Funny story, we are moving out of our apartment to another in the same city, because that is close to $300 cheaper.
We had an issue in the bathroom and the maintenence guy comes and we make small talk. I find that he lives in another apartment complex, the property managers live in another apartment complex, because the ones I live in is expensive and the housing in our city is expensive that none of us can afford to buy one.
Costs of living is not the same, you cannot compare the totals, it is better to compare the rise amount (in wages vs inflation). That was the point of the thread, right?
To some degree. We’ve seen prices rise in the pandemic and drop back down substantially over time back to pre-pandemic numbers. Look at price trends for construction supplies, for instance. Not sure if that is what you’re referring to, however
Which is "ok" as wages will start to go up over time (for some). But some wages don't climb as fast and some people are on fixed revenue (old people, disabled people).
You careen right into being priced out of living with that argument. If you are pegged at a constant wage, that was theoretically enough when it was introduced, for more than a decade while the cost of living rises continuously, then you will be priced out of… living.
And that’s not ethical; fake number money should ultimately serve ensuring acceptable lives instead of keeping the cost of living from rising even farther past unlivable. It‘sa already unlivable - it doesn’t matter if it’s 10% over unlivable or 100%, it’s still an unlivable minimum wage.
Money is very evil for people with little of it. There’s a minimum you need to live. If you are under it, you may not live anymore. If you are just over it, you barely survive. If you make three times it, everything is fine. It gets worse from there (like ten times lets you buy a home and accrue equity while not bleeding money to renting housing, and your mortgage is lower than comparable rent to boot).
Not reflected in any long-term wage increase or min-wage-introduction economic observations and studies conducted in the last 40 years. This is one of those "it feels 'logical'" talking points that capital likes to tout but is in no way backed up by data or empirical evidence.
You're missing my point. The individual experience, while important and not something we should ignore, does not invalidate the now-decades worth of data we have that shows your original posture (raising min wage leads to increased cost of living) is incorrect.
Make no mistake: costs for staple goods have increased in that time and inequality and share of GDP that belongs to labor have gone to hell, but it's not because of minimum wages or in any way related to their increases. If you want to blame anyone blame runaway healthcare costs, consolidation and unenforced monopolization of business, the decoupling of labor efficiency and labor pay, globalization and automation increasing competition and depressing local wages...etc
