What should we do?
I would, for a moment, like to address something about the $15 minimum wage debate that hasn't been heard from in some bit. One argument from opponents of the $15 that I've heard and seen repeatedly is some variant of the following "minimum wage jobs are meant to be starting jobs and you should move up."
For a bit of reference, the State of Illinois has its minimum wage at $8.25 per hour. Working 40 hours a week for all 52 weeks of the year. Before taxes, you will have earned $17,160. Using a tax estimator (https://smartasset.com/taxes/illinois-tax-calculator#2oBCRCsZkP) and entering my city and state residence, the website estimates that the total income tax will be $2,557 leaving a person with $14,603 to live on. Keep in mind that the federal poverty line for an individual in 2015 is $11,880 (https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/federal-poverty-level-FPL/). So this person has $14,603 to work with in Plainfield, Illinois to try and fund their life. I will use Plainfield since that is what was entered into the tax calculator. Plainfield, for those unaware, is a suburban municipality that has a population around 39,000. So this person has $14,603 to pay for gas (if someone is making minimum wage and working 40 hours we can assume they are commuting), if this person is under 26 they can be lucky enough to still be on their parent's insurance but that is not necessarily guaranteed, but if they are older they must pay for their own, they have to pay food, garbage pick-up, gas, cable/internet, electric, water, rent, phone bill, credit card bill (as in the typical minimum payment. In this modern world you may have heard "no credit is worse than bad credit." So you need some form of credit payment in order to build credit for larger purchases), clothing/work clothes (if your job does not provide you work wear or require one specific product you cannot claim them on your taxes), hygiene products (if you are a female this will be drastically more than males), car insurance, and regular car care (oil changes. air filters, tune ups, tire rotations, and any other typical scheduled care). This is all for a single person and given that you can shop around for different prices for a lot of the things that were listed but reasonably speaking rent would cost a couple hundred dollars at least and over the course of a year would be at least $3,000. The other numbers would be complete conjecture but try and fathom actually living and $14,603
The situation gets worse if you consider a single child in the mix as well. Using the same sources as above, the poverty line for 2 people is $16,020 and the taxes change to an estimated $2,071 leaving you with an estimated $15,089. Now, you need to adjust the costs of the bills in the previous paragraph to two people. There are going to be additional ones with a child too. If they're are school age, supplies and school cost (remember, you have to pay for public school in Illinois. If you don't pay the school, at the very least they will not give a child their diploma), shots, and possible others that I cannot think of at the moment.
Going back to the original point I was addressing that you are supposed go upwards from minimum wage/low paying jobs. The Walmart corporation's minimum wage across all stores is $10 an hour or it will be very shortly, working 40 hours a week exactly (some businesses do not enjoy giving overtime so that will remain out) you will make an untaxed 20,800 a year. One person without dependents will be estimated to taxed (using the same sources) $3,394 leaving a person with $17,406 (with one dependent it would be a taxed $2,850 leaving $17,950). I would like to mention that store locations have many more part time employees than full time and even if you are a full time employee, it does not mean you will receive a great raise. In fact, with the $10 minimum wage, they decided that there would be a flat yearly raise of 2% which is about 20 cents. An employee with the company for 10 years could possible only be making slightly over $12 dollars. Why am I spending so much text and time on Walmart? Walmart is the largest single employer with the exception of the Government with a little over 2 million employees (The US has 324 million residents as of today according to http://www.census.gov/popclock/ ). The food and beverage industry in general has 4.7 million employees in 2014 (http://www.bls.gov/ooh/food-preparation-and-serving/food-and-beverage-serving-and-related-workers.htm ), retail sales workers has 4.8 million employees (http://www.bls.gov/ooh/sales/retail-sales-workers.htm), combined that is 9.5 million employees. In 2015 there was an estimated 321,418,820 persons in the US (http://www.census.gov/search-results.html?q=percent+of+population+under+18&search.x=0&search.y=0&search=submit&page=1&stateGeo=none&searchtype=web) and there is an estimated 22.9% of the population is under 18 years of age (https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/AGE135215/00 ) leaving 77.1% that are above. Doing quick math and multiplying 321,428,820 by 77.1% to find the estimated number of person 18 years old and older (because I could not find that number on the census bureau) and you get "247,813,910.22". That is the amount of people in the US at working age guaranteed. I realize that certain jobs and states allow for the hiring of individuals under 18 so recognize that as a point of some error in the numbers.
Food and retail are the two industries that came to mind the quickest that have a large amount of employees and lackluster pay rates but there are so many more that would end up turning this into a full essay for a class. 10 million positions is a lot. When someone says that a person should try for higher things, that in of itself is not a wrong thing to say. Pushing oneself to greater heights is a great thing to do for bother personal and monetary improvement. However, With 10 million positions at low wages just on what was discussed here, where are they to go? At walmart, an in department raise for a year of employment will be a net of 20 cents which changes $20,800 to $21,216 (using 10.20 * 40 * 52), That is not much improvement. And that raise is standard, there is not a choice for a manager to up that amount, it is a flat 2%. In saying this, I do not mean to criticize Walmart in anyway, as mentioned before, they are the single largest employer and easiest to work with because they affect a large amount of people. The persons that would make the most in a store with the exception of the managers are supervisors and there are a max of about 10 of them in a store, so that still leaves so many other people. And those lower positions, wherever they may be in whatever business they might be in, still have to be filled. In order for someone to move up, there has to be vacancy to fill. People naturally stay in higher positions longer because of the increased money and benefits and what have you, so vacancies are rare. They can also be the first jobs to be cut or consolidated because of their expense to a corporation. Without a vacancy, there cannot be vertical movement. There always has to be a fast food clerk. There always has to be a cart pusher. There always has to be bagger or a cashier. Those positions are necessarily going away. They will be there and someone has to fill them. And in order for someone to get out of that, they either have to move up (in the company or not) or move out into unemployment which is zero intake.
I say all these things and I bring this data, not to necessarily declare that "we must have 15 to live." I bring it to open discussion. If not 15, then what? Stay where we are now? We reminded of constantly of the struggles being faced by those working more than one full time job and how that is not enough to help someone or their family for one reason or another. "They should not have gotten into their situations" someone might say, and while that might be true, do we give no aid at all to someone who is trying their hardest to feed their loved ones? These 9.5 million job positions are not going anywhere anytime soon, and if they do disappear, that is X amount of positions not available for even filling and receiving payment for. Are these 9.5 million people just there for the rest of people who have it better to say "at least I'm not them"? What do we do. We are all Americans in this country. And we should all help each other survive in our own country. But I ask anyone who for some reason made it this far in a very long ramble, How?
