let me hear your voice tonight (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alexseanchai) wrote2011-11-23 09:45 pm
alexseanchai) wrote2011-11-23 09:45 pm
the mathematics of a living wage
Minimum wage in the US is seven dollars and twenty-five cents an hour. Assuming a forty-hour week, a four-week month, and a fifty-two-week year, that's $290 a week, $1160 a month, and $15080 a year. Before taxes, of course.
Assume, first,a perfectly spherical cow no income taxes. This is not a valid assumption in many cases, because income tax will get deducted and then returned in a lump sum after taxes are filed, but assume no income taxes. That leaves us the whole of the paycheck to play with.
The cheapest apartment I have ever seen for rent runs $400 a month. That leaves $760. Transportation? Depends where you live. I fill my tank every two weeks and it runs me about $40. When I lived in Pittsburgh I got a monthly bus pass every month and it ran me $90, but Pittsburgh has a decent bus system, and here...doesn't. I don't drive much except to and from work, and some people live farther from work than I do. So let's assume $100 for transportation. That leaves $660. Car payment, if there is one—mine's $250 for a $6000 car. Let's say $250, then. That's $410 left with a car payment, $660 without. Utilities ran us $100 in that $400 apartment in Pittsburgh, so let's say that, so $310 or $560. Food costs? According to the USDA, a month of healthy food if one is a female aged nineteen to fifty costs $157 if one spends thriftily, $197 if one goes up a notch to low-cost. Let's split the difference and say $175. That leaves either $135 a month or $285 for toilet paper, clothes, shoes, and shampoo. Oh, and medical and dental.
Medical insurance runs between $60 and $180 a month according to ehealthinsurance.com with my stats plugged in (except I told them I'm not a full-time college student). As a general rule, the lower the per-month, the higher the deductible, and therefore the more devastating it is when one has a health issue. Let's split the difference to $120. That leaves either $15 or $265 for toilet paper, clothes, shoes, shampoo, dental insurance, and savings. And don't forget that if one doesn't have a car around here, one is screwed.
$15 a month.
Minimum wage is not a living wage.
Contrast Walmart's CEO. In 2009, he made $35 million.
Suppose we cap Walmart's CEO's yearly salary at what his minimum-wage employees make in a lifetime. Assuming a working lifetime of fifty years, that's $754,000. According to the 2005 figures from the US Census Bureau, that's more than enough to put one in the top one and a half percent. Suppose further that we distribute the difference, $34,246,000, among Walmart's 1.2 million employees. Admittedly, that's only $28.50 per person. But Walmart has plenty of other crazy-high-earning employees. Cap their incomes at the same amount, redistribute the income in the same manner, and it starts to add up.
Suppose further that we make minimum wage a living wage. I estimate that $15 an hour, forty hours a week, fifty weeks a year, is a living wage. That totals $30000 a year. Cap yearly income, again, at what a minimum-wage employee can make in a fifty-year working lifetime, and that's $1.5 million. I have no sympathy whatsoever for anyone who is struggling to get by on $1.5 million. And make that cap apply to income from any source—salary, wages, capital gains, whatever. Maximum of $1.5 million after taxes. Don't want the money taken by the government? Give it to your employees or give it to charity before it ever gets to you.
This is what I want the Occupy movement to advocate for. Minimum wage a living wage, and a maximum yearly income no more than what a minimum-wage employee earns in a single lifetime.
Assume, first,
The cheapest apartment I have ever seen for rent runs $400 a month. That leaves $760. Transportation? Depends where you live. I fill my tank every two weeks and it runs me about $40. When I lived in Pittsburgh I got a monthly bus pass every month and it ran me $90, but Pittsburgh has a decent bus system, and here...doesn't. I don't drive much except to and from work, and some people live farther from work than I do. So let's assume $100 for transportation. That leaves $660. Car payment, if there is one—mine's $250 for a $6000 car. Let's say $250, then. That's $410 left with a car payment, $660 without. Utilities ran us $100 in that $400 apartment in Pittsburgh, so let's say that, so $310 or $560. Food costs? According to the USDA, a month of healthy food if one is a female aged nineteen to fifty costs $157 if one spends thriftily, $197 if one goes up a notch to low-cost. Let's split the difference and say $175. That leaves either $135 a month or $285 for toilet paper, clothes, shoes, and shampoo. Oh, and medical and dental.
Medical insurance runs between $60 and $180 a month according to ehealthinsurance.com with my stats plugged in (except I told them I'm not a full-time college student). As a general rule, the lower the per-month, the higher the deductible, and therefore the more devastating it is when one has a health issue. Let's split the difference to $120. That leaves either $15 or $265 for toilet paper, clothes, shoes, shampoo, dental insurance, and savings. And don't forget that if one doesn't have a car around here, one is screwed.
$15 a month.
Minimum wage is not a living wage.
Contrast Walmart's CEO. In 2009, he made $35 million.
Suppose we cap Walmart's CEO's yearly salary at what his minimum-wage employees make in a lifetime. Assuming a working lifetime of fifty years, that's $754,000. According to the 2005 figures from the US Census Bureau, that's more than enough to put one in the top one and a half percent. Suppose further that we distribute the difference, $34,246,000, among Walmart's 1.2 million employees. Admittedly, that's only $28.50 per person. But Walmart has plenty of other crazy-high-earning employees. Cap their incomes at the same amount, redistribute the income in the same manner, and it starts to add up.
Suppose further that we make minimum wage a living wage. I estimate that $15 an hour, forty hours a week, fifty weeks a year, is a living wage. That totals $30000 a year. Cap yearly income, again, at what a minimum-wage employee can make in a fifty-year working lifetime, and that's $1.5 million. I have no sympathy whatsoever for anyone who is struggling to get by on $1.5 million. And make that cap apply to income from any source—salary, wages, capital gains, whatever. Maximum of $1.5 million after taxes. Don't want the money taken by the government? Give it to your employees or give it to charity before it ever gets to you.
This is what I want the Occupy movement to advocate for. Minimum wage a living wage, and a maximum yearly income no more than what a minimum-wage employee earns in a single lifetime.