comment: >
  
  If it helps at all, 75% less people make minimum wage (or below) now than they did in 2010
context: He brought up a $15 minimum wage back around 2015. That's about 8 years ago. In todays dollars a $15 minimum wage would be almost $19/hour. >
  
  Yeah that was always going to be the trap. Fighting tooth and nail for X wage would always be just in time for that number to no longer be the one you need. >
  
  Isn’t the usual answer to that issue tying it to inflation? 
  If not changing it every year, then consistent updates on a set schedule (2 years, 5 years, whatever works). >
  
  That's pretty much the only way to do it. The problem of course, is that non-minimum wage jobs wouldn't keep up. So those businesses that pay above minimum wage would be in a constant fight to stay ahead of it. They don't want to do that, which is why you see campaigns comparing burger flippers to paramedics and you're NOT supposed to come away with the conclusion that paramedics should just be paid more. >
  
  Burger flippers go thru training too ya know. >
  
  Do you really believe that both jobs should be paid the same though? >
  
  Both jobs should be paid enough to live on. Honestly, at this point, minimum wage should be like 25-30 dollars an hour to keep up with the insane increase of housing and food costs in the last 10-20 years. >
  
  100 % agree >
  
  It's more that we need to embrace change beyond paychecks. The right to life, liberty, and happiness must mean the right to food, shelter, education, health care at a minimum. Paycheck adjustments should be the determining factor between a US based vacation vs a European vacation, not whether someone gets to sleep in their car or under a bridge. >
  
  You nailed it with those four things (food, education, healthcare and housing).
  People who have security in those areas can live a modest but dignified life. But we are witnessing runaway profiteering in all of these areas, and it is destroying our society. 
  Can we please just be allowed to have an apartment that's not run down and bug infested, get a basic college education, see a doctor when we are sick and eat three meals a day including a few fresh vegetables?
  No, because it's more important for your boss's boss to buy an airbnb property and send their kids to private school >
  
  Where it’s really gonna start hurting us is in 10-20 years when multiple generations stopped pursuing starting their own business, pursuing their talents/ interests, etc because they had to get 3 shit paying job. It’s gonna become a compounding drain on our economy >
  
  Smart people will leave too, it's called brain drain. Just imagine us politics when Europe is making all of the big tech innovations, when the Google of the day is from France, the Apple from Germany.  Let's not even get started on what the meltdown would look like if it was China or Russia instead of Europe. >
  
  My industry is big in German and that’s what I’m planning on doing once I finish my masters >
  
  He is correct.  $$15 an hour won't work either. 
  
  
  $15/hr full time = 31000/year
  
  
  $26,000 after taxes
  
  
  Rent is $18,000 ($1500/mo)
  
  
  Food is $3600 ($300/mo)
  
  
  Electricity + Phone + Internet is $3000 ($250/month)
  
  
  Congratulations, you are out of money.
  
  
  Clothes? Gas? Car Payment? Maintenance? Insurance? Entertainment/Leisure? Unexpected expenses?
  Oh...don't forget that you have no health insurance and are one accident/medical emergency away from total financial collapse.
  u/PorkTornado >
  
  
  Food is $3600 ($300/mo)
  
  if you are lucky.  food for my entire family is $1600 a month, and that isn't eating healthy. >
  
  Is your family 7 people? >
  
  4, and its about $400 a month each right now.  2 years ago it was about $120 each per month, and we could afford to eat healthy. >
  
  You must understand it's hard to believe your groceries have gone up over 3x and you're eating worse now.
  Why have I not experienced such a thing in MD? >
  
  
  Why have I not experienced such a thing in MD?
  
  good question.  the cost of things like meat here has quadrupled.  a pound of good lean ground beef 2 years ago was about $2.  now a pound of good quality lean ground beef is $8, or the "cheap stuff" is $5 per pound.  I have to buy eggs from a friend who has chickens, else I would be paying $8 per dozen right now.  bread from the store is now $5 per loaf, or if you get it from a local bakery its just shy of $4.  the local bakery told me that flour and wheat products have gone up an insane amount over the last year.  a box of mac and cheese(like kraft crap) went from $0.49 a box to $1.99 a box. I wish I knew why yours hasn't gone up, but mine has, by a lot. >
  
  San Diego here and I have experienced the same thing. Those prices are consistent across all food, especially healthy food. Everything, even citrus. Except bananas have stayed about the same. >
  
  Fruit has gone insane here. Apples are 5 per pound, bananas are 4 per pound, oranges are 12 per pound, it sucks. >
  
  I'd love to make $2/hour more than I make now. >
  
  My dad is a few years younger than Bernie. When he was in college, he had a part-time student job that paid $6/hr at UCLA.
  Adjusted for inflation that's $38/hr... no degree, no experience. That's more than some professors make in the US today with a PhD and tenure.
  No wonder millennials and genZ are pissed. >
  
  Xennial here, I got to live at the end of single income families with "low income" jobs. A cart pusher could support a family of 4 (maybe putting in a bit of overtime).
  I got to see it. But that world was gone when I graduated. >
  
  Build housing at the rate of the 1950s and let $14/hour be livable.   
  The US can't maintain this insane housing racket.  Build millions of units for efficient communities in locations ideal for the global warming future.  Prepare for the mass coastal migration we have created while solving the housing crisis and greatly reducing cost of living. >
  
  Hell, just start building houses that are affordable. They only thing I see around here are luxury apartments going up everywhere. >
  
  And most of those luxury apartments are complete pieces of shit - I’ve been in 3 or 4 of them over the last few months for extended periods and the quality is worse than horrendous for an absurd amount of rent
  Their facade is flashy and appears “luxury” to attract new tenants, but the actual quality is some of the worst I’ve seen in my lifetime >
  
  Hell, 25 an hour barely lets me save anything. After bills, rent, utilities, and the like I still feel like I’m just breaking even. >
  
  He’s right. Needs to be at least $25 in some parts of the country with the cost of living now. >
  
  Needs to scale dynamically with the cost of living. There I said it. People need to feel like they can make ends fucking meat with ONE job. No one deserves to be poor in America if they have the drive to work. >
  
  If we can measure cost of living, we already know what the minimum wage should be. Lock it to inflation and be done with it.
  Next up, maybe figure out a system where people aren't coerced into working to meet their basic needs. But that's a radical leftist idea in this hellscape. >
  
  Then controlling inflation would suddenly become the primary goal, and fiscal policy would become a game of manipulating the official inflation rate. >
  
  No, if the rich want to try to extract more profits from us when we have an inflation adjusted minimum wage then we win.
  It's simple math. Inflation goes up, wages go up, capital class tries to extract profit from increased wages, inflation goes up. They will devalue their assets in a vicious loop until we all make a minimum wage of a billion a year or something.
  Let them eat their selves, my ass is protected from inflation in this hypothetical. >
  
  only minimum wage is protected.  and so every job becomes minimum wage.  that's how you make soviet russia.  it doesn't end well >
  
  But whose fault would that be? Those dastardly workers or the hapless capitalists chasing profit? >
  
  just pointing out that rampant inflation where everyone makes minimum wage might sound good, but in the end everyone suffers and society falls apart.  that's worse.  it doesn't matter whose at fault.  you can sit smuggly saying that it's the fault of the rich but that won't help you when you have to bribe the local official for just a little bit more bread for your kid. >
  
  It's not supposed to sound good. Ignoring that a minimum-wage pegged to inflation is never going to happen: It's a threat directed at the capitalists at the top. >
  
  you're threatening rich people with the creation of a serf/lord system.  it's not really a threat >
  
  I remember when I was once against raising the minimum wage until I was taught about it going up with production until it just didn't. There is no excuse to not raise minimum wage at this point in juncture. >
  
  I live in a tourist area, and our McDonalds already pays $17 to start. >
  
  I do wonder how many people are actually making minimum wage now. It’s so far below market, and most states have higher minimums, so it’s almost completely irrelevant. >
  
  According to BLS statistics (warning: pdf), about 1.1 million people are being paid at or below the federal minimum wage. 
  
  In 2021, 76.1 million workers age 16 and older in the United States were paid at hourly rates, representing 55.8 percent of all wage and salary workers. Among those paid by the hour, 181,000 workers earned exactly the prevailing federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. About 910,000 workers had wages below the federal minimum. >
  
  That statistic is going to be skewed because most states minimum wage is higher than the federal.  And they are states with large populations like California and New York. >
  
  Did you not read the comment above it? >
  
  That's what happens when it's been almost 14 years since the last minimum wage increase.