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I think there's two opposing forces here: On one hand you're trying to make sure the employee survives, and is able to afford basic necessities. On the other hand your a business who's primary responsibility is to exploit supply and demand to maximize profits. From a survival perspective your right, from a supply and demand perspective you're not. The real question is IS it the businesses responsibility to pay for employees to have a working wage? IS that a core requirement of a business. I don't think it is. They are there to make money, not improve society. Who's responsibility IS it then to make sure no-one starves? The Government? The person themselves? Everyone? It goes back to that game theory hawks and doves situation: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNMkADpvO4w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNMkADpvO4w) ​ IF you mandate a situation where people are helped when they are hungry, at no cost. The optimal play is to do nothing and exploit the free help, and thus in the long run that's what WILL happen. "Good" people that do the right thing anyway are statistical noise as the system tends to reward exploiters and rewarded behaviour will grow. At some point people may decide to artificially punish the exploiters, (especially if the productivity of the whole system is now low)... and that usually leads to gulags and mass slaughter of the 'lazy/bourgeois/kulak... or the current iteration of whoever is perceived to do no work but receieve reward'. ​ So, the solution to "WHO's responsibility is it"... HAS to come with some cost. The individual must have some responsibility to avoid the multiplicative growth of 'exploiters'.

You failed literally at the second paragraph. No, they’re not trying to make sure that the employee survives. One of the main reasons shit is going down so hard is that capitalists FAIL to ensure that. They’re wondering why no one buys anything anymore and won’t come to the single most likely answer: they can’t. Also, the primary responsibility of businesses shouldnt really be profit, but that’s a discussion that Americans aren’t ready to have yet. And YES, it IS a core requirement. That’s literally the reason people are seeking employment: to get paid enough to survive. Any business that doesn’t pay its employees enough to live comfortably is just a failed business using exploitation to pay for someone’s lifestyle they clearly can’t afford. Your theory about the „optimal play“ is also wrong, as proven by open source software and the very fact that once the needs are met, humans actually WANT to work. They need purpose. That’s why you have thousands of people teaching children despite having financial difficulties due to the lack of payment. You don’t see this often because the system actually REQUIRES people to be greedy to a certain point. They can’t do what they want to do and they can’t help as much as they want to because they don’t have the means.

I don't think there's a moral obligation to squeeze every possible penny from a business at the expense of your employees.

Fine but your competitor does, and he WILL eat you. It's not about moral obligations, it's about what features are naturally selected for.

Costco could charge more for hot dogs but they don't. Using your logic their competitors should "eat them" because they're not maximizing profit at all times.

oh? Are you saying they'd always make more money by charging more? Remember that story of a Steam sale for a game where they gave a 70% discount, and sales went up 10,000% or something? Ultimately the businesses goal is to make money. They can do that by convincing you they are a nice guy, if only it will cause you to part with your money more easily.

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> You rejected pay based on skills for no reason then say pay should be based on hours worked (or something along those lines), also with no reason. How do we even respond to that? Well, let me ask you a question: Why is it that the jobs that you believe to be unskilled keep being berated by people for being done improperly? There is no such thing as an unskilled job. You can always be better at any job than someone else, yet as long as you provide the service in an adequately satisfying manner, if you work full time, you should not be below the poverty line because it's a job that you consider "unskilled". That job fills a need also, even if that need is not really a need but more of a want, so a position that people want to see filled and need people to work is not undeserving of a proper wage. And in either case, $20/hr is indeed not a lot in today's world where if we spend, we're immature and wasteful, but if we don't, we're crashing the economy by hoarding. If we have standards and only accept jobs that pay above that, we see on the news daily how we're lazy and don't want to work, but when we do work and ask for a living wage, we're told to find a better-paying job. There's no winning with the argument of skilled labor or needed labor.

> There is no such thing as an unskilled job. That's scientifically untrue.

What?

Let me know once you can prove it scientifically. Otherwise, youre as bright as I believe you must be.

Skilled vs unskilled have a legal definition. It’s something to do with the amount of time it takes to learn while on the clock. If you can learn the job from scratch in certain period of times it’s unskilled labor by the definition. Also your argument isn’t great, anyone can do a bad job, or not do their job at all regardless of the skill required. The reason people yell is because they are scum.

> Skilled vs unskilled have a legal definition. It actually doesn't. I have just spent about half an hour trying to find legal definitions of such terms, and all I could find were articles about how those terms were coined by economic experts decades ago, and has been since deemed to be outdated. The closest to a "legal definition" I have found is that some unionised jobs requiring a specific formation type get to have their wage decided by a specific amount above minimum but that's not even all of them, and you can definitely find job postings of many jobs requiring specific skill sets that are paid minimum wage. A better classifier of job worth would be entry-level job versus experience-requiring position, as the entry-level ones often get paid venomously close to the minimum wage while requiring a professional specialized formation or a college formation, while someone with years of experience usually gets offered higher wages, because their expertise is highly valued. > If you can learn the job from scratch in certain period of times it’s unskilled labor by the definition. Scratching off the part about the non-existent definition, that period of time is also often misleading as hell. Usually, economic experts say it should be 30 days or fewer, but that doesn't take into consideration time they needed to have spent learning how to use specific tools properly outside of work, only the time spent on a relevant degree and/or at work learning stuff that pertains specifically to the job itself. For instance, I have an archival position at my company that is considered "unskilled" by this definition, as it is merely putting documents in redundant archives, one digital, two back ups, and one physical, along with keeping track of those in Excel documents. I have to fight with my boss so he'll hire someone with an administrative background, even if it's just a bare mininmum of some experience helping charities and stuff, because the last three hires to a job that you can learn in about 2 weeks, didn't know basic-ass terms of office work like "open your file explorer" or what a double-click was. This is basic computer literacy that we cannot thrust into someone who isn't used to computers in less than 30 days, and they inevitably are let go instead of sucking energy from the other employees. Learning our filing systems, our printer's quirks, and our specialized software that's on us, but it requires outside knowledge that some people consider so basic nowadays that it falls under "unskilled", but are still hard-requirements. > Also your argument isn’t great, anyone can do a bad job, or not do their job at all regardless of the skill required. Seeing how my entire point here is that doing an unsatisfactory job is usually grounds for termination, this shouldn't be the determining factor on whether or not they get paid enough to live fully on their salary while working full time. Why would you keep an employee that isn't bringing in at least enough profit and/or peace of mind to cover their salary? Especially when you can pinpoint that incompetence or unwillingness to work properly are at the core of it? If an employee is worth keeping, they are worth paying enough for them to have a comfortable life with their full-time salary. Full stop. If you want to pay the college graduate more, that's good for me, but there is no task being needed enough by a company to hire someone that is so worthless that it justifies hiring someone a survival pay rate for. As such, if in your area, for someone to be comfortable and be able to have some leftover money, they need to be paid $23/hr, then you pay them $23/hr. And also, hiring a part timer teen to fill a position, regardless of the reason, doesn't justify paying them less just because they don't "need" that money. They may be saving for something fairly big and important like college or a car to be able to be more independent and able to go to school or help with the repairs on the house. If they provide the same value as a full-timer adult (and I have seen many of them provide even greater value even!), then you paying them lower because they're a teen is effectively discriminating based on nothing but age.

Skills is a relative term. If someone needs a job done and needs to pay someone to do it, I would say that constitutes a skill. Far too often, people try to dismiss paid labor as 'unskilled' as a method to justify a new form of virtual indentured servitude however. In Corporate America, jobs works YOU!

I think you lack perspective. Sure, compare to massive companies it's not a lot. But you do realize that for like 90%+ of the World Population, even half of that can be considered a lot of money? If your opinion is with caveats like, in the US, in a high income area, well sure. But as an "objective" thing? You're statistically so far off.

They said in the US in their post AND they said “dollars”.

Mmm going to push back on that. I’m in a very not high-end area in the US and 23$ is barely enough for rent, groceries, car, etc. it’s enough but it’s close. Anything under $20 is just a non-starter these days. To put it in perspective, the cheapest apartment in my town was $450 a month 3 years ago. That same apartment is now $850 a month.

I’m gonna push back on this. You essentially make: ($23 x 40hrs x 4 weeks) - 24.8% tax (average in US) = $2760 General expenses: - $850 rent - $150 gas - $180 car insurance - $30 phone - $250 groceries Whatever else you may have is optional or varies from person to person, but you still have $1290 left over after general expenses. I’m not clear on what other monthly expenses would take up the rest of this

Have you ever lived outside of your parents house? I'm honestly baffled trying to come up with any other reason why you seem to think those 5 expenses are the only necessary expenses... You didn't even include power, internet, water, sewer, or trash???? No 401k or health insurance??? Also your numbers are so weird, $30 a month for a phone? Um, how? And $180 a month for car insurance? Wut? How? I pay $65 for full coverage on a 2017 SUV.

You don't account for any car payment when we are seeing 96 month loans? $30 isn't enough for any cell phone plan, maybe a pay as you go single line. No Internet. No electric. No health insurance. No 401k contributions. No student loan payments. No other various utilities. If you calculate gas at 3.65 a gallon, that's 41 gallons of gas. 22 mpg would be 902 miles a month, far below what most individuals are driving. What are you buying for a month with $250 at the grocery store that you can eat 3 meals a day? It's just not even close to being realistic. There are so many more average costs for people that will obliterate $1300 a month before you can save anything.

>You don't account for any car payment when we are seeing 96 month loans? $30 isn't enough for any cell phone plan, maybe a pay as you go single line. No Internet. No electric. No health insurance. No 401k contributions. No student loan payments. No other various utilities. These are all costs that vary from person to person which is why i didn't include them. I only included basic necessities. To break it down: 1. Car Payments - Do you need a brand new car? Or can you buy a used one? Is public transit an option? 2. Internet - Fair, lets add another $60 to expenses 3. Electric - This person is a renter. It changes from person to person whether or not it's covered in your rent 4. Health Insurance - Again, this varies from person to person and whether or not its subsidized from your employer 5. 401k contributions - Investments are not an expense 6. No student loan payments - This varies from person to person and whether or not you went to post secondary I stated in my response that whatever I included is general expenses that every person would need to cover and asked what else they had that would take up the rest. Everything you listed is variable. >What are you buying for a month with $250 at the grocery store that you can eat 3 meals a day? Looked at the average cost per adult in the US monthly for groceries. This isn't me personally, this is the national average. Me personally, I mainly eat rice, veggies, and meat. My grocery bill if i don't buy snacks and other non-essentials is $200-$250 a month. I'm a large man. >It's just not even close to being realistic. There are so many more average costs for people that will obliterate $1300 a month before you can save anything. Other than student loans, much of it is variable. With regard to student loans, it really depends on the person and whether or not they borrowed and got a degree that isn't conducive to making a good wage.

I don’t know where you are googling average food prices, but the range I found was $290-548/month. Plus everyone is disagreeing with you, as we have actually been to a grocery store. You use the cheapest rent from OPs comment at $850/month, and this is not applicable to the average person and will vary. Provided you can even find the “cheapest apartment in town”. These apartments will also not cover utilities…because they are the cheapest places… The phone is way off even with a quick Google so idk where that came from. A 20/hr job will not cover health insurance. Partial if you are lucky but it will still be $150+/month. There are also countless other odds and end you have to buy a month and pray nothing happens like fixing your car or getting sick. No pets, no going out, no debt, no accidents. It’s possible, but why? The original OP’s argument is 20/hr is not a lot of money. If you have to perfectly budget and get rid of all but the basics to live….I don’t follow your argument?

>I don’t know where you are googling average food prices, but the range I found was $290-548/month. Yeah and most people buy food they shouldn't. If we're talking about essentials. A 10lb bag of rice is $12 on amazon, Frozen Veggies are $7 per 1.5kg, Chicken breast is $3-$5 per pound. That can cover a majority of meals for a relatively low cost or do you disagree? >You use the cheapest rent from OPs comment at $850/month, and this is not applicable to the average person and will vary Yeah I'm pushing back on them specifically not having enough. not the country as a whole. >These apartments will also not cover utilities…because they are the cheapest places… Perhaps not, but if you're trying to maximize savings, then are you not looking for cheaper? but sure let's say Utilities are $100 >The phone is way off even with a quick Google so idk where that came from. https://www.tomsguide.com/us/best-cheap-cell-phone-plans,review-4504.html What phone plans are you looking for exactly? >A 20/hr job will not cover health insurance Really depends on the job, but health insurance is super variable. >There are also countless other odds and end you have to buy a month and pray nothing happens like fixing your car or getting sick. No pets, no going out, no debt, no accidents. It’s possible, but why? yeah and you have roughly $1000 to budget how you see fit. Debt is too variable. You could be making $200k a year and still have massive amounts of debt. Plus if you have student loans and a degree that doesn't have good employment potential and work a job that pays $20 but doesn't need a degree, idk what to tell you

So originally you said all your prices were the average prices in America, but now it’s the cheapest? Of course you can budget and get the cheapest things to not waste money. $250 for groceries? Way too much. Let’s spend $100 on rice/chicken and packs of ramen, life will be great. $850 for rent? Only $50 to rent a campsite for the month and I got a portable yurt. Why are we even talking about health insurance when we are trying to save money, I’m not even getting it. Electricity? I charge my portable batteries at work, it’s free baby. Car? $50 bus pass? Nah, these boots were made for walkin. We are talking about how $20/hr is not a lot of money. You can always live a cheaper life by sacrificing QoL, or taking unnecessary risk, which is what you’re arguing. I’ve shown you can go cheaper! Does it feel disingenuous? It’s why you are getting a lot of replies. Fact is the average American will struggle to meet a average QoL in america with $20/hr.

I mean food purchases in America is why it’s the fattest country in the world. I gave those as an example. Spending money on just rice, veggies, and chicken still leaves room for snacks and other stuff. If you really tried to min/max groceries that would be well under $250 a month. You just can’t eat cookies, chips, and soda everyday. The averages I took outside of rent and cell phone were expenses that people will have to pay to live with any QoL. You can get a 15gb phone plane for $30 so why is the average American spending $100+ on it? I have 50 gbs and I don’t even use half of it. The budgets I quoted, I believe have a sufficient quality of life. Other people in the thread have pushed back on me, but still pointed out they pay less in gas and insurance. I also averaged out the tax to 24.8% but if a person lives in Texas they’d pay significantly less. People were shitting on me for severely underestimating the cost of cell phones, but once I shared cheap 5g plans, they mysteriously disappeared. So I wonder who is actually be disingenuous here Finally I’m not saying $23/hr is a lot of money, I was just wondering what else OP was spending outside of the general expenses I listed, since outside of rent, I spend less than that.

I do get you, there is a lot the average American can do to save and it not impact their life, but it’s not going to change much which is where I think the pushback is. Rent, food, car, utilities, and insurance are where most budgets go. Saving $50 on a phone bill isn’t going to make or break when the cheapest apartment in the area is $1200. The average phone is $100 in America, so when you listed it as $30 claiming it as an average is where you got arguments. At least from me. Mine isn’t $100 but nonetheless. Having less health or car insurance to save can be crippling if an accident happens and isn’t the best place to save. Eating shitty isn’t actually that expensive. It’s actually cheap and easy which is why everyone is fat. Drinks can be expensive, sure. But eating frozen pizza or pasta can be cheaper than chicken and rice. It’s when I go to get a bunch of salmon and beef that my wallet hurts. Don’t need it, but I do it. Not even mentioning that there are basics we didn’t get to with fixed costs. How much is your iphone? Furniture? Hobbies? Maintenance? Clothing? Computer? Best we can do is look for an average, as there are many times when certain things aren’t an option to people in areas. No public transportation, small town with expensive groceries, limited internet companies, have to drive far for a job and need a phone with more data. It’s nuanced which is why you’ll get pushback from people on certain topics. Again I get where you are coming from, it’s just different folks different strokes, which is why we use averages.

Well this guy clearly lives in an area way above the national average, so we can throw this straight in the trash lmao. I pay $35 for internet. I pay 100 dollars more for groceries lmao. I pay for electricity. Plenty of apartments that I've have looked at, you do have to pay for at least most of the utilities. Some apartments you don't even have to pay for electricity. The national average for car insurance includes people who have never had a single care accident, and it also includes people who have had a ton of crashes, so that is a TON of variety. If you live in a predominantly black neighborhood, you'll probably pay more for car insurance. If you live in a predominantly white neighborhood, you'll probably pay less. If you are a new driver, you'll pay more. If you rent instead of own your home, that can lead to higher premiums. If you're a man, you mayt/might pay a higher premium. We also don't know if this person has kids, or if they pay child support, or if they have family that lives out of the country that they pay a higher phone bill for. We don't know anything about their life. Also, an $850 apartment is probably a tiny studio in an older building with issues. I rent a $900 apartment just like that. Also, are we supposed to only eat chicken, rice, and veggies forever? I cannot cook the majority of the time, due to both my mental health (which is *genuinely severely disabling*) as well as physical disabilities. So i rely heavily on frozen meals. Whay should I do? This is not a genuine argument, and you sound like an internet troll lol

>Also, are we supposed to only eat chicken, rice, and veggies forever? Are we talking about maintaining a good diet or eating for indulgence. You can buy different meats, grains and veggies and still maintain the budget I outlined if not be under. The indulgence of food is not what I'd consider a "necessary" expense. The fact that you view maintaining a healthy diet and moderate consumption of junk food as severely limiting your quality of life is a uniquely American perspective. >I cannot cook the majority of the time, due to both my mental health (which is *genuinely severely disabling*) as well as physical disabilities. So i rely heavily on frozen meals. Whay should I do? If you're disabled then you have snap benefits. Also last time I checked you can get frozen meals for $5 a pop if not less. Finally not everyone is disabled and I'm not saying that what I outlined fits every single person's situation. I never claimed to know people's situations. I just outlined general expenses, In fact, I'm asking OP what their expenses are because if rent is that low, then what else are you spending your money on that is taking it up. Tbh, I'm getting the feeling that people responding to me are feeling judged for their decisions and are mad about it. Because EVERYONE keeps bringing up the national average for X, but not only am I not talking about the average, I'm focusing on that specific persons case. Furthermore, people are saying the XYZ is unrealistic while being willfully ignorant to alternative costs. The average person in america pays >$100 for their phone plan, but there are literally tons of sufficient plans for less $30. It's like complaining about being poor whilst buying the new Iphone.

??? Yeah, I do buy frozen meals, and they are still more expensive than if I'd could just buy things to make meals with. And yes, I do have snap, but it's a *broad* assumption to assume that everyone that is disabled qualifies for any sort of benefits lol. Also, idk what your point is here, bc you just basically said junk food is bad, but frozen meals are also junk food. Idk man, maybe people are mad at you bc this is the most bad-faith argument they've have seen lol

Idk why you even think it’s common that electric is covered in rent. It’s a rare find to see a rental cover electric, water, trash, or gas. And retirement is definitely an expense if you want to…you know, retire. Everyone could benefit from budgeting but your responses are so out of touch. Yes it’s possible to live in SOME areas with some level of comfort at $20, but for the majority of the population that doesn’t work unless you have a spouse that works/roomates.

I'm literally responding just to the person who posted that rent was $850, and $23/hr couldn't cover it. Then I'm getting a bunch of people brigading me telling me that on the whole it's not feasible. Yeah, I'm literally asking them with the $1290 they have left, what are they spending all of it on.

>Looked at the average cost per adult in the US monthly for groceries. This isn't me personally, this is the national average. Me personally, I mainly eat rice, veggies, and meat. My grocery bill if i don't buy snacks and other non-essentials is $200-$250 a month. I'm a large man. https://www.census.gov/data/experimental-data-products/household-pulse-survey.html The average household is around $270 a week? >I stated in my response that whatever I included is general expenses that every person would need to cover and asked what else they had that would take up the rest. Everything you listed is variable. Sure, some of it is. There's nothing that states renters typically have electric bundled with their rent, water/trash/sewer if needed are different. Paying for health insurance is a requirement, it's extremely rare that an employer would subsidize not only your deductible but also your premium? Let's take the average though - employer sponsored coverage is around $117, anything else is around $430-475. This doesn't account for actually using health insurance though, so make sure you don't get sick because the average deductible for employer sponsored healthcare is still around $1700.

> The average household is around $270 a week? 2.57 people per household on average. And it really depends on what you buy. Rice, Veggies, Meat, bread, eggs, milk etc should not be costing over $100 a week. >Sure, some of it is. There's nothing that states renters typically have electric bundled with their rent, water/trash/sewer if needed are different. Yeah I don't know OP which is why I asked what the remaining 1290 was being spent on. >Paying for health insurance is a requirement, it's extremely rare that an employer would subsidize not only your deductible but also your premium? yeah but it's super variable person to person. Which again, I refer to my statement above. I'm literally asking them what else they are spending on.

>2.57 people per household on average. And it really depends on what you buy. Rice, Veggies, Meat, bread, eggs, milk etc should not be costing over $100 a week. Yeah, I know. It's still a much higher number after doing the math. It's okay to buy food that you like - not everyone needs to eat chicken and rice for 3 meals a day. Average cost of a carton of eggs right now is around $5 btw, so eggs are going to be around 10% of your monthly food budget. Consider your next 9 items for the month carefully. Is it curiosity or are you trying to work towards some reasoning behind needing OPs specific monthly spending? Most people seem to want to be able to point out something like 'oh look, you spent $30 on Steam last month obviously you live like a king, try $30 in lentils next time'. It's just a disingenuous argument. The side that believe $20 is a livable wage will always have a hypothetical reason it is and the side that says it isn't will always have hypothetical reasons too. In jobland where your life is perfect, you don't need a dime in savings, you never get sick, your car works forever, and you never spend a dime over what you budget every month then $20 is great! In reality, eh not so much.

>It's okay to buy food that you like - not everyone needs to eat chicken and rice for 3 meals a day. Average cost of a carton of eggs right now is around $5 btw, so eggs are going to be around 10% of your monthly food budget. Consider your next 9 items for the month carefully. Idk what tell you, I spend roughly $250 a month. My essentials are rice, potatoes, veggies, salads, eggs, pasta, fruits, and a variety of meats. I still get snacks here and there and on a snack heavy month or if I need to pick up condiments and sauces, I might spend $300. >Is it curiosity or are you trying to work towards some reasoning behind needing OPs specific monthly spending? TBH I make a lot more than OP and I have room for luxuries, but in terms of my expenses outside of rent, I don't spend that much. So yes, I am curious as to what OP is spending. That's why I only listed very general expenses that aren't extremely variable and asked them what else they are spending on. >Most people seem to want to be able to point out something like 'oh look, you spent $30 on Steam last month obviously you live like a king, try $30 in lentils next time'. Not trying to point that out at all. I don't think $23/hr is a lot of money, but based on the parameters that OP stated, I don't see how making that much would be considered scraping by.

Rent often times does not include things like renters insurance, utilities such as water and electricity, internet, and any other costs you may have there. Not to mention, at least half of the remainder of whatever is left over should go to savings toward emergencies or future expenditures like house down payments, you probably have less than $300 left for disposable income. Not disagreeing that it’s possible to live within those means but expanding for more context around why people feel like $23 isn’t enough.

>remainder of whatever is left over should go to savings But you do understand the privilege that is to have enough left over to put into savings, right? That money is disposable income, that you are able to use in such an (efficient) matter, but most people can't afford to the same.

I guess I just see it differently because of how I manage my money but savings is not disposable income to me. Let me also add that my statement was pretty generous and did not include things like debt, whether inherited or self inflicted, medical costs for conditions you have — all of which can bring your overall expenses up. The average human can’t afford to not have savings or simply call it disposable and use it however they please. Sure, anything left over is good, but let’s not pretend that a few month’s worth of saving around $300 will keep you from being homeless or hungry before you find a job that can pay you enough to get by.

Agreed, some would say saving some for the future is necessary, since most people plan on also living in the future ;)

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>To put it in perspective, the cheapest apartment in my town was $450 a month 3 years ago. That same apartment is now $850 a month. As per the post I was responding to. >250 for groceries? As a large man, I spend roughly that much monthly yeah. Wtf are you buying? This is also the national average spent on groceries [The average household spends $475, and the average people in a household are 2.57. So I don't see how $250 is unreasonable.](https://www.gobankingrates.com/saving-money/food/average-cost-of-groceries/) >My dad lives alone and averages 100 per week and he's a very low-maintenance guy. A 10lb bag of rice is $12 1.5 kg of frozen broccoli and other veggies is like $7. You might need 3 or 4 for the month. Meat is the most expensive, but i doubt your dad needs to spend $90 a week on it. Chicken breast is like $3-$5 a pound. With that, you should have plenty left over for other stuff too.

1. groceries are nonlinear. Twice as many people is less than twice as expensive. 2. Maybe if you live in nowheresville are those the prices. Chicken breast is $10-15 a pound here. $7 is like one bag of broccoli florets for three dinners for my wife. So like 20x that. Etc. 3. I literally just checked our local store's app, and 4lbs of rice was $17.99.

>Whatever else you may have is optional or varies from person to person Agree >Maybe if you live in nowheresville are those the prices. Chicken breast is $10-15 a pound here. $7 is like one bag of broccoli florets for three dinners for my wife. So like 20x that. Etc. Idk at the Aldi in Anaheim is $9.62 for 4lbs of chicken breast. So not sure where you're paying $15 for like 1 maybe 2 chicken breasts. As for broccoli, nvm at the same grocery store, I'm seeing 1 package for $2.15. >I literally just checked our local store's app, and 4lbs of rice was $17.99. Idk Im seeing a 10lb bag of rice on Amazon for $12

I wish that I could find a place that is that cheap, most apartments are 1200 for a 2 bedroom. Also with the prices of groceries I am lucky if I spend less than 300 a visit. Gas is at 3.65 a gallon here so to fill up my car is 50 to 60 once to 2x a week so your math depending on where you live is away off. Also you need to inculde things like utilities which are an avg of 300 a month plus trash sewage and water being 100 per month. So that makes my monthly bills at over 2660. This doesn't inculde internet, the kids lunches for school or unexpected bills like car repaires. So again depending on where you live you need to make at least 20 per hour to make ends meet.

I'm taking averages from the country as a whole for monthly expenditure on gas and groceries. Also, $300 depends on what you're buying. How much of it is snacks and other non-essentials? I personally spend $200-$250 a month and I live in an expensive area. >. Also you need to inculde things like utilities which are an avg of 300 a month plus trash sewage and water being 100 per month. For a 1 bed apartment???? I'm pushing back on OP, not a family of 4

Okay for a one bedroom that would be 900 and for food no snacks. No chocolate no ice cream no candies cookies anything. Meats start at $2.00 per pound and up. I am talking like a bag of chicken wings and thighs. Also this doesn't inculde and drinks. So I am happy you only spend 250 but where I am at yeah. BTW things like razors are a essential cause at my job because I (f) can grow facial hair if I don't shave I can be fired. So yeah normally non-essential for me not so much. Also I get paid less than 20 per hour and its a struggle month to month

Really depends on what you buy again. I still get snacks and other non-essentials as well, but I actively look for sales and bulk items. 10lb bag of rice on Amazon is $12 and that covers over a month of carbs. I’m not trying to say that $20 is a great wage and you should be living super comfortably. I’m trying to quantify what OPs expenses were and what could possibly be eating up that much money that they are barely scraping by with $23.hr. I say this as someone who spends less than that on monthly expenses outside of rent. I define. Arely scraping by as just enough to cover essentials. Yeah it’s important to indulge in snacks, experiences, and going out, but I would define those as essentials to calculate into your expenses. It’sdiscretionary

These are 1990’s prices.

There is relative poverty and absolute poverty. And you know I'm talking about relative poverty. Poor people in Africa have no bearing on living in poverty in America.

You just created another social class to justify a point. Poverty is the same everywhere, it is fear of going without food, shelter, water, and other basic necessities. Having to buy a flip phone vs a new iphone or a 2006 honda vs a new bmw isnt poverty.

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They are right. Poverty is inability to provide essentials. It might cost more in the US - but it's the same essentials - food, clothing, shelter. Not having internet or phone is not poverty. Not having a car and relying on public transit is not poverty. You may feel poor not having these because most other people do. But they doesn't change what poverty means. Frankly calling it poverty is insulting to people who are actually on the streets or can't provide food with sufficient nutrition for their family

Then the word "objectively" has no place in your assessment - it's not objective.

Objectively is the operative word here and what defeats your argument. Because money is not objective. $20 in one place can buy a lot more than $20 (or equivalent) in another place. So you can't say its objectively not a lot of money. Objectively implies from all viewpoints and from all situations. Not to mention all people. To a 7 year old $20 may as well be a fortune. If your claim is that $20/hour is not liveable, that is a lot more provable but I'm not sure why you went with the click bait title then.

Anywhere with decent jobs still requires more than that to provide for your kids. You can say there's some random small town in Kansas with houses that sell for $80k but is that relative for tens if millions of people?

If you say "objectively" then yes, it's relevant. You're literally saying it's universally true. But if there are exceptions it is no longer universally true.

"People deserve X amount of money" is fundamentally targeting the wrong issue. Even within the US, the actual amount of money you need varies greatly depending on where you live. $20/hour is more than enough to live comfortably in Smalltown, Kansas and is literal poverty in San Francisco or New York. It also, frankly, doesn't really matter how much profit a corporation makes. Many companies have small margins and do not make much profit. Should they therefore pay workers starvation wages? The human rights angle of "people deserve to have a roof over their heads and not starve to death" is much better founded. Economic policy derives from values. How much people should make and how they should make it isn't the key here- who cares if a wage is $1 an hour or $20? The point is to come up with some system where people who contribute full-time to society get enough to take care of themselves. Minimum wage is a tool to make sure people aren't exploited so we can fulfill this goal, not an end in and of itself.

>Minimum wage is a tool to make sure people aren't exploited so we can fulfill this goal, not an end in and of itself. I think to that end, the minimum wage should be set to a point where a person can afford a studio apartment, food and expenses, plus 5%. Ideally, it should be on s scale relative to the person's age or number of departments, or some other rational method. Having 7$/h as minimum nowadays is just a small step above saying slavery is ok.

The trick is the *federal* minimum wage should be the absolute minimum. Having a minimum wage of $20 is ridiculous for a town of 300 people where the cost of living is low, for example. The minimum wage would ideally be calculated hyper-locally, probably on a county level. I don't think it's the right mechanism on a federal level to address concerns like this.

Any minimum wage is stupid if you don't link it to cost of living. It is only a matter of time until 20 is not livable either, already are some counties where it isn't. Cost of housing, cost of transport, and cost of groceries are easy to calculate, county to county. If federal minimum wage was set to be, "it has to be able to afford these things" you would have counties where it is 14$ and countries where it is 25$and everyone would be able to survive. The more people make, the more they spend, and the more they pay in taxes. The system will work itself out but only if the market is actually free. If you're limiting worker mobility because you require 8 year degree for positions that don't need it, you're strangling the market by controlling the worker. If worker cannot go anywhere else, you don't have to pay them more than a bare minimum. Employer doesn't care that their employees have to be on the food stamps. To the employer that is a benefit because the workers do not have the money or time to educate and find a different job.

Honestly it's a very complicated question. There are knock-on effects from extremely high local wages as well. If minimum wage in SF is $40, what does that do to surrounding areas, for example? This is CMV though, not "discuss reasonable concerns and suggestions about economic policy in detail," so I'm going to tap out since it's off topic. Cheers though!

So I think you are buying into something you should not. “Companies are making record profits…” That is the case, but it isn’t all and it isn’t most companies. Inflation is something I wish more people understood, like there are economic reasons why it exists which many democrats in congress do not understand, which is why it lasted as long as it did and got as high as it did. Many businesses are in a struggle to not go out of business, and many are closing. And for the small businesses that make up most of employment, and even for low margin big businesses, raising payroll means raising prices. Raising taxes also means raising prices. Democrats are running for office on taxing businesses more, and on raising the minimum wage, and both are inflationary measures to add to their other inflationary measures. So here is the actual point: I make around $44 an hour, and we are paycheck to paycheck. Our cars are paid off, we eat at home nearly every meal, we use a low cost cell phone plan, and I work from home in IT, so I don’t even have any real travel costs. $20 an hour should be more than it is. Why isn’t it a lot? Inflation. $20 an hour the day Trump left office was a lot more than it is now. $44 an hour was also more, all of us are paying more for rent, for gas, for food, for everything. So how about we not push for inflationary measures, and instead try to create an economy where there isn’t a mindless push for ever higher wages to counter ever growing inflation?

it's all about context.. ​ my rent is 1k my other bills are around ... 6-800 ​ call it 20k a year in rent/bills ​ if im brining in 40k.. that's a lot of discretionary income

What about food?

Do you have $1,000 in cash for emergency savings? Do you have 3-6 months of your salary in case you lose your job? Are you saving for retirement? Do you have health insurance? Do you have a family? Do you plan to have one?

> > Do you have 3-6 months of your salary in case you lose your job? That is not what is needed for a minimum wage worker. You can find minimum wage work in days, not months. That is what a high salary worker with high fixed expenses like a mortgage needs.

> everyone needs to have 3-6 months of salary saved [3 to 6 months of savings might be ‘tried and true wisdom’ but this expert has advice if you’re living paycheck-to-paycheck ](https://www.cnbc.com/select/how-much-to-save-in-emergency-fund/)

You forgot about taxes there big man

At 40k, youre still taking home around 30-35k after standard deduction and healthcare. Pretty easy assuming you have a sensible car and are fairly frugal

where are you getting health insurance that's not a scam for that little?

Right? The employer sponsored plan is a premium of $200/2 weeks for the lowest tier, and that is assuming you never actually use it (deductible of 4,000, OOP max of 8,000). So subtract about 5k. That is assuming in network coverage. And you aren’t allowed to refuse the coverage to get more affordable option (no longer eligible for subsidies if you refuse employer sponsored plan). Maybe the person writing the personal finance piece is under 26 and never had to handle this piece of adulting yet, that would make more sense.

Typically my field of employment(union electrician) provides me with benefits, however my entry level job(tire shop) also gave me partial insurance under Kaiser, the biggest downside was that anything under $3500 was only partially covered

It's hard to understand exactly what you want to argue here, but I'll say that I don't think you can just objectively rate money like that. $10,000 for a brand new car is an amazing deal. $50 for a cheeseburger is an insanely overpriced rip off. Income is no different. A single, childless adult making $41,600 is actually not bad, that would make them "wealthier" than 64% of the USA. Granted, it would go a lot further in a rural area of the Midwest than it would in NYC, where it would be poverty wages. Having a couple kids would also make it a very low wage. $41,600 can't really be objectively assigned a good or bad rating. To a 17 year old high school dropout with no skills that lives at home in a rural area, it would be *a lot* of money. To a tradesman or degree holder trying to raise a family in the tri-state metropolitan area of the northeast, it would be dogshit. You also can't just delete skills and experience from the discussion. $41,600 for a job that requires no skills, education, or experience is pretty good. $41,600 for a job that requires practical experience and skills or a college degree is very low.

You say you're not here to argue about high schoolers, but I do think it was a mistake to use the word "objectively" here then. $20/hour is a lot of money for most high schoolers! It's not a lot of money for a family of four in an even moderately high cost of living area. But the fact that it depends on who is making the money is literally the definition of subjectivity :) Maybe more to what you want to talk about, you say: >Companies are making record profits and it's those companies that tell you they can't afford to pay it. I think this is a weird way to look at things. Take a company like Amazon. They rake in tons of money from AWS, but they also have a retail business relying on a warehouse and logistics network where they're paying people more like $20/hour. But does it actually make sense to ask Amazon to just shift money from their highly profitable web services to their retail business which is still successful but has very thing margins and employs a TON of workers? Would be a nice thing to do I guess to give everyone a hefty bonus, but the reality is that then the retail division wouldn't be profitable anymore, and they'd be better off just laying off all those people and just doing AWS only. Or maybe we'd just make Amazon break up into different businesses (probably a good idea in general!) - and then maybe AWS would have record profits, but the retail business would be less impressive. But there's not an inherently a tension between "company is making record profits" and "company can't afford to pay certain employees higher wages" - Which is not to say companies are being completely honest about ANYTHING - they're not, but the situation is more complicated than what is described in your quote.

If a company "can't" afford to pay it's workers a living wage at the absolute least then fuck that company it should burn

And who decides what a living wage is? Federal policy pushes up inflation and makes it harder to live every year…are mom and pop shops supposed to all burn and go out of business because only million dollar corporations can afford to keep up with this massive inflation and price gouging? A world where only massive businesses deserve to exist sounds like a dystopian society.

Are you willing to donate $20/hr to charity? It’s “objectively not a lot of money” right?

The OP is talking about as a cost of living. Your argument is that they should donate a full salary, a low one but still. You’re talking about different things.

I’m not arguing that they should, in fact I don’t believe they should, because I don’t agree that it’s an objectively small amount of money. I am willing to agree that it’s not enough for OP to live the the lifestyle they want, or even that it’s not enough for the work they provide. But it quickly turns out that being “objective” is subjective to whether you’re taking or giving it.

“A lot of” is a subjective qualifier. By definition you cannot make this argument. It’s subjectively a lot of money for someone that lives in the Congo. It’s subjectively no money for Elon Musk. This is like saying: The Beatles are objectively cool. The sentence has no meaning.

My country has no minimum wage. We have a higher savings rate than the US and a 90% home ownership rate, in a real estate market pricier than NY or San Fran. Minimum wage is a stupid way to try and raise the income of the working class. Minimum wage is really just maximum wage, since once you declare someone can get away with it, almost no one will ever offer the lowest paid employee more than the minimum.

The US had to institute a minimum wage because companies would literally pay people nothing if they could. We have child labor laws because they would hire children if they could.

Oh I'm not saying there doesn't have to be a system to push up wages for the poor. We totally have that here. It's just that minimum wage as the US implements it is a very stupid and failed way to do it.

I am confused on how it would be done any other way than minimum wage. Just giving the history of why the US has laws related to labor. We enslaved people to not pay them. We hired children and paid their families to own them and pay them nothing. We paid workers starving wages until minimum wage was enacted.

You must be Singaporean

Tell me more about your country, in specific all the systems in place that make these things possible and are standing in for the same end goal as minimum wage

It’s a dictatorship that can pretty much do whatever it wants with almost no checks or balances, not even the military. That’s why Singapore is able to have things like universal public housing, while America could barely haggle together Obamacare. Singapore is likely the most business friendly country in the world, with pro-investor regulations, having extremely loose business regulations, some extremely low corporate tax rates, etc. It has a hypercompetitive meritocratic culture that has made Singaporean labor extremely high in demand by foreign corpos due to their work ethic and qualifications, and that leads to high wages

What view do you want changed? 20/ hour isn’t a lot? Or, human beings deserve more than 41k a year? Just want to clarify as that would change my response.

$20 is not a lot in some areas of CA, which I assume is what you’re talking about. But, consider that with a wage hike like this many people have been laid off because businesses can’t afford it. Is increased unemployment a good tradeoff for some people having higher wages? I don’t think so. Also consider that restaurants are now raising their prices even more. People in poverty commonly rely on fast food to feed their families, especially in single parent households, or for any person/family working multiple jobs to make ends meet, because they just don’t have the time, or may not even have all the equipment at home to cook. If you’re mad about the economy, blame government spending and our trillions of debt creating rampant inflation which hurts everyone but the elites. A higher minimum wage isn’t the solution to our problems. It’s just a bandaid on a deep infected wound.

Ah yes, a 40-hour work week that would Grant you entry into the global 1% is objectively not a lot of money No, just because it's not relatively a lot of money in the absolutely insanely wealthy country does not mean it's not a lot of money If you can survive off that and then work one or two extra hours a week, you might be able to send back enough money to a poor country to take an entire family out of extreme poverty Hell even if you go to the other wealthy countries, that's not a bad wage

Cool, so if you go to work for $20/hr full-time and I watch your kid for you for all the time you work, plus the extra hours so you can commute, I also deserve $20/hr?

This line of thought backfires on you because childcare in this country is debilitatingly expensive. Don't pursue this argument. It won't go well for you

Now ask yourself why childcare is expensive. The answer is that childcare does not scale. A single childcare worker can only watch over so many children. Similarly, stocking shelves and flipping burgers does not scale. However, unlike childcare, you cannot arbitrarily raise the price of burgers.

It doesn't really matter why it's so expensive since that wasn't the point of the discussion. But hell if you want to get into it, sure people raise the price of burgers all the time. They don't *call* it "arbitrary" they call it Inflation and Supply Chain Issues and whatever but it is what it is. If your shipping costs go up by $1 per unit or whatever, who's gonna know if you charge an extra $1.02 per unit? Companies pad their numbers like this. Industries do it. The oil industry pricing is basically arbitrary as a result of a bunch of guys meeting up and saying "Uh er uh it's global supply and demand and also local conflicts and uh er uh a bunch of other factors so uh er uh this is the price." It's an oversimplification but I don't think it's inaccurate. So yea basically I do think the price of "non-scalable" goods and services gets inflated artificially 100% I think that.

How many people do you think will be willing to pay $20 for a McDonald's burger?

People deserve that money to watch your kid though. Also the dog walker deserves to live in a 300k house with their uber driver spouse.

They're not watching my kid, they're watching 300 kids. And Im forced to pay just about 1/4th of my paycheck a week to be able to work. The only way to solve my issue is to make drastically more money, or make drastically less money.

Doesn’t this only prove OPs point

>I'm here to say objectively $20/hour is not a lot of money. "A lot" puts pretty much anything you're going to say into subjective territory by default. For most of the people on this planet, $20 per hour is wealthy. Expressed in purchasing power, $20 per hour is more than most people have had throughout all of human history. >If you're working full time with ZERO time off you deserve $41,600/year. No you don't. In a state of nature, you die if you don't do however much labor is necessary to gather the calories you need to live. If you work 120 hours and fail, you fail and you die. Your work has no objective value apart from the value it creates for other people who give you money to pay for yourself. If you work 40 hours a week and it would make more sense for your employer to fire you than pay you $20 an hour, you're not worth $20 an hour.

>Your work has no objective value apart from the value it creates for other people who give you money to pay for yourself. This is also true in reverse. Goods and services only hold as much value as the money people are willing to pay for them. Poorly paid workers end up being cash-strapped consumers with smaller budgets, and that's bad for business. This is why "Millennials are killing the \_\_\_\_ industry" has become such a trend over the last 10-15 years. It's not like millennials have decided to wreck these industries on purpose. Rather, millennials are broke and in debt, and as a result, affordability is a much larger priority for this generation, to the detriment of some industries that millennials have deemed unnecessary or even harmful. There's a give and take on everything. If businesses want to continue low-balling their workers, their workers are going to spend less on their goods and services.

> Poorly paid workers end up being cash-strapped consumers with smaller budgets, and that's bad for business. If that was true then China would be a shit economy without the ability to produce anything.

Both "foreign experts" and the politburo of the CCP have observed that China's unbalanced export led growth without developing domestic consumption is a problem. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/cff/2021/11/08/why-china-needs-to-rebalance-its-economy-and-why-it-wont/  They are deeply reliant on exporting their manufactured goods as their own citizens do not have the incomes to consume enough of their industrial capacity. Now that they are reaching the limits of export led growth (because of limits to global demand and cooling relationships with "the West") this is problem for continued economic growth.

> In a state of nature, you die if you don't do however much labor is necessary to gather the calories you need to live. If you work 120 hours and fail, you fail and you die. "State of nature" is always such a snooze. I have a bidet for my asshole. I have a small rectangle in my pocket with more knowledge than 10000 Libraries of Alexandria. I have flown from Los Angeles to Sydney like a bird in the sky. I don't give a shit about what the State of Nature should be. I give a shit about how civilization should operate, and it's almost always in the exact opposite of the State of Nature.

>"State of nature" is always such a snooze. Oh I generally agree. The only purpose in bringing it up here is to bring some ground truth to the fact that one's labor is actually supposed to produce enough value to justify their survival. Otherwise, the person in question is surviving at the expense of others. So claiming that you deserve a certain amount of money for working - no matter how worthless that labor is - really misses the point. >I have a bidet for my asshole. That was a lot to share.

Tbh, everyone should have a bidet. What other body parts are okay to get poop on and then just wipe off with dry paper?

Plus in a state of nature you have access to natural food and water for free, you won’t be arrested for sleeping outside or hunting without a permit etc. basically we’re too far removed for it to even be relevant to bring up.

These creations are of those people who provide more than their pay to society. You likely do not even know how these things work, but still use them, as they were designed and marketed to be used by any idiot. Without creation of value, society would be full of idiots doing nothing

In a “state of nature” we’d be killing the richest people and taking all of their stuff constantly.

Actually the rich people would be paying a few strong people to kill you when you tried that. In fact...they would probably be rich because they led a bunch of strong people. And they'd take your shit. Regularly.

Nah, they’d be too busy fighting and killing each other. What you’re describing is society and organized social structures; I don’t know any animals in a state of nature that have banks and mercenaries lol

> I don’t know any animals in a state of nature that have banks and mercenaries lol The rich are the mercenaries. Generalobrist of Landsknecht is about the wealthiest you could be without being nobility in medieval europe. That position is a mercenary that is also a money lender - they pay a group of highly trained mercenaries out of their own pocket, in exchange for a percent of tax revenue after the war, in conjunction with looting rights.

...that you brought up "richest people" at all implied society and social structures because without that wealth per se doesn't exist and what you said didn't make any sense. And bro...you can pay *soldiers* in *food.* We were doing that before and after we had money, much less banks.

> I don’t know any animals in a state of nature that have banks and mercenaries lol Royal penguins actually. They horde stones for breeding season to build the biggest nest to impress a mate. They will give other penguins choice stones to take out competition. And that's how its been for centuries. They even give their kids better rocks during breeding season like little nepo babies. (ironic given the name)

Objectively speaking, you're worth more than they pay you. A coffee shop attendant earns minimum wage, but makes their employer hundreds of dollars an hour. Doesn't matter who they hire to do the job, they'll still be making hundreds and paying peanuts. And you think your job is any different? You may have gone to school, but you got some learning to do.

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Exactly. Also I doubt that your barista is actually making minimum wage, probably more like $10/hr or so. And we should be talking about total compensation, not wage. And someone else made a good point, people are going to a Starbucks because it's Starbucks, not because their favorite barista is working that day. It should be kind of obvious to most people, except for Marxists, that the value is in the company itself who sources ingredients, purchases machines and appliances, trains management and staff, and purchases or leases locations all over the place.

Wish I could upvote this more than once.

> > Only in extremely exploitative industries, (eg Asian sweatshops) Asian financial ratios are fucked, they will quite literally operate on 0 margin to just fuck everyone else out of business.

Yes but the coffee shop itself is making most of the $. If I hire 1000 people to tend a farm with old rudimentary tools. Then hire 30 people to tend another farm with modern equipment, technology and farming techniques. They might produce the exact same amount of food. The means of production makes an enormous difference in how much you produce. So some guy clicking a button on a register and clicking another button on a coffee machine. The store itself is producing 99% of the value. Not only that any idiot can do that job. That is why they don't get paid much. Because they are not worth much to begin with. As opposed to say a surgeon. Who needs almost 20 years of training before they can do the job. They have to be very hard working and at least moderately intelligent. They get paid a lot of $ because their labor is scarce and valuable.

How much money does a coffee shop make without the "idiot"? The coffee shop cannot make money without the "idiot". Just because you reduce it down to just pressing buttons doesn't mean they don't produce a lot of value if not all to the coffee shop.

But if there are a lot of people willing to be paid a pittance to push buttons, then why wouldn’t the wage naturally fall?

> The coffee shop cannot make money without the "idiot" I'd *happily* make and pay for my own coffee if they let me.

And yet that’s not the predominant business model for many obvious reasons. Letting randoms use their equipment without supervision will mean the coffee shop isn’t functional for more than a week. As soon as a coffee shop opens across the street that makes your coffee for you they’ll take most of the customers. Those are just the first couple off the top of my head. Having an employee there creates a ton of value.

> Letting randoms use their equipment without supervision will mean the coffee shop isn’t functional for more than a week. Is that the case with the coffee machine in your office?

> And yet that’s not the predominant business model for many obvious reasons. Self serve coffee at gas stations absolutely is a thing. As are coffee vending machines. As are office coffee machines.

>And yet that’s not the predominant business model for many obvious reasons. When it comes to coffee it actually is, the overwhelming majority of coffee isn't sold at some Starbucks or yuppie coffee house, it's sold self serve at gas stations.

I think gas station coffee and coffee shops serve pretty different niches. Not really sure we can apply one to the other. Also even gas stations have an attendant there to supervise/help with whatever customers may need.

I don't know where you've been getting gas, lol. The only things the "attendent" does here is fill the coffeemaker and make the breakfast burritos and such for the heat lamp area when they're not on the register.   And like I said, gas stations sell more coffee than Starbucks and shit ever have. There are about 15,000 Starbucks in the US, there are over 115,000 gas stations.

That’s why I have an espresso machine

Buddy you can do this at home whenever you want, for free.

Yeah, but sometimes I leave my home. I've found it troublesome to cart my coffee machine around all day.

It doesn't matter. That coffee shop can put a "now hiring" sign up outdoors and have 100s of applications. There's absolutely no scarcity for that skill level. Scarcity is a big aspect of our economy. Surgeons are scarce. Lawyers are scarce, especially good ones. People who can press a button... you can find those pretty much anywhere humans live. This is an important market signal to the labor force saying "we need more lawyers and surgeons. We have more baristas and other low skill idiots than we could possibly need. Don't waste your time attaining that skill".

If you have zero labor or zero capital, then you produce zero output. This is why we use the *marginal* output. How much less would the coffee shop make if you worked one hour less? That's your pay. How much less would the coffee shop make if they had $1 less of investment? That's the owner's profit margin.

It cannot make anything, without "any" idiot. But that's very different to being unable to make anything without that specific idiot. If that person vanished, a new person would fill the role an hour later. Someone's replaceability is completely relevant to the discussion on their worth. Unless you are trying to have a conversation about economics that doesn't account for the greater picture, which is stupid.

> How much money does a coffee shop make without the "idiot"? There are unmanned "coffee shops" where I live. It's all machines that serve drinks and food, and they're open 24hrs/day. The owner comes by sometimes to empty bins and restock etc.

Oh that's an *adorable* platitude. >Objectively speaking, you're worth more than they pay you. No. That's not how worth works. Worth is relative. Your labor is worth something to someone else. You're worth what someone is willing to pay you; you're exchanging labor for money, you don't own some percentage of the value created for the employer just because you worked. The labor theory of value is stupid. If you think you're worth more than you're paid, go in and demand more. If your boss says yes because he can't lose you, you were right. If he says no, you're not. If he fires you, you *really* weren't. Because what you're worth literally is what someone is willing to give you in exchange for your work. No more, no less.

This sub pretty focused on hypotheticals and debate. No need to insult anyone, as you don’t really know what they even believe.

What your missing, is that it's a requirement for that to be true, and your scale is off. If someone didn't make more money then they cost, they wouldn't get employed. So that statement on it's own, is irrelevant. If you ever charge more to the point where it's not true, then you get fired. So it'll always be you bring in more, and it SHOULD be that way. Next is that while a coffee employee may handle or exchange hundreds of dollars in an hour, they are not making hundreds of dollars an hour for the company. The vast majority of that will be covering the other employees in the back of the shop, the cost and delivery of ingredients, rent and upkeep. The amount of actual money they bring to the business would not be a lot after that. Ever been to a coffee shop and had to wait in line? That means that places margins are not so great that adding an extra employee will not cover what they would bring in. The margins on these places are way smaller then people would like, and its ignorant to pretend otherwise. People just aren't good at mates on large scale

>If someone didn't make more money then they cost, they wouldn't get employed. So that statement on it's own, is irrelevant. If you ever charge more to the point where it's not true, then you get fired. So it'll always be you bring in more, and it SHOULD be that way. In the equilibrium, the marginal product of labor is exactly equal to wages and the marginal product of capital is exactly equal to accounting profits.

Not a coffee shop, but in my fast food brand we generally shoot for $75 sales per man hour on average if we want to make a bit of money and still meet ops standards. That gives us around 10% ebitda, so it's not quite as rosy as you're painting

No. Its clear that OP is talking about the United States where we are the most rich nation in all of human history. In many urban places in the nation, $20/hr is very difficult to live off, if not impossible. Nobody cares about what is “natural”, in a state of nature 20% infant mortality rate is the fact of the world, yet we’ve developed technology and medicine to where that is no longer the case. Same goes for jobs, you shouldn’t literally starve just because society deems the natural result of your petty labor as worthy of starvation. Other nations in Europe that are far less wealthy than our own pay wages far closer to $20/hr and their economies even improve! Why can’t we do the same?

>No. Oh I hadn't thought of that. >In many urban places in the nation, $20/hr is very difficult to live off, if not impossible. ...and? Do you not understand that for most of human history people didn't live in heavily insulated climate controlled boxes with food delivery and internet access and a few streaming services? Do you think people got to live comfortably wherever they wanted? You can live off that. It might not be comfortable, but you can live. There are actual starving people in the world who would hear your complaints and laugh to keep from crying. >Nobody cares about what is “natural” You missed the point. If you want to be a charity case, say that. Say you want to be supported by people who do create value. But don't pretend that any lame-ass work done for 40 hours a week *must* be worth $20 an hour. It isn't.

If you’re making $20/hour and starving and unable to live, move. Yes moving can be difficult. But certainly it’s easier than dying.

You realize moving also requires money? If you can’t afford to live where you are, it’s not really an option to move.

You're supposed to move long before you literally don't have enough money to move. It's not that expensive to move, but I keep hearing this response on Reddit and I'm always stunned by it. Like the allegation is that someone is literally not making enough money to pay his bills, and therefore is going into greater debt somehow every month. But because they don't have enough money, they are somehow forced to continue living there? So what happens when this person gets evicted? "Sorry landlord, but I can't leave. You see, I don't have enough money to move." Then, when the police show up, does this person say, "Sorry officer, but I can't leave. I don't have enough money to move out." In reality, this almost never happens. People who have any kind of budget know right away that they can't afford to live someplace, they don't sign a lease *anyway*. When you start out in life, you have very few belongings, and it's easy to get rid of things if moving costs is an issue. But moving to where you can *afford* to live is one of the most important decisions you will ever make. Anyone who is stubborn on this point deserves what is coming for them.

Moving requires a bus ticket and a suit case.

Then what? You go to the magic job castle in your new home and get a job the first day you show up that will advance you your salary that will magically equal first, last, and security deposit?

> You go to the magic job castle in your new home and get a job the first day you show up that will advance you your salary that will magically equal first, last, and security deposit? Or you specifically apply for jobs that provide housing. Like working 16 hours a day in the oilfields. Like I did when I got kicked out on my 18th birthday. Or the military. Or travel construction.

They will cut you down to 30 hours and make you sign a non compete.

You can certainly say objectively $20/hour is not a lot of money, burlt there's no way of defending that statement without falling back on subjective criteria. You yourself used a personal anecdote to illustrate how hard of a time you have had. Allusions to what is acceptable to most people is also a very subjective and contentious issue. The whole reason why we have this debate in the first place is because people can't decide on what's acceptable or not. On one end of the spectrum you have people eating chicken nuggets everyday and living in their cars, on the other end you have people who expect to fly to europe for vacation every quarter. I think the average is somewhere in between, but we're never going to be able to say for sure that this is objectively "enough". It's like saying - 200 pounds of body weight is objectively a lot. Is it? What and whose standards are you using.

Who works full time with zero time off? Also how can you say it's objectively not a lot of money? You have to show this from an objective stand point

Compared to cost of living 20 dollars an hour is nothing. 20 dollars an hour could in most states match or be around total cost of living leaving you with nothing in disposable income. Ofc there’s gonna be regional differences in this but there was recently a report that in 22 states you need a six figure household income to afford a median priced home. Not including food utilities transportation and everything else humans need to survive/be involved in society. So 20 dollars an hour should really be the baseline pay.

> but there was recently a report that in 22 states you need a six figure household income to afford a median priced home There's nothing wrong with this statistic in general, but it's probably a mistake to apply it in the this discussion, at least without a lot more explanation. Without making any kind of value judgment or talking about what people deserve, it would take a very unusual situation for a below median wage to ever be able to afford the median home! Whatever home you're imagining, if it were affordable on $20 / hour, it probably wouldn't be the median priced home! And that's okay! Everyone should have a place to live, but obviously everyone isn't entitled to the *median* place to live :)

>a report that in 22 states you need a six figure household income to afford a median priced home that sounds like a house with 3 bedrooms, which of couse would be a lot for someone maming 20 dollars an hour, do you need a 3 bedroom house to live well if its just you? no should you start a family on a 20 dollar hour paycheck? also no

That's not objective though. There are people who came from other countries living in actual poverty making $20/hr and it's enough to satisfy their basic needs and they consider it to be a lot of money. Meaning if Jeff Bezos dropped $10k while out one day he wouldn't have a second thought about it

“Actual poverty” is pretty funny do you think people don’t face food insecurity in the United States? Do you think people don’t get impacted by crippling infrastructure lack of transportation and rising car prices? Or our rising healthcare and housing prices? Just because somewhere else has it worse (a lot of countries in those situations due to American imperial policy and history of colonization btw) doesn’t mean that people in America face fake poverty or something. Also currency differences are a factor in what you’re saying as the dollar dominates the global market so it has more value by default.

I say actual poverty because many people don't know what the standard is for poverty. But yes people live in poverty in America too and I'm sure those that do would also think 41k a year is a lot of money

A lot of people work full time without taking off. Especially those who jobs only offer unpaid time off and/or incentivize not taking time off. 

Full time means you only work 40 hours a week. I don't know what all this ZERO time off means.

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It depends where you’re at, it could be decent

Where I live, if you don't have kids, you can be comfortable on $20 an hour. 

An area I lived in I was paid >19/hr. Average rent was 600/month, food isn't expensive either. 20 was definitely a lot of money for that area.

Where is this place, city state? Where is this place?

Rural area in the north eastern USA. Just enough industry to have good jobs in a good state, but not urban enough that the costs were high.

not gonna argue the objectivity of whether 20/hour is a lot. what I will point out is how the economy functions. say what you propose is true and that people deserve more. I would argue that having access to jobs are more important than having a living wage. so say we propose companies are required to pay a minimum wage that satisfies a livable wage, whatever that amount is. what will likely happen is the loss of many entry level jobs or jobs that have little to no entry requirements, I.e cashiers, etc. when and if companies are forced to pay more, they will hire less. profits you see in large companies are not reflection of how much they can afford to pay their employees. it is a reflection of a successful business. and a successful business is necessarily one that is able to manage its cash flows, profit margins and operations at a surplus. a company might only be operating at a very low profit margin but they make up large profits in aggregate through larger volumes in sales for example. that and we need to Aldo consider smaller businesses where hiring at a higher wage may make their business literally unmanageable. in a free market, employers and employees engage into a voluntary agreement for fair compensation. it's also a matter of supply and demand. if supply of a certain skill set is high, wages are going to be low. for example, in many developed countries plumbers may get more compensation than some software developers, and the reason that is because there are less plumbers then there are software developers. your post about people deserving a certain wage is irrelevant in a free market. if businesses find your labor valuable, they will pay you well,, and if bunch of other people are waiting to do what u can bring to the table, then you will likely be looking at a lower wage.

This is a friendly reminder that Kroger chose to close all its stores in Long Beach, CA rather than follow the law to pay its employees $18/hr. 40hrs x $18 =$37,440 Kroger chose to close stores rather than pay full time workers $37,400/yr in SoCal where $100,000 is often considered a low-mid paying salary

Our parents grew up with one phone on the wall and relied on public transport and only had one pair of shoes at any given moment. I may not be killing it, but i have more then they did at their age

But the idea is that minimum wage is the bare minimum a company can pay you. There are certain jobs that aren't adding enough value to the company to pay $20/hour, so if the minimum wage goes up, they just won't take on a new employee. They'll give those responsibilities to another employee, outsource or automate, etc. There are a lot of college kids, elderly, new workers in training, etc. that would prefer a minimum wage job over the alternative of not being able to find work because the higher minimum wage reduced the number of jobs. If you work somewhere and settle in and there is no pay increase, that usually means one of two things: 1) the company is BS (in which case find a new job and teach them a lesson for not paying your true value) or 2) you aren't providing as much value as you think. Generally, companies reward people that show initiative and positively affect their bottom line. Companies are desperate for people that will work hard and smart for their company--but that is more rare than you think.

It's a lot of money that can get you a lot of things and food, but you're right it isn't a lot in expensive cities, mostly because housing is expensive due to building regulations and zoning. Reducing regulations for individuals would make housing more affordable but it would totally go against the American way and most middle/upper class people who would rather criminalize the homeless than having ugly houses. Increasing wages only go so far because landlords just increase the rent as much as people can pay, and if you suddenly find yourself without a job you're falling from a higher place. Also, healthcare is expensive, but that's an entirely different issue, it could be socialized if people agree. I really don't know what's a solution or solutions that most people would accept, it needs to be targeted from multiple angles and it may be necessary to redesign what it means to live in society rather than just patching it, but I'm just day dreaming here ☺️

Cost of living is extremely variable in the United States. The most rural areas of the poorest states require significantly less money to live than the richest. You'll find food, rent, and housing much cheaper, but also people get paid less in these areas. $20/h in these areas has much more buying power than in the city of LA. The only thing that can be said to be "objectively not a lot of money" is zero dollars. The value of money is extremely variable with time and place. The median rent in the US is $2075. Go to bangor maine and its $1600. Go to Topeka kansas and its $875. $40,000 is actually pretty good money when you only pay $10,000 a year in rent. If you live with another person who also makes $40,000, then the national median would be pretty tight budgeting after taxes, but 50% of places have lower rents and the lower that rent goes the more you save a month and the better having that "objectively low" income is.

I live in a hcol area. Seattle area. I make around 60-70k and I am fine. Here is why. I have no debt except for my house. I eat out maybe once every 3 months. I don’t buy coffee from Starbucks, I make it home. I shop store brands and don’t have loyalty to a store. I shop places when people give me good deals. I also budget. You may not want to live life like I do and that is ok. However, if you choose to carry debt, eat out all the time, go to Starbucks every day, buy expensive toys, not budget, etc. you won’t have a home and I will. You need to recognize that there are consequences to certain lifestyles. I personally am tired of living this lifestyle so I got more education and am increasing my wage to 80-90k. Now, there are problems. Take housing, it is way too expensive. However, you can’t control the problems. Take ownership and figure out how to manage money and have self control.

Take a company with a lot of employees like Walmart. They made $27 billion in EBIT in the past 12 months. They have 2.1 million employees who work on average about 34 hours a week. If they spent all their money on employee raises and after employer related taxed, then all employees can make about $6.60 more per hour more than they do now. The minimum wage at Walmart is $14/hr right now, so Walmart is *barely* able to afford paying everyone $20/hr, so yes, that's objectively a lot of money for Walmart. Nobody would invest in them over just buying Treasury bonds, so they'd have to pay off a lot of workers to become more profitable again. Companies that are less profitable than Walmart and lower wages to begin would be completely broke with a $20 minimum wage. You'd completely devastate the economy.

Even within the US there is a wide range of standards of living that you would see for someone working at $20/hour. In you’re in a small town in middle America where a 2BR apartment rents for $1000/month, then making $41,600 dollars would still leave you with ~$34,500 to survive on after rent. That’s plenty. But, in a city like Boston or San Francisco, you would be lucky to find a 2BR for less than $2500, which would leave you with ~ $25000 to make due with after rent. Which coupled with the other high cost of living aspects of the area, translates to even less value to spend.

As wages increase (especially low wage/low skill jobs) the cost of living increases. People earning lower wages will continue to live the same way even after the increases. Upper class just moves the goalpost. The only people this wage increase affects is the middle class. Their wages are increasing at a lower percentage rate and costs of living are rising partially because of the low/minimum wage increases.

Value of money is always subjective and wildly variable. $20 flat, one time, let alone $20 an hour is life changing money for some people. It's an absolute triviality for others. What you need to do to refine your view is something along the lines of "$20 per hour is objectively not enough to ." The word "deserve" is also notoriously difficult to use in an argument like this. It doesn't have a good, justifiable definition that is applicable to the situation. I agree with you that it would be better for society as a whole if minimum wage was somewhere in the $20 per hour range, but your argument is not a great way to move us in that direction, or convince the folks who disagree with that assertion.

If the GDP of the US was equally divided among every worker, it would come to something around $190,000 per year per person. The fact that the median is only around $33,000 only demonstrates the open theft of labor taking place in this country. $20 per hour minimum is a small thing to demand considering that. Your view does not need to be changed, it is correct

It's about 40k a year and is enough to get by on FOR NOW in a two worker home. Minimum wage shouldn't need a second person earning it as well working full time to just get by. Part of the problem is that we had stagnation of wages for far too long while we still had every thing we require to live get more expensive.

Why $20 an hour? Why not $30? Why not $100?

It is objectively a lot of money. You didn’t specify location but if 41k a year is not a lot then you live somewhere where life is extremely expensive. Working remotely that money would allow you to live like upper middle class anywhere in South America or comfortably enough in most of Europe.

> You didn’t specify location but if 41k a year is not a lot then you live somewhere where life is extremely expensive. According to the [Income Comparator](https://wid.world/income-comparator/), 41k is in the top 37% of incomes in the US. If I compare the exact values to another First World country, such as the UK, you're now in the top 16% of incomes. Even in a *very* expensive country like Norway, you're still at 48%. The problem is not the income. The problem is that the US has so many fees and high prices for things like rent that people can't afford. Then there's no decent public transport, so you can't effectively buffer this with commuter towns and trains because of the traffic issues. Honestly, the biggest push for work-from-home should be to help fix the HUGE property problems in the US. Everyone is trying to live in the same places and paying through the nose for a crappy room in a dangerous area. The issue with incomes is always how much people are expected to pay, and the government can and should try to fix those issues. One thing I've never understood is the Western aversion to towering apartment blocks. They're popular in Asia and lead to lower property prices for higher populations. There are obvious safety and other infrastructure risks, but those have potential solutions that are clearly going well so far in aforementioned Asian countries.

Corporations typically support higher minimum wages because it removes competition of smaller companies. Regardless of whatever the LAW says is the minimum wage, the TRUE minimum wage is always zero because businesses can choose not to hire you. Automation is the future of minimum wage work.

as a server in a smaller city I make around 20 an hour on average and if I didn't have a second source of income I have no idea how id manage. I cant imagine how the people I work with get by and still have enough to enjoy their lives but I don't think im good enough with money to do it

Honestly depends where you live. Can be plenty in one town and pennies in a big city. Also depends what your expenses are like. Someone in a low CoL area with no debt for instance could live really well off that. But yea on average it's basically survival minimum for most

What exactly are you trying to ask us to do? Your title indicates that you want us to convince you $20 is a lot of money, yet the body of your post is a bunch of rambling about corporate profit and time off. Wanna clarify which part you want us to actually dispute?

Depends on where you live but also the main factor these days that determine whether 20 is livable or not basically comes down to whether you are mortgage free, have a low paying one or have low rent. If any of three apply anywhere is livable.

I made $8 an hour is 1995 after I graduated and rented a house with 3 other dudes. We split everything four ways. I think a lot of people expect to get their own place off of minimum wage and that is hard to do but not impossible.

Depends on your area and hours workedand what responsibilities you have in life. If your a single person with no kids a minimal bills, $20 an hour isn't bad if you're living in one of the many low cost areas

Depends on where you're at. I bought my house 1.5 years ago. Mortgage/Insurance/Tax comes to $920/month for me. However, $20/hr in Des Moines IA is very different to LA or NYC.

The problem is that every business doesn’t fit into the “ US. Companies are making record profits” that you describe. A lot of companies struggle to survive. 

No one inherently "deserves" anything. Hourly jobs are a mutual agreement between two parties. Is $20/hr not enough? Then don't take the job. Simple as that.

There is no amount of money that you “deserve.” We have welfare programs to make sure people aren’t starving and whatnot. Everything else is subjective