Economy US chamber of commerce calls for immediate end of $300 per week boost to unemployment

[Loiosh]

it would not be anywhere close to 20$ per hour if kept pace with inflation. Biden made that claim and fact checkers said he was wrong it was closer to 11$/hr and when asked about it, White House staff said biden misspoke. It would be over 20$ /hour if it had kept up not with inflation but with some random data from one single think tank about work productivity going back to the 1960’s

edit: I was wrong, it wouldnt be even close to 11$ an hour, it would be 8.98$ if it kept pace with inflation. ANd this is from CNN.

"This is false; the White House told CNN after the event that Biden got mixed up with another statistic about the minimum wage. Today’s federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, which took effect in 2009, would not be even close to $20 per hour if Congress had decided to link it to inflation. Adjusted for inflation, $7.25 in January 2009 was equal to $8.98 in January 2021."

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/17/poli...own-hall-anderson-cooper-milwaukee/index.html

Except the productivity of the economy was how minimum wage was originally determined.

Forget $15 an Hour — the Minimum Wage Should Be $24

I've heard twenty dollars bounced around for years. I have no idea why you're only reaching back to 2009 instead of following the trend since inception, but I'm too tired to do the math.

 

[Kana Li]

Where I work we had an opening and couldn't find a suitable candidate for nearly six months and I think the enhanced unemployment was the reason. Too many people are taking advantage.

or these people could get off their ass and work.

its obvious the enhanced unemployment bonus' are constricting the labor supply

75% of people are making less on unemployment, I assume most of them would rather be working than making less money.

 

[Sano]

Average rent in America is ~$1100
For a poorer neighbourhood, lets say thats ~$800, plus utilities = $900
$900 a month = $10.8K a year

$7.50 an hour working 40 hour weeks = $15.6K = $13.7K after taxes (assuming no deductions)
13.7 - 10.8 = $2.9K
Average American person spends ~$3K per year on groceries, let's say in a poorer situation you spend ~$2K (less with EBT)

$4.8K - $2K = $800. Not a lot of money but still about breaking even. And if you'd like to save more you could always work more hours as well.

Assuming you are in a relationship, both making minimum wage = $30.2K = $27.4K after taxes (assuming no deductions)
After housing = $16.8K
After food = $12.8K

$12.8K is quite a bit of money to save up a year, you can afford a brad new car every year.

So minimum wage might be somewhat uncomfortable single, but as a couple you are saving quite a bit of money per year, assuming you budget correctly and live in an appropriate neighborhood. And given most people are in a relationship this is very comfortably livable.

This doesn't add up.

You said 2,9K after rent, then you subtracted the food from 4,8K. Shouldn't it be 2,9K-2K = 900 dollars left over?

Now, you forgot to add in transportation costs, phone bill, internet access, insurance, pension, hygiene products, cleaning utilities, clothes, electronics, additonal heat, gas and electric, not to mention unforseen events, wear and tear or otherwise emergencies. This person would be thousands in the red, even if they did not go to a single social event, never got sick, never took time off, always prepared their own food, never rented a movie, or went to the cinema, had a drink of alcohol, never ate out or ordered in, never went to birthdays, so on.

Noone can survive on that wage, it's impossible.

 

[llperez22]

Except the productivity of the economy was how minimum wage was originally determined.

Forget $15 an Hour — the Minimum Wage Should Be $24

I've heard twenty dollars bounced around for years. I have no idea why you're only reaching back to 2009 instead of following the trend since inception, but I'm too tired to do the math.

i went back from the inception of the min wage in 1938 until today. I even went by the start of each decade (1990, 1980, 1970, 1960) and it doesnt matter how far you go back. No matter what start off point you want to pick, with inflation factored in, the current min wage would never surpass 10$.

 

[pinger]

This doesn't add up.

You said 2,9K after rent, then you subtracted the food from 4,8K. Shouldn't it be 2,9K-2K = 900 dollars left over?

Now, you forgot to add in transportation costs, phone bill, internet access, insurance, pension, hygiene products, cleaning utilities, clothes, electronics, additonal heat, gas and electric, not to mention unforseen events, wear and tear or otherwise emergencies. This person would be thousands in the red, even if they did not go to a single social event, never got sick, never took time off, always prepared their own food, never rented a movie, or went to the cinema, had a drink of alcohol, never ate out or ordered in, never went to birthdays, so on.

Noone can survive on that wage, it's impossible.

Yeah, fuck that noise. The fact that the wage does not even get you above the poverty line is the end of the argument.

Arguing that it is a liveable wage is ludicrous.

So glad I live in a country where the minimum wage X a 40 hour week = just above the poverty line, as it should be.

Your system has an indentured and enslaved poor; enabled by the ludicrous subcontracting of employer responsibilities by things such as "tipping"; and the outright illegality of using undocumented immigrants under minimum wage to artificially and illegally suppress the real cost of labour.

Identify the real problems, not the Republican smokescreen.

If that means you might have to pay an extra fucking 25c for a hamburger because labour costs increase, get on with it for fuck sake

 

[Kana Li]

Yeah, fuck that noise. The fact that the wage does not even get you above the poverty line is the end of the argument.

Arguing that it is a liveable wage is ludicrous.

So glad I live in a country where the minimum wage X a 40 hour week = just above the poverty line, as it should be.

Your system has an indentured and enslaved poor; enabled by the ludicrous subcontracting of employer responsibilities by things such as "tipping"; and the outright illegality of using undocumented immigrants under minimum wage to artificially and illegally suppress the real cost of labour.

Identify the real problems, not the Republican smokescreen.

If that means you might have to pay an extra fucking 25c for a hamburger because labour costs increase, get on with it for fuck sake

The US is addicted to cheap labor, trying to change that will be extremely hard.

 

[panamaican]

At that income bracket they qualify for Medicaid. And yes, you can work additional hours if you aren't making enough money to cover your costs. Not sure why 40 hours has to be mandatory for everyone across the board, especially since this is the minimum wage we are talking about. Also, you are assuming someone is going to be making the minimum wage their entire life, which is generally not what happens.

I'm not concerned with someone making minimum wage their entire lives. I'm concerned with people making enough money to live on while they're working. Would you accept this "It's okay that you can't afford to eat today because some time in the undetermined future, you will be able to afford food." Of course not, you need to live right now, the future matters but only after the present is taking care of.

And no one said 40 hours is mandatary for anyone but since it is the standard full time work week, it's the metric we use. Above 40 hours and the worker should get overtime. I guarantee you that if we said employers have to pay overtime to their employees regardless of where the first 40 hours were worked, people would pay more attention to that "just get another job" argument.

I'm not saying you have to get married. I'm saying most people are in a relationship and the minimum wage is more than enough for those couples to live and save.

Which is completely pointless. The point of a living wage is for an individual to live on. If it's only sustainable when you combine people then it's not a living wage by itself.

And I believe a lot of people get government assistance even at those wage levels because they have spending and budgeting issues. Also, they make irresponsible decisions and decide to have multiple kids while still living on minimum wage.

Again missing the point of what I said. I don't care why people choose to get government assistance. I'm pointing to what the government says is the wage range to qualify for assistance at all. What the government sets as the welfare entry points tells you the truth of what they think you need to live on.

If the government thought the minimum wage was enough to live on, they wouldn't set the welfare entry points near the minimum wage, they'd set it much lower because the minimum wage worker wouldn't need any assistance.

Follow me? If $15,000 is enough to live on, you'd set your welfare programs for people making $10k or $5k and cut them off when they reach $15000. But we don't, we provide thousands of dollars of assistance for those people. Why? Because we know that it's insufficient.

My best solution to the minimum wage is to make it scale depending on overall company revenue. Companies like Amazon will pay $15 (which many already do), while small businesses can still pay what they are currently paying and not be too affected. Even that has consequences but I think is the most fair solution overall.

I don't particularly care about the minimum wage. I care about the lies that people tell themselves for why they want other people to live in poverty.

To repeat my point from the first page: The government paid a certain amount of money during a pandemic because the government knew that was needed to keep people sustainable while they shut down work. That amount of money is a more realistic approximation of true economic need of regular Americans.

Once you realize that then you can look at things like the minimum wage, welfare, etc. from a more honest perspective. And it also becomes clear that when people want other people to make a fraction of that number so that we can force them back into work, you're looking at a sad pathology. One where we think that the best way to motivate people to work is by forcing them into abject poverty, rather than finding ways to make their work lives more rewarding.

Just setting a blanket $15 minimum wage will disproportionately impact small businesses, forcing some to close or lay people off, which will just flood the low skill job market even further and make it even harder to get a job for those income levels. Small businesses are already hurting during these times and imposing a $15 minimum wage will just be a death knell for a lot of them. The big to mid size companies will be able to bear the brunt much better and we much closer to a oligopoly.

Like I said above, I don't particularly care about the minimum wage. I care about the inconsistency behind what we pay for people to live on vs. what we tell people they should be able to live on.

 

[panamaican]

So you're using the argument that because the federal government believed something it must be correct? Probably the most specious argument ever proposed.

That's not the argument that I made so thank goodness!

 

[Shadiata]

willing to sit home and collect a check and wait for the government to take care of you? Get what you deserve which is called poverty. Best of luck

 

[Scheme]

This doesn't add up.

You said 2,9K after rent, then you subtracted the food from 4,8K. Shouldn't it be 2,9K-2K = 900 dollars left over?

Now, you forgot to add in transportation costs, phone bill, internet access, insurance, pension, hygiene products, cleaning utilities, clothes, electronics, additonal heat, gas and electric, not to mention unforseen events, wear and tear or otherwise emergencies. This person would be thousands in the red, even if they did not go to a single social event, never got sick, never took time off, always prepared their own food, never rented a movie, or went to the cinema, had a drink of alcohol, never ate out or ordered in, never went to birthdays, so on.

Noone can survive on that wage, it's impossible.

It's not comfortable but in the condition that you:
A. Work minimum wage your entire life
B. Are single your entire life
C. Pay rent in your own your entire life (not necessarily needing to be in a relationship, but rent with roommates is much cheaper)
D. Have no additional help (family, EBT, tax exemptions, other federal, state and city social programs, social securiry, etc.).
E. Have no higher state minimum wage
F. Choose to work only 40 hours a week

If all those conditions are true, then yeah, it's going to be tough living like that. However, I'd reckon some of those are pretty easy things to change and not that many people are in the position where they can't change at least one of those factors.

 

[idrankyourbeer]

Unemployment isn't a career.

it is to some of these shertards!


sorry, couldnt resist.

 

[JSN]

For now it does seem staying at home instead of working pays more. I believe the program ends by the end of Sept.

Why no one needs to work in Biden's America: Jobless are now getting paid more in government benefits to stay at home than they were in wages BEFORE the pandemic

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...enefits-wages-stopping-economic-recovery.html

• The average weekly unemployment benefit is now $638 - $300 more than what it was 2019
• That means people are earning around $16-an-hour - more than double minimum wage which is at least $7.25 across America
• It is creating a nightmare scenario for the economy; businesses are desperate to recover from the pandemic but they can't fill their jobs
• It is forcing business owners to pay higher wages to attract workers, after a devastating year when they were financially knee-capped
• Restaurant owners, for example, say it's already driving inflation and the country isn't fully open again
• Republican states are cutting unemployment benefits to get people back to work
• Mitch McConnell said the government has 'flooded the zone with checks' and it has dissuaded people from looking for jobs
• Montana's Gov axed federal unemployment checks and instead, is giving people $1,200 bonuses to get jobs
• South Carolina is also scrapping the federal $300-a-week unemployment boost
• April's jobs growth was a quarter of what was expected at just 266,000 instead of 1million
• A third of the country has now been vaccinated and businesses should be reopening

That’s kind of insane to me that only 1/3 are vaccinated. I didn’t try very hard to get it TBH I just signed up with the state and I’m long since fully vaxxed.

 

[Sano]

It's not comfortable but in the condition that you:
A. Work minimum wage your entire life
B. Are single your entire life
C. Pay rent in your own your entire life (not necessarily needing to be in a relationship, but rent with roommates is much cheaper)
D. Have no additional help (family, EBT, tax exemptions, other federal, state and city social programs, social securiry, etc.).
E. Have no higher state minimum wage
F. Choose to work only 40 hours a week

If all those conditions are true, then yeah, it's going to be tough living like that. However, I'd reckon some of those are pretty easy things to change and not that many people are in the position where they can't change at least one of those factors.

It's not tough, it's impossible. In the scenario we went through, you'd be thousands of dollars short, even living at the bare minimum. Someone, somewhere, would have to subsidize you or otherwise support you, or you'd have to live under a bridge. Heck, even two adults working full time living on 26K for their entire annual budget is going to be very tough. Definitely not sustainable.

 

[LangfordBarrow]

Maybe they should quit hiding and help us achieve herd immunity by July 4th?

You can also say that about all the people who don’t want to be vaccinated. But whatever side of the fence you're on do your duty. Go out and get vaccinated or go out and catch covid.

 

[Scheme]

I'm not concerned with someone making minimum wage their entire lives. I'm concerned with people making enough money to live on while they're working. Would you accept this "It's okay that you can't afford to eat today because some time in the undetermined future, you will be able to afford food." Of course not, you need to live right now, the future matters but only after the present is taking care of.

And no one said 40 hours is mandatary for anyone but since it is the standard full time work week, it's the metric we use. Above 40 hours and the worker should get overtime. I guarantee you that if we said employers have to pay overtime to their employees regardless of where the first 40 hours were worked, people would pay more attention to that "just get another job" argument.


Which is completely pointless. The point of a living wage is for an individual to live on. If it's only sustainable when you combine people then it's not a living wage by itself.


Again missing the point of what I said. I don't care why people choose to get government assistance. I'm pointing to what the government says is the wage range to qualify for assistance at all. What the government sets as the welfare entry points tells you the truth of what they think you need to live on.

If the government thought the minimum wage was enough to live on, they wouldn't set the welfare entry points near the minimum wage, they'd set it much lower because the minimum wage worker wouldn't need any assistance.

Follow me? If $15,000 is enough to live on, you'd set your welfare programs for people making $10k or $5k and cut them off when they reach $15000. But we don't, we provide thousands of dollars of assistance for those people. Why? Because we know that it's insufficient.


I don't particularly care about the minimum wage. I care about the lies that people tell themselves for why they want other people to live in poverty.

To repeat my point from the first page: The government paid a certain amount of money during a pandemic because the government knew that was needed to keep people sustainable while they shut down work. That amount of money is a more realistic approximation of true economic need of regular Americans.

Once you realize that then you can look at things like the minimum wage, welfare, etc. from a more honest perspective. And it also becomes clear that when people want other people to make a fraction of that number so that we can force them back into work, you're looking at a sad pathology. One where we think that the best way to motivate people to work is by forcing them into abject poverty, rather than finding ways to make their work lives more rewarding.


Like I said above, I don't particularly care about the minimum wage. I care about the inconsistency behind what we pay for people to live on vs. what we tell people they should be able to live on.

The government sets plenty of arbitrary numbers. I think you are overthinking what they choose to call a minimum wage. And a minimum wage isn't a livable wage, it's just a minimum (although it can easily be livable as well).

The welfare programs are set at higher than that wage to force people to get their basic necessities (food, healthcare, etc.). If you just gave people money, a good chunk of that group wouldn't save it and spend it either frivolously, on drugs, or just plain overbudget. I'd prefer our welfare programs actually work that way in general, be service/product based rather than just giving people money.

And the government paid money during the pandemic because of restrictions they put on the free market. While I didn't entirely agree with such restrictions or the government giving money in general, if the government imposes a burden then they should bear the cost of that burden.

Also stop saying that I am "being dishonest" or "lying". Save that level of commentary for CNN and Fox, you just look like a hack.

 

[fedoriswar37]

This makes me incredibly uncomfortable . I would never hire this person.

 

[LangfordBarrow]

Average rent in America is ~$1100
For a poorer neighbourhood, lets say thats ~$800, plus utilities = $900
$900 a month = $10.8K a year

$7.50 an hour working 40 hour weeks = $15.6K = $13.7K after taxes (assuming no deductions)
13.7 - 10.8 = $2.9K
Average American person spends ~$3K per year on groceries, let's say in a poorer situation you spend ~$2K (less with EBT)

$4.8K - $2K = $800. Not a lot of money but still about breaking even. And if you'd like to save more you could always work more hours as well.

Assuming you are in a relationship, both making minimum wage = $30.2K = $27.4K after taxes (assuming no deductions)
After housing = $16.8K
After food = $12.8K

$12.8K is quite a bit of money to save up a year, you can afford a brad new car every year.

So minimum wage might be somewhat uncomfortable single, but as a couple you are saving quite a bit of money per year, assuming you budget correctly and live in an appropriate neighborhood. And given most people are in a relationship this is very comfortably livable.

 

[Scheme]

It's not tough, it's impossible. In the scenario we went through, you'd be thousands of dollars short, even living at the bare minimum. Someone, somewhere, would have to subsidize you or otherwise support you, or you'd have to live under a bridge. Heck, even two adults working full time living on 26K for their entire annual budget is going to be very tough. Definitely not sustainable.

You'd have a couple extra thousand dollars if you worked 60+ hours weeks. And if we are talking about 'survival' then that is fine. And again, fulfilling all those conditions are either situations that people generally aren't in (probably <1% of the population), or able to be fixed.

 

[Sano]

You'd have a couple extra thousand dollars if you worked 60+ hours weeks. And if we are talking about 'survival' then that is fine. And again, fulfilling all those conditions are either situations that people generally aren't in (probably <1% of the population), or able to be fixed.

The reason why people can survive these low wages is because they are subsidized by the government, family or otherwise. You touched on Medicaid and assistance, without it they wouldn't be able to.

You'd expect someone working >60 hours a week in a low skilled labor job, without getting sick, with no vacation time, no pension, no healthcare, outside of Medicaid most likely and actually keep that up? Even IF that was somehow possible, or even reasonable, they would still only be scraping by if they were working on federal minimum wage. Who's to say the hours are even there? It's a fantasy and most people simply couldn't do that. And why should we allow it? You're living in the richest country in the history of the world.

 

[Scheme]

The reason why people can survive these low wages is because they are subsidized by the government, family or otherwise. You touched on Medicaid and assistance, without it they wouldn't be able to.

You'd expect someone working >60 hours a week in a low skilled labor job, without getting sick, with no vacation time, no pension, no healthcare, outside of Medicaid most likely and actually keep that up? Even IF that was somehow possible, or even reasonable, they would still only be scraping by if they were working on federal minimum wage. Who's to say the hours are even there? It's a fantasy and most people simply couldn't do that. And why should we allow it? You're living in the richest country in the history of the world.

For the vast majority of people, it is certainly a livable wage. Maybe there's a very small contingent that it isn't, but there are many social programs (not just federal, but state and city level too). And if you prove you are a hard worker you should have no problem getting a raise or a higher paying job. If you can't, it's not an issue with the government not setting a higher minimum wage (which has plenty of drawbacks), but an issue with the market not having enough jobs to match demand.