Honestly: the minimum wage does need to go up

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

This post got me thinking.

I am firmly in favor of:

A) A higher minimum wage in the whole US, and my home state of NY
B) Honesty in politics

While the OP I linked to is not exactly dishonest, it's not exactly honest either.
And this is not to put flak upon the poster there, but it's an example of political rhetoric that is used to leverage one side of a conversation, ignoring nuance.

the graphic in the linked to OP:

1) Doesn't seem to take into account state laws that raise min wage over fed laws
2) Doesn't take into account the vast difference in housing throughout a state

My objection is more with 2 than 1. 1 is easy to take care of, but 2 is not easy.

New York City is WAYYYY more expensive than Rochester or Buffalo, NY; or a large number of other places within the state I could name. Yet, this graphic gives us a number, presumably an average. But that average is way skewed. But how else should they do it? Give us on graphic for NYC and another for the rest of NY State? That wouldn't work either, because then you'd need to break it down for other cities and so on. So what do we do?

We must talk about things in the big picture without getting bogged down in details, otherwise we will have to talk for eons before we can understand what needs to be done. So while I agree that the min wage needs to go up, across the US, I have a problem with the info-graphics created to support that argument. They lack nuance, and as such, are deceiving. Even if they don't mean to be, and are honestly doing the best they can to compile and sort the data, the inevitability of misleading data is going to doom us all.

That said.
Happy saint patty's day.
Was I drunk when I wrote this? You decide.

Comments

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

I know here in NH, it's because of our weird tax base. Because we have no sales or income taxes, we rely heavily on local and state property taxes. That means that the basic cost of living goes up. However, it also means that, in general, the 20-30% thing isn't as accurate for us, as you take that slice of income devoted to sales taxes and the like, and apply it to housing.

[muscadinegirl.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, that's a really awful situation. I know the thinking behind that is that the sales tax burden disproportionately negatively affects the poor. They're probably attempting to be fair this way.

It looks like, no matter how you slice it, it doesn't work.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

It's not attempting to be fair, it's just that NH is a relatively libertarian state, with a lot of local control. We have semi-autonomous towns, something that's uncommon outside of New England, and a populace that *hates* taxation. We're perfectly OK with having fewer resources, fewer services, etc. than any other state in New England, if it keeps the state tax burden low. Then we pay for it in local taxes, but because they're so representative and responsive, people are OK having that be a relatively large part of their tax burden. It's sort of a federalism-without-federalism thing.