesn't make it disappear so the usual supply and demand arguments don't apply to private land ownership. e.g. heavy land value taxes discourage the production of land or make land move overseas
mimikatz 5y ago
Bullshit headline with truth spelled out in the article.
- ed25519FUUU 5y ago
  What do you mean? I thought it was normal for a single person to work minimum wage and rent a two bedroom apartment for themselves for 30% or their income.
- II2II 5y ago
  The only way to read it as a bullshit headline is if you believe living day-to-day is acceptable. There is a reason why they use housing as 30% of income as a baseline: without meeting that baseline, it is difficult to cover other necessary expenses and save money. Savings are important since the lack of them means a loss of work could very well result in a loss of housing.
gnarbarian 5y ago
minimum wage work used to be for teenagers living at home. The terrifying thing to me is that we have a large quantity of adults without any appreciable skills that would lend them to work which raises them out of minimum wage. most of us started at or near minimum wage living with roommates etc. The question to me is what is preventing these people from achieving career growth?
- paulpauper 5y ago
  Tons of middle age and old people doing minum wage, low-skilled jobs. This whole myth that minimum wage = young people died long ago.
  - gnarbarian 5y ago
    You're totally missing my point. By the time you are old you should have acquired a valuable skill.
  - walkedaway 5y ago
    That makes absolutely no sense. Of course minimum wage expands to mean "the minimum wage that some entry-level person should be required to receive." Entry level means young. That's exactly who the law should be for. After entry level, it's up to the individual to level up and improve their employability and work their way up. At least that's the way it used to work, and boy did it work. Nowadays everyone wants the payday without having to put in the effort.
- jwilber 5y ago
  What kind of outdated, out-of-touch take is this? Do you have any idea how much EMTs make? Teachers? Are those not “appreciable” skills? It’s ignorant comments like yours and the false narratives they push that result in our current abysmal minimum wage situation: https://www.cepr.net/this-is-what-minimum-wage-would-be-if-it-kept-pace-with-productivity/ https://www.cepr.net/this-is-what-minimum-wage-would-be-if-i...
  - gnarbarian 5y ago
cracker_jacks 5y ago
When you make housing an investment, by definition, it has to become less affordable in the future. Until a country decides to stop making policy to support this notion that a basic need should be an appreciating asset and not a depreciating one like food, transportation, etc, this completely unsurprising trend will continue. It is a strange world we live in where we collectively believe that a basic need should appreciate in value over time.
- ehnto 5y ago
  For bonus points, make sure people outside of the local economy can buy and influence the cost of housing, making certain that the cost becomes completely decoupled from supply and demand of the community who are supposed to live in them.
- adamnemecek 5y ago
  Same with mortgages. They increase the price over time.
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  > When you make housing an investment, by definition, it has to become less affordable in the future. It doesn't have to. Even if it just matches inflation you could call it an investment. If it keeps up with wage growth, that's a pretty good investment that doesn't force it to become less affordable. Or it could be somewhere in between, and then housing would be a reasonable investment and increasingly affordable over time. The issue isn't that it's an investment at all, it's that it's much too good of an investment for multiple reasons.
- redm 5y ago
  The population is growing over time, so housing and land appreciate because demand and scarcity increase. From 180m in 1960 to 329m today. [1] [1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?locations=US https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?locations=U...
- wernercd 5y ago
  Its not just the investment side - although that's part... When the government throws tons of money at it? Housing is funded by a lot of government money for "affordable housing" and the like. As with ANYTHING the government throws money at? Supply goes down and prices go up. For other references on increased price, worse results? Look at school, daycare, health insurance... amazing how bad government help screws everything up. "basic need" supply and demand... when there's only x amount and there are x+more wanting it? the price will go up... either you increase the supply or decrease the demand. It's a strange world we live in where people think labeling things as anything removes the supply/demand dynamic and the ability of the government to screw things up "in the name of the good"
cjensen 5y ago
Article is really "minimum wage workers cannot afford a two-bedroom apartment while only spending the recommended 30% of their income on housing." There's a lot of assumptions there. Assumes minimum wage workers should not have to get by with a single bedroom and a couch in their own place. Assumes minimum wage workers should not have to spend more than 30% of their income on housing. Now maybe that should be our policy. I just don't think the headline should be "can't afford rent" until we've made a concrete policy decision as a people that supports the premise that they should be able to afford it.
- mrkurt 5y ago
  You could rephrase it in your head as "single parent minimum wage worker can't afford housing" if it helps.
  - randyrand 5y ago
    My grandmother grew up sharing a bed with her 5 siblings (3 vertical, 2 at the foot) and she is always quick to tell you how much she has enjoyed her life. The idea that kids need their own bedroom is extremely modern. There’s no reputable science behind it.
  - wernercd 5y ago
    Or you could rephrase it as "made up numbers reinforce the made up fact that minimum wage workers can't afford to live anywhere in the us despite all facts to the contrary"... ... if it helps...
    - kristopolous 5y ago
      The keyword is "afford". Can it be paid for with enough money for other things in life? There's over 100 years of scholarship and research on this if you're interested. You can get college degrees, have careers in these related fields. American culture in general does not value and it's dismissive of it and that's probably why America's livibility metrics are so out of line with everyone else. (See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_livable_cities https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_livable_cities) Or why the life expectancy is lower, suicide is about the same rate as sub-saharan Africa, and polls of satisfaction and happiness perform worse, etc. Such problems can be addressed
CheezeIt 5y ago
“ People working minimum wage jobs full-time cannot afford a two-bedroom apartment in any state in the country, the National Low Income Hou” Oh. Maybe they should get a roommate.
Acrobatic_Road 5y ago
I could explain why and how this "study" is deliberately crafted misinformation, but I assume you're all smart enough to read the article for yourselves and come to the same conclusion. At least a few commentators have figured it out. Have you?
lend000 5y ago
I'll save you a click: people with below median income cannot afford median two bedroom housing. I don't really see how this logically could not be true, unless minimum wage was the median income or rent was commodified.
- qeternity 5y ago
  Minimum wage cannot mathematically be the median income unless minimum wage was also the maximum wage. This article is useless.
  - naniwaduni 5y ago
    You can totally have 51% at minimum wage and 49% at infinite wage. The incompatibility isn't mathematical.
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ed25519FUUU 5y ago
Vocation schools used to be the ones that ripped people off. Now they have to guarantee 70% job placement and is a good way to jump start a career in a trade.
cletus 5y ago
First let me say that I agree with raising the minimum wage and affording more people a "livable" wage. With that out of the way, let's start dispelling some myths. First, building houses inflation-adjusted actually hasn't gotten more expensive [1]. It's basically the same in real terms as almost 50 years ago. What has changed is two things: 1. Land has gotten more expensive; 2. Houses have gotten substantially bigger; and 3. Real wages have been largely frozen, particularly on the low end, for the last 40 eyars. So I was curious where the stats for rents came from and in Appendix B of the Full Report you'll see it uses the HUD FMR (Fair Market Rent) stat [2]. I was curious about this for several reasons. A description like "average house rent" raises a lot of questions like: - What sorts of properties does this include? Free standing houses? Townhomes? Condos? - What sort of "average" is it? Mean or median? You wouldn't want houses in the Westside distorting "average" rent for LA county, for example. > HOW IS FAIR MARKET RENT CALCULATED? > Fair Market Rent is generally calculated as the 40th percentile of gross rents for regular, standard quality units in a local housing market. This excludes low-quality units, already subsidized units, and units that have been built in the last 2 years. FMR rent data is typically taken from recent move ins rather than long-term tenants, as long-term tenants generally receive a lower monthly rental rate. FMR includes core utilities, like water and power, but doesn’t include internet and other optional services. Isn't this a bit misleading? Like, it's data from recent move ins so it's people who have decided to or have needed to move and what they've been willing and able to pay. [1]: https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/new-us-homes-today-are-1000-square-feet-larger-than-in-1973-and-living-space-per-person-has-nearly-doubled/ https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/new-us-homes-today-are-1000-s... [2]: https://www.hud.loans/hud-loans-blog/what-is-fair-market-rent https://www.hud.loans/hud-loans-blog/what-is-fair-market-ren...
dvt 5y ago
The ultimate irony here is JPMorgan Chase "generously" sponsoring this study. Yawn.
jrsj 5y ago
From my own personal experience living on minimum wage, the biggest benefit would actually be the removal of mandatory overtime pay past 40 hours. I wanted to work more, but had to juggle schedules of multiple part time jobs. I effectively had less time and money specifically because that regulation exists.
dlsa 5y ago
Well, if minimum wage earners can't rent then perhaps migration needs to drop. Or is that sacred because then population won't keep going up because migration is what is propping up population these days? Multiple demographics are essentially crashing. Plenty are below replacement right now. Should be interesting to see what happens over the next 20 years after reliance on migration finally changes voting trends.
perryizgr8 5y ago
1. Government sets/increases minimum wage. 2. Price of everything increases since people have more money, without corresponding increase in wealth/value. 3. Government: pikachu face
choko 5y ago
Here are some facts on how many people actually earn minimum wage. It helps put emotionally fueled opinions into perspective. https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2017/home.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2017/home.htm

77 points by oftenwrong 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

It's strange how as technology has improved, the cost of housing hasn't really gotten cheaper. TVs, computers, even cars have decreased in price and improved in quality, but college education and housing...not so much. You'd think there'd be $30,000 small, but affordable houses by now. There's some fuckery afoot.

blamestross 5y ago
It turns out when automation only serves business owners (and it serves the largest companies the most) it doesn't produce richer workers, only a worker surplus.
aero-glide2 5y ago
Could easily available federal loans be the reason college fee keep rising? disclaimer : not very familiar with US education system
- wernercd 5y ago
  easy money (federal loans), no consequences for bad education (bankruptcy laws), disproportionate emphasis on BA vs trade skills, etc.
- imtringued 5y ago
  When people say "money printing" they forget that the only way that money enters the economy is through borrowing. So yes, those loans are the reason prices keep (emphasis on keep) rising. Private loans would probably stop at some "reasonable" ceiling.
MiddleEndian 5y ago
Absurd zoning processes. If I build a computer or eat a meal, even though there are some associated safety regulations, a bunch of people within half a block of me with blatant conflicts of interests generally can't take me to court to impede me. If I want to turn a single family house into a duplex, or someone wants to turn a long-abandoned parking lot into an apartment complex, well...
Natsu 5y ago
Putting up a house involves a ton of manual labor by people who have to be paid minimum wage as well and this hasn't really scaled up with technology the way things like software can. If you put the cost into person-hours to create the house, and consider the relative scarcity of desirable land, there's not so much mystery here. Sure, there are vast empty areas, but not many people are willing to live in places with no utility hookups. Yes, there are prefab houses and whatnot, but that only enables so much scaling.
- blooalien 5y ago
  > "Putting up a house involves a ton of manual labor by people who have to be paid minimum wage as well" … I don't think I've ever in my life been paid minimum wage at any manual labor job I've ever had. Everything I've ever done in that field of work (ranging from literally digging ditches with pick-axe and shovel to commercial interior/exterior remodeling) starting pay was generally 1.5-2× minimum wage and often higher. When I think of minimum wage, I think motel janitorial, burger flipping, supermarket bagger, etc, though I suppose who pays minimum wage for what job also depends on location and employer.
  - craftinator 5y ago
    > When I think of minimum wage, I think motel janitorial I find this really funny having been a hotel janitor. It paid 1.5x minimum wage, but that was offset by them wanting not only a hardworking janitor, but also a skilled handyman who could also do plumbing, fix beds and railing, etc. I've witnessed this at several other jobs as well, where they hire someone for a low paying job, then expect them to use all the skills they have at the same pay rate as what they were hired for.
    - blooalien 5y ago
      I worked janitorial once, but in my case it was for a place called "ServiceMaster" that did office buildings after normal business hours. Their starting pay was also typically 1.5-2× minimum wage, and included benefits, and our bosses treated us with proper basic human respect. All that was expected of us was that by morning the building was clean and certain areas disinfected properly (bathrooms and breakrooms mostly). How and when we got it done was left to us, as long as it got done before quitting time. (We usually just worked our butts off to get it all done hours earlier than expected and then just slacked off the rest of the shift.) It was actually one of the better jobs I've had over the years. I got the impression though that we were considered "higher end janitorial services" and that our level of pay reflected that. Where I live motel janitorial appears to be more on par with burger flipping (as far as pay, not level of work), though I could see hotel janitorial staff probably getting paid more. There is a bit of a difference between a typical motel vs even a low-end hotel though.
paulpauper 5y ago
Housing is location-dependent. More jobs and higher wages generally equals more expensive housing.
avelis 5y ago
The SF Chronicle highlights the general restrictive zoning laws and how much the zoning tax adds to housing in major metros. https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/This-is-how-much-single-family-zoning-is-costing-16305216.php?fbclid=IwAR3_lIvChSToemZppDi5EJXrBwfkVboF6kruQPoZGfQPTDvAFMgY4ECVtm0 https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/This-is-how-much-sing...
tempfs 5y ago
TVs haven't really gotten all that much cheaper to my memory in years. I can recall spending about $7-800 on a big-screen cabinet for our family room in the mid-90's and then recently spending the same amount flat screen LED version recently. Computers also aren't really all that much cheaper now either. I mean sure, OK, compared to the 80's sure but that was 40 years ago. Cars have absolutely not gotten cheaper. Education and housing though...yeah. The Federal Reserve has made sure that no one has been able to afford either for many years now. Housing has also been made even worse by flippers and foreign investors(invaders). Rentals also consolidating into fewer and fewer hands which is just going to drive up rents for everyone. Electronics are frankly only so important. Housing(ownership especially) and education are actually things that underpin so many other societal problems that we as a country should have *never* allowed lax interest rate policy and Chinese investors / flippers to drive prices so far beyond any semblance of rationality.
- blooalien 5y ago
  > "Computers also aren't really all that much cheaper now either." Depends on how you define "cheaper computers". Over the years, $1000 home computer is consistently far more powerful with far more storage, memory, and features than that same $1000 would have bought you the year before. We also now have nifty toys like the single board computer market (Raspberry Pi, etc) weighing in at the $5-50 USD price range on average, and smart-phones in a wide range of prices (which are basically just a "pocket computer") far more powerful than entire desktop systems of decades past. > Electronics are frankly only so important. > Housing(ownership especially) and education are actually things that underpin so many other societal problems that we as a country should have never allowed lax interest rate policy and Chinese investors / flippers to drive prices so far beyond any semblance of rationality. Must agree with these points pretty much entirely though…
ehnto 5y ago
You can buy 30k affordable buildings, but you have to put it somewhere, almost everywhere and especially in these ballooning markets, it's the land that you pay for.
thanhhaimai 5y ago
Construction cost is only a fraction of the housing cost. The majority of the cost is for the location, which is unique and limited. That location cost is something technology can hardly help reduce. There are not many places that offer safe neighborhood s, good career opportunities, diverse cuisine, and sunshine year round like the Bay Area for example. That's regardless of technology advances.
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  > Construction cost is only a fraction of the housing cost. The majority of the cost is for the location, which is unique and limited. Then increase the construction budget and put multiple units on the location.
wernercd 5y ago
"Fuckery" aka: government interference. Zoning restrictions, requirements to get everything inspected, rent controls, etc, etc, etc. Look at other places government butts in? Schooling? Health care? Day care? etc... all more expensive and worse than ever.
dlsa 5y ago
New land can't be produced. Well, until we start digging. Land and location are linked. People want to go there. They want to live close to there. Demand spikes and goes up. Yet other locations people don't want to go so demand goes down. At least thats the theory. But now, the prices are just going up. Seemingly everywhere. Something is certainly going on. Its as if demand is increasing everywhere.
bravoetch 5y ago
| There's some fuckery afoot. Not really. Inflation is one culprit. And housing is already about the cheapest thing you can buy by weight. Housing isn't more expensive. Wages are less. If the money printer would stop for a few years, the price of housing would stop dead at that moment too.
imtringued 5y ago
You can't make land. By the way this goes both ways. Forcibly lowering the price of land doesn't make it disappear so the usual supply and demand arguments don't apply to private land ownership. e.g. heavy land value taxes discourage the production of land or make land move overseas

mimikatz 5y ago

Bullshit headline with truth spelled out in the article.

ed25519FUUU 5y ago
What do you mean? I thought it was normal for a single person to work minimum wage and rent a two bedroom apartment for themselves for 30% or their income.
II2II 5y ago
The only way to read it as a bullshit headline is if you believe living day-to-day is acceptable. There is a reason why they use housing as 30% of income as a baseline: without meeting that baseline, it is difficult to cover other necessary expenses and save money. Savings are important since the lack of them means a loss of work could very well result in a loss of housing.

gnarbarian 5y ago

minimum wage work used to be for teenagers living at home. The terrifying thing to me is that we have a large quantity of adults without any appreciable skills that would lend them to work which raises them out of minimum wage. most of us started at or near minimum wage living with roommates etc. The question to me is what is preventing these people from achieving career growth?

paulpauper 5y ago
Tons of middle age and old people doing minum wage, low-skilled jobs. This whole myth that minimum wage = young people died long ago.
- gnarbarian 5y ago
  You're totally missing my point. By the time you are old you should have acquired a valuable skill.
- walkedaway 5y ago
  That makes absolutely no sense. Of course minimum wage expands to mean "the minimum wage that some entry-level person should be required to receive." Entry level means young. That's exactly who the law should be for. After entry level, it's up to the individual to level up and improve their employability and work their way up. At least that's the way it used to work, and boy did it work. Nowadays everyone wants the payday without having to put in the effort.
jwilber 5y ago
What kind of outdated, out-of-touch take is this? Do you have any idea how much EMTs make? Teachers? Are those not “appreciable” skills? It’s ignorant comments like yours and the false narratives they push that result in our current abysmal minimum wage situation: https://www.cepr.net/this-is-what-minimum-wage-would-be-if-it-kept-pace-with-productivity/ https://www.cepr.net/this-is-what-minimum-wage-would-be-if-i...
- gnarbarian 5y ago

cracker_jacks 5y ago

When you make housing an investment, by definition, it has to become less affordable in the future. Until a country decides to stop making policy to support this notion that a basic need should be an appreciating asset and not a depreciating one like food, transportation, etc, this completely unsurprising trend will continue. It is a strange world we live in where we collectively believe that a basic need should appreciate in value over time.

ehnto 5y ago
For bonus points, make sure people outside of the local economy can buy and influence the cost of housing, making certain that the cost becomes completely decoupled from supply and demand of the community who are supposed to live in them.
adamnemecek 5y ago
Same with mortgages. They increase the price over time.
Dylan16807 5y ago
> When you make housing an investment, by definition, it has to become less affordable in the future. It doesn't have to. Even if it just matches inflation you could call it an investment. If it keeps up with wage growth, that's a pretty good investment that doesn't force it to become less affordable. Or it could be somewhere in between, and then housing would be a reasonable investment and increasingly affordable over time. The issue isn't that it's an investment at all, it's that it's much too good of an investment for multiple reasons.
redm 5y ago
The population is growing over time, so housing and land appreciate because demand and scarcity increase. From 180m in 1960 to 329m today. [1] [1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?locations=US https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?locations=U...
wernercd 5y ago
Its not just the investment side - although that's part... When the government throws tons of money at it? Housing is funded by a lot of government money for "affordable housing" and the like. As with ANYTHING the government throws money at? Supply goes down and prices go up. For other references on increased price, worse results? Look at school, daycare, health insurance... amazing how bad government help screws everything up. "basic need" supply and demand... when there's only x amount and there are x+more wanting it? the price will go up... either you increase the supply or decrease the demand. It's a strange world we live in where people think labeling things as anything removes the supply/demand dynamic and the ability of the government to screw things up "in the name of the good"

cjensen 5y ago

Article is really "minimum wage workers cannot afford a two-bedroom apartment while only spending the recommended 30% of their income on housing." There's a lot of assumptions there. Assumes minimum wage workers should not have to get by with a single bedroom and a couch in their own place. Assumes minimum wage workers should not have to spend more than 30% of their income on housing. Now maybe that should be our policy. I just don't think the headline should be "can't afford rent" until we've made a concrete policy decision as a people that supports the premise that they should be able to afford it.

mrkurt 5y ago
You could rephrase it in your head as "single parent minimum wage worker can't afford housing" if it helps.
- randyrand 5y ago
  My grandmother grew up sharing a bed with her 5 siblings (3 vertical, 2 at the foot) and she is always quick to tell you how much she has enjoyed her life. The idea that kids need their own bedroom is extremely modern. There’s no reputable science behind it.
- wernercd 5y ago
  Or you could rephrase it as "made up numbers reinforce the made up fact that minimum wage workers can't afford to live anywhere in the us despite all facts to the contrary"... ... if it helps...
  - kristopolous 5y ago
    The keyword is "afford". Can it be paid for with enough money for other things in life? There's over 100 years of scholarship and research on this if you're interested. You can get college degrees, have careers in these related fields. American culture in general does not value and it's dismissive of it and that's probably why America's livibility metrics are so out of line with everyone else. (See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_livable_cities https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_livable_cities) Or why the life expectancy is lower, suicide is about the same rate as sub-saharan Africa, and polls of satisfaction and happiness perform worse, etc. Such problems can be addressed

CheezeIt 5y ago

“ People working minimum wage jobs full-time cannot afford a two-bedroom apartment in any state in the country, the National Low Income Hou” Oh. Maybe they should get a roommate.

Acrobatic_Road 5y ago

I could explain why and how this "study" is deliberately crafted misinformation, but I assume you're all smart enough to read the article for yourselves and come to the same conclusion. At least a few commentators have figured it out. Have you?

lend000 5y ago

I'll save you a click: people with below median income cannot afford median two bedroom housing. I don't really see how this logically could not be true, unless minimum wage was the median income or rent was commodified.

qeternity 5y ago
Minimum wage cannot mathematically be the median income unless minimum wage was also the maximum wage. This article is useless.
- naniwaduni 5y ago
  You can totally have 51% at minimum wage and 49% at infinite wage. The incompatibility isn't mathematical.
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ed25519FUUU 5y ago

Vocation schools used to be the ones that ripped people off. Now they have to guarantee 70% job placement and is a good way to jump start a career in a trade.

cletus 5y ago

First let me say that I agree with raising the minimum wage and affording more people a "livable" wage. With that out of the way, let's start dispelling some myths. First, building houses inflation-adjusted actually hasn't gotten more expensive [1]. It's basically the same in real terms as almost 50 years ago. What has changed is two things: 1. Land has gotten more expensive; 2. Houses have gotten substantially bigger; and 3. Real wages have been largely frozen, particularly on the low end, for the last 40 eyars. So I was curious where the stats for rents came from and in Appendix B of the Full Report you'll see it uses the HUD FMR (Fair Market Rent) stat [2]. I was curious about this for several reasons. A description like "average house rent" raises a lot of questions like: - What sorts of properties does this include? Free standing houses? Townhomes? Condos? - What sort of "average" is it? Mean or median? You wouldn't want houses in the Westside distorting "average" rent for LA county, for example. > HOW IS FAIR MARKET RENT CALCULATED? > Fair Market Rent is generally calculated as the 40th percentile of gross rents for regular, standard quality units in a local housing market. This excludes low-quality units, already subsidized units, and units that have been built in the last 2 years. FMR rent data is typically taken from recent move ins rather than long-term tenants, as long-term tenants generally receive a lower monthly rental rate. FMR includes core utilities, like water and power, but doesn’t include internet and other optional services. Isn't this a bit misleading? Like, it's data from recent move ins so it's people who have decided to or have needed to move and what they've been willing and able to pay. [1]: https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/new-us-homes-today-are-1000-square-feet-larger-than-in-1973-and-living-space-per-person-has-nearly-doubled/ https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/new-us-homes-today-are-1000-s... [2]: https://www.hud.loans/hud-loans-blog/what-is-fair-market-rent https://www.hud.loans/hud-loans-blog/what-is-fair-market-ren...

dvt 5y ago

The ultimate irony here is JPMorgan Chase "generously" sponsoring this study. Yawn.

jrsj 5y ago

From my own personal experience living on minimum wage, the biggest benefit would actually be the removal of mandatory overtime pay past 40 hours. I wanted to work more, but had to juggle schedules of multiple part time jobs. I effectively had less time and money specifically because that regulation exists.

dlsa 5y ago

Well, if minimum wage earners can't rent then perhaps migration needs to drop. Or is that sacred because then population won't keep going up because migration is what is propping up population these days? Multiple demographics are essentially crashing. Plenty are below replacement right now. Should be interesting to see what happens over the next 20 years after reliance on migration finally changes voting trends.

perryizgr8 5y ago

1. Government sets/increases minimum wage. 2. Price of everything increases since people have more money, without corresponding increase in wealth/value. 3. Government: pikachu face

choko 5y ago

Here are some facts on how many people actually earn minimum wage. It helps put emotionally fueled opinions into perspective. https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2017/home.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2017/home.htm