First, no one is bragging they can or want to live on $7.25/hr, that’s a strawman. But the idea that people are actually working full-time at $7.25 is a bigger fantasy than this reality show idea. Workers earning the federal min wage are unicorns, here’s the data:
▪️Out of 76.1M workers who are paid at hourly rates, just 0.2% earn the Federal min wage of $7.25/hr. Only 0.1%, just 58K out of 76M hourly workers, are full-time. If you count all workers, only 0.04% work full-time at $7.25. They just don’t exist.
https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2021/home.htm
▪️There are a measurable amount (1.2% of hourly-paid workers) who earn below the fed min wage. Sometimes you’ll hear “at or below min wage” to describe them. But the min wage already doesn’t apply to these workers, so who are they?
▪️Some are intern-type jobs, but the vast majority, according to the BLS, are service jobs, leisure and hospitality in particular. And as the BLS admits, “For many of these workers, tips may supplement the hourly wages received.”
▪️Thus, the tiny fraction of workers who earn at or below the min wage are workers earning tips, which is why they accept such a low hourly rate. After all, even the lowest fast food jobs now pay much higher than $7.25.
▪️In fact, American workers now avg $33.03/hr, even production and nonsupervisory workers avg $28.26/hr. The lowest paid sectors are retail trade ($20.19/hr) and leisure & hospitality ($18.21/hr.) No one is working for $7.25, let alone a hard working full-timer.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t24.htm
▪️The positive thing about not raising the fed min wage for so long is we can see that it has no effect on raising the bar. In fact, the opposite. Unemployment continues to fall, while wages rise, albeit dampened by inflation (though the lowest paid jobs are keeping up with inflation).
▪️The narrative that, without the min wage employers would pay slave wages, is obviously not the case. And the longer it’s not raised the weaker the argument is for it. Which the left hates, so they continue to harp on fantasies about the unicorn workers making $7.25/hr.
So many of these right wing accounts are just whiners now, this is a diatribe about automatic sinks and towels, the horror! As I explained in a prior post, most of the newer terminals have great bathrooms, some now have completely private stalls and plenty of them. The worst and most crowded airport bathrooms are invariably found in aging terminals that are decades old. It’s a reminder that airports were usually drab and uncomfortable.
I think the heyday of the air hand-dryers was like 15-20 years ago, where often you couldn’t find real towels. Now you can at least usually get real paper towels in airport bathrooms. Remember those old cloth roller towels that would go in a loop and somehow “clean” themselves? Yuck! Public bathrooms have always been gross, it seems some are deliberately having selective memories.
Airport food and drinks were always expensive, but now practically everyone brings those huge cooler flasks with them and fills them up. So not sure what he means that ...
I first critiqued this terrible take by looking at how food has actually improved substantially. Even though I said the same could be done in every category, people said “you’re only doing food.” So let’s do air travel and see why it’s not gotten better, not worse.
▪️Aircraft have greatly improved. Just 15-20 years ago, many domestic routes (~15%) were flown by turboprops like the Brasilia, Dash 8 or Saab. Now, almost everything is in jets, and most aircraft have WiFi. Some even have Starlink, where you probably have faster WiFi than your home. Most major airlines offer dozens or hundreds of movies and shows to watch.
▪️Newer designs like the 787 have lower cabin altitudes and improved humidity, which make a huge difference in passenger comfort on long haul flights. The first/business class international market has gotten very competitive globally, with many carriers offering excellent service and amenities. Pods, suites, showers, etc. Coach still sucks but is dramatically cheaper ...
This is the complete opposite of an empirical fact. The right has now joined the left in being pessimistic about the modern world and completely unappreciative of the amazing abundance we now have. I’ll just focus on food here, but you could do it for almost every category.
▪️Fresh produce used to be available only in season. In the winter it was canned or frozen. People used to send fruit for Christmas gifts, it was that much of a luxury good. Now, you can get giant, sweet berries year around in every grocery store. Corn on the cob in February. Not to mention once rare items like dragon fruit, heirloom tomatoes or baby bok choy.
▪️If you didn’t live on the coast, seafood was either not available, frozen, or extremely expensive. If you lived in the Midwest and traveled to coastal locales you would quite literally be able to eat food you had never seen. Salmon has become much more abundant and accessible. You can get fresh ahi at Walmart today. Sushi and oyster bars exist everywhere ...
