# Why not raise the minimum wage with local ordinances?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-raise-the-minimum-wage-with-local-ordinances/941477>\
**Category:** Politics & Elections\
**Created:** [May 5, 2021, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-raise-the-minimum-wage-with-local-ordinances/941477 "2021-05-05T19:32:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 60

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**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\
**Post date:** [May 7, 2021, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-raise-the-minimum-wage-with-local-ordinances/941477/60 "2021-05-07T22:15:29Z")

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> [@DMC](#):
>
> [Then](https://livingwage.mit.edu/) you [disagree](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_wage) with the vast majority of [research](https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/app.20170085) as to what constitutes a living wage or why the minimum is way too low.

The MIT paper pegs broadband at $60/mo which translates to about $0.35/hr in the living wage. MIT also includes a smartphone prorated over three years with unlimited talk and text and between 10-15 GB of data, I think it comes out to about $48/mo for a cell phone (+$0.27/hr in the living wage). I wouldn’t include broadband or cellular data plans because I think these are not essential (unlike a prepaid voice/SMS plan). We can start a different topic if you want to debate that point. Assuming I can shave eight or nine dollars off the monthly phone bill, drop the broadband, there’s about $0.40 of the difference.

MIT’s living wage health _insurance_ component (based on employee contributions to employer-sponsored plans, from [this table](https://meps.ahrq.gov/data_stats/summ_tables/insr/state/series_10/2019/txc1.htm)) comes out to $128.58/mo in my region (+$0.75/hr in living wage). I had used $10/mo ($0.06/hr) based on individual coverage in the marketplace, as advertised in recent [healthcare.gov](http://healthcare.gov) commercials. So there is another $0.50 difference.

They also include about $426/mo in transportation costs for my region (+$2.45/hr in living wage). That is also based on BLS Consumer Expenditure reports of transportation costs by household size, adjusted for regional variances. I don’t think this is necessary. Owning a car may be necessary in many places or for various jobs but it isn’t necessary here for most minimum wage jobs I can think of. People making minimum wage can (and around here often do) use either public transportation, or a bike, or walk, or some combination. A bike can easily be prorated to under $0.20/mo, and here unlimited bus fare comes at $30/mo. So in transportation I find a difference of about $2.27/hr.

$2.27+$0.5+$0.4=$3.17, which is more than the $3 difference between $13 and $10.

> [@DMC](#):
>
> My method of solving the problem requires a couple of senators who aren’t scrooges. Your method requires 89,000 municipalities to come up with their own complex systems. Since your entire goal was simplification, why make it so damned hard, unless there is actually a different goal?

The goal is not simplification. It would be immensly more simple to have a single national minimum wage at $13.10 or $15. As stated in the OP, the benefit of local minimum wage ordinances is that it would be _easier_ to pass local ordinances than national legislation.

~Max

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