The next time the Dems get into power, they should split California and New York into little pieces and make DC a state to flood the senate.
US Politics
- Thread starter Nick 0208 Ldn
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Even as a person who votes Democrat, I’m fundamentally opposed to the Balkanization of America for partisan purposes.
Eh? I'd argue if a state is well-run and functioning effectively minimum wage workers should ideally be able to live in comfort. Minimum wages should be at a level where it allows those on said wages to do more than merely survive.
All people deserve to live a decent life
China announces retaliatory tariffs on $34 billion worth of US goods, including agriculture products
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/15/chi...-us-goods-including-agriculture-products.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/15/chi...-us-goods-including-agriculture-products.html
I'm sorry, but that's just not realistic, if people on minimum wage live in comfort, there'll be little incentive to strive for better living standard.
There's a big gap between "survival" and "comfort"
Depends on your definition of decent.
Isn't that the whole point of minimum wage? That the federally mandated least you can pay for a job is enough for a worker employed for 40 hours a week consistent with a full time job to earn a bare minimum livelihood?
I have a lot of problems with how that study is framed as they indicate that 30% of your wage should go to rent, A lot people make a lot more than minimum wage and spend close to 45% of their salaries on rent. Someone on twitter claimed that there were atleast 400 zipcodes in the US where you could indeed afford to pay monthly rent while earning minimum salary on a full time job.
However the point is that the federal minimum wage hasn't been raised enough to atleast fall in trend with inflation.
The Scandinavian countries with their society model have proven that raising the standard of living at the bottom of their societies has not made people lazy at all and unproductive as what you seem to imply. Their economies are doing excellent and all of them sit at the top of the European economies as can be measured on per capita. It is a right wing myth that if you make sure that the decent minimum wage is something respectable like a liveable wage above just survival then you hurt the economy as people will stop working hard.
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I can definitely see how it would be virtually impossible to live a decent life on minimum wage here.
As a reference, first year teachers with a bachelors degree in SC make on average about $31,000 a year. Broken down by hour, that’s roughly $15.90 per hour, or right at double the minimum wage.
The rent for the (cheap for this area) 1 bedroom apartment he’s living in is about 30% of his monthly salary.
It would be over half the monthly pay of someone on minimum wage.
As a reference, first year teachers with a bachelors degree in SC make on average about $31,000 a year. Broken down by hour, that’s roughly $15.90 per hour, or right at double the minimum wage.
The rent for the (cheap for this area) 1 bedroom apartment he’s living in is about 30% of his monthly salary.
It would be over half the monthly pay of someone on minimum wage.
Exactly!
That's kind of the thing that surprises me most about the GOP's approach to economy/society. If you look around the world at where outcomes are best - the GOP tend to favour policies that go in the other direction.
Great healthcare? Generally in countries with mandated, free health care for all. GOP's position: opposite
Welfare? Scandoland have the best results in terms of productivity, GDP per capita and output, with great welfare systems. GOP's position: welfare makes society lazy.
Education? Best outcomes in countries with free education that integrates races/socioeconomic status. GOP's position: segregate, gut public-schooling and make it necessary to pay $20k a year for a decent primary school.
Taxes? Happiest, most productive countries in the world actually have high progressive taxes, and use that to actually build infrastructure and improve the lives of everyone. GOP's position? Ayn Rand b*tches!
Basically to avoid cognitive dissonance, the GOP cannot look at real world examples of how their policies actually make no sense outside of soundbytes and anecdotes. And hence why they've created their own little bubble (Fox and talk shows) whereby they don't have to actually see anything in the real world, they can instead be protected from such things.
It's actually pretty reminiscent of how state-run media in communist countries hid benefits of capitalism from their citizens.
And it's scary as f*ck.
Great healthcare? Generally in countries with mandated, free health care for all. GOP's position: opposite
Welfare? Scandoland have the best results in terms of productivity, GDP per capita and output, with great welfare systems. GOP's position: welfare makes society lazy.
Education? Best outcomes in countries with free education that integrates races/socioeconomic status. GOP's position: segregate, gut public-schooling and make it necessary to pay $20k a year for a decent primary school.
Taxes? Happiest, most productive countries in the world actually have high progressive taxes, and use that to actually build infrastructure and improve the lives of everyone. GOP's position? Ayn Rand b*tches!
Basically to avoid cognitive dissonance, the GOP cannot look at real world examples of how their policies actually make no sense outside of soundbytes and anecdotes. And hence why they've created their own little bubble (Fox and talk shows) whereby they don't have to actually see anything in the real world, they can instead be protected from such things.
It's actually pretty reminiscent of how state-run media in communist countries hid benefits of capitalism from their citizens.
And it's scary as f*ck.
I think we need to clarify some things here, my initial response was that what would someone on minimum wage expect to be able to afford a 2 bedroom apartment, I wouldn't consider that bare minimum, I'd call that "comfortable".
Can Scandinavians on minimum wage afford a 2 bedroom apartment?
I’ve presented the argument you’ve made in this post to my GOP voting colleagues before.
The typical response I get once I prove that there are better systems out there is that “they wouldn’t work here because our people are different than their people. Our people would be lazy, or would cheat the system if we did that here.”
Yup. Of course depending on where you want to live. Copenhagen is expensive for instance. But someone on minimum wage could quite comfortably pay the rent where I live in Copenhagen.
Admittedly some two bedroom apartments would be too expensive to rent on your own but loads of people are fine with living with a mate.
I'm not saying people can't have a life on minimum wage, having a flat mate certainly makes sense. I just don't think it's realistic to think minimum wage should cover the rent of a 2 bedroom flat comfortably.
In 90% of the industries in Denmark the minimum wage is at least 110 Danish Kroner per hour and that is roughly 17.33 dollars. This is roughly 2632 dollars from 4 weeks ( 38 hours of work per week ) of work and while it can be hard to find a 2 room apartment in central Copenhagen to rent it is no not impossible and especially not hard to find one just outside Copenhagen for around 4000-4500 DKR for a two room apartment though mostly in the not so fashionable areas. This is like 20 minutes away from Copenhagen by train. Copenhagen have not build enough affordable housing for quite a long time though and that needs addressing but it something that can be fixed. This would mean a monthly rent between 622 to 700 dollars and from a 2632 monthly wage that is not bad. Also take into account you can apply for housing rental cost reduction aid ( State funded program to help make housing affordable for all ) and that would lover the rent a good 10% on to take it down a bit. In other words yes you can live in a two room apartment in Denmark even around the most expensive region in Denmark that is central Copenhagen.
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Wow, I'm shocked the rent is so low in Copenhagen.Put it this way, in Hong Kong, if you make minimum wage (HKD34.50 = USD4.40), you'd be lucky to be able to afford a cage.
I'm not advocating that this is the standard of living people should expect, but you basically need to be making over 100k a year to live in a 2 bedroom flat in Hong Kong.
What happens in Hong Kong and places like London is the lack of house planning that takes into the account the need of housing for ordinary people and as such you get a high demand for those small numbers of apartments as competition is to get one is high, and that is how price on rent gets jacked up into unhealthy levels. Landlords are able to demand too high a price for rent as there are not a healthy level of supply of affordable housing due to bad house planning. In Denmark house planning have generally been a lot more thoughtful generally speaking and ordinary workers and the economy greatly benefits from that as people are not getting fleeced by Landlords on rent. Affordable housing near where the jobs are available is critical to an economy that dosn´t treat minimum wage earners harshly to the detriment of the economy on a macro level.
If only. Upstate NY and Inland/North CA (everything not LA, the bay and San Diego) are solid red areas.
Put it this way, in Hong Kong, if you make minimum wage (HKD34.50 = USD4.40), you'd be lucky to be able to afford a cage.
I'm not advocating that this is the standard of living people should expect, but you basically need to be making over 100k a year to live in a 2 bedroom flat in Hong Kong.
Right so after all this it turns out that you cant think beyond your own circumstances. What about people with kids, Cal? Are we going to say having kids sleep in a separate room from parents is some sort of unrealistic comfort for people willing to work full time?
People cheat the system here as well. Lazy people taking advantage of social security is something you cannot avoid. That doesnt make it any less neccesary though.
What does grind my gears though is people on minimum wage complaining they can’t live in the center of Amsterdam or The Hague and on top of that have money left to go on vacation. I can barely afford to live in the center of The Hague and go on vacation and me and my wife both make a decent salary.
Minimum wage is just that, minimum. You’re not starving, you can buy a comfortable house and if you save up you can go on vacation once in a while. If you want more luxuries you will have to get a better paying job. Something not everyone can do, but that’s life. I’d like to drive a Porsche as well, but meh, can’t afford it.
Its neither realistic nor plausible. There is after all a reason its called minimum wage.
I'm sorry, but realistically it is, unless they're happy to live miles away from city center and spending a lot of time commuting.
Right and that's a Bad Thing.
That's the reality in most of the world.
Yeah, it's so frustrating. Really struggle with the GOP faithful. Then again, almost all my republican leaning friends are no longer leaning that way, so it really is becoming more and more fringe.
We arent talking about Hong Kong. Maybe the title of this thread is a clue. The US doesnt have a housing crisis and it doesnt have a lack of space to build. It doesn't have to be like this.
There is no minimum wage in Sweden regulated by law. But we have strong unions.
This just shows you that Trump has successfully gaslit the GOP base to where they will literally believe anything he says.
2 bedroom apartment allows for a wide range of possibilities from comfortable to slum.
A luxury 2 bedroom apartment in Manhattan could cost well over 3500 usd/month whereas a trashy 2 bedroom apartment in a depressed area might only cost 600-700/month
The luxury apartment in Manhattan would be well beyond "comfortable" status but the 2 bedroom slum apartment is not really comfortable especially considering all the variations that might need that two bedroom apartment. Family of four, a single parent with child, maybe a couple and an elderly parent with health issues, etc. Then there are all sorts of geographic concerns. A non-air conditioned apartment in Arizona would be cheap but extremely uncomfortable in the summer. Cheap ghetto apartments can be neighborhooda with high crime and danger risk.
A better standard overall for society would be something like - anyone working even a minimum wage job should be able to afford a roof over their head and a working bathroom.
Your country is at the point of no return imo.
There's no way back. The Republicans have fallen off a cliff.
UBI along with minimum wage might be a more stable approach for basic living conditions.
The GOP are on their way out. The rest of the country will be just fine.
For politics to work, both sides need consensus. You can't find one with this party.
Possibly yes. UBI needs a lot more research IMO as some of the proposals I was reading earlier were not very complete.
As an idea it feels like it's still very much in its early stages, but feels like it'll be inevitable one day. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing if it's implemented correctly.
That or one side would need complete control of all houses of government.