My family and I were once on vacation and having lunch in Italy. A local communist detected that we were Americans and started complaining to us about the whole living vs minimum wage thing. We asked him what he did for a living and he said that he was a sandwich maker. He proclaimed “How is my hour of labor any more valuable than someone else’s hour?” My mother shut him up by asking “Can a surgeon make a sandwich?”, and before she could even ask him if he could conduct a surgery, he walked away abruptly and cursing in Italian.
What exactly is a "Living wage"?
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Not all countries pay their doctors that well. Henry Ford started off by paying his workers well, I guess he thought it was a good thing if they could afford to buy the products he was making. Who knows what the real number for a living wage will be but maybe it also offsets the race to the bottom because once you cut wages too low, you also cut into the economy of which 2/3's is fueled by consumer spending. They can't spend it if they don't make it.
A living wage is always 50% more than I'm making right now.
“In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.
“By business I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.”
FDR, 1933, upon passing the first minimum wage.
One pays ten bucks to get into a first-run movie, which just allows you to view the intellectual property of a major studio. The guy that rips your ticket should make enough to eat and get a room. If they have to, they can pay fewer dividends on WB or Disney stock.
Well the standard take at the theater is about 50% to the studios and the other half to the theater, I think it increases over time as fewer people go the later the film is in its run.
And AMC still has discount Tuesdays where you can watch first run films on Tuesdays for as low as $5 a ticket. They also do that other promo where you can watch up to 3 movies a week for a flat $24 a month.
That's a lie that most people believe because they were taught in school like that.
The real reason is he wants the better performers and he wants the workers to have something to lose if they cannot find a better job elsewhere.
Keep laughing now. We are actually doing the same thing when we refuse to let in every single international worker who would do our job better and cheaper than we do to "protect" our own "jobs". It is not a bad policy because everyone wants to protect himself / herself, just don't pretend we are saint or we are better than other people. It is human nature, which is why we have national borders and customs.
In an ideal world we would let in all the Cuban surgeons and pay them somewhere between a sandwich maker and a US surgeon, and we would drive the surgeons' pay so low some of the US surgeons would be unemployed and be forced to live in Cuba.
There is no perfect market, we are all on a gray scale between communism and capitalism, so be careful what you wish for. That sandwich maker wasn't wrong entirely, nor your mom.
We actually do not need ticket collector in movie theater. You can have those subway station toll gate thingy and have people scan the barcode on a ticket to get in. Why do you NEED a ticket collector in the first place?
Last time I went to a movie there is no ticket collector, you just walk right in during office hour because nobody actually go during those hours.
Serving in the military especially Marine Corps isn't a medals handing out party. It's a very rare metal to get wintered over in Antarctica and the lack of sunshine is intense on anyone.
This movie model happens locally for my kids near beach on bad days. One miserable man works during day to sell tickets, sell snacks and let people into movie. I think also projectionist.
The line gets intense as he does not care how fast or slow he works.
They have a had a help wanted sign all summer but frankly guessing the $14/hr min wage in MA is not competitive locally.
The funny part is people get annoyed how slow it is. I wonder if these are same entitled people who don’t believe in decent wages for non appealing jobs.
The best part of this one man show the kids and people visit nearby dollar store for candy and he cannot keep track of them near blatently walking in with it and drinks.
I believe theater previously used to watch and monitor this when they normally had four working.
It's $14.25 an hour, but that's just minimum. I don't think movie theaters are doing that well so they probably just can't afford to pay more. I like the Jordan's IMAX theaters and ticket prices are way up from before they shut down but even with the higher ticket prices, they're only open 3 days a week instead of the normal 7 days a week. It's going to $15 in January but that probably won't help that much.
That was an interesting movie clip....I have never seen that movie. Nowadays the 'poor' often just break the window and steal what they want (including TV's, phones etc....(not just necessities like food).
The sad (and scary) thing is that so many of our 'leaders' now have so much 'empathy' that they do nothing to stop it and often even condone it.
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$15 an hour around here(Central NY) and a 40 hour work week is $2400 a month gross. 1 bed apartments are anywhere from $650-$1000 a month. That would leave atleast $1000 for food, utilities, transportation after taxes. If you are frugal-ish with groceries, you can eat for $200 a month or less. Factor another $200 for utilities, this leaves atleast $600 a month for car payment, car insurance, incidentals, savings etc.
To me, that is a living wage. It’s not gonna be fancy. You’re not gonna have a new Land Rover or a new iPhone. But that should be motivation to get into a higher paying career field. Opportunities are out there. Too many people refuse to change and would rather blame someone else for their problems. OTR trucking positions start at 55k+ a year. That’s 2x the money AND you don’t need to spend on housing. The military starts at 20k a year - no experience required - and housing/meals taken care of. Construction trades start at $16/hr plus time and a half for anything over 40 hours a week, and there is almost always overtime available.
If one is somehow unable to physically or mentally endure this type of work, that is a different problem that is not related to wages.
To me, that is a living wage. It’s not gonna be fancy. You’re not gonna have a new Land Rover or a new iPhone. But that should be motivation to get into a higher paying career field. Opportunities are out there. Too many people refuse to change and would rather blame someone else for their problems. OTR trucking positions start at 55k+ a year. That’s 2x the money AND you don’t need to spend on housing. The military starts at 20k a year - no experience required - and housing/meals taken care of. Construction trades start at $16/hr plus time and a half for anything over 40 hours a week, and there is almost always overtime available.
If one is somehow unable to physically or mentally endure this type of work, that is a different problem that is not related to wages.
But point being, if the standard wages don’t pay for decent living in a city, one needs consider relocating to somewhere that’s cheaper. I wouldn’t feel comfortable moving to a large metro area unless I knew I could reliably bring in atleast $80k a year.
People call central NY a ******, but I rather be living here with the crappy weather(that I genuinely hate) then stressing about my monthly dues in Miami.
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Usually, the pay for min wage would allow either many single people to share an apartment together, with long commute (2.5-3 hrs round trip minimum), no health insurance (but you qualify for medicare or Medicaid / medical, etc), and food would be likely EBT subsidized or work place paid (say you work at McD you get a free meal on your shift).
Want to move somewhere cheaper? They would pay you less as well to match that, or you can't even find those jobs. Demand and supply at work. People in this country are free to move around unlike some other nations, so things do balance out.
If you are making 15/hr and pay 1k for rent on your own, you probably would need to work way more than 40hr a week somehow. The risk of falling behind would be very high otherwise as you won't be able to save much at all.
OTR trucker probably still need a "home base" when not on the road, like a room at mom's basement for example, to store personal belonging. He would be homeless otherwise. It is still a cost but someone else is paying for it, that's all.
Some math I have from local info:
McD wage: $17/hr
1 room of an apartment from someone's house: $1k / mo
Food you cook on your own: $300-500 / mo, assuming you eat cheap but healthy
Insurance if using employers' plan: $120 / mo
Transportation (Corolla, 2 hr round trip a day, $15 / day of gas alone): $15 gas $350 / mo on insurance depreciation repair maintenance, etc
Phone / water / electricity / etc: $150 / mo?
$2720 - 1k - 400 - 120 - 350 - 150 = 700 to cover other expense, like tax and some other fees. Say you have that $400 tax from Central NY figure that'll give you like $300 / mo left if you don't use gov subsidies.
Sounds optimistic, I'm sure I'm missing something somewhere. That Corolla costing only $350/mo all inclusive other than fuel seems too low, but you probably wont' buy a new car run it to the ground at that income, you are probably driving a $5k beater till it blew and buy another one if you cannot patch it up cheap, so maybe it is doable. Or $400/mo is no way to eat for a whole month, maybe you need $600, I don't know.
For the local new college grad I know who "move out of mom's basement", I think the cheapest they can afford to live is probably about 55k a year. That would probably be a "comfortable" standard.
Want to move somewhere cheaper? They would pay you less as well to match that, or you can't even find those jobs. Demand and supply at work. People in this country are free to move around unlike some other nations, so things do balance out.
If you are making 15/hr and pay 1k for rent on your own, you probably would need to work way more than 40hr a week somehow. The risk of falling behind would be very high otherwise as you won't be able to save much at all.
OTR trucker probably still need a "home base" when not on the road, like a room at mom's basement for example, to store personal belonging. He would be homeless otherwise. It is still a cost but someone else is paying for it, that's all.
Some math I have from local info:
McD wage: $17/hr
1 room of an apartment from someone's house: $1k / mo
Food you cook on your own: $300-500 / mo, assuming you eat cheap but healthy
Insurance if using employers' plan: $120 / mo
Transportation (Corolla, 2 hr round trip a day, $15 / day of gas alone): $15 gas $350 / mo on insurance depreciation repair maintenance, etc
Phone / water / electricity / etc: $150 / mo?
$2720 - 1k - 400 - 120 - 350 - 150 = 700 to cover other expense, like tax and some other fees. Say you have that $400 tax from Central NY figure that'll give you like $300 / mo left if you don't use gov subsidies.
Sounds optimistic, I'm sure I'm missing something somewhere. That Corolla costing only $350/mo all inclusive other than fuel seems too low, but you probably wont' buy a new car run it to the ground at that income, you are probably driving a $5k beater till it blew and buy another one if you cannot patch it up cheap, so maybe it is doable. Or $400/mo is no way to eat for a whole month, maybe you need $600, I don't know.
For the local new college grad I know who "move out of mom's basement", I think the cheapest they can afford to live is probably about 55k a year. That would probably be a "comfortable" standard.
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