$15 per hour by 2020 is not all that

[SoCalDem]

Granted, ANY wage increase is good, but by the time 2020 rolls around, will prices of things have remained what they are currently?

I doubt it.

What needs to happen is for our economic wizards to go back to when people could afford to live, and to set in motion the things that need to happen to "catch up"..and then tie mandatory wage increases to actual costs of living..for things we ALL have to buy..

things like:

electricity
gasoline
water
rent/mortgages (for modest homes).. not a cat condo at Trump tower
natural foods ( prepared/fast foods should cost MORE not less)
health care...not subsidized insurance that may or may not cover what's needed
medicine
affordable wifi
basic cell phone service
actual time off for REST , RELAXATION & FAMILY

add your wishes..

[bigwillq]

1. Don't worry: Obama will save us.

[Sherman A1]

2. Agreed

It's a start in the right direction, but just barely that. It needs to be much higher and get there much more quickly. That said however, just talking about it is more than has happened for a very long time.

[hobbit709]

3. $15/hr isn't all that even now in a lot of cities.

Rents here in Austin are pushing the $1000/mo per bedroom. Utilities are not cheap. And unless you are lucky in both living and job location the bus system here sucks big time.

[intheflow]

5. I'm making almost $15/hr and can't find affordable housing in my city.

Denver's rental vacancy rate is 4.8%, and anything below 5% is considered a housing crisis. So the landlords can charge whatever they want. I'm looking at renting a room for more than 50% of my take-home pay. That's nuts.

[SoCalDem]

8. This is part of the current policing trouble we have now too

In some parts of the country, police, fire, nurses, teachers cannot afford to live near their work, so of course they do not "know their community".. they live in a different community..and with commuting, they don;t even know many there either..

People out here think nothing of a 2 hour each way commute..the only homes they can afford are basically there for the kids to come home to (alone) and a place for the pets to hang out..Mom & Dad only sleep there and spend time off doing chores

[intheflow]

10. I commute an hour each way to work now.

But have to move because I'm living with my ex-boyfriend at his house, and he asked me to leave about two weeks ago. He's being really decent about it, understanding the housing market and giving me as much time as I need to find someplace safe and affordable. Still, it's an awkward situation with no easy, quick solutions.

[jwirr]

24. Very good point regarding the service workers like the police.

[pipoman]

4. A national minimum wage is a joke...

Either it is laughably low in some places or extremely burdensome in others. The minimum wage has to be regionally tied to cost of living or it will continue to be a waste of time.

[SoCalDem]

6. and employers have to decide if they can afford to be IN business

If the only way an employer can exist, is to use nearly slave labor, they are skimming too much for themselves, or are a shitty business person and should close up shop and let someone else provide their service/product.

There have always been rich folks who owned businesses, but they used to not aspire to be the RICHEST person ... Companies used to have something called profit-sharing...and regular bonuses..not a frozen turkey at holiday tome..

[pipoman]

9. I have no idea how this relates to my post

I do know that a minimum wage in SoCal that would accomplish those things in the op would break businesses in Nebraska. It is that simple. A reasonable minimum wage which would accomplish those things in Nebraska would be a joke in SoCal. A national minimum wage is a joke.

Oh, and most Americans like utilizing services and products at the lowest cost possible....if you want to cause action raise the cost of a hamburger by 20%...

[jwirr]

25. Guaranteed income tied to cost of living in the area it exists in and would adjust yearly.

[Chan790]

7. Any $10.10 or $15 legislation must also index the minimum-wage to be meaningful.

The cost of goods goes up...the minimum wage goes up.

The only way the minimum wage goes down is deflation and I sincerely doubt even then anybody is going to agree to take a new job at a minimum below what they used to make at a higher minimum.

[pipoman]

11. Regional scale based on cost of living

Is the most critical imo. Without this it is either going to be a joke in NYC and SoCal, or it is going to be economically devastating in Wyoming.

[Chan790]

12. I don't believe in regionalization of the minimum wage in any form ever.

It merely acts to encourage companies to flee high-wage areas for low-minimum areas. The Federal Minimum Wage needs to remain the same everywhere because the weight and influence of high-COL areas drags the wage higher for everybody in an indexed system.

[SoCalDem]

13. Amen to that...and

every state should be required to have an income tax... If they refuse to help themselves, their aid from the federal government should be seriously curtailed..

What these no tax states are doing is cannibalizing other states that are being responsible..and by resorting to property taxes, they are hurting their own poorer citizens..

What company would NOT want to relocate to an area with cheap labor (no pesky unions), free infrastructure (part of the deal that gets them there) and no taxes.. Of course they devastate communities they bail out on..but who cares?

These freeloader states are little more than tax havens..they do the same thing we accuse rich folks of when they use offshore accounts.. They are about tax evasion and getting hand outs from the federal government because many have no safety net..

[pipoman]

19. Massive inflation in places like SoCal

Is the problem. The solution should be enticement to move and more evenly distribute population. SoCal is the greatest example of this...trying to sustain the massive population in the desert is ludicrous and a waste of our country's resources..

[ieoeja]

22. Insead, local taxes need to be replaced with federal taxes.

After White Flight Reagan slashed federal income taxes then cut off block grants to states and cities. This helped suburbs where they could easily replace the missing grants by taxing their local populace. This hurt the big cities which made lots of people very happy. This also hurt small towns where the people, for some inexplicable reason, blame Democrats instead of Reagan.

Over time, cities have recovered to some extent. Corporations in those cities employ mostly Liberal, college educated people. So more and more of the following generations relocated to, and stayed in, the cities bringing their money with them.

The small towns keep getting poorer. They simply do not have the tax base to take care of themselves. But Reagan shifted the tax base to the states and cities. So everyone needs a local tax base where before the federal government took care of it.

But wait! There's worse!

This balkanization of the states creates competition between the states for large businesses. Indiana gave United Airlines a tax exemption. The moved to Indianapolis. Indy gains the tax base of the UA employees. Illinois loses the tax base of the UA employees + the UA corporation. Net loss = US corporate taxes. Illinois residents and smaller Illinois businesses have to pay higher taxes to make up for it.

Boeing gets a tax exemption to move to Illinois. Illinois gains tax base of Boeing employees. Washington loses tax base of the Boeing employees + Boeing corporate taxes. Net loss = Boeing corporate taxes. Washington residents and smaller Washington businesses have to pay higher taxes to make up for it.

Reagan's "new federalism", aka old anti-federalism, has created a disaster.

[pipoman]

18. Then the minimum wage will always be a joke

as it currently is. Minimum wage are mainly unskilled service jobs, unskilled part time, and entry level, they are not management or in any way skilled. No companies are going to flee areas with skilled workers to areas with less skilled workers because of minimum wage...all of those menial minimum wage manufacturing jobs have already been automated away or shipped overseas.

A reasonable apartment in the heart of Kansas rents for around $400. The same apartment in San Diego County is $800+..this is just one thing...groceries, essential services, fuel, entertainment and most everything else follows suit....indexing as you are describing it does nothing to adjust for this permanent reality...

Frankly, what drives cost of living through the roof is regional overpopulation...maybe fleeing business would lead to better population distribution...

[jwirr]

26. I had not thought of that. I had suggested a guarantee income based on cost of living in the area

but maybe that should be separate from the discussion on minimum wage. Because one is a guarantee from the government while the other is the share of that wage the companies would pay of that income.

[pipoman]

29. The only places paying minimum wage now are

Completely unskilled labor, usually in discount retail or food service...McDonald's in Orange County won't be moving to Iowa to save labor. ..no, the affect of a reasonable minimum wage in SoCal being imposed on South Dakota would be devastating for SD. A reasonable minimum for South Dakota would be a joke in SoCal...

[jwirr]

30. Yes, I realize that. I live in the mid-west.

[Half-Century Man]

14. I'm thinking

$15.50 an hour by mid 2016 (June 30th, 2016).
$21.50 an hour around mid 2020.

[SoCalDem]

16. I last had a paid job in 1996 and was making $15.80 an hour

That was a LONG time ago .. It makes me ill to think of how many people make so little...That's why I always tip a LOT whenever we go to restaurants..and in cash..,not added to a credit card so the boss can skim it..

[Half-Century Man]

17. Before the plant was sold, lock stock and barrel, to a guy in India (2008).

I was making $24.80 an hour as an Journeyman Electrician.
I struggled to keep everything precariously balanced.
Fair disclosure: 6 years prior I spent a year battling leukemia. Sever damage to my finances, credit rating, and ability to put in extra hours.

[Lucky Luciano]

21. Adding a dollar an hour each year is much faster than inflation. nt

[Half-Century Man]

27. I hadn't planned to add a dollar a year, just a coincidence.

I popped an response off quickly without in-depth consideration. My bad.

I have read speculations on where the minimum wage would be if wages had kept pace with productivity; it should be today approximately 21 to 23 dollars an hour.
So even if $21.00 dollars an hour would be a fair living wage today, it will be substandard in 2020.
$15.00 an hour in 2020 will be severely substandard. As substandard as today's starvation wages. I will go as far as to say, it is nothing more than the same old shit we have been forced fed for the last forty years.

[Lucky Luciano]

31. Peak value in the minimum wage accoring to...

www.raisetheminimumwage.com in 2013 dollars was in 1968 when the wage was $10.90 (again - 2013 dollars).

[romanic]

15. It should be about the rising cost of living

not JUST raising the minimum wage. We need to address rising rents, economic bubbles, gas prices, etc to prevent those working these minimum wages from being left behind. Raising it a dollar each year is pointless if the glass ceiling keeps rising up and up.

[The2ndWheel]

20. Might as well fight for a basic income more than a mandatory wage increase

More and more people are needed less each day that goes by. A) there are just more people, so each individual, unless you're really good at something, is just needed less, and B) technology is making more and more people needed less. I don't know what tying mandatory wage increases to the cost of living is going to do in that scenario. Other than perhaps increase the speed at which B is coming.

I'm not even sure a basic income would work, and I'm pretty sure it won't work the way we would all hope it would or could in the best case scenario, but I'd say fight for that instead of the wage thing.

I've always taken the phrase cost of living literally. There are more people, and they all need more resources, and more this and that, and it has to happen everywhere for everyone all over the world. Can we just mask that cost with more money? We put a tremendous strain on the environments we live in, and all the other forms of life that we share it with. In that regard, a basic income would probably increase the cost of living, because then human beings would have even more money to do even more things.

It's a pickle, no doubt about that.

[Half-Century Man]

28. I've advocated a maximum allowable compensation and wealth cap for years.

I am still drafting out proposals.

My current figures are
1) a maximum allowable compensation of $5,000,000.00 (5 mil) a years; to include all wages, bonuses, and tips. Investment income not subject to yearly compensation allowances.
2) a lifetime wealth cap of 100 million dollars per person. After reaching cap, persons are encouraged to retire and enjoy their wealth. If, as alpha personalities are prone to do, they feel a need to engage and lead people post retirement; charities can always use help. Build houses for "Habitat for Humanity".

[jwirr]

23. Very good point. That is how we got here in the first place. And there is no doubt that prices will

go up. At the moment we have a congress run by those who have no concern for those who are not rich. And we are at a tipping point - either we will vote in 2016 for the kind of changes you are suggesting and a future that works for all of us or we will let the corporations pile up more wealth for the rich. It cannot be both ways.