I'm sorry but I looked a bit too and I findi your criticisms a bit unconvincing. The mobile plan may be a bit much but $60/mo is literally the cheapest broadband plan available where I live. In fact it's almost literally the only plan available unless you want to spend more.
I looked up both my low cost birth county in Montana and my current high cost home county in Washington. Both had a budget of about $5,000 a year for transportation. Which, ignoring all maintenance, fuel and registration costs would leave you with about $300 per month after meeting most state minimum insurance requirements and full coverage. That's the payment on about a $15,000 car financed over 60 months, if you have good credit. Not a beater by any means but honestly that's pretty much the value sweet spot in terms of getting a reliable used car. You could get more car by ditching full coverage but as Dave Ramsey says, "you insure the things you cannot afford to replace." Your sole mode of getting to work seems like a thing you probably can't afford to replace on minimum wage. Again, you can play with the numbers but I already threw your argument the bone of ignoring, fuel, maintenance and licensing costs. A nontrivial sum.
Regardless, I'm not sure why your argument takes as it's premise that a living wage should represent the minimum a person needs to get by in our modern world. Why is that the default standard?
Edit: When I think about it more, isn't that kind of the whole point of a proposing a living wage over a minimum wage? People proposing it believe that we shouldn't peg wages to the minimum a person needs but rather to some fulfilling standard of living?
> living wage should represent the minimum a person needs to get by in our modern world.
I think it depends on what we intend on doing with living wage as a measure. Typically I see it called out as a safety net minimum for what people should make. Frequently mentioned as a floor for minimum wage talks.
So if it’s a baseline then it should be the minimum. If It’s some median target then that’s different.
I don’t think it’s useful to have a median target because it’s so arbitrary depending on individual circumstances and desires.
I looked up both my low cost birth county in Montana and my current high cost home county in Washington. Both had a budget of about $5,000 a year for transportation. Which, ignoring all maintenance, fuel and registration costs would leave you with about $300 per month after meeting most state minimum insurance requirements and full coverage. That's the payment on about a $15,000 car financed over 60 months, if you have good credit. Not a beater by any means but honestly that's pretty much the value sweet spot in terms of getting a reliable used car. You could get more car by ditching full coverage but as Dave Ramsey says, "you insure the things you cannot afford to replace." Your sole mode of getting to work seems like a thing you probably can't afford to replace on minimum wage. Again, you can play with the numbers but I already threw your argument the bone of ignoring, fuel, maintenance and licensing costs. A nontrivial sum.
Regardless, I'm not sure why your argument takes as it's premise that a living wage should represent the minimum a person needs to get by in our modern world. Why is that the default standard?
Edit: When I think about it more, isn't that kind of the whole point of a proposing a living wage over a minimum wage? People proposing it believe that we shouldn't peg wages to the minimum a person needs but rather to some fulfilling standard of living?