California’s minimum wage isn’t enough to keep up with workers’ costs of living, new report says
California’s minimum wage isn’t enough to keep up with workers’ costs of living, new report says
The state Legislative Analyst’s Office reports the state’s $16-an-hour minimum wage isn’t enough to address poverty and inequality.
This is true in literally every state.
State? True all over the world.
The minimum wage, if it's to be a liveable wage, should be set to some multiple of the median rent in an area. (Min Wage) x (0.30)=(Median Rent). Updated every year or two.
In my area...
The median rent in Los Angeles, CA is $2,760.
https://www.zillow.com/rental-manager/market-trends/los-angeles-ca/
So hourly should be $55.
Even for me that's a bit. Let's say the median household has two income earners, so base it on that. If you're solo you can get yourself some sweet studio or whatever. So, basing the minimum income on two incomes and median rent would make minimum wage $25. That is right on the money! Nice. That's what I've seen several reports say minimum wage should be if it kept up with inflation over the decades.
Median rent for my area just to the south is $3,586.
https://www.zillow.com/rental-manager/market-trends/orange-ca/
We are always told/taught not to spend over 30-40% of our income on housing. Hard to do if minimum doesn't keep up.
agreed. make the rich personally invested in the provision of cheap housing
Welcome the the USA the worlds greatest 3rd world country.
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I guess we have to lower the cost of living. We can start with rental property caps, and regulated food prices.
I am in a surprisingly comfortable situation (in Cali) and recently added a note to talk with my therapist about how much anxiety I have about money running out.
Late stage capitalism. America is the worst offender (IMO). The boom times that were unique to America (post WWII) are over. It's only going to get worse and worse from here on.
NO. FUCKING. SHIT! This is the case EVERYWHERE and it keeps getting worse. I guess I'm glad to finally see articles saying it straight up instead of "hmmm millennials and gen z aren't buying as much stuff, it's a mysteryyyy"
This is why I hate set number arguments. "The fight for fifteen" was so unbelievably stupid... If they understood politics at all they would know it can take decades to go from grassroots to policy... Fight for fifteen is just finally getting $15 minimum wage when now you need $20 because it took like a decade...
Which is absolutely intended. Push back long enough for the value to equal out. Then you "raise" the minimum to be an equal value of what it was when you were pushing back so nothing actually changes...
Feels like wages are always where the inflation buck stops.
"Nearly 6 in 10 low wage workers are Latino, and about half of those are immigrants. Most low wage workers live with at least one other worker and have no young children."
There's the problem right there. Your average (racist) American will look at that stat and go "So?"
Still, two people living together, each making $16 an hour, with no childcare to speak of... that sounds possible except in California.
$32 * 40 = $1,280 a week. * 52 = $66,560 a year.
You aren't making it alone on 1/2 that, but combined seems plausible.
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Yeah, a Trump presidency will totally fix this.
I agree that it's dumb to vote their party in the presidential election and think that will change things. But the presidential election is not the only election. You have local ones that you have a much greater say in, have much more potential influence over, and where you can start to make a difference and where working to get a third party in (or better yet, change the voting system to make it not tend towards two parties) is your best bet, and the poster has a point.
It's almost as if people pointed out that raising the minimum wage will result in higher costs for everything and thus raising the cost of living.
Hey you get a hundred more bucks a week? Guess what your rents going up fifry dollars a week.
Sounds great but groceries rise cost twenty more a month because they are paying their people more. Gas goes up... And everything else costs "just a bit more" because of rising costs for the new minimum wage.
Maybe the solution isn't to get more money but stop acting like everyone who decides to move to California deserves a charmed life. In the supply and demand metric for jobs California seems to be fine with increasing the supply of workers with out realizing that has caused most of the problems we have. Sorry but just like the game industry until people stop wanting to come out to California with out a job lined up ultimately there's going to be problem.
Btw I'm definitely not talking about immigration with this I'm talking about someone from Kansas deciding to come out to California for what ever reason, something not working and then bitching that they can't stay here on a minimum wage salary and afford a single room apartment.
Maybe if that's the case going back to Kansas which has a better cost of living is a better choice than trying to live in a city or state with the highest cost of living?
Not everyone has to leave to fix this but until at least some people leave the scale will continue to tip against everyone in the state because the surplus of people only raise the supply on people looking for jobs, raise the demand on housing which increase rent and this will continue until this idea that there's a guaranteed perfect Californian life exists for anyone who comes out here is dead
That's not how any of that works.
Many studies have shown that raising the minimum wage (especially from a low level) doesn't affect inflation at all. It actually may help the economy, since people buy more when they have money.
The marginal cost of making extra goods is very low. Food or appliances cost like a third of what they sell for, depending on where you buy them. So some extra wages for the person that makes it is not a large part of the cost. Distribution marks it up.
I was about to comment with this exact same line. This person doesn't understand economics.
Maybe if that’s the case going back to Kansas which has a better cost of living is a better choice than trying to live in a city or state with the highest cost of living?
Not to deride your minimum wage tangent here, but there's something to be asked here. Why does California have a high cost of living? Why does Kansas have a low cost of living? I think when you ask the question of why cost of living is so vastly different from area to area you start to get a better picture of why we have a lot of problems addressing wages matching that cost of living.
It’s almost as if people pointed out that raising the minimum wage will result in higher costs for everything and thus raising the cost of living
This has been a national thing. I feel like you'd might have a point if this wasn't true literally everywhere. Even where I live in very rural Tennessee cost of living has gone up. Our county recently increased sales tax and property tax is likely to go up as well. Cost of goods like eggs have gone from 78¢ to $2.19 here from 2019 to today, with eggs at one point hitting $6.99 a dozen here.
So there is a relationship between minimum wage and cost of living but that's clearly not the case with California's minimum wage increase that goes into effect next month. Everything, everywhere is increasing in cost. Which goes back to what I was saying. When you start asking questions on why cost of living is different, you get a picture of bigger factors that drive national cost of goods and services. And you see that touched upon in the article.
“We suspect that low-wage workers’ high likelihood of living in three-earner (or more) households might be due largely to California’s high housing costs,” the legislative analyst’s office said.
Housing is a massive thing everywhere and housing is flying through the roof. The reasons for that are complex and it's absolutely a discussion, for perhaps elsewhere though (I cannot imagine that Lemmy comments are that great a place for such a trite diatribe). Minimum wage does indeed play a role but, and I could be reading your comment incorrectly, I believe that you are attributing a much larger weight to that factor than it deserves and forgoing the complexity of the issue by solely focusing on that sole reason.