[claudiulodro]

From when minimum wage was first established:

> “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.”

> FDR

It was supposed to be a "living wage".

Letting companies pay less than a living wage and providing a robust government safety net just subsidizes businesses using government tax money. The biggest beneficiaries of this are companies like Wal Mart, who gets effectively subsidized to the tune of $6B+ a year because so many of its employees are on SNAP and similar low income programs[1].

[1] https://www.ufcw.org/press-releases/wal-mart-has-highest-num...

[raw_anon_1111]

So I ask you the same question, should the minimum wage be $35 in Forsyth County for a single person and should they automatically get a raise to $45/hour if they have a child?

Everyone loves bringing up Walmart. But should that franchiser who is only netting $70k a year now also be paying $35 an hour?

And again, I find it rich that tech workers living off the tits of VC funding can tsk tsk about companies that need to actually have a profitable business model can’t pay their workers $75k a year (the living wage for Forsyth county, GA) no matter what their job is.

[claudiulodro]

Looks like Forsyth County is the richest county in Georgia and has a median household income of apparently $140k/yr (and median home price of ~$500k), so ballpark something close to that hourly rate does seem necessary if you want to have a median life *within that county*.

But nobody is advocating for setting the minimum wage equal to what it would cost to comfortably live in the wealthiest part of a state.