5 ms·

You need a $150k salary to _survive_ in a 2bd apartment in SF or NYC. This study is a garbage take. The reason minimum wage workers can't afford rent is not bec

You need a $150k salary to _survive_ in a 2bd apartment in SF or NYC. This study is a garbage take. The reason minimum wage workers can't afford rent is not because minimum wage is too low (because in big cities it's way above $15/h and enough to pay for food+other living expenses, minus rent) but because rent is too high. And that's caused by NIMBYism (in this case of the liberal variety but it's everywhere in America), not low minimum wage. If you literally just demolished all the shitty 2-3 floor townhomes in SF and replaced them with 20 floor towers like you see in Asian countries the entire problem is solved. Fun fact: a Berkeley professor named Robert Reich often likes to go on on Twitter about wealth inequality but he himself protested the construction of low income housing next to his home.

jjulius 5y ago
> The reason minimum wage workers can't afford rent is not because minimum wage is too low (because in big cities it's way above $15/h... Using your examples, SF is currently at $16.32/hr and NYC is at $15/hr. I don't know that I would call either of those wages "way above $15/h".
- b9a2cab5 5y ago
  And what are real wages for restaurant workers and other minimum wage tier jobs? If you take a look at SF, Oakland, NYC, or even mid-west cities like Chicago, they're higher than minimum wage by 20-25%, even at large chain restaurants.
endisneigh 5y ago
No you don’t (at least nyc), lmao. Furthermore saying anything along the lines of - “it’s not that you don’t make enough money, it’s that things are too expensive!” Is clearly pointless.
- b9a2cab5 5y ago
  If the same number of people are chasing the same number of apartments but making more money, the natural conclusion is that the price of the apartments will go up. If the same number of people are chasing _more_ apartments, the price of the apartments will go down (ignoring induced demand, but I think this is minor for NYC/SF). You can't just legislate a higher wage because in the long run rents will stabilize at a higher level to compensate and all you've done is make landlords richer and fuck over every small business in the city. You need to actually have more supply.
tablespoon 5y ago
Quoth the OP: > There is no state, county or city in the country where a full-time, minimum-wage worker working 40 hours a week can afford a two-bedroom rental, a report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition showed. That includes SF, and it includes some unfashionable place you've probably never heard of where the rent is literally the cheapest in the nation. This probably isn't the right thread to beat the dead horse of SF NIMBYism and push fantasies of a one-size-fits all solution of densely-packed 20 story concrete apartment blocks.

jjulius 5y ago

> The reason minimum wage workers can't afford rent is not because minimum wage is too low (because in big cities it's way above $15/h... Using your examples, SF is currently at $16.32/hr and NYC is at $15/hr. I don't know that I would call either of those wages "way above $15/h".

b9a2cab5 5y ago
And what are real wages for restaurant workers and other minimum wage tier jobs? If you take a look at SF, Oakland, NYC, or even mid-west cities like Chicago, they're higher than minimum wage by 20-25%, even at large chain restaurants.

endisneigh 5y ago

No you don’t (at least nyc), lmao. Furthermore saying anything along the lines of - “it’s not that you don’t make enough money, it’s that things are too expensive!” Is clearly pointless.

b9a2cab5 5y ago
If the same number of people are chasing the same number of apartments but making more money, the natural conclusion is that the price of the apartments will go up. If the same number of people are chasing _more_ apartments, the price of the apartments will go down (ignoring induced demand, but I think this is minor for NYC/SF). You can't just legislate a higher wage because in the long run rents will stabilize at a higher level to compensate and all you've done is make landlords richer and fuck over every small business in the city. You need to actually have more supply.

tablespoon 5y ago

Quoth the OP: > There is no state, county or city in the country where a full-time, minimum-wage worker working 40 hours a week can afford a two-bedroom rental, a report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition showed. That includes SF, and it includes some unfashionable place you've probably never heard of where the rent is literally the cheapest in the nation. This probably isn't the right thread to beat the dead horse of SF NIMBYism and push fantasies of a one-size-fits all solution of densely-packed 20 story concrete apartment blocks.