McDonalds: "What, my peon, you don't work two full time jobs?"

[Berkut]

In short, I view this situation to be a symptom of a problem. I do not claim to have any solutions.

Agreed.  It used to be that answer to social mobility was education.  That was certainly my answer even if I did back into it by virtue of someone wanting me to play basketball for them.  But given the costs associated with that option I am no longer certain what the answer to social mobility might be.

Hmmm. I think the availaibility of education right now is as high as it has ever been.

I don't think the fact that education is not the obvious path it used to be is because it isn't attainable, I think it is because it is so attainable that most everyone who can attain it is doing so, watering down the basic utility of it.

It's not like there are all these jobs out there not being filled because there are not enough people with bachelors degrees to fill them - quite the opposite in fact. Now it seems like an education is not enough, because nearly everyone has one. So now every job requires a degree, and why not? There are millions of people with degrees who can't find good jobs.

[DGuller]

Doubling the minimum wage is not going to address in any real way at all the fundamental problem of wealth distribution overall.

Not at all? I find that to be an extraordinary statement.  Countries with much higher minimum wages do have significantly lower Gini indices, so I would be curious to see you explain how they are entirely explained by other factors.  To me the real dilemma is balancing the reduction of the Gini index with the distortions introduced by such a law.

[crazy canuck]

In short, I view this situation to be a symptom of a problem. I do not claim to have any solutions.

Agreed.  It used to be that answer to social mobility was education.  That was certainly my answer even if I did back into it by virtue of someone wanting me to play basketball for them.  But given the costs associated with that option I am no longer certain what the answer to social mobility might be.

Hmmm. I think the availaibility of education right now is as high as it has ever been.

I don't think the fact that education is not the obvious path it used to be is because it isn't attainable, I think it is because it is so attainable that most everyone who can attain it is doing so, watering down the basic utility of it.

It's not like there are all these jobs out there not being filled because there are not enough people with bachelors degrees to fill them - quite the opposite in fact. Now it seems like an education is not enough, because nearly everyone has one. So now every job requires a degree, and why not? There are millions of people with degrees who can't find good jobs.

I think we are saying the same thing.  My argument isnt that education isnt attainable.  It is that education isnt the magic bullet to social mobility it was for my generation.  Education is attainable but at a much greater cost and much lower utility (at least in the US).  Here in Canada our costs have not increased as much as yours but they are creeping up and I suspect we have similar problems regarding the utility of the education once it has been obtained.

Twenty or more years ago the answer to social mobility would have been (and was) to increase funding to universities so they could educate more people.  Now that we are educating a lot of people the value of those degrees has lessened.  You are quite right to point out more is required of the individual.  But I cant help but think that more is also required of society but I have no idea what that might be.

[Berkut]

Doubling the minimum wage is not going to address in any real way at all the fundamental problem of wealth distribution overall.

Not at all? I find that to be an extraordinary statement.  Countries with much higher minimum wages do have significantly lower Gini indices, so I would be curious to see you explain how they are entirely explained by other factors.  To me the real dilemma is balancing the reduction of the Gini index with the distortions introduced by such a law.

Not at all in any real way - the problems that created the wealth distribution in the US over the last few decades are not going to go away or even be meaningfully mitigated by having the lowest wage earners earn a bit more. If anything, I wonder if the Koch's of the world aren't the ones pushing for bullshit "solutions" like this so the real issues will continue to be ignored.

The rich getting more and more of the nations wealth is not a result of those making minimum wage not earning a living salary.

[Berkut]

In short, I view this situation to be a symptom of a problem. I do not claim to have any solutions.

Agreed.  It used to be that answer to social mobility was education.  That was certainly my answer even if I did back into it by virtue of someone wanting me to play basketball for them.  But given the costs associated with that option I am no longer certain what the answer to social mobility might be.

Hmmm. I think the availaibility of education right now is as high as it has ever been.

I don't think the fact that education is not the obvious path it used to be is because it isn't attainable, I think it is because it is so attainable that most everyone who can attain it is doing so, watering down the basic utility of it.

It's not like there are all these jobs out there not being filled because there are not enough people with bachelors degrees to fill them - quite the opposite in fact. Now it seems like an education is not enough, because nearly everyone has one. So now every job requires a degree, and why not? There are millions of people with degrees who can't find good jobs.

I think we are saying the same thing.  My argument isnt that education isnt attainable.  It is that education isnt the magic bullet to social mobility it was for my generation.  Education is attainable but at a much greater cost and much lower utility (at least in the US).  Here in Canada our costs have not increased as much as yours but they are creeping up and I suspect we have similar problems regarding the utility of the education once it has been obtained.

Twenty or more years ago the answer to social mobility would have been (and was) to increase funding to universities so they could educate more people.  Now that we are educating a lot of people the value of those degrees has lessened.  You are quite right to point out more is required of the individual.  But I cant help but think that more is also required of society but I have no idea what that might be.

Yep, no argument here.

And I don't know what the solution is either - however, I do know that embracing non-solutions because they are politically delectable for my tribe and makes me feel warm and fuzzy and compassionate will likely just make the problem worse.

[The Brain]

Doubling the minimum wage is not going to address in any real way at all the fundamental problem of wealth distribution overall.

Not at all? I find that to be an extraordinary statement.  Countries with much higher minimum wages do have significantly lower Gini indices, so I would be curious to see you explain how they are entirely explained by other factors.  To me the real dilemma is balancing the reduction of the Gini index with the distortions introduced by such a law.

Sweden doesn't have a minimum wage and our Gini coefficient is through the floor.

[CountDeMoney]

What bugs me is that I think you have people like Seedy and such who don't really want a solution, they want to use the problem as a means to advance their political agenda. That is what I see as really behind the entire "minimum wage ought to be a living wage" argument, especially when it is being put forth by those who I am quite certain have the basic grounding in economics to understand that the claim is obviously spurious to begin with.

Considering how I haven't wandered into the minimum wage advocacy argument either way, other than posting the recent McDonald's new article in a--shocker, a McDonald's thread!--I think your insistence on using me as a whipping boy for All Things Left on Languish lately is a means to advance your political agenda, you blowhard fuck.

Go ahead, search "minimum wage" under my posts.  I just did.  I came up with 15 results.  I'll wait for yours.

[Berkut]

[Ed Anger]

I actually support a higher minimum wage.

And psst... And govt medical assistance for the uninsured. Something like ohio's old disability assistance program.

MIND BLOWN.

[Berkut]

I actually support a higher minimum wage.

And psst... And govt medical assistance for the uninsured. Something like ohio's old disability assistance program.

MIND BLOWN.

I have no problem with a higher minimum wage. I don't see why it hasn't tracked with inflation, for example.

My objection is 100% driven by the latest attempt to tie minimum wage to some defined "living" wage, and the presumption that this should be accepted as a matter of course.

[Ed Anger]

15 bucks/hr is TOO DAMN HIGH.

10-12 is otay.

[MadImmortalMan]

Huh. The proportion of people earning min wage is actually going DOWN, not up.

I bet it's just too low to impact the economic reality in many places. I'd be curious to see the minimum wage earners plotted on a map.

[grumbler]

It isn't an adequate response to this irony to simply note that such wages were never intended as "living" wages, because the company, by making these materials available, is clearly assuming that the opposite is true - that its employees reading the materials *are* in fact planning to attempt to live on them. Which, sadly, probably has a certain amount of contemporary truth to it.

It is interesting that you know what the company was "clearly" assuming, when it isn't at all clear from the sample budget in the OP.  In Canada, are all burger-flipping jobs, for instance, referred to as "first jobs" or as "second jobs?"  In order for the intent of the people who put this together to be "obvious," it must be "obvious" which of the two jobs (I suppose that  all "first jobs" and "second jobs" in Canada are, by definition, burger-flipping jobs, but I doubt it).

This seems very much like a budget for a college-age person.  Health insurance is $20 a month?  Rent is $600?  Cable plus phone $100?  Those are the costs of a person sharing an apartment while going to school.  I would say that this is "obvious," but I know that Canadians see "obvious" where it isn't and don't see "obvious" where it is.

[CountDeMoney]

Minimum wage advocacy isn't my gig, tough guy.  If you're going to bash, at least bash the appropriate target.

But noooo, when Hurricane Berkut makes landfall, everything gets wet.

[Ed Anger]

He might smack you with his metric ruler.