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Comment by wccrawford | Hacker News Reader

That's not nearly enough detail for the setting of the wage. Companies would simply assume that they always eat the cheapest food, buy the cheapest transportation, never go on vacation, no luxuries at all, etc etc. If you don't factor all that in, they'll factor it out.

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Even with all that factored in, and even with skipping meals, not traveling anywhere minimum wage does not afford one a roof over their head. Maybe with hours of commute it could start working out (if far away remote places are considered) but commute time is not included as wage and commute also costs money so it breaks the equation again. But CEOs are getting insane paychecks and bonuses.

I don’t think commute should factor into this discussion at all. People choose to live in expensive urban cities, why not move to a cheaper place? The point of opportunity is that everyone has it, but people that take advantage of it and succeed get chastised while other people who don’t wish to apply themselves get angry. Then add children on top of it and you have people with multiple kids living on minimum wage who feel entitled to earn more money because of their poor choices and family planning.

Cheaper places have fewer work opportunities and one end up with slightly cheaper rents and even lower wages but thats okay if the wage is enough to pay rent. Minimum wage is not. The assertion I made is not for expensive places but not rural either. Anywhere urban is already hard to make a living on Applebee’s salaries.

Still a great deal better than the current situation. Currently if you do all that stuff and have room mates you might break even.

I'd be here for using the same standards as rental agencies do though so it's actually possible to get a place: 3x the rent of 1 bedroom for one full time job. And make it within 30 minutes during peak hour (by whichever means is fastest). Also if they cite a train as their fastest, then no car or license requirements on the job and no penalizing anyone if the train is late.

If they want to be feudal lords, they can at least have the bare minimum responsibilities that actual feudal lords had.

> Companies would simply assume

This could be defined by local governments with additional standards not written in to this internet comment.

Nothing stops a local government, to my knowledge, or a state government from raising minimum wage for the unique conditions their locale faces and the ideals they want to reflect. People too often think about federal minimum wage, but think about how diverse the environments are that federal minimum wage affects. If you live in a city/state where the minimum wage is lower than you think it should be, you'll probably have better luck changing local conditions rather than trying to boil the ocean that is the US with 350m people and an enormous landmass consisting of the densely urban and sparsely rural, the rich coastlines and wealthy mountain resorts to the impoverished hill countries.

A large number of states don't allow local governments to set local minimum wages. Many of those states are as diverse as you describe the US. Trying to adjust the minimum wage may not be trying to boil an ocean but is trying to boil a sea or the great lakes.

Indeed in California where I live we have our own minimum wage, and I believe cities like San Francisco have their own too.

But when someone says

> I wonder what the USA would look like if minimum wage was defined as; two people being able to afford a 1 bedroom apartment within a 1 hour drive without traffic.

Then "nothing stops local government from doing it" seems to me to lack the aspect of wonder the parent had intended to evoke.

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