A pair of progressive Democrats unveiled a bill on Tuesday that would raise the federal minimum wage to $25 per hour, considered the bare minimum a single adult needs to meet the cost of living in much of the US.
The Living Wage For All Act is the first bill to be introduced by the newly sworn-in Rep. Analilia Mejía (D-NJ), who won a special election earlier this month after helping to lead the fight for a $15 minimum wage in her home state of New Jersey.
I’d counter that without addressing price gouging, rent control/passive income, and pain in the ass scores are, raising minimum wage is a short term “win” that will quickly be erased as soon as inflation catches up and leases need renewed. Your bottom end apartment that was willing to rent to you for X amount because they know it’s a shithole now knows you make $25 an hour. If they were taking 2/3 of your income when you made it at $7.25, they’re going to want 2/3 of $25. The apartments that were renting to people making $25 before are going to adjust to limit access to people making even more to keep the riffraff out. And credit providers won’t view this as a step-up for us, they’ll just raise the ceiling for approval. They might have given you a home loan if you were making $25/hr in a $7.25 world, but now everyone makes that, sorry!
It’s the illusion of progress because it only addresses one facet of what needs to be done. I’d rather see a world where $7.25 is a living wage because the exploiters were cut off from their practices than one where we pretend like giving the masses “more” is the solution.
Not going to matter much because the boomers will all shout “when I was your age, I had five kids and a house on less than minimum wage! You just need to sacrifice a little more!” and then it’ll just get shut down by people who have never experienced poverty, let alone even middle class life.
My boomer-fuck parents made their way on the world my greatest and silent generation grandparents fought for, and bled & sweat for. Then they turned that into a swindle and called it “self-made”. Then they never let go. Fuck ‘em. You half-assed it and think you’ve earned it. I’ll grant there was an occasional effort, but you never did as hard as they did. An entire generation of stolen valor.