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Main Paineframe posted:I don't know much about remote shitholes no one cares about, but Wikipedia tells me that Vancouver is the most populated city in the entire province and the highest population density in the country. I'd guess that an "alright wage" "anywhere else in Canada" might not be very attractive in this particular place. And indeed, the internet also tells me that Vancouver's extremely high "shelter-cost-to-income ratio" (Vancouver's housing costs are the highest of any Canadian city, while its median income is among the lowest of any Canadian city) makes it one of the most unaffordable places to live in the entire world, let alone in Canada. It's also consistently ranked one of the top handful of cities in the world to live in. That's how living in big cities works. The cost of living goes up because of the demand, and people pay it because they want to have easy access to the nightlife, food, and events that happen there. There's always people who will accept marginally higher wages and a significantly higher cost of living to live in a place like that, and the number of immigrants coming to Vancouver is a testament to that. Canada's issue is rooted more in its demographics. It's got a very old workforce, to the point that immigration is only a band-aid.
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May 13, 2019 13:55
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Coolness Averted posted:Counterpoint: people need to eat, and consistently those population hubs are where more of the jobs are. So while there are certainly people who flock to the city for all of the cool perks of metropolitan life, I'd argue there's a bigger chunk of people playing triage. That's a common reason why people would move to some of the other big regional cities in Canada, but not Vancouver. Like no retail worker is moving to or living in San Francisco because it makes the most sense financially.
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May 13, 2019 15:28
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WampaLord posted:What if they didn't? Something like 2.5% of the workforce aged 16+ make minimum wage so nah, it's a rare few that don't move on to bigger and better things.
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May 14, 2019 20:43
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WampaLord posted:So making slightly above minimum wage but not a living wage is your idea of "bigger and better things?" I mean I work at a factory making over $40k on the back of a community college certificate that cost essentially nothing since the pell grant covered all of it, which is enough for a living wage and investments on top of that which will give me all sorts of financial independence later in life. I'm the low man on the totem pole here, but I'm still doing fine and happy, and everybody above me is in the same boat. Like yeah not everyone is going to be successful, but there's a difference between recognizing that, and assuming the game is so rigged against you from the start that you don't even try to pursue any opportunities when the truth is that they are out there for just about anyone.
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May 14, 2019 20:55
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Main Paineframe posted:That's the percentage of people making the federal minimum wage or below. It doesn't count state minimum wages, which are often higher. This is why over half of federal minimum wage earners live in the South, where states tend not to raise their minimum wage laws. In Texas, for example, over 10% of workers are paid at or below the federal minimum wage. Fair enough, but this still doesn't say too much. Using your Texas figure, 5% of the workforce over the age of 25 works for minimum wage there, where the state and federal minimum wages are the same figure. I'd imagine there's an increase in the percentage of workers making minimum wage in states with higher state minimum wages, but I can't imagine it's significant enough to make that number "massive." The median household income is nearly $60,000, which would require 2 people making, in wage terms, over $14 an hour discounting overtime, or one person making a whole hell of a lot more than minimum wage. With that being the case in over half of American households, the situation isn't as godawful as some people here are trying to make it seem, although there's obviously a bunch of room for improvement on the income inequality and personal debt fronts. It's the bottom quarter of the income bracket that is getting pinched at the moment, not the bottom three quarters like it seems to be portrayed here by people acting like engaging in the US economy is for suckers. And a solid chunk of the people on the low end of the scale aren't doomed to be in that situation for the rest of their life. They've just hit a rough patch or haven't gotten their footing in their current/future career path. That's not the case for everyone certainly, and that needs to be addressed yesterday, but that doesn't change the fact that most of y'all don't have an excuse. WampaLord posted:You and wateroverfire are both Just_World_Fallacy.txt but I guess you win the no-prize for the sadder of the two because you were bought off for much cheaper than he was. So, congrats! Grow up. Volkerball fucked around with this message at 11:09 on May 15, 2019 |
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May 15, 2019 11:05
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Mineaiki posted:I don’t completely disagree with you, but I also want to point out that even if we tracked exactly how many people made federal and state minimum wage, that does not count people making ˘10 over minimum, which is common at a lot of “minimum wage” jobs. Or ˘20 or ˘30 or whatever. Yeah, it's a difficult thing to discuss, because peoples perception of what constitutes a living wage is based on the costs of living, when the largest costs of living for millennials are things that come from very predatory markets in major need of reform, like the student loan industry and healthcare. With the exception of single parents and people in the highest cost of living cities in the country, you could live comfortably on something like $14 an hour or less, and set yourself up for a good retirement. But one bad break with health or student loans can gently caress your whole life up. But I think that's less related to wage and more a testament to the importance of fundamental change to how we deal with secondary education and medical expenses. Rent is a trickier one because population rises are inherently going to change demand in urban areas and the natural course of that dynamic is for people to get priced out of their own neighborhoods, which is pretty hosed, but I personally don't know how you address that. FactsAreUseless posted:You aren't in a position to tell anyone this. You got caught talking out your rear end again and called out on it, which is how you always talk. Don't tell people to "grow up" when you're not a drat adult yourself. Nope. I posted the statistic for the number of Americans working at the federal minimum wage, which was right. Somebody added an important clarification about state vs federal minimum wage that I hadn't considered, and we discussed that, but I wasn't talking out of my rear end whatsoever. Don't try to play the adult in the room when you're rushing to the defense of the "you put money in your 401k? up against the wall with you! oh and also, workers of the world unite" marxoteen. Party Plane Jones posted:These are big words coming from an E-1 Know your audience, imo. Volkerball fucked around with this message at 23:28 on May 15, 2019 |
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May 15, 2019 23:26
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FactsAreUseless posted:You're a pedantic rear end in a top hat who constantly levels personal attacks against anyone who disagrees with you, then you act like people are being unfair to you. You're obnoxious and you have to post better because you aren't good for D&D. I'm a little lost here, because from what I see, you started posting in this thread solely to throw insults at someone you disagree with. And yet now you're accusing me of doing it as a supporting argument to the claim that I am Bad for D&D. I hadn't so much as implied an attack at anyone up until I told WampaLord to "grow up" in response to these posts of his that quoted mine WampaLord posted:It's so funny how threads like these get the worst assholes to just show up and crow how big an rear end in a top hat they are and then get shocked and appalled when they get dogpiled. WampaLord posted:You and wateroverfire are both Just_World_Fallacy.txt but I guess you win the no-prize for the sadder of the two because you were bought off for much cheaper than he was. So, congrats! which you glossed over, and then described as "calling me out" for "talking out of my rear end." Help me understand the difference between a personal attack and calling someone out for talking out of their rear end, so I can get a clearer picture of how to post better. And D&D could use some pedantry given that the current trend of blindly posting like we're in the cynicism olympics just last week manifested in an extremely hosed up discussion in USPOL in which several posters explained that suicide was their retirement plan, or that they were/are weighing the option, and everyone sagely agreed that things were that awful. This poo poo was based on the exact sort of nothing matters, everything is poo poo, nothing will get better, everyone is hosed from the get go, and nobody has a chance hot takes that are being thrown out by the same sorts of people in this thread, above and beyond the extent of how bad things are in reality. That's not exactly healthy discussion. I tend to think it's Good For D&D to counter that when facts allow, because the alternate is the suicidal depression orgy that exists solely for people in poor mental states, and provides nothing of value, that this shithole is becoming. Main Paineframe posted:$14 an hour, 40 hours a week, is about $30k before tax. Why am I bringing this up? Well... The figures on this map are based on the needs of two adults and a child, per your link. I would absolutely agree that you cannot support a family with a stay at home significant other on $14 an hour. But two people together making $14 an hour have an income of $59k with no overtime, which would put them above the living wage in all but 3 of these states. Big cities disproportionately affect these numbers as well. That's why DC is higher than any state, and Illinois is higher than its surrounding states due to having Chicago when the rest of the states cost of living more closely mirrors Iowa, Indiana, etc. Same deal with Colorado and Denver relative to its surrounding states. With that in mind, outside of being close-ish to downtown in the largest, most expensive metropolitan areas, that figure would put a family above the living wage with several thousand a year to spare, and that's a totally attainable short/long term goal for most people. As a side note, the 30% rule is pretty conservative, especially at lower incomes. And income doesn't drop off that steeply in rural areas. When I made a lateral move from a position in rural Illinois to Denver, I made almost an identical wage. The cost of living drops off much more significantly than wages as you move away from the sorts of cities who's names would be recognizable to foreigners who have never been to the US. $1,000 will cover rent on a decent multiple bedroom house easy, and a $1,000 budget for both a mortgage payment and property taxes will get you an upgrade from that. As an individual, $650 got me a decent one bedroom when I was making exactly $14 a few years ago, and I didn't even have to budget to make it work, in a city of about 400,000 people. Paradoxish posted:Yes, you've nailed it. $14/hour would be a livable wage except for all the reasons that it isn't, and those reasons amount to "expenses are too high for $14/hour to be livable." Take home, bi-weekly pay for someone making $14/hour and working full-time is going to be south of $900. That's less than $2,000/month. You have to live literally in the middle of nowhere for ~$1800/month to be anywhere near comfortable. I still live on less than $2k a month after tax (albeit just barely under $2k) because I don't really want for anything I don't already buy, so I've just been investing the extra income I make at my new job. Still in a city of 400,000.
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May 16, 2019 09:08
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Bundy posted:Things are that bad in reality you ignorant oval office. Like, you've been shown and debated with, without ad hominems, that things ARE THAT loving BAD for MILLIONS of people, in the largest economies in the world, yet because they're not that bad for you or one assumes, the people you consider worth loving noticing (or worse, you do notice but assume it's a minority problem that people can just bootstrap themselves out of). For context, I support UBI as a long term response to automation and population growth, socialized healthcare, a free 4 years of college, a higher minimum wage, and protections for workers above the minimum wage scale that are designed to undo the major gains executive salaries have made relative to employee wages over the past few decades and prevent it from happening again. I also recognize that systemic racism has put an economic ball and chain on a lot of minorities and minority-heavy communities, and all of these policies should reflect that. Regarding retirement, the Motley Fool claims 79% of employers offer a 401k option, and while I assume it's possible, I'm not aware of any that don't offer a match, yet only 41% of those with the option contribute. That's 38% of people with a 401k option throwing away free money. According to lendingtree, the average car loan for people with credit scores below 660 is about $30,000 for a new car and $17,000 for a used car. The average American household carries $16,000 in credit card debt. 12 million Americans take out payday loans each year. The poorest third of households buy half of all lottery tickets. A lot of this is rooted in desperation, but it's also rooted in poor financial education, both when it comes to financial tools, and when it comes to predatory scams. We can fight for all of these regulations to change the way the system works, but at the same time, there's a lot of ways to benefit poor and middle class families that aren't reliant on Congress, that can change peoples fortunes dramatically. For a lot of people, these sorts of financial decisions can be the difference between living and good and happy life or dying broke and miserable. With that being the case, I don't think defeatism and reliance on government policy to solve everything is an effective or smart approach. I do think these sorts of policies will increasingly become more feasible, and decades down the road, high school students will look back at our debates over universal healthcare and the social floor and think what the gently caress was wrong with those people, but America can take a long time to change its mind. All the same, a decent living and financial independence are still attainable things that are worth trying to achieve with an educated approach for just about anybody. Few peoples lot in life is predetermined. There's still a decent amount of opportunity out there, and a lot of people are getting in on it. But there's more that isn't being capitalized on. quote:e: oh and before I get accused of being lazy/not trying hard enough, I'm the patriarch in a family of four, somewhat comfortably middle class, LUCKY ENOUGH to be in a secure programming job. I still can't afford to buy a home, so I pay rent and I cannot choose a different career or vocation as much as I'd like to, because thanks to past fuckings over by the system, I have debt that has to be serviced. If I can recognise how poo poo things are for the majority of people, why the gently caress can't you? I wouldn't accuse you of being lazy. Sounds like you found yourself a good job. I take it the fuckings over are student loans? Somfin posted:How rich are your parents, Volkerball Dad's a deadbeat I haven't spoken to since I was a kid although I think he makes decent money, and my mom is a single mother of two siblings that are under 18 and makes $16 something an hour.
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May 16, 2019 11:48
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Main Paineframe posted:You're all over the place here. Let's not forget that I posted that info in response to you saying that anyone except single parents could live comfortably on $14 an hour. And now you respond by saying that two people both making that wage, without children, would be able to make a little bit above the living wage? Once again, the living wage you posted is the living wage for 2 adults and a child. That is not the same thing as the living wage for a single person. So that data is irrelevant, and since you didn't provide that context, very misleading. I mean on its face the idea that the minimum livable wage across the entirety of the country for a single person flirts with $50k annually, is ridiculous. I tried my best to address both situations. The single person living on their own, and the family of two adults and a child that would be relevant to the data you posted. quote:In what universe is the 30% rule "conservative"? And how does it make any sense for that to be "especially at lower incomes"? Rent is the biggest fixed cost in most people's lives, and the only people who think it's "affordable" for low-income people to pay 40% or 50% of their income toward housing are the real estate agents selling them that housing. You're talking about $1k a month like it's no big deal, but if you're making $14 an hour then that's literally half your monthly after-tax income. That $650 rent you're so proud of is only barely under the 30% affordability threshold. 30% is the perfectly ideal situation in which you have enough disposable income to be choosy. It's fairly common for 30% to not cover the cost of rent if you have a lower income, but it's not like the second you cross over 30% you're automatically hosed and you die. 35% isn't ideal and 40% is starting to get a bit extreme, but you can go over 30% without being in a dire financial situation. The $1,000 figure was for a multiple bedroom home in the 2 adults making $14 and a child scenario, and the $1,000 is actually less demanding as a percentage of the household income in that scenario relative to the single individuals $650. quote:You manage to make that work not because of your smart financial literacy, but because you're a young healthy person with no dependents and few expenses. I know that because I've made $14 an hour with a $650 rent too. Like you, I felt like I had everything paid for with a little money to spare. And unlike you, I recognized exactly how fast that "little money to spare" I was saving would vanish if any unexpected major expenses came up. Like, for example, when the sketchy startup I was working for at the time ran out of money and decided to just ghost with my last paycheck or two. I didn't do it because I'm a dummy, but I could've saved up a few months living expenses for situations such as that one. It's definitely the first thing on the list in pretty much every budget planning guide.
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May 16, 2019 22:42
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Paradoxish posted:That data is relevant because income stats are generally given for households, which is problematic for a ton of reasons. If we're talking about income in that context, then it makes the most sense to look at the needs of a 2 adult/1 child family, because household income is an extremely poor metric for discussing anything else. Remember that household income isn't calculated in the same way that households are calculated for something like tax purposes, it's literally just the total income of everyone sharing a residence. Agreed. quote:More to your point, there's effectively no data that shows $14/hour being anywhere near "comfortable" for a single person. For example, take a look at data from MIT's living wage calculator. This CNBC article compiles it nicely. $14/hour at 40 hours per week for 52 weeks will hit or modestly exceed the requirement for some states and also fall short for several states. This is also complicated by the fact that the average employee doesn't actually work anywhere near the 2080 hours per year that this represents, and this is more true as you move towards the lower end of the scale. This is a more useful metric. 14x40x52= 29,120, which clears this living wage figure by more than $5,000 annually in 31 states. All but 8 states have a living wage that is lower than this wage figure by $3,000 or more. It would fall short in only 4 states. The $29,120 is pre-tax, but the living wage figure is also pre-tax, at least in the interpretation of that CNBC article. And again, you can see the impact of major metropolitan areas on a states final number, with Denver and Chicago raising their states figures. Outside of those cities you'll see a cost of living more in line with neighboring states. So it's likely that sizable chunks of some of these states with the highest living wage numbers don't reach the average cost of living for the state as a whole. As to the hours worked, the average full time American employee works 47 hours a week, or 2,444 hours per year. That tends to jive with my experience working in factories at entry level. Per the bureau of labor statistics, the fields with the most hours worked weekly are manufacturing, logging, mining, goods producing, transportation, warehousing, and utilities, which aren't what I would call at the high end of the scale. When you take the average 40 hour work week at $14 an hour, and add the average 7 hours of overtime a week for a full time employee at $21 an hour, the end result is $36,764 annually, which surpasses the living wage in all but 8 states by over $10k annually.
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May 17, 2019 05:41
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Paradoxish posted:It's extremely misleading to use average full-time hours worked for this particular comparison. What you want to look at are numbers as directly reported by BLS in the Employment Situation Summary, and you want to use overall hours worked rather than hours for full-time employees only: I would not argue that working less than 40 hours a week is likely not going to provide someone a comfortable margin over a living wage. But there are plenty of full time positions out there, and the math still comes out the same if you're working multiple part time jobs that add up to 40 hours a week. I would argue that a lot of part time employees are either college or high school students, supplemental income to a household, and people with other forms of income (disability, social security, etc), who don't need to or can't work full time (benefits for those who can't is a different discussion), which drive down those averages, so that number is misleading in its own way. quote:Edit- And this isn't even getting into how ridiculous it is that your argument in favor of $14/hour being "okay" relies on people literally working more than 40 hours per week to exceed subsistence wages. Just holy poo poo, dude. It most certainly did not. The second paragraph regarding overtime was just running up the score.
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May 17, 2019 06:21
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V. Illych L. posted:tbh volkerball i feel as though the position that it's possible to make a living in a low-paying job if you disregard the eight-hour workday and get a permanent contract is perhaps not illustrating the point that you would like it to Moridin920 posted:Guys real wages are less than what they were 50 years ago while worker productivity has only continued to go up. What's the fuckin' argument here? We can argue paragraphs back and forth about details of how much money someone *really* needs to live all day long but it is clear that the working class as a whole has been shafted. People aren't being paid enough. 95% of income gains since 2009 went to the top 1% of households. It's ridiculous. The argument I'm making boils down to "if you are 30 or younger working at a grocery store and not getting by, there are doors open to you to change your situation to one where you are doing well financially." It's getting much harder than it has any right to be because wages aren't growing relative to GDP and haven't in a long loving time, but not that many people literally have no recourse. Few of us are inherently a statistic. I started posting about the $14 an hour for 40 hours thing to point out that even at that level you can get by with some extra cash, simply to make the case that there are attainable goals that can see you have a good life. It wasn't my intention to get bogged down in the minutiae of that exact figure. $14 an hour is not a goal that should be the end goal of your life plan. It's a poo poo wage, and you can do a lot better than that, particularly when you get more experience and get older and further down your career path. A lot of people arguing with me here are doing better than that, and are just trying to make the case that the most amount of people possible will fail. But if you aren't doing well and don't see a way out, and wallow around in these sorts of talking points, you 100% will fail, which doesn't need to be the case. Take the pell grant and go to community college, and get into a better field. If you've learned everything you're going to learn at your current job, start exploring a lateral move to another company where you can leverage your current income into a higher wage, and have the luxury of being able to turn down the position if it doesn't pay better or offer a significant increase to your future value by giving you more valuable experience. If you live in a city that is getting overtaken by finance and tech sectors, where cost of living is the highest and is only going to get worse, make it a long term goal to leave and go to a place where your dollar will go further. I'm right there with the vast majority of you guys when it comes to the sorts of policies we need to be pushing for when it comes to the social floor and the wage scale, but the reasons why those policies need to come about do not necessitate defeatism. I started off on in manufacturing at $11 an hour with 0 experience and only a high school degree at a lovely shop, pushing a green button and developing few skills. I leveraged that experience into a $14 an hour position in a bigger city that had community colleges, so I was able to work that job while I was going to community college for a relevant certificate. I leveraged that certificate and my additional experience into a position making $21 an hour, with overtime often available, and where I have a ton of freedom to learn. A co-worker 6 or 7 years ahead of me is leveraging his experience at this shop in his job search and is fielding offers in the $30 an hour range. I fully intend to follow suit after my 401k is 100% vested. If I would've just sat at that first poo poo job getting incremental raises from $11 an hour, doing nothing to increase my value, learning nothing, and wallowing in how bad my life was, how hosed up the economy was, and how stupid the government is, my future 40 year old self would probably be making half of what I am actually primed to make when I turn 40. Obviously not everyone can follow my exact trajectory in this field because it would flood the labor market and drive down wages, but there is definitely a surplus of positions relative to the labor force, because people are retiring exponentially faster than new employees are coming in to this industry. There's similar doors elsewhere in different trades if you look for them. Not everyone has the ability, the means, or the freedom to open those doors, and that, and the solutions, are always going to be worth discussing. But things aren't so bad that it's not worth your time to take a step back from the extremely online discourse we have in D&D and honestly ask yourself why YOU can't. Volkerball fucked around with this message at 18:11 on May 17, 2019 |
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May 17, 2019 18:01
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