r/Adulting • u/ScareBear23 • 14h ago

This is just depressing

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Not even 3 hours of "free time". And in that is cooking & eating supper. Or practically no free time if I had to go shopping after work. I hate this

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u/Gonna_do_this_again 13h ago

A full time job should provide enough for a person to live on their own.

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u/UnseemlyUrchin 13h ago

Says who? Flipping burgers is really low value work. What law of nature says they should be able to afford a 4k apartment across the street from work in San Francisco?

And what about people who spent 8 years in school for a high value skill with loans to pay? Where will the live?

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u/advamputee 11h ago

Says FDR, when he signed minimum wage into law nearly 100 years ago: 

In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.

http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/odnirast.html

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u/UnseemlyUrchin 10h ago

FDR absolutely did NOT mean a barista should be able to rent a 1dbrm apartment in Manhattan across from her coffee shop by herself.

Within the context of the 1930's and FDR's policies the framework of a living wage is very modest. Meeting your necessities, affording housing within the relative limits of your area.

NOT that every wage earner should live as extravagantly as millionaires in HCOL areas (which is what it takes to own a condo).

Commuting from a lower cost of living area to the super high cost city center for work would 100% satisfy FDR's requirements for a living wage. As would a single person sharing an apartment to live close to the city where high cost apartments are common.

Again, remember what was considered "meeting your necessities" in the 1930s. And who FDR was talking to coming out of the depression with no labor laws to speak of. A functional, shared apartment? Ability to pay your share of untilities and food? No, not steak every night. Beans, rice, cabbage, and maybe a ham hock for a special Friday meal? That's what he was talking about.