Posted on 03/26/2014 2:29:14 AM PDT by Libloather
Even hiking the minimum wage to $15 an hour may not be enough to allow low-wage workers to afford rent in Seattle, according to a new study by the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
The group says a full-time worker in the Seattle-Bellevue metro area needs to earn $21.60 an hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment. That’s the so-called housing wage that the group calculates. In Washington state, the housing wage is $18.65 per hour.
The group estimated that the worker spends no more than 30 percent of his or her income on rent and utilities. For the price of a two-bedroom apartment in Seattle, the group used $1,123 per month, the fair-market rent estimated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
(Excerpt) Read more at kplu.org ...
Sounds like he needs to move to a less “hip” city where he can afford to live on his skill set.
Don’t agree. If the city raises the minimum wage the FIRST THING that will happen is a huge spike is “workers” no longer having any wage at all.
The politicians may be able to pass a law dictating (as dictators do) that employers MUST pay certain wages.
However, the political class has absolutely no power to dictate that anyone be an employer at all. Watch the parade of businesses leaving town and observe the darkened offices.
That’s a given, but I’m thinking they don’t have the power to make a small business pay any kind of a set wage at all, really. They do have the power to require set wages for city employees, city contractors and their employees, etc. but to an independent business? No, not as long as they fall within Federal requirements if they are applicable.
Totally agree. Once upon a time there were boarding homes where workers rented a room. In college I splurged and lived in 4 person apartments, 2 to a room (the really cheap apartments had 6 to an apartment). Let’s see - if 4 share a 2 bedroom apartment, minimum wage of $5.40. Problem solved - and we can lower the minimum wage!
“In San Francisco, a minimum wage worker would need to earn $37.62 an hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment.”
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That quote says a lot. In ‘62 and ‘63 I was on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay attending a Navy electronics school, two of my classmates who were E-3 which meant they were paid something like $106. a month each RENTED AN APARTMENT IN SAN FRANCISCO and lived off base on their off duty days so they would have a place to party with the girls they picked up in the bars in town. This is not fantasy, this actually happened. That is how much things have changed in fifty one or fifty two years. According to this quote a person would have to earn their nominal monthly salary for both sailors in less than six hours to rent a two bedroom apartment. Ain’t progress grand?
If the minimum wage for any toothless moron is over $20 an hour, what will skilled employees demand?
The are beyond stupid with this minimum wage crap. Clearly all prices will rise of minimum wages are increased, pushing up rents for those still employed. The losers will have to go on welfare — so they’ll have to raise welfare payments too or the poor unemployed will have to move out of Seattle.
Study: Seattle Worker Needs Minimum Wage Of $21.60/Hour To Afford Two-Bedroom Rental
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In other words two people need a minimum wage of $10.80 to afford a two bedroom rental.
Minimum wage was never expected to be a sustaining wage to support one two or three people. It is an entry level wage.
“Sawant has stated that she does not advocate for any system like the “bureaucratic dictatorship” of the former Soviet Union, but for democratic socialism meaning “the society being run democratically in the interest of all working people on the planet, all children - everybody who has needs, and all that being done in an environmentally sustainable manner.”
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I consider this a great illustration of why those who understand reality should cease using the word “democracy” to refer to this country. This is not supposed to be a democracy, not even a “representative democracy”, this is supposed to be a CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC, dang it! We play into the hands of the destroyers when we call it a democracy. Do not listen to those who claim that a republic is only a form of democracy. The Biltmore house is not just a form of a shack.
Better make it $75 an hour. That way they can afford their $15 cup of coffee and $85 lunch menu.
What does “livable wage” mean?
I hear rats and their cohorts say it a lot. “Livable” for whom? A married college grad with 4 kids ? A never-married high school dropout with 3 kids? A teen working the drivethrough who lives with their parents? A single legislator with a gambling habit? All these people will likely have different opinion for what defines “liveable”.
San Francisco has a minimum wage of $10/hr(highest of any city in the nation). Business owners there also must pay another $1.23 to $1.85 an hour per employee for health-care coverage if they don’t offer health insurance. San Francisco is also the only city in the state that charges a payroll tax of 1.5 percent; it also mandates nine paid sick days annually per employee. And yet they have more panhandlers and homeless than anywhere I’ve recently visited in the US and has the highest rental rates in the country if you exclude Manhatten.
We don’t want to turn our country into Eurofrisco-Nice place to visit, couldn’t ever afford to live there.
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