That works out to $2400 gross per month (so before taxes) which if you can't recoup it from the work input says more about the company you are working for and their inability to capture value. Keep in mind that raising the wage across the bar will increase inflation but will level the wage disparity between 'smart' work and 'dumb' work.
What is it, then? Small family or individual?
(Edit: sorry for the annoyance. I just tried to understand how did you work out that the right number is $2400 with such precision. Surely that's the right number everywhere in the US, as well...)
So that the employers do not have to take the family situation of the people they employ into account.
Np. As for the $2400, $15/hour * 40 * 4 is close enough, and that seems to work based on the salaries of a number of people that I am familiar with.
Working two jobs at $7/hour should not be a requirement to make ends meet. And that's another way in which the low minimum wage hurts employment: people working two shifts because they have to.
Large enough to stimulate people to learn, small enough that those working hard do not end up wearing out their bodies before their pension, end up on the streets or dead.
> If someone spent their youth doing drugs and having children out of wedlock do they really deserve to earn a salary within say 10% of someone that spent their youth working to gain the skills and experience necessary to be a doctor or lawyer?
Do you mean to imply that there are no doctors or lawyers with children out of wedlock or on drugs?
> Just because the outcomes need to be more equal?
I would avoid the word equal, I would use the word fair.
Not sure how you got that impression. If you thought that the 'large enough to stimulate people to learn' is a factor in that: I was thinking of kids looking around them seeing zero advantage of having an education might not be incentivized enough to acquire one.
I'm quite certain one can survive on zero dollars, so I assume you're talking about something else. But I don't get what.
The $2400 number is completely made up, it's not even geography-specific. It's a lot in Indiana suburbs and it's barely anything in SF.
In the UK there's a foundation that exists to work out what would a fair living wage, to promote this idea to businesses (getting them to commit to pay this to all workers even though the legal minimum is lower) and to make sure that when media people have your question they've got somebody who can confidently provide quotes/ appear on TV/ whatever to explain.
This was sufficiently successful that the government tried to rebrand their arbitrarily chosen (55% of median earnings) minimum wage as a "National Living Wage" but to their annoyance people continue to refer to the foundation's numbers which you know, are based on evidence.
The Living Wage Foundation uses a "basket" system like economists measuring inflation. For example they imagine that a person should rent somewhere to live, so they go find out how much it would typically cost to rent somewhere a person could live in various parts of the country. They figure you will want food, so they work out a set of groceries you might buy, and so on.
Is it possible to live on less? Yes, and it so happens that I do even though I'm fairly wealthy. But it's very obvious that even small changes in my lifestyle would significantly increase my spending, and many of my choices just aren't open to people who aren't wealthy. For example I spend very little on housing, because I own my home outright. But obviously people trying to get a minimum wage cleaning job don't own a house!
It's the amount one would spend on groceries, rent, utilities, transportation, childcare, and sometimes healthcare.
It does not include luxuries such as meals at restaurants, entertainment, savings accounts, retirement funds, investments, or vacations.
MIT has a great living wage calculator for the US. Their definition of living wage is in the about section.
A couple of billionaires less and a higher standard of living for the masses is a good thing.