Minimum wage: how much is too much?

[Josh]

temporal1,
I don’t have an option to live with “lower cost of living”. The prices for things keep going up.

Housing prices go up faster than how much I can save from our family budget, and I’m better off than most people. If house prices go up $100,000 a year (which is what they did in the last year here), how can a family making $50,000 a year afford to ever buy a house?

hey. i live in the same world, under $30K, no food stamps or other. homelessness is something on my mind fairly often. i do my best. i find i’m not a hot item in the job market.

Do you own your house?

Social Security payments aren’t going up nearly as fast as prices.

[Josh]

“Meet the typical Chinese millennial, who makes $22,000 a year but has no student debt, grew up in an economic boom, and has learned how to outhustle everyone else”
https://www.insider.com/meet-the-typica ... ons-2021-7

Any doubt about where they’re headed?

Wealthy Chinese are partly responsible for buying up houses and land and driving up the cost for ordinary folks in Australia, Canada, NZ, and to a lesser degree America.

Of course, those countries are also responsible for letting themselves get sold out to foreigners just to make a quick buck. The global elites seem to want to make sure ordinary people can’t ever own a house.

[temporal1]

temporal1,
I don’t have an option to live with “lower cost of living”. The prices for things keep going up.

Housing prices go up faster than how much I can save from our family budget, and I’m better off than most people. If house prices go up $100,000 a year (which is what they did in the last year here), how can a family making $50,000 a year afford to ever buy a house?

hey. i live in the same world, under $30K, no food stamps or other. homelessness is something on my mind fairly often. i do my best. i find i’m not a hot item in the job market.

Do you own your house?
Social Security payments aren’t going up nearly as fast as prices.

i have a mortgage. i don’t have funds to maintain my house, it’s deteriorating.
i think of selling. where would i go? if i found a rental, rents increase. then what?
if by some miracle i bought, repairs would be needed. no cash flow.
i’m not in an immediate emergency, but the future does not look bright.

Soc Sec has never kept up with the cost of living. No one expects it to. Frequently, any increase in Soc Sec is instantly absorbed by increases in Medicare costs. This is SOP of decades. Medicare is deducted BEFORE Soc Sec is paid. No “fudging.” It’s actually written in government concrete.

“Meet the typical Chinese millennial, who makes $22,000 a year but has no student debt, grew up in an economic boom, and has learned how to outhustle everyone else”
https://www.insider.com/meet-the-typica ... ons-2021-7

Any doubt about where they’re headed?

Wealthy Chinese are partly responsible for buying up houses and land and driving up the cost for ordinary folks in Australia, Canada, NZ, and to a lesser degree America.

Of course, those countries are also responsible for letting themselves get sold out to foreigners just to make a quick buck. The global elites seem to want to make sure ordinary people can’t ever own a house.

Asians love the PNW. Big investors here.
MANY properties are sold to big investors, then immediately rented. Everyday.

https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/ne ... ian-buyers

The U.S. is a predictor of what happens when wealth is normalized. Greed, covetnous, corruption, immorality+amorality, destruction of families, etc. Look at Congress.

[Josh]

Yep. And the answer to foreigners buying up all the housing is: “let’s bring in more ‘refugees’ and call them immigrants”.

[mike]

Yep. And the answer to foreigners buying up all the housing is: “let’s bring in more ‘refugees’ and call them immigrants”.

But immigration is one answer to the labor crisis in the country, which is created by such things as the red-hot demand for goods and services, generous unemployment benefits, and people choosing to have fewer kids for generations now.

A lot of the truck drivers on the road these days appear to be immigrants. Many I interact with barely can speak English. There is good money in trucking these days; the minimum wage is pretty far in the rear view mirror in that industry. (Note that $66K is the average - there are drivers making much more.) You can sometimes make about the same amount of money as you could running some small businesses. And you don't need much of a house when you're on the road most of the time.

Wages are rising without any changes in minimum wage laws. There is little to no choice if you are an employer right now. My labor costs are going up and we are raising prices to compensate, and will continue to do so as needed. That's just the way it is in the labor market right now. There are plenty of people we could hire, but frankly my guess is that 50% of new hires this year have either quit or been fired within 4-8 weeks. It's tough for employers and great for job-seekers.

[temporal1]

Yep. And the answer to foreigners buying up all the housing is: “let’s bring in more ‘refugees’ and call them immigrants”.

But immigration is one answer to the labor crisis in the country, which is created by such things as the red-hot demand for goods and services, generous unemployment benefits, and people choosing to have fewer kids for generations now.

A lot of the truck drivers on the road these days appear to be immigrants. Many I interact with barely can speak English. There is good money in trucking these days; the minimum wage is pretty far in the rear view mirror in that industry. (Note that $66K is the average - there are drivers making much more.) You can sometimes make about the same amount of money as you could running some small businesses. And you don't need much of a house when you're on the road most of the time.

Wages are rising without any changes in minimum wage laws.
There is little to no choice if you are an employer right now. My labor costs are going up and we are raising prices to compensate, and will continue to do so as needed. That's just the way it is in the labor market right now. There are plenty of people we could hire, but frankly my guess is that 50% of new hires this year have either quit or been fired within 4-8 weeks. It's tough for employers and great for job-seekers.

i think you are correctly differentiating between,
1. What is gov mandated Min Wage?
2. What is a Living Wage?
3. What does the market require for wages? Your example, truck drivers, are not getting Min Wage.**

Gov imposed Min Wage is not the entire picture.

And, as we experience everyday, the crazy job market does NOT address QUALITY, which usually is found with stable, experienced employees. Today there is such a mish-mash, quality of goods+services is questionable. Is anyone showing up for work??!
When they’re paid to stay home, there are gaps.

**Truck drivers.
A few years ago, a young father with an adopted 10 year old told me he was worried about his son’s future work opportunities.
He stated, truck drivers were predicted to become OBSOLETE. (He, the father, was-is a senior computer programmer.)

Presently, truck drivers seem to have abundant employment and pay opportunities.

i’ve outlived many economic predictions.

[temporal1]

Yep. And the answer to foreigners buying up all the housing is: “let’s bring in more ‘refugees’ and call them immigrants”.

In the seattle area, with HIGH rents, my daughter asked, “what happens when people can’t pay?”

i said, “i dunno.”
in former times, rents would have to decrease. the market would decide.
in current times, wages are increased, AND gov steps in - not always in ways that are openly made public.

more+more, it’s considered racist to be honest about anything. housing, tax credits+incentives, disease, crime.
there is calculated deceit against taxpayers who are funding it all - including the deceit!

whatever you do - DON’T ASK QUESTIONS, ESP NOT ABOUT ACCOUNTABILITY.

you cannot make this stuff up.

[Josh]

Yep. And the answer to foreigners buying up all the housing is: “let’s bring in more ‘refugees’ and call them immigrants”.

But immigration is one answer to the labor crisis in the country, which is created by such things as the red-hot demand for goods and services, generous unemployment benefits, and people choosing to have fewer kids for generations now.

A lot of the truck drivers on the road these days appear to be immigrants. Many I interact with barely can speak English. There is good money in trucking these days; the minimum wage is pretty far in the rear view mirror in that industry. (Note that $66K is the average - there are drivers making much more.) You can sometimes make about the same amount of money as you could running some small businesses. And you don't need much of a house when you're on the road most of the time.

Wages are rising without any changes in minimum wage laws. There is little to no choice if you are an employer right now. My labor costs are going up and we are raising prices to compensate, and will continue to do so as needed. That's just the way it is in the labor market right now. There are plenty of people we could hire, but frankly my guess is that 50% of new hires this year have either quit or been fired within 4-8 weeks. It's tough for employers and great for job-seekers.

If the people who are here can't afford housing, how exactly will immigrants be able to afford a place to live?

How exactly does it help poor people to flood the country with people willing to work for a lower wage?

More immigrants simply means housing gets even more expensive due to more demand - and then wages get even lower for poorer people. There's already 100,000 homeless people in L.A., and many of them are homeless people who work! They just can't afford rent in a city where the average is $2,376/mo. Nobody can afford that on $15/hr.

Many immigrants who are truck drivers do not meet reasonable American trucking safety and training standards. Hence we have a sharp increase in trucking accidents; our roads and accident rates are moving in the direction of the Third World. I do not see how importing even more unskilled, unsafe drivers is a good thing. Do we need more truck accidents just so that we can pay truck drivers less?

[mike]

If the people who are here can't afford housing, how exactly will immigrants be able to afford a place to live?

How exactly does it help poor people to flood the country with people willing to work for a lower wage?

More immigrants simply means housing gets even more expensive due to more demand - and then wages get even lower for poorer people. There's already 100,000 homeless people in L.A., and many of them are homeless people who work! They just can't afford rent in a city where the average is $2,376/mo. Nobody can afford that on $15/hr.

Many immigrants who are truck drivers do not meet reasonable American trucking safety and training standards. Hence we have a sharp increase in trucking accidents; our roads and accident rates are moving in the direction of the Third World. I do not see how importing even more unskilled, unsafe drivers is a good thing. Do we need more truck accidents just so that we can pay truck drivers less?

These things are worked out in the marketplace. Eventually, at least some of people who get tired of living in their cars will move where the situation is better if the incentive is there. Trucking companies don't make money by having a truck run over a cliff every day. Insurance companies won't put up with too much of that. Protectionist immigration policies make everything more expensive for the American consumer. How does making food, clothing, and consumer goods unaffordable make life better for Americans?

Flooding the market with labor or goods is disruptive and usually hurts somebody; it works better when changes are gradual. However, right now, we are in ZERO DANGER of being flooded with too many good truck drivers or most other kinds of labor. We have a labor shortage, not a surplus. And I would posit that this is because the economy is thriving in many ways. American consumers are living well, and need people to make things, repair things, deliver things, and provide services for them.

Your assumption that immigrants who drive trucks are unskilled and unsafe drivers seems a little unfair. Likewise, the assumption that hard-working immigrants who drive trucks for $65,000 a year force people to be homeless in LA.

[Josh]

These things are worked out in the marketplace. Eventually, at least some of people who get tired of living in their cars will move where the situation is better if the incentive is there. Trucking companies don't make money by having a truck run over a cliff every day. Insurance companies won't put up with too much of that. Protectionist immigration policies make everything more expensive for the American consumer. How does making food, clothing, and consumer goods unaffordable make life better for Americans?

I really question the narrative that food, clothing, and consumer goods become "unaffordable" without high levels of undocumented, illegal immigration (which some people claim are refugees).

Is the purpose of importing lots and lots of very unskilled refugees to help the refugees, or is it for economic reasons?

Flooding the market with labor or goods is disruptive and usually hurts somebody; it works better when changes are gradual. However, right now, we are in ZERO DANGER of being flooded with too many good truck drivers or most other kinds of labor. We have a labor shortage, not a surplus. And I would posit that this is because the economy is thriving in many ways. American consumers are living well, and need people to make things, repair things, deliver things, and provide services for them.

There is a quite non-zero danger of being flooded with unskilled labourers, however, and the main point of flooding the market with unskilled labourers is to try to drive the cost of labour lower.

Where are unskilled labourers supposed to live when the cost of land is skyrocketing? This isn't a problem of "not enough houses". Land itself has gotten a lot more expensive.

It also leaves unskilled labourers who are already here (which includes previous immigrants) out in the dust. They need jobs too and they're already having a hard time getting by.

Your assumption that immigrants who drive trucks are unskilled and unsafe drivers seems a little unfair. Likewise, the assumption that hard-working immigrants who drive trucks for $65,000 a year force people to be homeless in LA.

What's your explanation for the sharp increase in trucking accidents (up about 40% over the last two decades)? The trucking industry has transitioned to one of exploitation that gets by on as little training as possible. The emphasis on safety that a business like UPS had is gone, and the new business model is Amazon and Swift. It's all about working drivers as hard as possible for as long as possible.

LA prices are quickly coming for the rest of the country. The era when a working class person could buy a house is over. It's great for all the people who managed to buy into housing wealth in the past; that's not the reality people live in today. I really do not understand the enthusiasm some people have for this road to rent and debt serfdom.