Comment by VLM | Hacker News Reader

Comment by VLM | Hacker News Reader

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Its innumeracy propaganda.

There are no minimum wage jobs where I live anymore, and I live in a lower cost of living area (not Manhattan or silicon valley, LOL). I'm not surprised no one can afford rent at $7/hr when no one can find a job paying $7/hr. Costco has a sign up paying $19/hr to empty trash cans and they can't hire people at that low of pay and the article claims its a tragedy that a middle tier single bedroom would take $21 as a nationwide average; although I live in a lower cost of living area.

The government "Fair Market Rent" is sort of median quality housing. If the goal is to demand that even people at the literal bottom of the barrel of income in the 0-th percentile live in 50th percentile housing, then who will live in the 0th to 50th percentile of housing. A goal of having the lowest percentile in any group meet median achievements is inherently impossible.

There does not seem to be any actionable plan proposed; to me its obvious that raising the legal minimum wage from $7 to perhaps $8 will not improve anything if the absolute bottom of the barrel of jobs in low paying areas is already $19/hr AND there is no supply so there are unfilled jobs. Another obvious proposal is building more housing to crash the price, and the ownership class is not going to tolerate that behavior LOL.

As a thought experiment, if the living conditions are indeed unlivable as the guilt inducing article proposes, fine, lets run with that theory that its true nobody can live that way, then how are so many people living that way?

> Costco has a sign up paying $19/hr to empty trash cans

I am getting really tired of people casually talking about jobs like this as if they are easy. Do they require a ton of professional knowledge or skills? Nope. Are they way harder than your job? In all likelihood.

I mean, all the proof you need is literally in the fact that Costco can't find workers willing to do the job for that wage. The conditions suck for how hard the job is.

The epitome of privilege is assuming everyone has house servants to empty their trash cans. My trash cans at home do not empty themselves, nor do I have my hired man do it for me.

Yes, I admit elderly living in nursing homes do have hired help empty their trash cans.

Is it a sign of society collapse that one-armed individuals and those lacking any upper body strength cannot live in the lap of luxury? Nah, they go be cashiers at the same store. Well, whatabout those too dumb to make change but too smart to get SSDI disability? Whataboutism has become tiresome and as such is no longer effective propaganda.

I have worked a job where emptying trash cans was one of my responsibilities, and it is nothing like emptying the trash at home. They're enormous, heavy, usually leaking putrid liquid, and you have to lift them above your head to dump them in a dumpster. Some of the putrid liquid will get in your hair every day, and you won't be able to get rid of the smell until you get to go home and shower in the evening. It's hard to appreciate how bad of a job it is if you haven't done it.

the worst thing about that smell is it follows you even after the shower.

I seriously doubt they "can't find workers." I have a friend who works at a rural Tim Hortons and he described to me the massive stack of applications he spotted as "thicker than the phone book. Like two new packs of printer paper." Despite multiple interviews per week nobody gets hired. They've been on a skeleton crew since last summer. I think it's a total crock that they can't find anyone. More like they can't find anyone good enough, and good enough means willing/able to do 4x more work than anybody with the same job had to do previously. I want to start my own million dollar paranormal challenge, but it's for anyone who can prove a non striking non startup company has suffered due to not being able to find workers. I don't think it's happened a single time since 9/11.

I've heard the same thing on a recent NPR Planet Money podcast: No Shortage of Labor Stories (Dec 2021): https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1065332194

Employers were saying they're desperate to hire, and there are plenty of people applying and not getting hired. It makes no sense. I hear more and more of these mismatched supply-demand anecdata. I can only conclude that there are not honest conversations around hiring; that is, the real requirement for the job is not being conveyed, or at least written down or said out loud. Like you said, if an employer such as Tim Horton has a desperate need for labor but is turning down large number of applicants, the labor being asked for is not being proffered at the wage being paid, and the alternative (not filling the position and then complaining that you can't help) is better than hiring. That is the only reasonable conclusion I can draw.

2% of hourly workers make federal minimum wage or lower according to BLS numbers. Many lower paying jobs (Walmart, McDonalds, etc) pay about $10 an hour. They generally don't provide benefits. So even if you get two jobs to fill a 40hr week, you're stuck with the medical costs. Good luck paying for housing and medical coverage (transportation, taxes, retirement, etc) at $20k per year in most areas. Hopefully you can get on assistance to help out.

There are a variety of issues and possible improvements to help the situation, not just the two you mentioned.

That 2% consists of people like my teenagers, both of which cannot afford housing and medical coverage by themselves and as Dad, I'm personally quite well acquainted with how they get financial assistance (LOL).

And no, McD does not pay $10/hr, I live in a low cost of living area away from the coasts and the sign on the door opposite my grocery store lists $15/hr right next to the sign that they're cutting hours due to lack of employees. On the coasts I'm sure its higher although cost of living is probably higher.

Your teenagers work fulltime? The BLS numbers for that 2% was looking at fulltime hourly workers. I'm sure there are plenty of part time people that would increase that 2%.

That 2% also includes disabled people where they can legally be paid below minimum wage. E.g. Walmart greeters with downs sydrome...

Speaking of innumeracy, how would a person afford to save for a homeloan deposit, while also paying for health insurance, rent, food, and vehicle maintenance. With kids? Might as well hang yourself, before the kids hang themselves.

I'm in Australia, so the numbers are approximately similar, our minimum wage is $20.33 an hour, our public health care system had been eroded by successive governments, and never included non-emergency dental so you probably want to spend around $40 to $60 or more a week on health insurance.

No one on $19 an hour is buying houses.

If your minimum wage is $7 an hour, but the lowest paying job currently advertised is $19 an hour, let's just call the effective minimum wage $19 an hour, and base or assumptions off that.

Many people are living that way, sure, but, man, both the USA and Australia have turned to shit. Fuck being a young person today without the good fortune of being born with good genes in to a good family. People can't find places to rent even in the small city I live in, families are living out of their cars, or in tents under bridges.

In Australian! It's not like we're short on land, or wealth.

Half the issue is that people have been indoctrinated to expect home ownership and long for some golden age seen on TV that never existed.

Home ownership was never universal in the US. It has been within a few percent of 65% since the 1960s[1]. It was always out of reach for the lowest earners, like those that make minimum wage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home-ownership_in_the_United_S...

What you're saying surely has elements of truth, in average the struggle is real and it's hard.

But it's also a matter of perspective. Here's a few additional perspectives, none of them the whole answer. But possibly provide insights and even hope for those who are most motivated.

Creating a house is a huge achievement, if you had to build it, and it's components, yourself, you would spend decades building a modern style house. It's unrealistic to expect that everyone can get this easily and early in life. Our mortgage system allows people to own earlier while paying it off to make that possible, but otherwise this is something that only a skilled person after decades of work would achieve.

Minimum wage isn't expected to be the maximum income achievement for someone who works hard, the idea is to find a niche where you can make more than minimum wage. This takes time of hard work, but it's patently still very possible in Australia, and much harder in many other countries overseas.

People who bought houses in the past had it easier in some ways, but lived a much much more basic standard of life. If you talk to average (ie not wealthy) people who bought houses from 50 to 20 years ago, it was incredibly hard for them, and involved sacrifice of pretty much everything to the mortgage for a decade of their life, while working hard and supporting a family. No overseas holidays, computers phones and entertainment, paying for kids sports programs, home delivery of meals etc etc. The standard of entitlement has raised incredibly decade on decade - in the past it was Expected to sacrifice to afford a home.

Some people still, despite the challenges were buying homes on minimum wage jobs in the last decade, before the current waves of price rises, and some probably are still buying now. But those people who did structured their life in a way to reduce every expense and save then buy modest places, away from conveniences and lifestyle areas. Similar sorts of sacrifices that people of the past would have done, just they are living in an era of inflated lifestyle expectations so they socially making more sacrifices even if the actual physical sacrifices are less in that they e.g. still have a phone and more entertainment than the past.

>Creating a house is a huge achievement, if you had to build it, and it's components, yourself, you would spend decades building a modern style house.

In my country the houses in the villages used to be built with local materials by the owners themselves, with some help from family and neighbors. The vast majority were very small even if the families were large but it didn't take decades or even many years to build them. Now houses are larger and built by dedicated teams or companies, families smaller and many moved into towns where they live in an apartment building. Most people I know, younger or older, either live in apartment buildings or they live in house in a village near the town, because owning a house in the town is terribly expensive. Either way, they are paying for the place with credit or they are renting. For many people, owning a home means paying rates 20 to 30 years.

So if you are 20 and feel entitled to a 5 bedroom house in one of the best areas the people who educated you did a poor job. B

So basically what you're saying is that there should in theory be no floor to QOL, but then tacitly agreeing with the hand-wringing about how society (a construct based almost entirely around QOL) is faltering?

First, it's not federal minimum wage, it's minimum wage for each jurisdiction. So Washington state being $11 or whatever it is, not the federal min.

Second, for some reason I believe the propaganda that city living is inherently less costly despite it being pricier everywhere in the USA, so I believe rich city liberals need to change zoning to allow cheap housing to be built.

Finally, they're living that way by getting ostensibly making minimum wage, but with so high of commuting time and cost as to be making less per hour but working more than 40. Or by living in miserable conditions: in an RV, 8 people to a 3-bedroom house, etc

"First, it's not federal minimum wage, it's minimum wage for each jurisdiction. So Washington state being $11 or whatever it is, not the federal min."

The BLS data was only tracking federal minimum. I would like to the state minimum wage earners, but that wasn't in that report.

"so I believe rich city liberals need to change zoning to allow cheap housing to be built."

I believe it's all due to preferences. The preference for sfh, preference for better schools, preference for low crime, etc. It's pretty cheap to live in many north Philly neighborhoods. Many people don't want to.

I agree with the final part. I turned down jobs in college due to the commute cost.

> Many people don't want to.

They'd like their kids to go to school without bad influences. You can't watch your kids 24/7 so choosing the kind of people they'll be around is one of the few levers you have as a parent.

Now, if we had a national ethos/culture which the government was empowered to enforce (like Denmark, Japan, etc) then it doesn't matter as much which neighborhood you live in. But living in North Philly is basically dooming your children, what we might call "intergenerational poverty".

Yes, and those empowered schools would be a much better fix than the one parroted around about just fix zoning so we can build more housing in the desirable areas.

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