When I was in high school I made $6/hr to work at a bowling lanes running the machines in the back (min wage was $5.15/hr). All the people that worked with me were 30+ years old and had to repair the machines if they broke down and all made a good bit more money than I did. I would say they averaged 10 bucks an hour and consistently got overtime, not great pay but it was roughly twice min wage + OT paid time and a half.
Fast forward 15 years and if you have a job making twice minimum wage or more (15 dollars and hour+) you are doing extremely well. That would translate at 50 hours a week to 820 a week or around 42k a year. This is what those idiot bowling lane workers were making when I was 16, now a twice minimum wage job is reserved for managers only, hell my friend is a CPA and only makes 35k a year and owes 80k in college loans.
My thoughts on the matter is that wages other than minimum wage seem to have remained virtually frozen for the past 20 years while minimum wage has risen (only bc it would be illegal to pay less).
Are we 15-20 years from minimum wage catching the frozen standard wage and becoming the standard wage for all jobs or has minimum wage ALREADY BECOME the standard? Hell at Wal-Mart they give 25 cent raises every 6 months (after starting you out at min wage) and max pay at 10 bucks/hour, so after working for 6 years you are "rewarded" by making 400 bucks a week or 20k a year for 40 hours/week (the managers would slit their wrists if an employee ever got OT).
When you consider that San Francisco just made their minimum wage over 10 bucks an hour this is rather amazing. One has to wonder how long Wal-Mart will keep a 10/hour cap on employee wages. Are we just moving to a society where the minimum wage is about what you should expect to get paid for any normal job? Considering the high rate of unemployment in this country many would be very happy to get a 10/hour job so do employers really have to pay more than minimum wage to attract employees?
Can a person live on minimum wage (300/week or 15k a year)? More importantly could anyone support children on so low a wage without welfare assistance? If it becomes or already is the standard should it be raised to a level where those receiving near min wage pay are not in poverty?