comment: >
  
  $15 an hour... so youll get a Jack in the Box meal per hour. Gee, thanks.
context: What do you expect? We've been relying on the good will of the bosses, and the integrity of the crooked politicians they lobby, to achieve better rights as workers. 
  American workers need to learn: If you want something good, you need to take it. Organize, fight dirty, be as vicious as your enemy. 
  We're battling people who see us as chattel, but there's only a few of them and a near-limitless number of us. Crush them. >
  
  Americans need to stop seeing Unions as a dirty word. 
  Thats the only way you get treated better. >
  
  One of the biggest coups of the 1980’s was the demonization of the unions. The people who lapped that poisonous rhetoric up ruined this nation >
  
  $15USD in 2012 would now be $19.45USD. >
  
  I was literally about to comment it should be $20 now. This is ridiculous. Longest stretch without a raise ever. >
  
  I remember in 2008 when I was working my first job and my wage raised with the minimum wage from $6.50 to $7.25… >
  
  Ooh, did your employer also make a big deal of it and pretend like they were doing you a favor by giving you the legally required raise? >
  
  Does a bear shit in the woods?  Does the Earth go around the sun?  Is Trump corrupt asf? >
  
  Does the pope shit in the communion wine? >
  
  And meanwhile ten years of inflation has made $15 comically inadequate. >
  
  Which is why targeting a number is kinda dumb. Most developed countries have their minimum wage tied to an economic indicator or two so that it automatically goes up over time. >
  
  The indicator was based on productivity growth. From its inception in 1938 to 1968, the minimum wage rose based on that indicator. If the same was true today, minimum wage would be around 24 dollars an hour or 48,000 dollars a year. >
  
  I feel like advances in technology have probably played a major role in the productivity increase. In 1978 it took a full department weeks to send out a few thousand pieces of mail. Now a single unskilled employee can send 10 million emails in under a second. Machines have also replaced much of the manual labor and made processes more efficient. >
  
  And?  In the past when asked to dig a hole no one would be paid less because they were given a shovel instead of using their hands, yet today we should be paid less because a backhoe is even more productive?
  Also, unskilled labor is a myth, there is literally no job in a where you show up day 1 and are just as good as the best in the field. >
  
  What's that got to do with the price of tea in China? He brought up worker productivity. Technology has led to a huge increase in productivity over the last 40 years. In many ways tech advantages have actually lightened our workload while making us significantly more productive. The employee sending out emails instead of mailing letters may be 100000x more productive, but that doesn't mean he's working 100000x harder. >
  
  That exact analogy still holds in the context of shovels and holes. People didn’t start getting paid less to dig a hole when shovels were invented… Technology that leads to productivity increases and wage decreases is a new and novel thing. Basically every other technology and productivity increase in history has increased wages and standard of living instead. We’re going backwards. >
  
  $15 isn't enough anymore though. Also, to be blunt, the lack of progress here is destabilizing our nation and setting us up for future pain both socially and economically. 
  Is it it any wonder why so much of the population, particularly Gen Z and the millennials, is becoming disillusioned and seeking alternate solutions other than the status quo? >
  
  Now $15 isn’t even a living wage anymore. >
  
  The irony of course is that if we had kept up with everything else we’d already be past $25/hr. Meanwhile no one in charge wants people to be able to afford to live. >
  
  You can’t argue for $25/hr minimum without arguing that all wages increase at the same rate. Unskilled labor at 25$/hr doesn’t feel right when you get payed that for skilled labor in many parts of the country. >
  
  duh >
  
  Meanwhile rent for a 1bd apartment is $2,000.00. Get that raise and still be strugglin. >
  
  I'd recommend moving from California. That is an absurd cost of rent. It isn't worth it. >
  
  The thing is people shouldn't be forced to move away from where they grew up just because its expensive.
  Honestly the best thing the government could do to lower rent costs would be to ban zoning laws or at least ban single-family zoning. This kind of zoning is keeping multi-family housing from being built in all but the most expensive of areas, which means any new housing is automatically adjusted to be high rated because of the cost to develop.
  After that, if the government went in a purposely built diverse income based housing (where some of the units are low income, medium income, high income, etc) themselves and rented it at or near cost to develop/maintain, we'd literally solve the housing problem within 20 years if they built voraciously.
  The point is to remove housing from being an investment to being a commoditiy. Housing should be something you rent and maybe splurge on if you want a nice house or apartment, but not something that takes all of your money away every month to pay for someone else's retirement. >
  
  This just makes too much sense. I have a friend that’s a landlord, their words exactly, “it’s not my problem that people can’t afford my rent…” This is the country we live in… >
  
  And landlords wonder why people hate them. >
  
  Right. Me and this person have arguments all the time. I’m like at what point is too much profit enough?! >
  
  It’s ridiculous that it’s 2022 and the federal minimum wage is STILL only $7.25/hr. That’s a whole $15,080 if you work full time at 40hrs/week for 52 weeks. Pre-tax. 
  The poverty line this year for an individual is $13,590. A full time minimum wage job with perfect attendance is a whole $1,490 above the poverty line. With no PTO, no sick days, no paid federal holidays, no employer provided health insurance/benefits. Nothing. 
  I invite anyone who thinks that it’s OK to pay people a minimum wage of $7.25 for any job, skilled or not, to GFY.
  Edit: -age from “wage age” >
  
  The overwhelmingly vast majority of workers make more than the federal minimum wage. Especially with states and localities setting higher minimum wages on their own, which is how it should be handled. >
  
  
  which is how it should be handled.
  
  Then you get Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee that have no minimum wage, and Georgia and Wyoming with a minimum wage below Federal.
  There absolutely has to be a Federal minimum wage. >
  
  
  There absolutely has to be a Federal minimum wage.
  
  To set a bottom floor based on the lowest cost of living state? Sure. To set a $15-20 minimum no matter the state or not linked to state cost of living? No. The economy and cost of living in each state is difference, which is why the system we have now of a federal bottom floor and states increasing their own is the best system. >
  
  That works until the cost of living is so far apart between different states that being born in, say, Alabama, is essentially a lifelong prison sentence because you will literally never afford to move anywhere else, or even pay for a sandwich and gas in the next state over. Not that this isn't already happening, and raising the federal floor would at least push the bottom states to not become prisons of their own making. >
  
  It's not the government's job to set a wage that would enable you to pay for moving somewhere else or buy food in another state. Its purpose is a minimum wage for living in the state you currently reside in. If states want their residents to be paid more, then they can raise the state's minimum wage. >
  
  And if states want to treat their residents like prison inmates, the residents can get fucked? The federal government shouldn’t allow these abuses of power. >
  
  How are they anything like prisoners? They have their freedom and liberty to choose a job and move to a different state if they want. There's no abuse of power in the first place for the federal government to even do anything, states have the authority to set their minimum wage, including keeping it at the federal minimum wage. >
  
  
  It's not the government's job to set a wage that would enable you to pay for moving somewhere else or buy food in another state. >
  
  Do you have a point you're trying to make, or just want to quote people's own comments? State minimum wages are based on residents living and eating in that state. If you want a different economic opportunity then it's on you to fund that. >
  
  $20/hr is $41,600 a year and in most of the country, that's poverty wages.   That doesn't even include taxes >
  
  Shouldn't that be $41,600 ($20 x 40 hours a week x 52 weeks in a year)? >
  
  Yeah you're right, not sure what the heck I added >
  
  The comment below was osted back when the "no one wants to work" cry was loud and proud. It accurately outlines that $15 an hour is not a living wage.
  
  Anytime I hear "no one wants to work anymore" I give them simple math problem.
  
  
  $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? >
  
  $15 is now all but useless. Due to the recent rapid inflation $25 is the new $15. Anything less gets us nothing. >
  
  You need to stop targeting a gross income number. That wage goes up, prices are going to increase with it. Because once you get $25… that won’t be enough and you’ll need $40.  
  Minimum wage should be tied to the cost of essentials.  Work some COLA rate for “rent + food (a balanced diet) + utilities” and have that be the new “minimum wage”
  Like if rent + basic needs is $1500/mo in bumfuck Arkansas?  Engineer the minimum wage to align with that.  If rent + basic needs is $3000/mo in Charlotte, NC, base it off that. 
  Because you chase a static number and you’ll always be poor >
  
  Yes and no. Right now Costs > Income for most people. Especially if you figure in stuff that really matters (healthcare, savings, HEALTHY eating, etc). 43% of the adult population in the US earn less than $25k. 70% makes less than $50k. Those are the percentages that need to have all the important things included in their minimum wage (rather government imposed or culturally fostered) and right now its not true anywjere in the country.
  Theres two ways to achieve it: lower costs or increase incomes. I must be => C for the vast majority. Anything else leads to eventual collapse. That means lowered wealth concentration and either an enforced minimum wage/ubi, or extreme business and upper tier tax rates coupled with heavy socialist programs. Nothing else provides the necessary balance for a broad and deep middle class, which is the ONLY segment that matters for stability. >
  
  Yeah. And that’s why I saying… they’ve got the data of what C is.  Base I around C. Make I = C + something.  
  Because if you look to increase I without doing anything to C, C is going to go up when you increase I. >
  
  A couple years ago I would've been okay with gradually raising the minimum. But at this point fuck it, double it overnight. Either you could afford it or your company deserves to fail. >
  
  The minimum wage is so laughable, there really needs to be a mass boycott of the lowkey slave labor going on in the US. >
  
  Yea. Labor strikes happen in pockets with teachers, rail workers, auto labor, etc. and unionization efforts with Amazon and Starbucks employees, for example. But we need a national walkout. >
  
  The fight won't ever end properly unless the cost of living for average people is managed as carefully as profits for the wealthy are. >
  
  I make $15, less with insurance and retirement taken out. 
  I’m living nearly check to check right now. Saving barely $100 a month and I’m spending zero on “non-essentials”.
  I don’t know how people with families are doing it right now. >
  
  Took so long to finally get 15 that 15 now is worth as much as 8 did at the beginning of the fight >
  
  Yep. My whole team got pushed up to a minimum of $15/h at the beginning of 2022. I’ve got the least money I’ve had in my account in five years at the same job due to price increases on everything. >
  
  That’s what happens when everyone all of a sudden just has more money. There is some price gouging that is playing into it but it’s all part of inflation. >
  
  Except that first part has played almost no part in the current inflation we are seeing, we know this because inflation is hitting globally and not just limited to the US.  Current inflation is being driven by supply issues and corporate greed. >
  
  Supply issues partly come from such great demand for those products. More people having more money creates more demand. >
  
  Now it’s $25.  The $15 is long gone. >
  
  Quiet quit. I got a bonus for Christmas because I slightly expressed my desire to leave the job. >
  
  $15 isn’t a living wage. $20 barely is. >
  
  The fight for $15 has been going on so long that it's now a fight for $25. >
  
  If people didn't spend so much time praising people who don't care about them, and if they would quit idolizing the rich, maybe we could get prices low enough to get back on track. It's already common knowledge companies are charging us much more than they need to, we just ignore it for some reason.