Good to see that there’s a modicum of common sense left in the Democratic Party. https://thehill.com/homenews/senate...pport-raising-minimum-wage-to-15-per-hour?amp
Didn't you see the tweet from a sassy hipster about how he runs a bar (in a very trendy area) and $15/hour wouldn't hurt him? Manchin knows that $15/hour would destroy his state (and most rural areas) even far past where it currently has been destroyed. Maybe that's the point.
Or is the reason these places are declining, with young people moving from rural areas to the cities in droves for a generation, is because there is not entry and low level pay that can support an independent adult? There is a chicken and egg thing here where people blame minimum wage for increasing cost of living and increasing prices... but federal minimum wage hasn't changed in more than a decade and those things have gone up substantially since then. There is no denying that a young person starting out today is more impoverished than they were 20 years ago, 30 years ago, and 40 years ago. You need only adjust for inflation. And that isn't even touching the cost of living increases and increases in the cost of home ownership, rent, tuition, etc. It is very easy to piss and moan about minimum wage increases being bad, but much harder to provide an alternative solution to the above problem-- assuming people who aren't being affected by it directly can muster a care. Maybe that is the problem.
Little of A, little of B. I think $15/hour will greatly accelerate the decline but it won't be the sole cause of it. If the Fed put out a mandate to have a COL-adjusted minimum wage based on BLS numbers, that would be one thing.
That is what I would like. But I am not sure if that is an economically supported position. Like, would it have secondary effects that would be undesirable. One I can think of: I moved to DC specifically because the pay rate here is higher across the board. My debts were static where ever I lived. Just by moving here, my effective level of debt decreased. CoL adjusted minimum wage would likely have no effect on that aspect, since I wasn't making near minimum wage but I think a CoL minimum wage may accelerate the drain from rural areas to small/medium cities in the same way a large city drew me in.
Why is it wrong to think a $15 minimum wage would drive more people to rural? If I can do the same job for the same pay and it costs less to live, then I net more. Rural is cheaper cost of living than urban.
that's true, but I think conventional wisdom is that rural businesses don't have the ability to 0at more.
That is already the case, though. Minimum wage in San Fran is $15.59/hour which is roughly $30k/year. Using a COL-adjustment tool (balances a multitude of factors), $30k in San Fran is worth $12k/year in Knoxville. Roughly equated, you'd gain almost $1/hour from moving to Knoxville away from San Fran. But people don't... because they don't want to be in Knoxville and lose everything San Fran has to offer. Lets keep digging into San Francisco, assuming these numbers are correct: Year | Meal, Inexpensive Restaurant | Meal at McDonalds | Loaf of Bread | Chicken Filets (1kg) | Minimum Wage 2010 | 10.00 | 5.00 | 2.50 | 8.64 | 9.79 2020 | 20.00 | 10.00 | 3.79 | 13.94 | 15.59 % rise | 50% | 50% | 52% | 61.3% | 59.2% That is a fairly linear rise that keeps up with the Minimum Wage rise and far outstrips the impact of general inflation (18.7%) which would net the minimum wage rise to $11.44 if this was only inflation driven.
the minimum wage is not what explains the CoL in San Francisco. and no one can live in San Francisco with less than a six figure salary
I just had a buddy move from Seattle to Tennessee for the very gain we're taking about. Now, it is on a level well above minimum wage, but his job is entirely remote. And had been for years. So they packed up and moved from Seattle to outside Sparta, TN, so their income would count for a lot, a lot more.
Oh yea, he's already flexed on me with his $1.2 million dollar house, with some horses. Getting paid either Seattle or San Fran money, as I'm not sure what his wife does remotely, but I think she came from SF, to do their job in middle TN.
cool, now his neighbors can hate him for being a carpetbagger big city elitist taking away their land while they fight any progressive policy attempting to stem the widening economic gap between them.
Plenty of people do. You can look at other cities that are pushing the $15/hour mark like Denver. It's seen a very similar rise in 1/2/3-BR rent prices inflating way outside of a normal rise. I mean, you can make the argument that the places issuing these minimum wage floors are generally trendy (SF/Seattle/Denver) and are more likely to be governed by Progressive-style leadership and inhabited by hipsters who seek a vibrant nightlife and that's adding to the huge inflation of COL. But then there's Austin. It's extremely hipster and is *not* seeing the same astronomical rise in COL that any of it's similarly trendy cities are. Denver, for a 1BR outside city center saw a 70% rise in rent (742->1324). In 2012, the minimum wage in Colorado was Federal. Now it's $13/hour. In Austin, a 1BR outside city center was $752. Now it's $1040, a 38% rise. Still inflating, but nowhere near Denver's rise. Austin doesn't deviate from Texas which doesn't deviate from Federal minimum wage numbers. Kinda playing devils advocate here, but numbers are numbers.
I lived in Denver, the rent far outpaced any minimum wage rise. I know it, I lived it. CoL has skyrocketed because so many people are moving to the area. At the same time, it being a desirable place can be somewhat depressive on income for lower tier jobs because of that. For reference, I lived in Denver from 2010 until 2016. My rent, for similar space, increased nearly 100 %. In that time, minimum wage in the city only increased a dollar. It was the other way around: people were being priced right out of the city and having to commute in, which was exacerbating an already terrible transportation problem.
I was surprised at how slowly Denver has grown since 2010. Roughly 1.8%/year. Austin is growing at roughly 4.5%/year. Nashville, for reference, is around 2.5%/year. Note: Those figures are for outside of city-center. The city limits housing for Denver was outrageous.
It was more than 3,000 new people a month. That doesn't make a huge percentage, but Denver itself is just not nearly as big as Austin or Nashville and you could feel the added population.
