Minimum Wage

[MV/Liberace!]

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/14/us/minimum-wage-2-bedroom-trnd/index.html

[pate]

I haven't made minimum wage since I was paid $4.25/hr.

I remember making $9 (or was it $12? Can't remember, but it seemed like a lot) an hour in the mid-nineties as a dishwasher in Key West Florida, the studio apartment my lady and I rented was $400 bucks a month (I think).   Other than that, I only know what common laborer pukes make here in the Midwest.  Wages have pretty much stagnated in the service sector since the mid-2000s for sure.

I got out of the kitchen in the mid-2000s because I was making the same dollars in 2007 as a line cook that I was making in the early 2000s as a sous chef.  I check kitchen wages from time to time to see if it has gotten any better, and wages (kitchen wages anyway) seem stuck in some place from 20 years ago.

I note that a pack of cigarettes has gone from $2.00 in the mid-nineties to (same brand American Spirits) $8.00 now.  A 400% increase, which (if wages kept up with the inflation on a pack of smokes) would be $17/hr (or so) minimum wage today.

My property taxes from 1998 to present have also seen a 400% increase, I could quote specific numbers but $500/year to over $2000/yr is close enough.  Some of that is the value of the house increasing, some of it is taxes going up.

I want to say the price of a gallon of milk has followed a similar path, perhaps not a 400% increase in 20 years, but probably pretty close.  I think gas here in the mid-west was around $1/gallon and now seems to go from $2-$3 depending on the mid-East crisis of the day.

My apartment in '98 was $400/month for 2 bedrooms, a living room, living room, kitchen and full claw-foot bath (with a shower head), it was pretty sweet.  Probably 1500 sq feet, I'd have to look to see what that place is going for now (bet it's well over $1200).  Heat was built into the rent;  all the apartments in the building shared a boiler and heat registers, water was also paid.  You just had to shuck out money for the gas to run the stove (if you cooked at home) and the electricity.

All that being said, some of the shit-bags I have worked with over the years I don't think are worth much more than minimum wage dollars, I hate to be heartless but people worth a shit aren't easy to find.  I do not see that raising the federal minimum wage to $22.00/hr would help all that much.  Cigarettes, gas, milk & taxes would all gradually creep up in price to match the sudden influx of the new very liquid poor-folk dollars;  the people running those games would not sit idly by eating beans and rice (off-brand caviar and California "Champagne") on the beach at the Lake of the Ozarks when they could be "doing it right" somewhere in the Mediterranean or the middle Pacific.

I think baby Yoda said it best:



-p

[MV/Liberace!]

Average price of a new car in 1970 vs. the average price of a new car in 2020... if minimum wage had increased proportionally with the price of a new car over the years, I calculate minimum wage should be at about $15.20 per hour.

[Hog]

Our Provincial minimum wage went up to CAN$14.00/hr from a previous CAN$11.60.  When I started working, min wage was $4.80.

I splurged a few weeks ago and visited the local "Raunchy Rons" for a double Big Mac and a large fry, just the 2 items.  The total was CAN$13.40.

peace
Hog

[MV/Liberace!]

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/feb/27/target-cuts-hours-leaves-workers-struggling