Good luck. I’m surprise that SF rents are lower than SC. It’s probably that SF is quite large and has some lower rent areas due to it’s sheer size.
You’re missing the point. Most people in the US make well over minimum wage. The argument here is that the MW puts a damper on the economy AT THE LOW END. The rich don’t suffer, it’s the poor who do because fewer low end jobs are created.
Sorry bud. S.F. rent is much higher than Santa Cruz:
http://patrick.net/cache/rankrent.html
San Francisco average: $1952
Santa Cruz average: $1490
http://patrick.net/cache/SanFrancisco0.html
http://patrick.net/cache/SantaCruz0.html
Oh wait, I may have misread your post. You said you are moving, so maybe you’re saying the place you found is cheaper than the place you’re living. If that’s what you meant, then disregard my last post. 
People still have to eat, bathe, and in many cases look after children and elders. That eats up those two hours pretty quick. And I disagree that it doesn’t require brainpower–in most of the footage of third world sweatshop workers I’ve seen they’re pretty much active around the clock, and if their hands stop moving for a second the supervisor yells at or whips them. Maybe that’s an exaggeration of how it really is, but I also don’t think it’s a George Jetson job.
The existence of poster children who managed to escape crushing third world poverty doesn’t prove anything except that there are some truly exceptional people out there. For every success story there’s 100,000 failures. And I don’t think the reason the majority of impoverished third worlders fail is because they didn’t work hard enough, or weren’t clever enough. I think you overestimate the resources that are available to such people.
People who want to get rid of the minimum wage.
Again, you’re seeing this through rose-colored glasses. There were thousands of failures for every Andrew Carnegie. Instead of shaking our fists at the poor and saying “why can’t you be like that guy?” we should be examining why it is that the cycle of poverty claims such an overwhelming amount of victims. Not every person has the potential to become a rags to riches story, but that doesn’t mean they or their families should be denied the basics of food, shelter, basic education, and medicine. Carnegie himself was a political liberal who poured a lot of his own money into services for the impoverished.
I meant to say non-physical labor job. I just couldn’t find the words.
Valuable to you or valuable to society? The people flipping the burgers may be highly replaceable, but their job function is vital to our current society, much more so than yours. Service workers are what keeps this nation running. I’m not saying they shouldn’t make less than you (more training should result in higher wages), but their contribution to labor is just as “valuable.” If all the Wendy’s and 7/11s shut down tomorrow, you’d feel the sting.
And personally, I can’t stand when people post from work. I think it’s unprofessional. If I found out that my workers were using the Internet on company time they’d be out on their ass in two seconds flat. But obviously, your employer disagrees (or doesn’t know).
I know they’re not determined that way. I’m just saying that in my world, I personally can respect manual laborers (including burger flippers) more than people who work desk jobs. I hear people talking about McDonald’s jobs like they’re the easiest jobs in the world, and I just don’t think that’s so. I just caught a hint of disrespect in your post toward fast food workers, and thought I’d post my views on the subject. And to me, those jobs are stressful, and if I were portioning out wages, they’d make more money. But I don’t, so they don’t.
I made it up.
It’s called hyperbole. It’s when you exagerate to make a point. I don’t think I’m exagerating by much, though. As has been pointed out some areas of the country already have minimum wage laws approaching $10 an hour. It seems to me that some people wouldn’t object to such a rate.
Why? If you can just legislate away poverty for all working people by passing a minimum wage law, surely you could just as easily legislate all workers right into the upper middle class!
It’s more like I begrudgingly accept the political reality that there has to be one. Nobody is going to go out on the senate floor and start arguing that it should be abolished. Like most government entitlement social programs, once it exists it never goes away and grows larger and larger over time. As long as we are stuck with it, I do at least want it to be as low (and unobtrusive) as possible.
We’ll just have to disagree on this point, then. I think workers in the United States got where they are through Unions fighting for better pay and through the rising tide of the economy lifting all ships. Workers created wealth and the competitive nature of our economic system ensures that workers get paid well. I don’t think that the minimum wage laws had anything to do with it. Nor do I think were they to be repealed that we’d suddenly get systems analysts or iron-workers making $2 an hour.
You seriously think that just creating and enforcing a minimum wage could do away with all global poverty? You are entitled to your opinion, but I’m here to tell you: It’s not grounded in any reality. You cannot just snap your fingers, pass a law and have no more poverty or sweatshops. Poverty is created by a lack of resources. The people running the sweatshops don’t have enough money to pay a minimum wage. It wouldn’t work.
You’re right. It’s not chosen arbitrarily. It’s much worse than that :). It’s chosen by politics. One group of politicians want to make another look bad to voters so they increase the minimum wage by a buck. As a result our whole system is artificially tampered with and we all feel the negative results when small businesses close down or lay off.
I’m not sure what you mean by “value to society”. Lets just stick with “value”, so as to have less muddy waters.
How is a burger flipper more valuable than a systems analyst?
A systems analyst has a college degree, a burger flipper doesn’t.
A systems analyst demands a higher salary than a burger flipper.
A systems analyst requires much more ongoing training than a burger flipper.
A systems analyst is much harder to replace than a burger flipper.
A systems analyst gets better benefits than a burger flipper.
By just about any metric I can think of a systems analyst is more valuable (to himself, society, employer, or whatever) than a burger flipper.
The most important thing is the salary. If a burger flipper were as valuable to an employer as a systems analyst then they would make the same amount. The market ensures this.
I’m not saying a systems analyst is more important or a better person or anything. However, I think any reasonable person would agree that a systems analyst is more valuable than a burger flipper by just about any metric you want to use.
Wow. You really must hate the SDMB. 
That’s fair enough. You are entitled to you opinion. However, when you say that burger flippers are more valuable than systems analysts you are factually incorrect.
You won’t catch me talking like this. If I was disrespectful to fast food workers then I apologize. I know it’s hard work. I’ve done it.
Yeah, but the market in SC is skewed heavily towards students, which wacks out the prices of studios and small one-bedroom apartments. In SC it’s smaller, cheaper places that are at a premium, whereas in SF it’s larger nicer places that are in high demand. If you look at the “1 bdr.” statistics on your cite, you’ll see that San Francisco is signifigantly cheaper than Santa Cruz.
Yeah, but the market in SC is skewed heavily towards students, which wacks out the prices of studios and small one-bedroom apartments. In SC it’s smaller, cheaper places that are at a premium, whereas in SF it’s larger nicer places that are in high demand. If you look at the "1 bdr. statistics on your cite, you’ll see that San Francisco is signifigantly cheaper than Santa Cruz.
Johm Mace already nailed this one, but I want to follow up with an example. I hung out this weekend with a friend of mine. He’s a hairdresser.
Now, I pay about $14 for a haircut, as I suspect most other male dopers reading this do as well. He gets paid more than that. A lot more. A simple haircut at his salon will cost you $95.
Now, I think it’s nuts to pay $95 for a simple haircut, but obviously many people don’t. He has clients that repeat their business and happily pay that amount. He drives a nice car and owns a condo costing somewhere in the $300-400 thousand dollar range. I’m quite sure he’s making more money than me.
How is this possible? How is it that a hair stylist makes more than a systems analyst?
He’s just that good. The $95 price I mentioned is specific for him. They vary it based on the person. He’s more in demand, so he makes the most of anyone in the store. He’s the top stylist. If he were to be fired or layed off he could easily get work an the same level in another upscale salon. His clients would go with him.
I don’t need to know anything about hairstyling or that industry to know that he’s good. He wouldn’t be making what he does if he was a hack. The market has elevated him to where he deserves to be. His value is determined by the demand out in the market and as a result he gets to have a nice condo. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s far better than anything else available. It’s just miraculous that it works as well as it does so often.
I mean, the bottom end of the SF one bedrooms is much lower than the bottom end in SC.
Almost everyone eats fast food. Not everyone partakes of the fruits of the systems analyst. Actually, I’m not totally sure what a systems analyst does. I assume it’s something dealing with the computer system of a company, which means that if I don’t deal with that company, I don’t deal with its systems analysts. A fast food restaurant attracts a much wider range of clientele than a specialized company. An average Wendy’s might serve two thousand people a day. Does your job affect two thousand people?
So yes, I would say that the job of fast food worker is more vital to society than the job of a systems analyst, because I can see the ways in which a fast food worker’s job intersects with my life easier than I can see the ways in which a system analyst’s job intersects with my life. And I don’t even eat much fast food!
Are you seriously saying that a burger flipper is more vital to society than a professional (like a systems analyst)?? And doing so without even knowing what a ‘systems analyst’ is?? Lets leave off systems analyst for a moment and pick a profession you would recognize. How about architect? Is a burger flipper more valuable to society (whatever that means) than an architect? You seem to be attempting to compare all burger flippers out there to a single systems analyst (probably a good comparison come to think of it ), but we are talking broadly here. Are burger flippers, in general, more valuable to society than architects? How about doctors?
See, there is an easy answer to this…all of those professions (and myriad more) ARE more valuable to society than burger flippers. How do I know this? Because society is willing to pay them more for their services than they are willing to pay burger flippers. Easy. Did you think that there was some conspiricy to keep burger flippers poor? To unfairly give riches to architects or doctors…or systems analysts? The market sets the pay scale based on what society considers their fair worth. If its difficult for my company to get good systems analysts (or in my own case network engineers) then I have to pay more to attract good ones…or they will go somewhere else. If its easy for me to find labor (like it is with burger flippers), if it requires less upfront knowledge and less training, then I can pay less for them…and so I do. There is no mysterious board out there that sets the price for various jobs and is nefariously shafting the burger flippers of the nation…its the nation itself, or the citizens of that nation, that ultimately sets the price by what they are willing to pay.
I’m trying to figure out if you are serious or if this is tongue in cheek. Could you put a smiley on it if its supposed to be a joke next time? If you are serious, you have to realize that an INDIVIDUAL burger flipper or the fry boy at Wendy’s has less impact than an INDIVIDUAL professional level worker (architect, doctor, engineer…systems analyst, etc)…don’t you? Of course, perhaps you meant the management of a Wendy’s or Taco Bell…or maybe even the CEO. If thats the case, they you are right…again, society has rewarded those folks with salaries in some cases far in advance of my own and that of most professionals (well, if we are talking about the CEO’s or regional management anyway).
Sorry, I’ve just been lurking in this thread mostly as I’ve seen all this before myriad times, and its been my experience that the ‘MW is vital or folks will live in poverty and we’ll all make $.10/day!’ crowd is beyond convincing. However your post has drawn me out. If it was a woosh, you got me. If not…well, I doubt there is much that can be done.
-XT
Yes, I do realize that. I wasn’t talking about individuals; I realize that individual burger flippers are disposeable workers whereas a professional, because of the specialized nature of his work, is individually more important. I was talking about the job itself. Burger flippers have more “influence” over my life than systems analysts. Explain the ways in which my life is touched by the work of systems analysts (or even what they do) and maybe I’ll feel differently.
Well, there is a trend for businesses to move eastward from California. But I’m fairly certain that any effect the minimum wage has on this is very small. I think I have said this many times. No?
And
Economic Mobility in the United States.
From the article.
*Sawhill and Condon (1992) use the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) to look at individuals who were between the ages of 25 and 54 in two different years (1967 and 1977), and examined what happened to their family income over the following decade. In attempting to determine the extent of economic mobility that existed, Sawhill and Condon use a technique employed by a number of the later studies discussed below. In a base year, they rank all incomes in their sample from highest to lowest, and then break them into five equal-sized income quintiles, with the top twenty percent in the highest quintile, etc. They then do the same to the incomes of the same individuals in a later year, breaking them into equal quintiles, and then examining the relative movement of individuals within the distribution (see Table 2 for an example of a transition matrix that results from such an exercise). 6
Perhaps the simplest measure of economic mobility is the percentage of individuals who move into a new income quintile. 7 In both periods examined, Sawhill and Condon find that slightly over 60 percent of individuals were in a different family income quintile a decade later (60.5 percent between 1967-76, and 60.7 percent between 1977-86). Mobility rates were lower for individuals in either the lowest or highest quintiles (44 percent for the bottom quintile and 48 percent for the highest quintile between 1967-76; 47 percent and 50 percent, respectively, between 1977-86). 8 Examining similar years using the PSID, Hungerford (1993) comes to similar conclusions regarding broad trends in mobility, as he finds significant mobility, but little change between 1969-76 and 1979-86. *
It is not the rare individual who moves from poverty to other income states. It is nearly half. Your assertion that only 1 in a hundred thousand is simply not true.
Do you live in a cave and only come out at night to go to Wendy’s or Taco Bell? No? Then your life is effected by systems analysts. Whats a systems analyst?
Here is a good simple definition:
In my day (this was back in the dark ages as things are accounted today), when I had the title ‘systems analyst’ it meant basically programmer team lead. What that meant was I was both a programmer, and a designer of programs, in charge of coordinating a team of programmers, designing modules and both writing code, debugging others code, and making sure my team stayed on target…oh, and fending off the marketting types who constantly attempted to over commit on due dates and such. But thats another story.
If you still don’t see how this effects you, let me ask you a few questions. Do you by chance use a bank? Do you have credit cards? Do you shop at a store? Do you buy gas at a gas station? Ever go to a hospital or see a doctor? Watch TV? Have cable? If you live in a cave and only come out to visit fast food…well, even then you are indirectly effected by systems analysts more than the burger flipper. See, someone had to write the code those case register guys and girls use to ring up your burger. They wrote the code that runs the accounting software for the burger join, the software for the logistics (getting the burgers, buns, frys and such TOO the burger joint), are involved in the marketting (well, if you don’t have a TV this would be less)…myriad other things. So, I’d say that they DO effect you, even if you live in a cave and only come out to go to fast food joints at night.
This would go for just about any other professional worker out there, whether YOU use their skills directly or not if you only give it some thought. Burger flippers in fact have the LEAST impact on your life over all, even if you eat there every day…and they certainly have the least impact on society. Its unskilled labor…and the price society sets on their labor reflects this.
I suppose by your answer you WERE serious and it wasn’t a whoosh.
-XT
It appears that you post on the SDMB more frequently than you visit Wendy’s.
Ah, good point! In addition to your fast food obsession (and the impact systems analysts have on that whole industry) continuity eror, you use the SDMB and the internet…which is awash in systems analysts (they wrote the code for this board, impact heavily your ISP and the whole internet thingy, and developed the software for that humming thing with the keyboard you are typing on, the software for that glass thing you are currently using to view this…hell, I could go on and on). Man, you are SERIOUSLY beholden and impacted by systems analysts and you don’t even know it. Maybe you should be nicer to Debaser in the future.
-XT
The one in 100,000 estimate was about impoverished third worlders (and pre-minimum wage Americans of Carnegie’s day), not modern day Americans.
I do concede, however, that systems analysts play a bigger part in my life than previously thought, and am willing to admit that they may be of more importance than burger flippers, even if it’s in an indirect and thus not very noticeable way. Thanks for the definitions.
Yes, I understood that. But on both of those points you missed as well.
Early 19 century mobility (book review) 19th Century Economic Mobility of Immigrants. Ferrie recently completed a study of the economic mobility of European immigrants in the United States prior to the Civil War. The results were published in his 1999 book, Yankeys Now: Immigrants in the Antebellum U.S., 1840-60 (Oxford University Press). The study was based on a unique database Ferrie created which enabled him to examine the geographic and occupational mobility and wealth accumulation of immigrants from their arrival in the United States up to 20 years later. He found extensive geographic and occupational mobility, and rapid rates of wealth accumulation, contradicting long-held views of these immigrants experience. He has extended his sample to the period 1860-1870 using data that track 10,000 individuals. With these data he will trace patterns of economic mobility over the entire Civil War decade, and assess the impact of major events such as the abolition of slavery. He also will trace changes in occupational distribution and in wealth inequality over a 20-year period by combining these data with the earlier sample.
Here’s a pdf on the subject.I think its by the same guy. From the conclusion, The analysis performed here has revealed a substantial decline in geographic and occupational mobility between the historical samples and modern samples (both the NLS and PSID). Wealth mobility has also changed over the last 150 years, though in a more subtle manner: movement from the bottom quarter of the wealth distribution to the upper half is now less common than it was in the past, but more modest movement from just below the median to just above it has improved. The sources of these changes, and of the changes in geographic and occupational mobility, wil be explored in subsequent work.
Please note that economic mobility was greater in the last century than this one. This means that your 1 in 100,000 number most definately does not apply to pre minimum wage America.
(I speculate just for the fun of it that minimum wages and other social engineering may be a factor in this slow down of economic mobility. Although I assume others will be allong to challenge such a contention.)
This is a much more detailed paper on the subject.
As for your assertion that the 1 in 100,000 holds in the third world, how about Vietnam? The results appear to display a substantial amount of mobility. Only 41% of the population remained in the same quintile in the two years; about 40% moved up or down by one quintile and 19% moved up or down by two or more quintiles. These results are almost identical for the two samples. Thus, ignoring measurement error, one might conclude that the modest increase in inequality in Vietnam in the 1990s is not a major concern because low levels of household expenditures appear to be a temporary phenomenon for many households. In particular, about one half of the population that was in the poorest 20% of the population in 1992-93 was no longer in that bottom quintile in 1997-98.
The measurement error he is talking about has to do with a different method of reducing bias. He suggests that fully half of this mobility may be illusory. So, instead of 50% of the poorest moving up we have 25%. Still far greater than the .001% you were asserting. In fact, it looks like several orders of magnitude greater to me.
So, we have you incorrect about curent mobility trends, incorrect about past mobility trends, and finally incorrect about mobility trends in the third world. If you have any evidence whatsoever to back up your assertions I would really like to see it.
BTW, even sven, I hope you have been following this discussion. It bears directly on some of your attitudes about your own prospects.