Hacker News Reader

> In fact, the labor cost component of a fast food burger is minimal

Only if you are considering the wages of the employees at the fast food restaurant. But when it extends to employees involved in the logistics, processing, and farming its no longer minimal.

Tangentially, calling the rise in wages a "living wage" in SF/DC/NYC/etc. is folly to begin with and reveals minimum wage laws are based on sloganeering and not an economic analysis.

View on HN

Employees involved in logistics are already likely earning more than minimum wage. Those involved in processing and farming likely do not live in the same jurisdictions.

Anyway ...

The basic idea is pretty simple: if you work 40 hours a week on minimum wage, you should be able to rent a reasonable condition 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom apartment relatively close to where you work.

That's not a "slogan", it's an idea that's been nominally central to The American Dream for more than a half century (but also largely untrue for the last few decades in many metropolitan areas).

Do you oppose this idea?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com