
Mapping the Living Wage Gap - new_josh
http://www.datainnovation.org/2015/10/mapping-the-living-wage-gap/
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stegosaurus
Can a 'living wage' ever be anything other than a misnomer? The two words,
glued together, seem incompatible to me.

Under capitalism you don't really get to 'live' unless you break free from
wages to an extent. That doesn't necessarily mean retirement, but it's
somewhere above living paycheck to paycheck. Basically, you need to be in a
situation in which your wages are refilling a tank that slowly leaks, rather
than drinking directly from the hose.

London has a "living wage". It's something like 9GBP. 40 hours a week with no
holiday would get you 18700GBP. How is that a living wage in any sense? What
do we mean by living here? Literally existing as a human being, grasping at
straws thrown down by the capitalists?

With that amount of income and no starting wealth it is totally impossible to
buy a studio apartment anywhere within commuting distance of London. Not even
50sqft. (If you could find one cheap enough, the commuting costs would make it
unviable).

Is constantly moving around from cheap shit apartment to cheap shit apartment,
worrying about how to move your belongings, obsessing over the bills, worrying
about taking the metro to see a friend, living?

Call it what it is. It's a 'starter wage'. It's existence level. 'Living' has
connotations beyond simple existence.

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gjm11
I think "living wage" is a good term. It communicates (to me, at least)
exactly what it needs to: this is how much you need to be able to live; if
you're paid less than this, you are going to need further assistance besides
what you earn.

The government in the UK recently started using the words "living wage" but
what they mean by it falls short of what other people consider a living wage.

(No argument that being paid just barely enough to live is a pretty wretched
existence.)

~~~
stegosaurus
But you don't need the living wage to exist. You can always push further down
the ladder; live out of the back of a van; bunk-beds; perform heroic cycling
or driving feats from the North daily, etc.

Perhaps it's just my odd take on things. I feel that security of housing* is a
clear benchmark, whereas below that, you're kind of arbitrarily deciding on
what level of comfort to accept.

*(A caravan on a small plot of grass that you own would be acceptable to me, if that were a situation you could legally get away with in London!)

Why housing, and not say, food? Because of the nature of how it generally
works in Western countries. Housing is less fungible/liquid (lacking a good
term here). If I want food, I can work for a bit, go begging, whatever, get a
few quid, go and buy some food, eat it. Housing is fundamentally different; we
enter into contracts to put a roof over our head and there's a reasonable
expectation that it's the same roof each day/week/month.

Housing is also priced differently... there's a discrete cliff-edge beyond
which you go from 'roof and 4 walls' to 'tent/car/under a bridge'. Food scales
back much more continuously; you can go all the way down to eating bread and
dripping and experience a small degradation each step along the way.

I'd much rather have a secure roof over my head, a place to call home, and
have to hustle for food/electricity/whatever, than all the food and toys in
the world but nowhere to stay. I think most people would agree (nomadic
lifestyles excepted here because they're generally incompatible with the
premise of working for a wage)

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mc32
When I was growing up, having to get a release from school in order to be able
to work before legal age, I never conceived minimum wage to be a livable wage.

I saw them as teenager jobs. Jobs teenagers did to earn some money to afford
things or to augment household income. Seeing adults trying to live off it was
"educational" and sad.

Personally, I don't think responsible adults should be working these kinds of
entry level jobs, in a well rounded economy. They should have the education
and aptitude to do more value added jobs, but I think as society we've failed
in coaxing more people into being more curious and wanting to learn...

Many of my classmates barely graduated high school and some dropped out. Their
outlook was one where they'd get a blue collar job, maybe a union job and
enjoy "seniority". Some struggle and some are doing okay running their own
business, but I think their outlook would have been better with an emphasis on
education. Some of the parents of these latchkey kids simply thought sending
them to school would be enough. As if education and preparation for the world
began and ended with school.

On the other end of the spectrum we have helicopter parents...

One thing I think could help would be to have training programs to retrain
workers as the economy shifts into new directions. Grant those in need of
skills acquisition tools to learn new skills.

~~~
xivzgrev
Plenty of "educated" people are living at home with parents. The problem
reaches far beyond simply that people haven't gotten enough education.

~~~
mc32
True, but those people should, on average have better earning potential than
HS dropouts.

Also, there is choosing a good career and bad one. Dental hygienist, SWE vs
archeologist or liberal arts, etch.

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pmiller2
I would really like to know how a single adult is supposed to live in SF on
$14.37/hour. My calculator says $14.37 * 40 * 4 = $2299.20 So, before taxes[1]
this person can't even afford to pay rent in the median studio or 1br, and can
barely afford to share the median 2br or 3br (keep in mind this is before
taxes). While I'm sure our hypothetical "living wage" earner probably isn't
living in a median quality apartment, I doubt that even a 20th percentile
apartment is affordable on this wage.

[1] [http://priceonomics.com/the-san-francisco-rent-explosion-
par...](http://priceonomics.com/the-san-francisco-rent-explosion-part-iii/)

~~~
zo1
Maybe individuals aren't supposed to live as "single adults" in such a
place/market? You know, nothing wrong with staying with parents/roommates
until you are making a salary that allows you to live by your own. That is the
problem with these back of the envelope calculations, they never take into
account the ingenuity and resourcefulness of humans.

~~~
pmiller2
Did you notice that even sharing the median 2 or 3 BR apartment doesn't work
on the so-called "living wage"? To make the argument that people making a
"living wage" should be supported by someone in order to have the privilege of
living in SF is paternalistic at best and borderline ridiculous at worst.

My argument isn't that people making $14/hour should be able to live on their
own; it's that we shouldn't call $14/hour a "living wage" unless it _enables_
someone to live on their own (or, at least with roommates).

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jbuzbee
I don't have a good answer for bridging the gap between what it costs to live
somewhere and what low-end jobs pay, but I'm of the opinion that in aggregate,
supply and demand tells us the correct wage for a particular job in a
particular location. This wage may be above someone's definition of a "Living
Wage" or it may be below. It is what it is. Any amount above the market-
determined wage and what someone declares to be a Living Wage is a subsidy. If
we decide that society needs to provide this subsidy, who pays it? In the US,
we currently subsidize it through a forced Minimum Wage, an earned income tax
rebate, "food stamps", health care subsidies, etc.

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pohungc
Direct link to the map: [http://storymaps.esri.com/stories/2015/living-wage-
map/](http://storymaps.esri.com/stories/2015/living-wage-map/)

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wagemapthrowa
Interesting. The map seems to suggest that a minimum wage job is available in
these rural counties (an assumption I'm not so sure about). And it ignores
"DINK" or "dependant adult living with parents" relationships entirely.

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ilaksh
Does it factor in real hours which often are far from full-time?

