Edit: 5, per the photo on the article
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/09/08/who-makes-mi...
>Is every single type of profession required to support a family of 4?
"A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him. They must even upon most occasions be somewhat more, otherwise it would be impossible for him to bring up a family, and the race of such workmen could not last beyond the first generation."
"They who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people should have such a share of the produce of their own labor as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged."
"Our merchants and master-manufacturers complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby lessening the sale of their goods both at home and abroad. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people."
All from Adam Smith.
I don't believe people (well, the people with the influence more accurately) care about this anymore, not with the promise of automation to replace that lost generation while lining their pockets with money.
I think in theory you could raise an 1800s-size family today, but you'd have to settle for 1800s-level quality of life, which nobody is likely to do. And in practice you can't just set up a shed on unclaimed land, because there is no unclaimed land left and NIMBYs wouldn't want a slum anywhere near their property. If you tried making your children useful as labor, you'd quickly lose custody for your child exploitation. And so on.
The things our society expects and accepts have changed, so you can't always point to the past and say "it worked then, so it will work now"; because if the social structure enabling it has changed, this may not be true.
a college degree is the new highschool diploma. Even with a 4 year degree in a "real" field of study (business/stem/finance/whatever) it's becoming more and more difficult to land entry level jobs. If you pay 30/60/90k for said degree, you are going to feel entitled (rightfully or not) to working in a position that's not for the "uneducated". These positions still need to be filled though, because they are generally the jobs that make day-to-day life happen. Nobody wants to flip burgers but they still want to be able to eat one at lunch.
I'm of the opinion that yes, even minimum wage jobs should be able to get the bare minimum expenses of an average family covered (housing/food/medicine), let alone two incomes making more than minimum wage.
Discretionary income = subtract off taxes and housing.
Hours lost to work = time at work plus time commuting or anything you have to regularly do to be able to work.
That way, the measure is less susceptible to the dismissal of "just move farther out" -- that has a cost in terms of increasing hours lost to work and therefore decreasing DIPHLoW.
It also highlights the impact of housing costs -- anything that keeps them from going down is effectively keeping DIPHloW down too.
What I'm advocating for is that (2!) minimum wage jobs should afford rent, food, and medical/dental expenses. There is absolutely no excuse why $75k combined income should afford a 2 or 3 br apartment, food, and to keep the kids healthy.
The only options are to a) either lower costs to make things affordable, b) raise the lower end of the pay scale, or c) sacrifice the luxuries/services that come with low paying jobs (fast food, manual labor services, etc).
a) will never happen, prices will only rise until all the tech companies go bust or move b) to raise the lower end of the pay scale the higher end would have to sacrifice salaries c) most likely to happen - or be replaced with automation -driving these families and jobs out of the area completely.
I'm interested to see how SV will develop over the next 15-20 years. It will probably end up being over paid tech-workers and robots automating everything else.
>I'm of the opinion that yes, even minimum wage jobs should be able to get the bare minimum expenses of an average family covered (housing/food/medicine), let alone two incomes making more than minimum wage.
Do you support us immediately ceasing trade with China and Mexico? Or is it only a problem when you can actually see the people that can't afford to live a lifestyle similar to yours?
It's several years to complete, but the 8000 hours of work experience is then sufficient to get a license to work independently.
Of course regulation often goes wrong. I'm pretty sure that isn't a reason to do away with it altogether, it is merely a reason to find ways to do it better.
My grandpa was a mailman his whole life, and supported a family of 5 on that income. He is pretty well off now. Today the average $15 an hour USPS carriers get paid will barely support one person in a small city.
I used to work at cafeteria [non-school, for employees] part time and all the full timers were old woman who fit the stereotype to a T. The part timers were all teenagers though. The only people who see part timers where those who worked outside typical business hours.
When I worked in a cafeteria, the men and boys often did the dirtier and heavier work like stocking freezers, cleaning grease traps, etc. I don't think it needs to be this way, but it's what happened. I'm not sure if that's typical or not, but it probably affects the longevity in food service work over time.
That is, different work cultures and different managers may treat men differently.
Certainly not. And anyone who says it should is being disingenuous unless they also support rabidly protectionist trade policy like not purchasing virtually anything from China or Mexico. What they really mean is that they don't like seeing poor people close to them.