The minimum wage is a sick joke.
It’s easy to see why the minimum wage is unacceptable
- The minimum wage is $7.25 an hour.2 If it had been indexed to the consumer price index since 1968, the minimum wage would now be $10.15. If it had kept pace with executive-level pay increases, it would be $23.3
So equitably $23.30/h should be the minimum wage, as it is the proposed $15/h barely makes the grade.
- In 2020, the Department of Health and Human Services set the federal poverty level at $26,200 for a family of four. That’s equivalent to about $12.60 per hour for a full-time worker.
- For example, the cheapest metropolitan area in the country is Brownsville-Harlingen, Texas. The MIT living wage calculator says that a single person must earn $10.47 an hour to afford to live there.
- On the other hand, one of the most expensive U.S. metropolitan areas is New York City, MIT’s calculator estimates the living wage in Manhattan to be $17.46 an hour for a single adult.
Why should anyone have to take two jobs or more just to survive?
Some like to boast that the US is the richest and most powerful country in the world.
The “for some” obviously earn more than a poxy $7.25/h.
The MIT Living wage calculator can be found, here.
If the minimum wage does not equal at least the living wage what is damn point of work?
You could do other things to mitigate the living wage requirements;
- Medicare for all with the cost based on income with no upper income caps.
- Higher the income where you start to pay federal and state taxes.
- Affordable, good quality and energy efficient homes.
If both parties want everyone to buy US products.
Give them the damn wages so that they can afford to.
