Minimum wage: how much is too much?

[Josh]

Ken mentioned public transportation in his wife's parent's home area. Public transportation has gone severely backwards here in the States. When my mom was still living at home with her parents (she attended a Christian HS for a couple of years, in a Mennonite community around 4 hours away) she could catch a city bus into Tulsa, where she worked for some filthy-rich people, getting their children dressed & ready for school, and house cleaning. They (my grandparents) lived around 18 to 20 miles from downtown Tulsa, and the people she worked for probably lived on the other side of Tulsa, as that's where the wealthy lived. Her bus fare was less than a penny. (The bus line issued mil tokens - 10 per one cent.) Now, even though there are thousands more fancy houses within a radius of several miles of where the farm was located, I'm nigh on to certain that there is absolutely no public transportation of any kind.)

This is what the metro looks like in Santiago Chile. When I send my teenage kids down to visit their grandparents and cousins (pre-Covid) they would navigate it on their own with no problems and get around the city safely. Fares are about $0.50 and paid by tapping a rechargeable card or cell phone app.



If they want to ride out to Vina del Mar on the coast to visit their aunt and uncle who have a house on the coast they can hop inter-urban buses that look like this, run every hour or so, and charge about $10 for the 2-hour trip.



It is quite easy to navigate both urban and rural areas by transit. An option that does not exist in most of the US because we are so wedded to our cars.
Just another example of how life can be harder for the poor in this country.

If you live in NYC or L.A. or Chicago, you’d have the same options.

Housing in places with good transit is even more expensive. Particularly housing that is safe.

[Josh]

I’m still anxiously waiting on the reasonable lifestyle expectations for blue collar workers.

Good topic for a thread, along with the overarching question of if wealthy Christians should live a different lifestyle than blue collar workers.

[Sliceitup]

I would love to know your response for your brothers who live in the same country... Seems to me that you are quite well off and detached from reality of poverty.

I’m still anxiously waiting on the reasonable lifestyle expectations for blue collar workers.

Sorry I was out fixing an IT issue on one of our PCs at work. Don't know if that qualifies as a blue collar job, but it did have me blue in the face for a while.

I don't really know what to say, as I have never been even close to poor. All I know to do is share some of my personal story. When I married, we bought a house that was destroyed by pets and in bad condition with a leaking roof and fixed it up on a shoestring budget. I was teaching school for $18K a year in a Mennonite school. Most of our cash on hand when we got married was immediately needed to make urgent home repairs. We decided to have children as God gave them to us. Our first child was born by emergency C-section which our church paid the majority of. I had to borrow money from my dad to pay for heating oil. Our second child came 11 months after our first. We worked after school to make a little extra income. We drove old cars, bought food from bent and dent stores, got stuff at auctions and yard sales. I borrowed from my dad for the down payment on the house, and he co-signed the loan or we would not have had credit to buy. Every spare dollar went to extra payments on the mortgage.

However, we were not poor. The rest of our children, with one exception, were home births or at our midwife's house for a very reasonable cost, and we were blessed with healthy children and no major medical expenses. With the help of the Earned Income and Child Tax credits we got back then, we paid off our mortgage and the loan to my dad early, in about ten years, and sold the house for almost twice what we paid for it when we moved due to work. So no, I do not know what it is to be poor. But I do know what it is like to work within a small income being content with what we could afford in terms of possessions. We ate food other people wouldn't eat, drove cars other people wouldn't drive, bought furniture other people wouldn't buy, and fixed up things that other people wouldn't fix up. But we were never poor. We enjoyed family and community support in ways that the average person in our society does not. We were never even close in danger of starving or defaulting on our loan.

My financial situation has changed over the years as I have become a business owner but I hope many of the lifestyle habits we developed back in those days when they were a financial necessity never go away. I still drive old cars. My Honda sedan is 26 years old, our family van is 17, our minivan (a theft recovery covered by scratches and dents) is 7, and our RV is 21.

I know I am wealthy. Thus my responsibility is to be generous to my employees, customers, vendors, church, and community. I know what my job is. I have no idea whether I'm doing well at it or not. I feel like I am sharing this personal information in self-defense, but I hope it also inspires somebody in some way even if it is not relatable to the poverty and struggle they may be experiencing.

I’m sorry that you felt the need to share personal details in self defense, that wasn’t my intent, but I can see how I could have come across that way. I guess I was just curious because I frequently hear this idea that people don’t know how to live within their means, or that they don’t have realistic expectations. We do many of the same things you do, driving old cars, buying a fixer upper home (and most definitely not some 2500 sq ft on multiple acres), buying second hand furniture, etc. I guess what I wanted was to see if there really is something glaring that we do wrong. But we did all that stuff, and yet, it wasn’t until recently, when there was a significant increase in salary that I felt we were comfortable. By comfortable I mean being able to pay for large healthcare deductibles, dentists, and therapists. This might be different if we skipped private schools for the children, but that is frowned upon by our church and wasn’t something my spouse was willing to do.

[Ken]

I’m still anxiously waiting on the reasonable lifestyle expectations for blue collar workers.

Good topic for a thread, along with the overarching question of if wealthy Christians should live a different lifestyle than blue collar workers.

Around here lots of blue collar workers frequent biker bars, strip clubs, casinos, and gun shows.

So maybe yes.

[Josh]

I’m still anxiously waiting on the reasonable lifestyle expectations for blue collar workers.

Good topic for a thread, along with the overarching question of if wealthy Christians should live a different lifestyle than blue collar workers.

Around here lots of blue collar workers frequent biker bars, strip clubs, casinos, and gun shows.

So maybe yes.

You see this amongst people married with families?
My neighbours are very blue collar, and they seem to spend most their time at home.

[Ken]

Ken,

The problem is that affordable, safe housing on small city lots basically doesn’t exist anymore. You can only do it if you live in a dangerous neighbourhood.

If you have access to a private school this decision is a little easier since you can at least choose a place with bad public schools.

For non Mennonites, the outlook is very bleak.

So what is the better solution? Work to make existing neighborhoods safer and improve public schools? Or pave over productive urban farmland to build $700,000 homes on 3/4 acre lots?

I grant you the situation is more grim in some of the crumbling rust-belt cities in your part of the world. I have a cousin who is in real estate in suburban Columbus. She buys urban homes in places like Dayton for $10k and flips them. Which seems ridiculous to me as that is the price of an average used car. But I guess it is working out as she hasn't gone broke yet.

I have no ability to improve public schools, but I do what I can for private schools I’m involved with.

I can’t exactly make existing neighbourhoods safer, particularly when George Soros is funding defunding the police and getting DAs elected who won’t prosecute crime. When it’s open season to smash windows and burn down buildings, we’re going to get more unsafe neighbourhoods, not less.

I guess I'm just not as willing to give up on and "throw away" poorer neighborhoods and the people who live in them as you are.

I think this is a blind spot for many American Christians. They are willing to invest in missions and development projects in places like Haiti. But ignore communities in their own back yard.

[Josh]

So what is the better solution? Work to make existing neighborhoods safer and improve public schools? Or pave over productive urban farmland to build $700,000 homes on 3/4 acre lots?

I grant you the situation is more grim in some of the crumbling rust-belt cities in your part of the world. I have a cousin who is in real estate in suburban Columbus. She buys urban homes in places like Dayton for $10k and flips them. Which seems ridiculous to me as that is the price of an average used car. But I guess it is working out as she hasn't gone broke yet.

I have no ability to improve public schools, but I do what I can for private schools I’m involved with.

I can’t exactly make existing neighbourhoods safer, particularly when George Soros is funding defunding the police and getting DAs elected who won’t prosecute crime. When it’s open season to smash windows and burn down buildings, we’re going to get more unsafe neighbourhoods, not less.

I guess I'm just not as willing to give up on and "throw away" poorer neighborhoods and the people who live in them as you are.

I think this is a blind spot for many American Christians. They are willing to invest in missions and development projects in places like Haiti. But ignore communities in their own back yard.

OK, Ken, what would you like me to do?

I don’t think the local public school board is interested in my input.

If George Soros-funded DAs refuse to prosecute crime like drug dealing and shoplifting, there’s it much point in us “investing” in such neighbourhoods. Of course we’d like to help, but we can’t do much in the way of physical investments. Most conservative Mennonites end up just helping people move away from such places - usually to a red state and red county where there is law and order.

[GaryK]

So what is the better solution? Work to make existing neighborhoods safer and improve public schools? Or pave over productive urban farmland to build $700,000 homes on 3/4 acre lots?

I grant you the situation is more grim in some of the crumbling rust-belt cities in your part of the world. I have a cousin who is in real estate in suburban Columbus. She buys urban homes in places like Dayton for $10k and flips them. Which seems ridiculous to me as that is the price of an average used car. But I guess it is working out as she hasn't gone broke yet.

I have no ability to improve public schools, but I do what I can for private schools I’m involved with.

I can’t exactly make existing neighbourhoods safer, particularly when George Soros is funding defunding the police and getting DAs elected who won’t prosecute crime. When it’s open season to smash windows and burn down buildings, we’re going to get more unsafe neighbourhoods, not less.

I guess I'm just not as willing to give up on and "throw away" poorer neighborhoods and the people who live in them as you are.

I think this is a blind spot for many American Christians. They are willing to invest in missions and development projects in places like Haiti. But ignore communities in their own back yard.

How are you investing in these neighborhoods? Our church meets in such a neighborhood and I'm looking for ways to further invest as well.

[Soloist]

I don't really know what to say, as I have never been even close to poor. All I know to do is share some of my personal story. When I married, we bought a house that was destroyed by pets and in bad condition with a leaking roof and fixed it up on a shoestring budget. I was teaching school for $18K a year in a Mennonite school. Most of our cash on hand when we got married was immediately needed to make urgent home repairs. We decided to have children as God gave them to us. Our first child was born by emergency C-section which our church paid the majority of. I had to borrow money from my dad to pay for heating oil. Our second child came 11 months after our first. We worked after school to make a little extra income. We drove old cars, bought food from bent and dent stores, got stuff at auctions and yard sales. I borrowed from my dad for the down payment on the house, and he co-signed the loan or we would not have had credit to buy. Every spare dollar went to extra payments on the mortgage.

However, we were not poor. The rest of our children, with one exception, were home births or at our midwife's house for a very reasonable cost, and we were blessed with healthy children and no major medical expenses. With the help of the Earned Income and Child Tax credits we got back then, we paid off our mortgage and the loan to my dad early, in about ten years, and sold the house for almost twice what we paid for it when we moved due to work. So no, I do not know what it is to be poor. But I do know what it is like to work within a small income being content with what we could afford in terms of possessions. We ate food other people wouldn't eat, drove cars other people wouldn't drive, bought furniture other people wouldn't buy, and fixed up things that other people wouldn't fix up. But we were never poor. We enjoyed family and community support in ways that the average person in our society does not. We were never even close in danger of starving or defaulting on our loan.

My financial situation has changed over the years as I have become a business owner but I hope many of the lifestyle habits we developed back in those days when they were a financial necessity never go away. I still drive old cars. My Honda sedan is 26 years old, our family van is 17, our minivan (a theft recovery covered by scratches and dents) is 7, and our RV is 21.

I know I am wealthy. Thus my responsibility is to be generous to my employees, customers, vendors, church, and community. I know what my job is. I have no idea whether I'm doing well at it or not. I feel like I am sharing this personal information in self-defense, but I hope it also inspires somebody in some way even if it is not relatable to the poverty and struggle they may be experiencing.

I appreciate your openness. I think you had a few things going for you that often people in the world do not have. This is part of the reason the Mennonite way of life is appealing. I'll pick out a few to point out what I am referring to.

I had to borrow money from my dad to pay for heating oil

Depending on the parent, this isn't necessarily unique, but would be expected often to help out for something like this

I borrowed from my dad for the down payment on the house, and he co-signed the loan or we would not have had credit to buy.

Co-signing is considered very foolish in the world and is rarely practiced. He likely also loaned to you without interest.

Our first child was born by emergency C-section which our church paid the majority of.

I'm not sure when Medicaid actually was useful to the majority of poor, but at one point this would have destroyed someone's early economic future while for the church member, this would have been a bump in the road.

bought furniture other people wouldn't buy, and fixed up things that other people wouldn't fix up

The average person has no idea how to repair his furniture... I think though this is part of a much bigger package of what the Conservative Mennonites offer but have no idea how to translate to new people who are not their family. This might spawn off another post... I certainly wasn't trying to attack you, it just appeared that you believe anyone who can't "make it" just isn't working hard enough.

[mike]

I certainly wasn't trying to attack you, it just appeared that you believe anyone who can't "make it" just isn't working hard enough.

I'm sure you weren't, and I can understand why you felt that way. I appreciate your understanding.