If pay had kept pace with productivity gains, minimum wage would be $24 an hour

Re:If pay had kept pace with productivity gains, minimum wag... by bhupy on Friday October 09, 2020 @01:34PM (#24732315)

Yup, you're right. The real median personal income in the US, today is $35,977 -> https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N

Unfortunately I'm having a hard time finding the median number of annual hours worked. But using the average hours worked, that puts the median worker at $20/hr.

Obviously not perfect unless we can get the median hours worked.

Also, like other commenters have said, I don't think anyone has ever claimed that the bulk of productivity gains will go equally to the minimum wage as the median wage, since the latter is usually pretty low leverage work in general.

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Re:If pay had kept pace with productivity gains, minimum wag... by OscarCunningham on Saturday October 10, 2020 @03:33AM (#24737227)

> Obviously not perfect unless we can get the median hours worked.

Even then, the median annual wage divided by the median annual number of hours worked won't necessarily be equal to the median hourly wage.

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Re:If pay had kept pace with productivity gains, minimum wag... by sixstrings on Friday October 09, 2020 @02:40PM (#24732987)

Is that net or gross? And assuming 30 days of vacation at 7,5 hours each, are those 225 hours part of the equation?

Interesting to see how those numbers aren’t as drastically different from my country as I’d assumed.

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Re:If pay had kept pace with productivity gains, minimum wag... by monocasa on Friday October 09, 2020 @04:10PM (#24733908)

Someone making $35k isn't getting 30 days of vacation in the US. Maybe 10 days of combined sick days and vacation.

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