this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2023
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Today I Learned

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Upon inception it was set at $0.25. It is now $7.25.

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[–] BeautifulMind@lemmy.world 41 points 1 year ago (3 children)

If you do the comparisons in normalized dollars and compare to productivity, minimum wage (if it tracked to the same purchasing power as it did in the 1950s) would be somewhere around $26 in today's dollars. If you do the same but track to inflation, it would be about $22.

When the wage doesn't keep track to inflation, it's not 'increasing', it's a pay cut. When it doesn't track to productivity, it's a pay cut out of labor's part of any growth.

When workers earning suppressed wages compete to buy things like housing, they're bidding against the class of people that received the share of productivity they didn't- and when the folks making more bid up prices of those things, it's a double-whammy of foregone wage + increased cost-of-living.

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[–] PmMeFrogMemes@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I agree it needs to be raised but that's a terrible and misleading way to present the data.

[–] Sadbutdru@sopuli.xyz 7 points 1 year ago

I strongly agree with this comment.

You could as easily say it's increased by 2800% (correct me if I'm wrong) since then, which sends the opposite message, but neither are good ways of showing what's really going on...

[–] ares35@kbin.social 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] maegul@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Just when boomers were young (8-23 yrs old) … totally tracks!

Looking at the linked graph, there’s a relatively clear plateau from ‘56 to ‘80 … basically from oldest boomers being age 11 to youngest boomers being age 20. I’m a little astonished at how well it lines up with the whole fucking generation. Literally all of them, from the beginning of their teens to the end of their teens (at least), enjoyed the best minimum wage of the modern age.

It also, interestingly, justifies the seperate categorisation of the Jones generation (born 1960-1966) who were the first to see the steady decline.

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[–] hperrin@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think a more alarming stat is that, due to inflation, minimum wage workers have received a pay cut every year for the last fourteen years.

[–] bruhrrito@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Was going to ask, did op include inflation?

[–] Gestrid@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It should be noted that this is the federal minimum wage. Many states set a higher minimum wage than that. For example, California's minimum wage will be $16/hr starting January 1st, Virginia is $12/hr, and New York is $14.20/hr.

[–] PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

California's is actually even weirder, because they recently passed legislation that raises the minimum wage but specifically on franchised businesses

[–] queue@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 year ago

I think that got held up in lobbyists appealing to the court.

[–] v_krishna@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Berkeley's minimum wage is $18.07

[–] yournamehere@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] aidan@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But that has nothing to do with free market because minimum wage is set by the government?

[–] greavous@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Minimum wage is required because companies operating in the free market don't pay many people enough to survive. So minimum wage is absolutely related to the free market.

[–] aidan@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Except a tiny percentage of people in the US earn minimum wage, and half of the them are under 25 iirc

[–] yoz@aussie.zone 2 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Why do people even live in the US?

[–] BigNote@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago

Well obviously it's very difficult for the poor to leave and if you aren't poor it's actually a pretty nice place to live.

[–] sour@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

because am born in the u.s.

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[–] YurkshireLad@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Minimum wage is simply the lowest full time salary a company can legally get away with paying. Nothing more, nothing less.

I'm primarily talking about large corporations that make millions and billions, yet claim they can't afford to pay more than minimum wage.

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[–] trailing9@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (17 children)

Do you remember that wages rose when unemployment was low?

Why is there a need for minimum wage?

Edit: downvoters, what do you want? A high minimum wage job while many are unemployed? Why focus on minimum wage when you can have low unemployment and decent wages for everybody at the same time by reducing unemployment?

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