Someone Compares The Minimum Wage In 2010 vs 2020, And If That’s Not Sad Enough, Other People Share More Statistics
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We all have our understanding of what a good New Year’s party is, but Twitter entered 2020 by sharing sad stats. However, while it’s not as exciting as lighting up some fireworks, reflecting on some important social issues really helps to put things into perspective.
Everything started when reporter Ken Klippenstein tweeted that the minimum wage in the US has remained the same for a decade – $7.25. Pretty soon, people began replying to him with other gloomy numbers. The thread has already received over 172K likes and 53K retweets, and it looks like it continues to grow. Unlike the wallets of the minimum wage workers.
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Beginning of the decade
Image credits: kenklippenstein
End of the decade
Image credits: kenklippenstein
Image credits: kenklippenstein
The first country in the world to pass national minimum wage laws was New Zealand. The Kiwis did this back in 1894. It took nearly half a century for the US to do the same. President Franklin Roosevelt introduced the first federal minimum wage in 1938, setting it at 25 cents an hour, which equates to about $4.45 in today’s money.
Image credits: kenklippenstein
Throughout the years, Congress has raised the minimum wage 22 times. The current level, at $7.25 an hour, was set in 2009. However, it’s worth mentioning that cities and states have the option of setting their own minimum wages. As of January 2019, 29 states had a minimum wage higher than the federal level.
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In recent years, these numbers have caused growing protests. A movement called “Fight for $15” has been demanding an increase in the minimum wage to a living wage (the minimum income necessary for a worker to meet their basic needs). According to a calculator created by Dr. Amy K. Glasmeier, the living wage in the United States was $16.07 per hour in 2017, before taxes for a family of four (two working adults, two children).
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The single most defining characteristic of the members of the Senate and House of Representatives is that the Republicans and much of the Democrats always vote in the interest of the wealthy. Keep minimum wages low, prevent unions from being formed, cut or prevent enviromental regulations, fight against paid family leave, cut tax rates on the wealthiest Americans, challenge affirmative action legislation, deregulate the financial investment markets, deregulate banks, deregulate industry, heck deregulate everything. Conservative Americans fall for it every time.
It's a strange thing, you guys have even protested against more affordable healthcare and don't have free at the point of use healthcare like a lot of other developed countries. Like turkeys voting for Christmas..
For some, perhaps, but I can tell you now I'm happy to pay a little bit extra so that all Aussies have access to free/affordable healthcare. My father has terminal cancer and is on dialysis, I would shudder to think how much it would cost for him to merely survive. There are unintended benefits of a health system such as ours. Universal healthcare leads to less poverty, less crime and an overall sense of cultural cohesion.
We even have brain dead people who wear "I'd rather be Russian, than a Democrat" t-shirts. You just can't fix stupid with a lot of people..... Some people would rather "own" the opposition (pwing the libs!), rather than have a higher standard of living.... We have people losing their farms thanks to legislation, yet still sing the praises of the legislators. Believe me, a lot of us don't get it either.
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Those countries with "free" healthcare pay more in taxes than paying out of pocket for healthcare would ever cost.
Apparently tearing down public education, a right, helps breeding ignorants...
This comment has been deleted.
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Quantative easing and 23 Trillion have consequences. Raising minimum wage is just inflation.
Inflation is always seen as a negative but prolonged low inflation leads to low interest rates causing a lack of investment and 'flight of cash' from investment plans/accounts etc. This causes long term economic damage..
It’s just sad. Apparently having the strongest military takes priority over everything else because that’s where all our money is going
You said it! Thr USA accounts for nearly half the world's military spending. Our bridges and roads are crumbling, our public schools and libraries are underfunded, funding for NASA and food stamps is being slashed to the bone, but there's always plenty of taxpayer money for needless wars abroad.
Just like Rome and USSR
John L, no. There are much older parts of most of Europe that are still standing and still working.
To be fair, infastructure is a individual state issue which sucks because a lot of state govs are corrupt :(
The problem with our infrastructure, is a little more complicated than just throwing money at it. Thanks to WWII most of the world had to rebuild their infrastructure from scratch at one point. So improvements in building techniques led to these countries having lower infrastructure maintenance costs. In the US and other countries that did not directly see war, we are constantly maintaining infrastructure that is in some cases, hundreds of years old. For the US to update it's infrastructure would necessitate an almost complete rebuilding. We could do it, but corporations (and their lobbies) have their own priorities....
How about we make a LIVING wage the new minimum.
The single most defining characteristic of the members of the Senate and House of Representatives is that the Republicans and much of the Democrats always vote in the interest of the wealthy. Keep minimum wages low, prevent unions from being formed, cut or prevent enviromental regulations, fight against paid family leave, cut tax rates on the wealthiest Americans, challenge affirmative action legislation, deregulate the financial investment markets, deregulate banks, deregulate industry, heck deregulate everything. Conservative Americans fall for it every time.
It's a strange thing, you guys have even protested against more affordable healthcare and don't have free at the point of use healthcare like a lot of other developed countries. Like turkeys voting for Christmas..
For some, perhaps, but I can tell you now I'm happy to pay a little bit extra so that all Aussies have access to free/affordable healthcare. My father has terminal cancer and is on dialysis, I would shudder to think how much it would cost for him to merely survive. There are unintended benefits of a health system such as ours. Universal healthcare leads to less poverty, less crime and an overall sense of cultural cohesion.
We even have brain dead people who wear "I'd rather be Russian, than a Democrat" t-shirts. You just can't fix stupid with a lot of people..... Some people would rather "own" the opposition (pwing the libs!), rather than have a higher standard of living.... We have people losing their farms thanks to legislation, yet still sing the praises of the legislators. Believe me, a lot of us don't get it either.
This comment is hidden. Click here to view.
Those countries with "free" healthcare pay more in taxes than paying out of pocket for healthcare would ever cost.
Apparently tearing down public education, a right, helps breeding ignorants...
This comment has been deleted.
This comment is hidden. Click here to view.
Quantative easing and 23 Trillion have consequences. Raising minimum wage is just inflation.
Inflation is always seen as a negative but prolonged low inflation leads to low interest rates causing a lack of investment and 'flight of cash' from investment plans/accounts etc. This causes long term economic damage..
It’s just sad. Apparently having the strongest military takes priority over everything else because that’s where all our money is going
You said it! Thr USA accounts for nearly half the world's military spending. Our bridges and roads are crumbling, our public schools and libraries are underfunded, funding for NASA and food stamps is being slashed to the bone, but there's always plenty of taxpayer money for needless wars abroad.
Just like Rome and USSR
John L, no. There are much older parts of most of Europe that are still standing and still working.
To be fair, infastructure is a individual state issue which sucks because a lot of state govs are corrupt :(
The problem with our infrastructure, is a little more complicated than just throwing money at it. Thanks to WWII most of the world had to rebuild their infrastructure from scratch at one point. So improvements in building techniques led to these countries having lower infrastructure maintenance costs. In the US and other countries that did not directly see war, we are constantly maintaining infrastructure that is in some cases, hundreds of years old. For the US to update it's infrastructure would necessitate an almost complete rebuilding. We could do it, but corporations (and their lobbies) have their own priorities....
How about we make a LIVING wage the new minimum.