Not everyone working minimum wage is doing it "when they were young." Do you really think it's a good objective for a 55 year old cook for a non-profit organization to be living with room mates? Would you want that?
The solution is there if you are willing to reduce the wealth generated by investment properties for an already much wealthier investment class. How do you justify your priorities ethically?
Do you think the world works according to ethical priorities or market forces? Imagine if engineers could use similar logic as political theorists. We could will our airplanes to fly by setting the right priorities!
You make a quip about engineers and political theorists, but fail to explain why a market cannot be regulated in order to benefit society in general. We do it all the time.
The difference between those two views of the world is the difference between political theorists and engineers. A political theorist asks questions like "how do you justify your priorities?" An engineer asks "how much do I have to give up on this one priority in order to achieve this other priority?" Engineers deal with a world where achieving every priority means giving up some other priority.
Applying this logic to your statement exposes the flow: "The solution is there if you are willing to reduce the wealth generated by investment properties for an already much wealthier investment class."
Sure, things like price control prioritize affordability at the expense of "wealth generated by investment properties." If that was it nobody would argue against price control. So why do so many people oppose price controls? (The answer is not, I'm sorry to say, that many people simply want owners of investment properties to be rich.) See: https://www.brookings.edu/research/what-does-economic-eviden...
> Rent control appears to help affordability in the short run for current tenants, but in the long-run decreases affordability, fuels gentrification, and creates negative externalities on the surrounding neighborhood. These results highlight that forcing landlords to provide insurance to tenants against rent increases can ultimately be counterproductive.
This, like many others, does not sound like a job that warrants minimum wage so no.
If the recommended rent is 30% of your income... well, the most you could afford on twice minimum wage is $768.
Where I'm at the cheapest rentals are 900 or so (rural utah).
Seems to me it takes almost 3x minimum wage just to really be able to live comfortably, and many will never get to that level, because they already work 2-3 jobs just to keep a roof over the heads of their children.
There's a reason that $75k is the 'happiness level', it really is the lowest of the low wages that will make someone feel like they're not poor and 'needy' and over-worked, etc... That should be our goal, to get us to that level for everyone over 25 who isn't in school. (Or able to reach that w/ a full-time job (even at McDonalds) + GBI/UBI)
Of course 55 year old me doesn’t want roommates, but if I have to do it for a few years then I will.
For me, it’s the definition of a minimum place to live. When I was young, I had roommates. I don’t think every working person should be able to afford a 1 bedroom apartment.
There are multi family dwellings, studios, boarding rooms, etc. If I’m by myself and making minimum wage then I think it’s ok to not be able to get my own one to two bedroom in the city of my choosing. I’m ok with having to live in the burbs and train or drive in. It sucks, but there’s no reason why minimum wage is a permanent condition.