In this diary I will discuss the minimum wage and how it correlates to another popular federal wage, the military. I will also discuss the federal poverty line.
In general, I'm not a diarists, nor a great writer. But I think I have something to say and would like to express it.
I’m concerned about the erosion of a living wage, for the wage earning class. I attempt to make a case that demonstrates the hypocrisy among the various federal government agencies in regard what they consider an appropriate living standard.
Well it would be preaching to the choir here on KOS if I said the minimum wage isn’t anywhere close to a living wage. And despite what people say, many people working minimum wage jobs are not teenagers.
Having some recent experience dealing with the military, I am acutely aware of their standards. No one thinks they are going to get rich being in, or part of a military family. People join for other reasons. The salaries are low, and they remain lower than an equivalent civilian career throughout one’s service, in general.
But I think there is something to be learned from military standards, and what they deem “the minimum acceptable standard” in terms of housing and cost of living.
So I did a little mathematics.
The lowest wage of a service person is $1273.50 per month. Since off-post housing is calculated separately, let’s take a look at that.
I think it would be interesting to do some math to figure out what the minimum wage should be.
In order to evaluate this fairly, one has to take a look at the variable BAH’s in different regions. After all, what you can live on in Lexington, KY will not cut it in New York City.
So I took base salary, ($1273.5 per month), + BAH (no dependents) and divided it by 180 hours per month. That is roughly a 40 hour work week.
I made the calculations on random cities, while biasing my samples toward lower cost of living locations.
Here are my findings:
Salary Chart:
New York City - $17.15
Lexington, KY - $9.93
Greenville, SC - $10.45
Witchita, KS - $10.25
Yuma, AZ - $10.57
Fairbanks, AL - $11.40
Huntsville, AL - $10.00
San Fran, CA - $16.81
San Diego, CA - $13.21
Colorado Springs, CO - $10.71
I think you got the point. There is no place in this nation, that the US Military believes one can live decently for less than $10 an hour. So one would think that the minimum wage should be at or around $10 an hour, and more, in some higher cost of living cities and states.
Some may say, Wait a minute! The DoD minimum standard is based on marketplace surveys of “ The midpoint between the average rental cost of a 2 bedroom apartment and a 2 bedroom townhouse”. Single people don’t need that much space. I agree.
A single Private in NYC earns: $3,087.5 per month, or $37,050 per year. But only $15,282 of that income is taxable. (And probably not even that if you account for standard deduction etc. Tax mavens, I’m sure you can explain it.) So a single Private’s real income is actually more than $37K because, $21,768 was earned without being subject to taxation. I’m not math wizard, but I think that difference, more than makes up for the DoD standard 2 bedroom apartment.
Why is this comparison important?
To me, it shows the government, on some level has acknowledged just how much it cost to live. Contrast this with the federal poverty guidelines.
A single person is considered under the poverty line in the 48 contiguous states if they earn less than $9,800 per year. What if I were to divide that by an hourly wage? That comes out to $4.53 per hour. Whoa. It’s not very far from $5.15 an hour.
There’s more.
Do you know that food stamp programs, Medicare, housing subsidies, child care subsidies and a whole slew of other programs, designed to help the working poor and the middle class are often calculated based on the Federal Poverty Level?
For instance, one child care program to help “middle class” employees who work in the “ground zero” zip codes is based on 2.5x the poverty line. So for a single mother, working 40 hours a week that would be $15.27. Wait a minute. That’s less than the military pays someone without dependents.
I wanted to address minimal wage workers. I know this isn't a smooth transition. Let me just say, if the minimum wage is $5.15 an hour, and Target pays them $3.00 above the minimum wage, it is an easy case for the employer to make, "But we pay them well above the minimum wage". It doesn't really matter that the minimum wage is almost the same as the federal poverty rate, and, that it is well below a minimum living standard. They ARE paying their employees above the minimum wage.
I’m starting to get off my point and wander here. So I will summarize my point.
- The minimum wage should be at least $10 an hour and should be based on COL for high cost regions.
- The minimum federal poverty guidelines should be raised by double.
- This will in turn raise the rates on a lot of “help the needy” programs
- In my opinion, this will increase the wages of minimal and middle class wage earners
Please be kind folk. This is my first attempt at a diary. I have a lot of ideas about this, but I have a great deal of problem putting them together coherently.