A minimum wage hike is just part of the solution to help the working poor

[inanna]

July 1, 2016

Starting today, most minimum wage workers in Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Pasadena, Malibu and unincorporated Los Angeles County will get a bump in their hourly pay — from $10 to $10.50 — as the first step toward a $15 minimum wage in 2020. For the rest of California’s workforce, the wage floor adopted by the Legislature earlier this year will hit $10.50 on Jan. 1 and $15 in 2022. Workers at companies with 25 or fewer employees will have to wait till next year for their raise; small businesses got a one-year delay under the local ordinances and state law.

The wage hikes should be good news for the lowest-paid workers, who struggle to afford housing, transportation and education in one of the most expensive regions in the nation. In less than a year, Los Angeles and California set two of the nation’s most aggressive and ambitious minimum wage mandates. It’s the beginning of a grand experiment to dramatically increase pay for the working poor with the hope of reducing poverty.

But even if raising the minimum wage lives up to its advocates’ predictions, that alone won’t solve the problems facing the working poor in California because low pay is just one of the challenges they face.

There is the exorbitant cost of housing in California’s coastal urban areas. Los Angeles has been deemed the least affordable rental market; workers need to earn more than $30 an hour to afford an average apartment. Housing in San Francisco and San Diego is prohibitively expensive too. There are various proposals to build more subsidized housing for low-income families, but the larger problem can be solved only by greatly increasing the supply of housing to meet demand. Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed loosening restrictions on new housing that, with some tweaks to address legitimate environmental concerns, could help build more homes and eventually reduce prices.

...

Link: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-minimum-wage-20160701-snap-story.html

[rusty quoin]

1. It's a real slow start.

I made $15/hr. in construction in San Diego in the 90s. It was skilled labor too. I use to listen to union guys talking how they were making 30/hr. I think my wife made $40 or more per hour for a drug company, but she worked 70 hours a week because they needed her. It got us out of a financial mess.

But those numbers certainly do not work today. We lived in an apartment and desperately wanted a house. The cost was staggering. One little bungalow I remember was $300,000. What is that same home today...500...600...800?


We were able to move back east, because drug companies paid for the move back then. But there is no way for regular families to live in such communities today with the same wage I was paid. $30/hour is a starting point. And the answer to that problem is more unions.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

2. I worked in El Segundo for 6 1/2 years staggering prices

This is the cheapest house in town:
http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/867-Washington-St_El-Segundo_CA_90245_M25961-18115

2 beds, 1 full , 1 half baths, 1,265 sq ft
It's nice but really? $689,000?

[Citrus]

3. A mere nod...

These minimum wage increases are nothing more than a mere collective nod that acknowledges a problem. By the time wages are actually at $15 an hour, the cost of living will have increased to the point that any increase will be moot. That $15 is a (barely!) livable wage now, but it won't be a livable wage in 4, 5 or 6 years.

It's a way for those in power to point to the increase and say, "See? We took care of that!" And in 4, 5, or 6 years, when people point out that their $15 is not a livable wage, TPTB will point to the old increase and say, "Nonono... We took care of that!" It's exactly like welfarism for nonhuman animals, which does no real good. Being a tiny bit "better off" isn't measurable, nor does it really eliminate suffering. Whether for humans or nonhumans, eliminating the problem now, and creating lasting solutions, is the only thing that works.

This is all a sop. And I'm astonished that more people don't see it. More's the pity.

And yes, I realize that some employers can't hike it that fast, but many can. And I realize the only real solution is for government to step in and provide temporary assistance until the full amount is reached, and then to legislate truly livable wage laws from then on. (Or something similar and perhaps even better.) But that ain't gonna happen. More's the pity.