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> If an adult with kids is making minimum wage, they need to be able to rent a two-bedroom. Yes, the study would have been more useful if they examined whether

> If an adult with kids is making minimum wage, they need to be able to rent a two-bedroom. Yes, the study would have been more useful if they examined whether or not minimum wage could afford any two-bedroom, not the average two-bedroom. It's the mixing of minimum wages and average rents that is misleading. We need to look at minimum wages compared to minimum rents, not average rents.

plandis 5y ago
Would it matter if minimum wage can’t afford you any two bedroom apartments? It’s not clear that it’s truly necessary to me.
- tompazourek 5y ago
  The title says that minimum wage cannot afford any apartments, while it should actually say that minimum wage cannot afford average two bedroom apartments. The current title is misleading as it's not true that minimum wage cannot afford renting at all. They can, for example, afford cheaper-than-average two bedroom apartments. It's just arguing about the misleading title...
ahoy 5y ago
So if there are 35000 adults in a city making minimum wage and 200 total 2br apartments they can afford, does that somehow lead us to a different conclusion? Of course it doesn't.
- gruez 5y ago
  Maybe those 35,000 adults should move somewhere where pay is better and/or rent is cheaper. This isn't a hard concept. If there are 35,000 hunter-gatherers in a forest that can only support 400, are we supposed to sympathize with the stubborn ones that don't want to move out?
  - ahoy 5y ago
    Your analogy is nonsense. There are another 3000 hunter-gatherers who have hoarded 90% of the resources. If we split up the resources more equally we could support everyone easily.
    - gruez 5y ago
      The 3000 billionaires are hoarding 90% of housing supply in major cities? I doubt that. The lack of housing in such places has less to do with wealth concentration to billionaires and more with local grassroots opposition for new housing developments.
  - lovich 5y ago
    Is moving free/cheap for you? I’m fairly well off and the actual financial moving costs were enough to keep me from seeking a better deal on only every 3+ years when I would have been willing to spend the time (1 weekend) to move every year
    - gruez 5y ago
      Well we could subsidize people to move to a place that's affordable, but I suspect that has similar optics to "giving homeless people bus tickets to another town"
      - lovich 5y ago
        I don’t think that type of plan is bad because of “optics” but also because it doesn’t solve the problem. Subsidizing people’s moves doesn’t make sure they have access to housing. It just shuffles them to another area where it’s someone else’s long term problem, even if you secured them temporary housing as you moved them. We have more empty houses than homeless in the US. We should be able to guarantee food, water, and shelter to every citizen, even if we don’t necessarily guarantee it’s in a place someone desires. We aren’t productive enough as a society to be able to give everyone pleasure constantly but we are certainly productive enough to guarantee basic physical needs for survival
floatingatoll 5y ago
Some of the weird reaction to this type of comment is that being more scientifically accurate about the problem is perceived as being less persuasive about the importance of correcting the problem. Making the numbers more right doesn’t make the reality any less cruel, and more accurate numbers don’t seem to help persuade anyone to care. So it’s legitimate to say “could be better!”, but that’s often viewed as important relative to the issue itself: people can’t afford a home in America.
- fho 5y ago
  I just want to note that while housing prices are probably normally distributed, "minimum wage" is a "arbitrary" value that cuts of the long tail (effectively increasing average wages). As, per that definition, wages are now not normally distributed anymore it (statistically) does not even make sense to talk about average (i.e. mean) wages anymore. More anecdotally: I recently looked up mean and median wages in Germany. And what I found is that the median netto income (per employer) does not really differ from the netto income per household. I guess that means that the average German household only has one person working (while the other is probably taking care of potential kids).
- gruez 5y ago
  >Making the numbers more right doesn’t make the reality any less cruel, and more accurate numbers don’t seem to help persuade anyone to care. ...and that's how you end up with polarization with media. Neutral/objective reporting gets dropped because it "seem to help persuade anyone to care". It's replaced with misleading reporting optimized for shock value which gets a pass from one side because it fits in with their narrative, but is rejected by the other because of how biased it is.
  - floatingatoll 5y ago
    Studies show that the narrative will be rejected just as strongly if it’s presented neutrally with facts alone. I don’t disagree with your point in general, but non-polarized news isn’t much more able to get through to opposed people than polarized news. It turns out to be more complicated, generally requiring personalized one-on-one conversations, and can’t really be scaled up to broadcast media.

plandis 5y ago

Would it matter if minimum wage can’t afford you any two bedroom apartments? It’s not clear that it’s truly necessary to me.

tompazourek 5y ago
The title says that minimum wage cannot afford any apartments, while it should actually say that minimum wage cannot afford average two bedroom apartments. The current title is misleading as it's not true that minimum wage cannot afford renting at all. They can, for example, afford cheaper-than-average two bedroom apartments. It's just arguing about the misleading title...

ahoy 5y ago

So if there are 35000 adults in a city making minimum wage and 200 total 2br apartments they can afford, does that somehow lead us to a different conclusion? Of course it doesn't.

gruez 5y ago
Maybe those 35,000 adults should move somewhere where pay is better and/or rent is cheaper. This isn't a hard concept. If there are 35,000 hunter-gatherers in a forest that can only support 400, are we supposed to sympathize with the stubborn ones that don't want to move out?
- ahoy 5y ago
  Your analogy is nonsense. There are another 3000 hunter-gatherers who have hoarded 90% of the resources. If we split up the resources more equally we could support everyone easily.
  - gruez 5y ago
    The 3000 billionaires are hoarding 90% of housing supply in major cities? I doubt that. The lack of housing in such places has less to do with wealth concentration to billionaires and more with local grassroots opposition for new housing developments.
- lovich 5y ago
  Is moving free/cheap for you? I’m fairly well off and the actual financial moving costs were enough to keep me from seeking a better deal on only every 3+ years when I would have been willing to spend the time (1 weekend) to move every year
  - gruez 5y ago
    Well we could subsidize people to move to a place that's affordable, but I suspect that has similar optics to "giving homeless people bus tickets to another town"
    - lovich 5y ago
      I don’t think that type of plan is bad because of “optics” but also because it doesn’t solve the problem. Subsidizing people’s moves doesn’t make sure they have access to housing. It just shuffles them to another area where it’s someone else’s long term problem, even if you secured them temporary housing as you moved them. We have more empty houses than homeless in the US. We should be able to guarantee food, water, and shelter to every citizen, even if we don’t necessarily guarantee it’s in a place someone desires. We aren’t productive enough as a society to be able to give everyone pleasure constantly but we are certainly productive enough to guarantee basic physical needs for survival

floatingatoll 5y ago

Some of the weird reaction to this type of comment is that being more scientifically accurate about the problem is perceived as being less persuasive about the importance of correcting the problem. Making the numbers more right doesn’t make the reality any less cruel, and more accurate numbers don’t seem to help persuade anyone to care. So it’s legitimate to say “could be better!”, but that’s often viewed as important relative to the issue itself: people can’t afford a home in America.

fho 5y ago
I just want to note that while housing prices are probably normally distributed, "minimum wage" is a "arbitrary" value that cuts of the long tail (effectively increasing average wages). As, per that definition, wages are now not normally distributed anymore it (statistically) does not even make sense to talk about average (i.e. mean) wages anymore. More anecdotally: I recently looked up mean and median wages in Germany. And what I found is that the median netto income (per employer) does not really differ from the netto income per household. I guess that means that the average German household only has one person working (while the other is probably taking care of potential kids).
gruez 5y ago
>Making the numbers more right doesn’t make the reality any less cruel, and more accurate numbers don’t seem to help persuade anyone to care. ...and that's how you end up with polarization with media. Neutral/objective reporting gets dropped because it "seem to help persuade anyone to care". It's replaced with misleading reporting optimized for shock value which gets a pass from one side because it fits in with their narrative, but is rejected by the other because of how biased it is.
- floatingatoll 5y ago
  Studies show that the narrative will be rejected just as strongly if it’s presented neutrally with facts alone. I don’t disagree with your point in general, but non-polarized news isn’t much more able to get through to opposed people than polarized news. It turns out to be more complicated, generally requiring personalized one-on-one conversations, and can’t really be scaled up to broadcast media.