If only Democrats had the stones to do this.
The fight for $15 movement started 13 years ago. $15 in 2012 money is equal to over $20 in 2025 money. It’s taking the most progressive senator we’ve got to even suggest a pittance that is below what we’ve been asking for for over a decade.
And it is $17 in 2030.
Here from Europe, let me recommend one thing we do well: we link our equivalent of social security to the average wage growth, not to inflation.
This ensures that all voters benefit from wage growth. And thus all voters demand the same thing from the politicians.
Makes too much sense.
Sensible policies are Unamerican, judging by what has been passed by Congress in the last 20 years.
The problem with that happening in the US is there has been no wage growth, only retraction. Between inflation and wage inequality our purchasing power is nearly half what it was 25 years ago.
That’s the point. Your problem is that a lot of voters aren’t affected by wage growth. So politicians don’t feel the pressure to enact wage growth.
All those senior people will actually vote for the guy who keeps wage growth in check.
we can’t even get it to 15, what do you think are chances of doing that are lol
I know, but these things tend to be all or nothing.
Either the American workers don’t seize power and they continue to get exploited, or they seize power and then a lot will be possible.
Median one bed apartment rent, across the entire US, is $1550 as of Feb 2025.
Lets knock 20% of that off, to approximate a median studio apartment instead, give some leeway to poorer parts of the country.
(there are not as good or reliable general stats counted for studio apartments, but a studio being 20% less than a one bed is… hopefully a reasonable, napkin math aporoximation)
Ok, that’s $1240.
Alright, now we use the ‘rent should be 30% of your income’ rule.
Thats $4135 a month, rounded up very slightly to the nearest 5.
Ok, 40 hours a week, roughly 4 weeks a month = 160 hours.
4135 / 160 = $25.85, again rounded up to the closet 5 cents for simplicity, so thats your actual minimum ‘living wage’.
If you wanna say a studio should be 30% off a one bedroom?
Math works out to roughly $22.60
If you wanna say an actual one bedroom should be the standard, works out to about $32.60
Any way you look at this, $17 an hour is too low, that’s still… you can’t even afford a studio (as in, you cannot pass the rent to income threshold without a cosigner or double deposit or somethingnon your lease) you need roommates, you’re still living with your parents.
NO!! Not a number! Tie it to inflation, as a proportion!! Picking a specific number is what got us in this mess in the first place
If you look at the timeline in the article, post-2030 the act states that it would be indexed.
That would have made a much better headline
It’ll need to be $400 by 2030 to keep up with Trumpflation.
It already realistically needs to be between 25-30 an hr to even be considered a living wage.
Too bad too many don’t consider minimum wage as something that should be a living wage
Yea, those people should be
re-educated.We call those people “all republicans and always just enough democrats.”
Then we make two wages, one we call minimum, the other we call living. That way it’s easy to know if a place is offering a living wage or if it’s just unimportant work.
Then we make two wages, one we call minimum, the other we call living.
That way we can tell the difference between the morlocks and the eloi.
The only problem with that is there’s so much work people consider unimportant that is absolutely vital, just not what people want to do.
Like fast food workers during school hours
I agree with you, the “unimportant” part was tongue in cheek. My point really is that if a person wants a job done for money, they need to either pay a living wage or admit that the work isn’t important enough to pay for. There shouldn’t be an in-between for people to take advantage of.
By 2030, $17 will be the equivalent of $5/hr. Can we just skip the bullshit and tie minimum wage to 2xSGA@40hr/wk? Right now that’d be about $18.70
What is SGA?
Screen Guild… Actors
Substantial Gainful Activity. It’s a metric used in the US which is adjusted each year. Currently it’s $1620/mo.
Democrats:
“Yeah we could have helped the people who voted us in, but fuck that, I love Republican policies, they make my bank account look so much nicer when the lobbyists pay us both.”
I assume that’s her personal mantra. Fucking backstabber.
This remains democrats’ last word on the minimum wage.
best we can do is $8 an hour
“$8 an hour? Think of the profits lost! It’ll raise the cost of rent and groceries!”
Should read “benefiting all Americans”
How this would help Chileans?
Hurr hurrrr
US dollar is valueless pay us in euros.
If you really believe the USD is valueless, give me all your USD.
No
Yeah, that’s what I thought…
They only mention livable wages when they are not in a position to do anything about it.
We need $25 now, not $17 in 5 years. Bernie has become a fucking joke and a shadow of who he used to be
Amazing how every time they’re powerless they wanna raise the minimum wage (to what we asked in 2012), legalize weed, codify Roe v. Wade, and this time stop Trump.
If they get a hold of Congress who much do you think they’ll go for it? Assuming we have elections again.
They only mention livable wages when they are not in a position to do anything about it.
In fairness, this was just as unlikely to pass under democrats.
Or how about just no wages? Kick out the capitalists stealing the profits and divide that amongst the workers.
Abolish the wage system.
Sweet. $17/hr * 40 = $680 a week * 4 = $2720 a month * 52 = $32640 all before tax. Still not enough to live on.
Yeah, the “$15 an hour” debate has been going on for so long that the number has realistically increased to ~$23 per hour. And if a $23/hr minimum wage makes you balk, maybe you should consider how little you’re being paid for the job you currently do.
And in five years, it’ll seem like even less.
Is this a joke…?
Jesus fucking Christ why didn’t you do this back when the Democrats were in power Bernie? Stop fucking virtue signaling. You could have proposed this 4 years ago and it would have had a good chance of actually passing. And that’s exactly why you waited until now, isn’t it?
It saddens me that Bernie is the least broken politician we have, and he still sucks.
Is this a joke? He’s literally been doing this shit for like 60 fucking years my dude
I’m not even an American and don’t follow Sanders, but with a quick search I found news articles from 4 years ago with Sanders proposing to increase minimum wage to $15 https://www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releases/sanders-top-democrats-introduce-bill-raising-minimum-wage-to-15/
Not fast enough not soon enough.
Ohhhh good job Bernie! I’m sure Johnson will get RIGHT on it! The House you lost will surely vote for that. And the Senate you lost will surely confirm it. And president Musk will absolutely sign it!
He was trying this under the useless democrats as well.
americans don’t deserve anything, stop using their death machine money
the USA is running a death camp in El Salvador called CECOT
the USA is running a death camp in El Salvador called CECOT
True
stop using their death machine money
Good advice, though a little hard to do if you are in America.
americans don’t deserve anything
And, here’s your source of downvotes. People, even really shitty people, deserve food, water, and shelter, at a minimum. Shitty people (including a too large number of Americans) don’t have to be heard, and shouldn’t be given any political power, but they are still sentient beings that didn’t ask to be here, and don’t deserve pain or suffering.
“here’s the source of your downvotes” even if you weren’t posting from infosec, you’re flashing your career choices all over the table
don’t take that as a knock, i just find it humorous
i do not care about the popularity of my opinions but thanks
There’s more than just one prison, and the conditions in their older prisons are worse than CECOT
Fuck that you centrist. Abolish the wage system.
…what would that even look like?
Abolition of for profit companies. Worker owned collectives that split all of the profits from the labour between the workers who produced the profit, as the workers vote to decide how to spend it.
Anarcho Syndicalism.
Here’s what the Vancouver IWW has to say about abolishing the wage system: https://www.vancouveriww.org/mean-by-abolition-wage-system/
I’m down for syndicalism. But often that still involves wages…
Nah, shared profits.
Having owned 2 businesses…I’d rather have steady wages. Feast of famine blows.
Having been a wage slave and been on both sides of the counter at soup kitchens, I’d much rather have shared profits.
