Upon inception it was set at $0.25. It is now $7.25.
There are lies, damn lies, and then there’s statistics.
Im not here to say the minimum wage doesnt need to be raised, because it does, but another way of putting that is
“The minimim wage has increased 1500% in 85 years.”
That sounds a lot better even though its the same thing.
Meanwhile the cost of living has increased 2077% in 85 years.
CYBERPUNK REFERENCE??!??!
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that actually makes it worse because housework still needs to be done.
Wow! That’s almost as much as a CEO increases in 3 months!
Thanks for making me chuckle.
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7.25 / 0.25 is indeed 29, therefore a 2800% increase is correct.
Thus, another dishonest way of stating this number is that it has increased almost 33% for each year since it was first implemented. (Not per year)
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inflation-adusted, the federal minimum wage peaked way tf back in february 1968 at $1.60 an hour (equal to $13.46 in ‘2022 dollars’).
Just when boomers were young (8-23 yrs old) … totally tracks!
Looking at the linked graph, there’s a relatively clear plateau from ‘56 to ‘80 … basically from oldest boomers being age 11 to youngest boomers being age 20. I’m a little astonished at how well it lines up with the whole fucking generation. Literally all of them, from the beginning of their teens to the end of their teens (at least), enjoyed the best minimum wage of the modern age.
It also, interestingly, justifies the seperate categorisation of the Jones generation (born 1960-1966) who were the first to see the steady decline.
Might as well use the latest numbers for this comparison. Yes, inflation is still absolutely sucking us all dry.
If you do the comparisons in normalized dollars and compare to productivity, minimum wage (if it tracked to the same purchasing power as it did in the 1950s) would be somewhere around $26 in today’s dollars. If you do the same but track to inflation, it would be about $22.
When the wage doesn’t keep track to inflation, it’s not ‘increasing’, it’s a pay cut. When it doesn’t track to productivity, it’s a pay cut out of labor’s part of any growth.
When workers earning suppressed wages compete to buy things like housing, they’re bidding against the class of people that received the share of productivity they didn’t- and when the folks making more bid up prices of those things, it’s a double-whammy of foregone wage + increased cost-of-living.
Do you have a source on that nationally? Because that is very very high in many areas.
Well,
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If it kept line with productivity Minimum wage would be $26 an hour if it had grown in line with productivity
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If it kept up with inflation Advocates say minimum wage needs to be higher before it’s indexed to inflation or https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/21/politics/minimum-wage-inflation-productivity/index.html
These sources disagree among themselves if the right number is $21.45 or $26 or $20, they seem to base their analysis on productivity or inflation
Yeah, these numbers sound like a lot in some places, but those places where it ‘sounds like a lot’ tend to be really fucking poorer than necessary. It would hurt them not at all to have the minimum keep up with where it was in 1968 instead of being the output of both major parties in congress agreeing to fuck the working poor
Oh I see my confusion now I thought you were saying PPP against inflation, rather than PPP against productivity. But my point about nationally is that PPP differs based on area a lot, especially in housing. I don’t think comparing to productivity is fair because a lot of the money going to labor from US companies is going to offshoring or into automating jobs away.
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Minimum wage is simply the lowest full time salary a company can legally get away with paying. Nothing more, nothing less.
I’m primarily talking about large corporations that make millions and billions, yet claim they can’t afford to pay more than minimum wage.
I’ve worked for a number of different companies since I was a teenager and first got a job. Without a doubt, the cheapest motherfuckers on the planet with the most squalid working conditions are the biggest companies I’ve worked for. I think part of the key to being a top corporation is being stingy as fuck.
Saving $50 per employee when you have 5 employees is $250. It’s nice, but not a game changer. 50 employees: $2,500, 500 employees: $25,000. When you have more employees squeezing pennies out of your workers becomes a relevant boon to the company.
Weirdly that’s been the opposite of my experience, got paid a lot(in local terms) for doing barely anything in an internship. Paid not well for a small business where I knew the owners, but I know why, which is that they basically recruited people who wouldn’t bother negotiating.
You dont get rich by spending money
Or something to that effect
You don’t get rich without exploiting the labour of others*
Can you name one? I don’t know a single person who actually makes minimum wage. Legit question.
I’m kind of shocked at this, you must be really wealthy and/or out of touch. I make minimum wage at my current job which is 13.65 an hour in the state of Colorado. I make less now than I ever have before at any other job and I spent thousands on a technical degree. Many people all over the country only make minimum wage. Bartenders and jobs like that come to mind, they are often paid $2 or less an hour with “tips” that add up to minimum wage.
Not wealthy nor in a wealthy area but I live in a pretty densely populated state so I just don’t see it. Even convenience store jobs pay $18-20/hr here.
I’ve been working since 14 and that may have been the only year I made the minimum wage too. I don’t generally look at this sort of data so thank you for sharing your anecdotes!
Just means you’re not poor. I know loads, and they’re all in the poorest part of the country.
Dollar General, McDonald’s, Krogers, 7-11 just to name a few that you’d recognize. Used to be Walmart but they upped pay a couple of years ago.
yup, I made minimum wage at a Krogers back in 2010 and the folks working there now are making the same $7.25 I was back then.
Maybe it’s a regional thing then, those types of jobs in my area all earn more than the federal minimum wage and even the stage minimum which is $15/hr now.
That said, aside from DG, those other companies are franchise operations. Still, thank you for honestly answering and not just resorting to name calling.
Well I mean of course. Wages are lower in low cost of living areas. In the poorest areas, wages are lowest
Understandable, I was mainly curious about the “large corporations” but it seems there are a few good examples provided. Thanks!
Np
I no longer work there but in the last year I worked for a “leading global source for education materials” according to Forbes, worth 2.8 billion and I was paid minimum wage as a retail employee.
Yikes, hope things are better now! Thanks for sharing!
It should be noted that this is the federal minimum wage. Many states set a higher minimum wage than that. For example, California’s minimum wage will be $16/hr starting January 1st, Virginia is $12/hr, and New York is $14.20/hr.
Pennsylvania is $7.25 lol.
California’s is actually even weirder, because they recently passed legislation that raises the minimum wage but specifically on franchised businesses
I think that got held up in lobbyists appealing to the court.
Berkeley’s minimum wage is $18.07
Meanwhile in Canada minimum wage is at $16.55 starting Oct 1st.
Though I don’t understand how the tipping culter is essential the same between the US and Canada
To be fair that’s like 12 USD which would still require tipping. Also not sure if Canada has the same minimum wage exception for tip workers where they’re allowed to be paid significantly less than minimum wage so long as tips make up the difference. In the US it’s very typical for tip workers to only be paid 2-3 dollars an hour.
Going up to $14.00 on 1 October in Saskatchewan. Like the USA we have different labour laws in each province. We also get 3 weeks vacation to start, unlike the 2 weeks BC and Ontario get.
Could be worse. 25 cents in 1938 is still only worth $5.44 today.
2 dollars of progress for 85 years… How much has productivity risen during that time?
People working for minimal wage don’t produce more value. Considering advancements in mechanisation and automation over these years, their productivity has actually decreased.
Minimum Wage workers/general laborers are the literal backbone of any work force. Their value is literally instrumental to any and all industries. These industries would simply collapse if minimum wage workers are taken out of the equation. And that’s without pointing out that wage isn’t indicative of how important someone is to a workplace.
And automation doesn’t mean much when you still need an entire force to upkeep all of those machines. And I’d bet my right arm and left leg that if wage pricing is left to corporations that they’ll place said workers at minimum wage if they can get away with it.
Nope. These jobs are a waste of time and money.
Essential workers from the pandemic looking at this shit take like
Lol right? I thought we all learned this lesson like 3 years ago.
What essential workers? Ocado is fully automated.
Yeah this isn’t true. While automation has made machines more effective than humans in many cases, they haven’t made human labor less effective. Not sure why you would think that. Advances in tools and software have made every sector of the workforce more productive. There’s a million little things.
They have flattops at fast food places that cook the top and the bottom of the burger patty at the same time. So one worker can do more. Roofers have faster and lighter nail guns letting them work for longer. Hell, when I did lawn care as a teen you’d see another crew with some fancy new mower every month, and the improvements were usually worth the costs.
Roofers are not minimal wage workers. Minimal wage workers are redundant.
Listen here you little shit we’re here for class solidarity and memes not mathematics
I agree it needs to be raised but that’s a terrible and misleading way to present the data.
I strongly agree with this comment.
You could as easily say it’s increased by 2800% (correct me if I’m wrong) since then, which sends the opposite message, but neither are good ways of showing what’s really going on…
Why do people even live in the US?
You write that as if moving to a new country is just that easy.
If you’re in Europe and have never visited, you might be surprised at just how huge the US is. That, plus having only two adjacent countries, makes leaving very difficult.
Oh yeah, plus you have to get into another country, most of which aren’t super welcoming to immigrants, either.
Their instance implies they’re Australian which is similar in size to the US, and also further away from most other countries.
You are right that it’s difficult for many people to move country though.
You can leave to any country that’s not adjacent to the US. I’m really not getting what point you’re trying to make with that statement?
The rest is still valid, but this part is a bit of a moot point. Most countries are welcoming of sufficiently skilled immigrants as well - though the US education system with its ridiculous pricing might be a deterrent here.
Practically no one making minimum wage is “sufficiently skilled” lol what a load of ridiculous privilege rofl
“Just move to Europe” is like “just get a loan from your parents” level of out of touch
“Let them eat cake”
Where exactly did I say Europe? Plenty of well paying jobs elsewhere. Lived in both Africa and Asia (still there, actually) for 2 decades and the money you can make there beats Europe by a wide margin. Educational requirements are low to nonexistent, depending on the region.
And you managed to get even MORE out of touch.
You can earn more money in Africa as an unskilled laborer than Europe? What a ridiculous statement.
Minimum wage =/= unskilled. Plenty of educated people struggle to find employment and might be better off elsewhere.
No, but minimum wage ≈ unskilled
Very few skills are sufficient to make up for being disabled
Which sucks, agree. Though I thought this thread was about regularly abled people, or did I miss something?
You have to have a bachelors degree to even be considered for citizenship in many countries. South Korea for example
Why bother with citizenship? Work permit is all that’s needed.
because am born in the u.s.
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Difficult to escape.
It’s a pretty nice country, it’s got a little bit of everything. It has flaws, and as Americans we complain about them and try to get them fixed to constantly improve it.
I think a lot of the images of America being so bad comes from our overwhelming volume online.
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I really like the choice of “more perfect union” in the preamble because it does really reinforce that we will always have flaws. To me, it reminds us of our flaws, not to deride us but so that we might seek to improve upon them and never rest on our own laurels.
Criticizing your country because you wish for it to improve is amung the most patriotic things a person can do.
The immigration system is kinda broken that some people had to emigrate to Canada instead.
Canada thought you were shit long before the internet
It’s a big reason for our historical loyalty to the crown
as if nationalism for the crown & the city is something to be proud of… how embarrassing
Proud of?
I was saying it exists just because it is believed to make us less American
As an American I have a positive image of Canada, they’re the closest thing we have to a sibling in my mind. And if the providences ever wanted state hood I’d support them joining, but I’m sure a lot of Canadians would take exception to that.
Our state is Canada, if we were to join then it would be one state
Just like how your states joined, the German states joined together to form Germany, and the European states joined the EU
Also most of the loyalists in the colonies fled to Canada during and immediately after the American Revolution, for obvious reasons.
They don’t make it easy to get out.
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Two people decided to fuck in 1991.
Wasn’t my idea.
Stuck… who would want us? Every country I’d like to live in would require me to be very rich or have a usable skill set. While I have the latter it also needs to be provable which is difficult.
I should have bolted when I was younger but i just didn’t have the knowledge.
Also remember the student loan crisis in the US, so going to a college, university, or trade school is simply not a viable option for many of the most vulnerable and neediest of folks in the US, especially when they are already working during HS to help support their family.
The working classes in the USA really do have the deck actively stacked against them, and something needs to change or we as a nation are completely fucked.
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I think it’s far worse than you make it sound. When I entered the workforce (while also paying to go to a trade school that was a scam) min wage was $6. While I was able to rise through the ranks pretty fast it was a long time of scraping by just to eat and pay bills so i could keep working.
Nearly 30 years later federal minimum wage is $1.25 more than were i started. Adjusted for inflation that’s impossible to live on, I didn’t have it easy by any means but at least I could survive. I’d never have had a chance with things as they are now. I feel bad for the youth of this country that don’t happen to have the right hookups and connections or, sometimes, luck.
It’s where I keep the bodies
Well obviously it’s very difficult for the poor to leave and if you aren’t poor it’s actually a pretty nice place to live.
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Which country bro?
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I can save enough to leave!
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I think a more alarming stat is that, due to inflation, minimum wage workers have received a pay cut every year for the last fourteen years.
Was going to ask, did op include inflation?
Minimum wage here where I am is going to $15.30 oct 1st (Canuck bucks) and I don’t think it’s enough considering how expensive things are nowadays.
The minimum wage has always been and always will be zero.
💀
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Obligatory GTA 5 “This is 7 dollars” meme
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bUt fReE mArKeT gOod
But that has nothing to do with free market because minimum wage is set by the government?
Minimum wage is required because companies operating in the free market don’t pay many people enough to survive. So minimum wage is absolutely related to the free market.
Except a tiny percentage of people in the US earn minimum wage, and half of the them are under 25 iirc
