this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2024
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well yeah but the cost of living would go up even higher.
Not reflected in any long-term wage increase or min-wage-introduction economic observations and studies conducted in the last 40 years. This is one of those "it feels 'logical'" talking points that capital likes to tout but is in no way backed up by data or empirical evidence.
sounds like something somebody who has no problem affording food & shelter would say.
You're missing my point. The individual experience, while important and not something we should ignore, does not invalidate the now-decades worth of data we have that shows your original posture (raising min wage leads to increased cost of living) is incorrect.
Make no mistake: costs for staple goods have increased in that time and inequality and share of GDP that belongs to labor have gone to hell, but it's not because of minimum wages or in any way related to their increases. If you want to blame anyone blame runaway healthcare costs, consolidation and unenforced monopolization of business, the decoupling of labor efficiency and labor pay, globalization and automation increasing competition and depressing local wages...etc
You careen right into being priced out of living with that argument. If you are pegged at a constant wage, that was theoretically enough when it was introduced, for more than a decade while the cost of living rises continuously, then you will be priced out of… living.
And that’s not ethical; fake number money should ultimately serve ensuring acceptable lives instead of keeping the cost of living from rising even farther past unlivable. It‘sa already unlivable - it doesn’t matter if it’s 10% over unlivable or 100%, it’s still an unlivable minimum wage.
Money is very evil for people with little of it. There’s a minimum you need to live. If you are under it, you may not live anymore. If you are just over it, you barely survive. If you make three times it, everything is fine. It gets worse from there (like ten times lets you buy a home and accrue equity while not bleeding money to renting housing, and your mortgage is lower than comparable rent to boot).
We poor people ARE being priced out of living. It's happening right now!
Ye that’s why I posted this one :3 gib us cot adjusted wage; if ur “bidness” cant b profit at living wage then u best git gud or git out
Pegging the minimum wage to inflation would checks notes only make the poor richer, and we can't have that
If we're pegging the minimum wage then call me "$7.25 an hour"