What’s missing from these conversations are the cost of living.
We’ve financialized the housing market, meaning the very basic needs of shelter now rises in price in accordance to the market. If tech workers make 2x or 3x the median annual salary, it makes housing prices rise for everybody else in the city.
In order to pay a “living wage” employers have to pay enough for their workers to make rent and groceries. In america, one of the highest GDP per capita in the world, the “living wage” is somewhere between 3x to 10x the offshore salary.
If you could house millions of people at the bare minimum cost, if you could provide them food and healthcare at prices that aren’t inflated, then the living wage doesn’t need to be so high.
We talk a lot about raising the minimum wage. What about lowering the minimum costs? That would mean a less stressful life for workers and cheaper labor for employers.
The financialized housing market is only a symptom of the over-regulation (through zoning and permitting) of housing, construction, and real estate in general. This over-regulation is itself a microcosm of the petrification of the majority of the economy.
We’ve financialized the housing market, meaning the very basic needs of shelter now rises in price in accordance to the market. If tech workers make 2x or 3x the median annual salary, it makes housing prices rise for everybody else in the city.
In order to pay a “living wage” employers have to pay enough for their workers to make rent and groceries. In america, one of the highest GDP per capita in the world, the “living wage” is somewhere between 3x to 10x the offshore salary.
If you could house millions of people at the bare minimum cost, if you could provide them food and healthcare at prices that aren’t inflated, then the living wage doesn’t need to be so high.
We talk a lot about raising the minimum wage. What about lowering the minimum costs? That would mean a less stressful life for workers and cheaper labor for employers.