In Oregon, for example, the average studio apartment is $600 per month. According to the calculator, you would have to earn $11.54 per hour/$24,000 per year to afford that rent without spending more than 30% of your income on housing. The minimum wage in Oregon is $8.95/hr. Do the math.
This is why bills such as Sen. Harkin-Rep. Miller's Fair Minimum Wage Act are such sick jokes, and nothing more than posturing bills to create the illusion of actually doing something. According to Rep. Miller:
"Miller and Harkin’s proposal would raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour from its current $7.25—in three steps of 95 cents—then provide for automatic annual increases linked to changes in the cost of living. Miller and Harkin’s bill would also gradually raise the minimum wage for tipped workers—which currently stands at just $2.13 an hour—for the first time in more than 20 years, to 70 percent of the regular minimum wage."
So it will take three years to get to $10.10 in 2016. Why is this a sick joke? For two reasons: 1) The minimum wage would be $10.70 TODAY if it had kept up with inflation. 2) Due to inflation, costs will be higher in three years. So that $10.10, which already falls short if it was enacted TODAY, will come up even shorter in three years.
Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports that since the recession, income for the top 1% has increased, while everyone else's income has declined:
"Wealth inequality widened dramatically during the first two years of the economic recovery, as the upper 7 percent of American households saw their average net worth increase 28 percent, while the wealth of the other 93 percent declined, according to a report released Tuesday."
"The study by the Pew Research Center underscored other data showing that the economic growth that has followed the Great Recession has benefited mainly those at the top. The uneven recovery has only accelerated a decades-long trend of growing wealth inequality in the country, despite rising popular and political awareness of the dynamic."
So the corrupt and unfair system continues to flourish unabated. George Carlin was right--it's a big club, and you ain't in it.
