The High Burden of Low Wages
September 9, 2015 8:30 AM   Subscribe

For those workers that currently earn the state’s minimum of $8.75 per hour, there are no neighborhoods in which median asking rent could be paid affordably. The extent to which rent growth has outpaced income growth in New York City means low-wage workers face three options: find several roommates to lower their personal rent burden, take on more than one job, or move out of New York City.
The High Burden of Low Wages: How Renting Affordably in NYC is Impossible on Minimum Wage
posted by griphus (100 comments total) 23 users marked this as a favorite
 
Oh it's impossible you say? Impossible for the undesirables to live among the people they serve? Tsk! I'll have my people look into this at once. Muaahaha.
posted by aydeejones at 8:31 AM on September 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


We're at or approaching these conditions in DC - I keep waiting for the seemingly endless wave of new restaurants and bars to break on that fact, and don't fully understand how it hasn't happened already. The only thing I can think of is that all these attractive, tattooed, college-educated barbacks and servers are getting money from home.
posted by ryanshepard at 8:35 AM on September 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


Quick, everyone move to Throgs Neck.
posted by asperity at 8:36 AM on September 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


It's very depressing and creepy to realize that cities are not so slowly becoming places where only the rich can live and the poor can only visit in the form of a shitty job.
posted by Kitteh at 8:39 AM on September 9, 2015 [23 favorites]


Why is this being treated as an NYC specific problem? I live in a small eastern Canadian city where minimum wage is $10.50/hour, but minimum wage workers can't afford a place of their own either.
posted by peppermind at 8:43 AM on September 9, 2015 [9 favorites]


I am THIS close to just moving back to Philly.
posted by SansPoint at 8:49 AM on September 9, 2015 [4 favorites]


Honestly, I'd move to Philly in about three seconds if I were licensed to practice there. I've kinda had it with this shit.
posted by holborne at 8:50 AM on September 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


Just because the minimum wage is $8.75 an hour, doesn't mean that's what the employers are paying. When I was a young adult trapped in that sector of the economy, the minimum wage was $3.35 but the rents were high in my town, and it was very common for employers to pay $5 or $5.25 per hour for min wage type jobs. Because that's what they had to do, to get enough people.

Raising the minimum wage, statewide or nationwide, is more of a boon to people in the areas with lower cost of living. NYC is a place unto itself and needs a different, higher minimum wage.
posted by elizilla at 8:51 AM on September 9, 2015 [5 favorites]


Why is this being treated as an NYC specific problem?

Nothing is real until it happens to New Yorkers; then when it does, it will be the truest, most essential form of that thing.
posted by nom de poop at 8:53 AM on September 9, 2015 [67 favorites]


The rent is too damn high.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 8:53 AM on September 9, 2015 [14 favorites]


I feel like I've been reading this exact same article for New York or Boston for the past 30 years.
posted by Melismata at 8:54 AM on September 9, 2015 [5 favorites]


Why is this being treated as an NYC specific problem?

"why is this article on an nyc-specific real estate blog only about nyc-specific real estate?"
posted by poffin boffin at 8:54 AM on September 9, 2015 [33 favorites]


I definitely don't think it is a NYC-specific problem--though it is for the sake of the article---and even in my own small Canadian city, Shepherd and I were agog at price of a non-studenty rental property when we moved here last year. Where I live is one of the starkest divides in class I've seen: the pretty well-off college students, the wealthy townies, and the poor and mentally ill who keep getting pushed further and further to the edges of town.

We also read about this a lot in London too, where real estate and wages and rent are equally mental.
posted by Kitteh at 8:55 AM on September 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


I agree with the sentiment of this article but at the same time, it's comparing making minimum wage to the cost of an average priced apartment. A more reasonable assessment would be can a minimum wage earning worker afford apartments in the bottom 10 or 20% range. I'm not saying minimum wage workers only deserve shitty low-priced apartments, I'm saying that if the issue being raised is can someone afford to live in an area on a restricted salary, then the availability of cheap housing would be a more reliable metric, yet the issue isn't covered at all in this article. How many low-priced apartments are available? We don't know, not from this article.

When I was making close to minimum wage, I looked for the cheapest apartments I could find. Median priced apatments weren't even a consideration.
posted by xigxag at 8:58 AM on September 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


Huh, I thought this would be a response to this billboard that got recently put up in New York. Rather rage inducing.
posted by zabuni at 8:59 AM on September 9, 2015 [9 favorites]


Nothing is real until it happens to New Yorkers; then when it does, it will be the truest, most essential form of that thing.

Funny enough, it's only people who live somewhere other than New York who ascribe that attitude to actual New Yorkers, but whatever.
posted by holborne at 8:59 AM on September 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


That billboard is appalling!
posted by agregoli at 9:02 AM on September 9, 2015 [5 favorites]


there are no neighborhoods in which median asking rent could be paid affordably.

One might consider getting a roommate?
posted by MikeMc at 9:04 AM on September 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Whoa, dude, I can get $30,000?! Fuuuuuck, yes, livin' high off the less-than-3x-poverty hog!
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 9:04 AM on September 9, 2015 [15 favorites]


And all for only backbreaking and soulcrushing labor!
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 9:04 AM on September 9, 2015 [16 favorites]


That billboard is appalling!

i just, ugh, the fact that this is a thing that happens now in america and there are people who are like "yes, this is good, this represents the country i want," people are PLEASED when they might have a chance to take money or services or healthcare away from poor people, this is a thing that i see happen and i'm like, what, what even. what most basic human decency are these people lacking. what vile subhuman compulsions come over them when they feel this way.

humans are fucking unbearable
posted by poffin boffin at 9:11 AM on September 9, 2015 [29 favorites]


Is that based on a 40-hour workweek or on the 29.5-hour workweek that you can actually get?
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:15 AM on September 9, 2015 [18 favorites]


So why live in Cities, if there is no money there?

Seriously. Isn't the reason that people started moving from rural areas to urban centres the promise of wealth and stability? That reality is now laughably absent. Should we not now be seeing a mass exodus of the working class out of cities and back into small towns and rural communities?

It would be enjoyable to see the plutocrats flounder when there is no one to pump their lattes.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 9:17 AM on September 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


While I sympathize with the message, I highly question the methodology here of comparing a single minimum wage with the median asking rent across all apartments, no matter what size, and of not making any comparison between the actual distribution of rental costs and the distribution of minimum wage workers.
posted by Dante Riordan at 9:17 AM on September 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


We are very, very lucky to have rent control and live in a safe part of Manhattan. Even though my spouse has a corporate job, it doesn't pay that much, and we could not afford to live anywhere near our home otherwise.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:17 AM on September 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Huh, I thought this would be a response to this billboard that got recently put up in New York. Rather rage inducing.

Way back in the 90s I lived in a small resort town where the worker shortage started to become critical. This was in a place where it was a normal and okay lifestyle to bunk up with lots of roommates. Or at least for the first few years people were there. For people that wanted to stay longer term and not live with 3 other people in a one bedroom it was extremely difficult. The majority would just move on.

The business community or at least enough of them finally figured out the situation and the root causes and the political pressure to do something increased. In many places minimum wage unofficially increased. Those that did got the employees they needed and those that denied reality and refused to pay more then was legally mandated constantly struggled. I'm sure many of them either went out of business or eventually got a clue.

It was interesting to watch the progress of people in the business community as it became more and more critical for their successful and long-term survival to become uber supportive of things like subsidized housing and both internal and external programs to support lower income workers.

People like those behind that sign are such short-term thinkers. They're either so caught up in their economic and ideological bubble thinking or evil shitheads who know but don't care. I find it hard to tell the difference though the consequences are the same.
posted by Jalliah at 9:19 AM on September 9, 2015 [13 favorites]


We're at or approaching these conditions in DC - I keep waiting for the seemingly endless wave of new restaurants and bars to break on that fact, and don't fully understand how it hasn't happened already. The only thing I can think of is that all these attractive, tattooed, college-educated barbacks and servers are getting money from home.

In my experience most of us severely underpaid DC millennials get by through working multiple jobs and spending an obscene portion of our rent on a room in a shitty group home in a sketchy area. You can make it work, but it's really hard to put away any savings for your future. I worry less about the servers, who probably make decent tips, and more about the minimum wage retail workers of all ages who increasingly have to commute in from further and further away despite being DC natives.

the common idea that everyone who matters has parents to support them or some form of other wealth is the whole reason the criminal unpaid internship programs are allowed to continue
posted by Solon and Thanks at 9:20 AM on September 9, 2015 [13 favorites]


So why live in Cities, if there is no money there?

because while they are terrible there are still more job opportunities there? and because no one wants a 2h+ commute to and from their shitty low-paying job? and because there are inferior public transpo options rurally? and even if you somehow manage to save enough money to afford a car and car insurance in your new rural area you will still have to worry about where to park by your city job?

being grindingly poor rurally is not somehow magically better than being grindingly poor in a big city.
posted by poffin boffin at 9:20 AM on September 9, 2015 [53 favorites]


witchen, I agree that when apartments have to be unaffordable to working class folks in order to be comfortable and safe, that becomes a very serious quality of life issue. On the other hand, studios and one bedrooms in average neighborhoods would generally be below the median price for all apartments just by virtue of being smaller. So, below median oughtn't necessarily mean low-quality.
posted by xigxag at 9:26 AM on September 9, 2015


Having been grindingly poor rurally and currently grindingly poor in a city, I'll take the city every time.

(Yes, I do live in 'affordable' housing! It's amazing, only 50% of the lightbulbs seem to want to work at any given time. I do, in fact, have a roommate! I'm even looking for a second job! But God forbid the poors might want to live in a major metropolitan area.)
posted by dogheart at 9:29 AM on September 9, 2015 [12 favorites]


According to StreetEasy rent data, New Yorkers need to earn an hourly wage of at least $38.80 to afford the city’s median asking rent of $2,690

Is this some new definition of 'afford' that I don't know about? That's somewhere around what my salary comes to per hour and I can't imagine being able to pay that much for rent or a mortgage. That's more than 50% of take home pay.

When I was a kid growing up in Jersey I always assumed that I'd end up in New York City when I grew up and now I can't imagine it.
posted by octothorpe at 9:31 AM on September 9, 2015


So why live in Cities, if there is no money there?

Seriously. Isn't the reason that people started moving from rural areas to urban centres the promise of wealth and stability?


Maybe? That doesn't have much to do with what the options are now, though. I would guess most minimum-wage-earning people were born and raised in the city, so everyone and everything they know is there, and they have no money to just pick up and move somewhere else where they will STILL be paid minimum wage and have access to nothing without a car and no friends or family. I just moved across the country from a huge city to a pretty small one (sub-100k), and the rent is not that much cheaper (like more than 75% of what I was paying in the Big City), and most everything else is more expensive, ridiculously. I don't think you've really done the homework to suggest what you're suggesting.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 9:32 AM on September 9, 2015 [13 favorites]


On the other hand, studios and one bedrooms in average neighborhoods would generally be below the median price for all apartments just by virtue of being smaller.

YOU WOULD CERTAINLY THINK SO! But, fun fact, the price difference between a studio and a 1 bedroom is not very significant in a lot of these areas, considering the hilariously microscopic nature of the studios, which are almost never available for rent anyway. ALSO, in DC, for, example, good luck finding studios in most of the buildings being built! Building studios might mean less sexy young urbanite residents hashtagging about the building's amenities, and that would be horrible.

In my experience most of us severely underpaid DC millennials get by through working multiple jobs and spending an obscene portion of our rent on a room in a shitty group home in a sketchy area.

In my case, I literally live with my dad, in the house that he owns outright, 90 minutes from where I work. I think of my commute as the 15 hour-per-week extra job I have that pays my "rent". (I mean, I also pay my dad some rent, but mostly I am paying off student loans.)
posted by a fiendish thingy at 9:35 AM on September 9, 2015 [6 favorites]


I think of my commute as the 15 hour-per-week extra job I have that pays my "rent

That's a very interesting take, I might have to spread that around a little.
posted by RustyBrooks at 9:38 AM on September 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


Maybe? That doesn't have much to do with what the options are now, though. I would guess most minimum-wage-earning people were born and raised in the city, so everyone and everything they know is there, and they have no money to just pick up and move somewhere else where they will STILL be paid minimum wage and have access to nothing without a car and no friends or family.

Yeah, I always get the impression that a lot of people with "If you don't like it, move somewhere else"-type sentiments haven't given a ton of thought to whether that's an actually feasible thing or not.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:43 AM on September 9, 2015 [13 favorites]


It was interesting to watch the progress of people in the business community as it became more and more critical for their successful and long-term survival to become uber supportive of things like subsidized housing and both internal and external programs to support lower income workers.

You think it's interesting that the bosses want the government to step in and subsidize their poverty wages? Seems like standard operating procedure for the capitalist class these days. These same people will then turn around and bitch about their tax dollars being used by those people.
posted by bradbane at 9:44 AM on September 9, 2015 [6 favorites]


You're right, and my thoughts on this matter certainly tend towards the simplistic, but I still think that rural living combined with strength-in-numbers offers a valid escape from the rat race.

My friends and I are all pretty much broke-ass twenty/thirty somethings who have grown up in this era of urban stagnation. None of us have careers, or any real hope of having careers. We also know that the odds are pretty good that the earth wont be hospitable to human life within a few generations. This informs our perspective.

We also have the privilege of living in sparsely populated maritime canada, where it is actually possible to find good land relationships, so this also informs our perspective.

So we left the city to split rent on a run-down old homestead on 80 or so acres, grow food, split the bills, and share a minivan. We each pay about $150/month for everything we need, and we're close enough to Halifax that we can hitch in when we feel like it. There are enough seasonal harvesting or general labour jobs in the area that we can mostly make ends meet.

This isn't possible/desirable for everyone, I know. But living like this, and having access to beautiful spaces in nature, has got me feeling comfortable and peaceful in my life for the moment, and that's all I can really hope for, I think.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 9:47 AM on September 9, 2015 [16 favorites]


What's interesting about this article to me is that it measures affordability by the "40% of gross pay" metric. When most sources tell me that 33% is a better metric, and lots of landlords won't even rent to you unless you make 40 times the monthly rent (and thus rent comes to 25% of gross pay.) By the most generous metric, I can afford lots of places in south Brooklyn; by the most conservative, I can barely afford the highly problematic apartment I live in now.

I guess it's possible to hang onto a marginal existence in an increasingly poorly maintained apartment as the rent creeps up, but if you ever have to move and prove to a landlord that you can afford the place, the situation is a lot worse ttha the article suggests.
posted by Jeanne at 9:48 AM on September 9, 2015 [4 favorites]


A lot of the affordability crisis in housing since the recession is because construction of new places still hasn't caught up to pre-recession levels.

And, in DC at least, a lot of the new construction is mid-city high rises, which can't actually be rented out affordably.

Also, the rent is too damned high.
posted by General Malaise at 9:52 AM on September 9, 2015 [6 favorites]


Oh, my math is off, 40 times monthly rent works out to more like 30%, but the basic point stands.
posted by Jeanne at 9:53 AM on September 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


According to StreetEasy rent data, New Yorkers need to earn an hourly wage of at least $38.80 to afford the city’s median asking rent of $2,690 in 2015... The minimum wage necessary to afford median asking rent in 2015 is highest in Manhattan ($44.60), followed by Brooklyn ($35.87), Queens ($29.67), Staten Island ($26.21), and the Bronx ($21.26).

$38.80/hr is a TON more than the minimum wage- it's around $80,000 year, assuming a 40-hr work week and 52 weeks per year worked.

At half the median rent ($1345) which you still need a pretty middle-class salary to afford, you are getting at best a studio or a 1-BR in a not-great area with a long commute.

At a quarter the median rent ($672.50) (which you could supposedly afford on $9.70/hr, just over minimum wage, assuming everything scales, which I know it doesn't) there is almost nothing- roommate situations where you don't have a wall, maybe- maybe not even anymore.

I am a professional in NYC in my early 30s and to afford my apartment I have a roommate, a 1hr commute each way, and no building amenities like laundry or a dishwasher. I moved into this apartment a couple years ago when my salary was lower but it makes no sense to move since rents have gone up so fast. All that the rent on my rent-stabilized 2BR would get me in my same area is a marginally better 1-BR-- and I'd be paying double what I am since I wouldn't have a roommate.

I work in TV and I don't drive so moving away from NYC has always been pretty unappealing, but if rents go up like they have been, it will be the only option.
posted by matcha action at 9:53 AM on September 9, 2015 [7 favorites]


I can barely afford the highly problematic apartment I live in now.

I know what you mean but I'd like to imagine you're living in some sort of Amityville Horror-lite situation where the creaks of furniture in the night sound vaguely like ethnic slurs and the words NO OFFENSE BUT WOMEN JUST AREN'T FUNNY appear in the fogged-up mirror after a shower.
posted by griphus at 9:54 AM on September 9, 2015 [51 favorites]


I lived in an apartment like that. I dropped a box of toothpicks once and they spelled out "liberal identity politics are a distraction from the effort to build a strong labor movement." It was a big box of toothpicks.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 10:08 AM on September 9, 2015 [57 favorites]


This isn't a it's-too-expensive-to-live-in-NYC crisis, or even a big-sexy-cities-that-millennials-want-to-live-in crisis. See this map. "Not one county in the United States has enough affordable, adequate, and available units to house all ELI (extremely low-income) renter households." "Over the period from 2000 to 2014, median household income has increased by 25.4 percent, while rents have increased over 52.8 percent, more than twice as much." Even if you live somewhere where buying would be cheaper than renting, chances are that you can't qualify for a mortgage because, for instance, you're paying off student loan debt.
posted by blucevalo at 10:20 AM on September 9, 2015 [10 favorites]


One might consider getting a roommate?

One might find difficulty getting a roommate if one is raising a couple kids.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:27 AM on September 9, 2015 [19 favorites]


If you have significant trouble with roommate situations for mental health reasons you're even more likely not to be able to earn the kind of salary that would allow you to rent a studio by yourself.

And that's one of the big issues that homeless people with mental illness or drug addiction face when they try to access the social services that are available to them -- that often you're placed in group living situations that can be really difficult to handle. But it can even be an issue for people making $30,000 or $35,000 who face garden-variety anxiety or depression stuff that makes it difficult to climb the corporate ladder, or to go to school while working full-time, and who also can't really deal with coming home to MORE PEOPLE.
posted by Jeanne at 10:56 AM on September 9, 2015 [15 favorites]


For a different methodology, the annual "Out of Reach Report" identifies wage a 40-hour work week would need to pay for 2 bedroom rentals in various cities states without spending more than 30% of gross income on rent and utilities. clickable map and report. The numbers are astounding. $13.92 for Montana. $28.04 for DC. $25.04 for New Jersey. $39.65 for San Francisco. Marin County - $39.65.
posted by Measured Out my Life in Coffeespoons at 10:57 AM on September 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


As a general rule, "why don't the poor simply [X]?" usually doesn't actually provide solutions, and nor does anecdata. You can't live outside the city without a car/long commute, and you can't necessarily "just" get a room-mate for any number of reasons. Rest assured the poor have considered these suggestions, however well intended. This isn't a poor-people-lack-imagination problem.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 11:23 AM on September 9, 2015 [24 favorites]


One might find difficulty getting a roommate if one is raising a couple kids.

Having kids is like having deadbeat problem roomates it takes 18 years to evict.
posted by Justinian at 11:23 AM on September 9, 2015 [9 favorites]


Isn't it all part of the plan of the 1% to bring in Brazilian style favelas for the poor and soon to be poor middle class to the States, and then have an excuse, like a big sporting event, to burn them to the ground and displace more people? Not to mention blaming people who can't afford halfway decent dwelling for all of society's ills.
posted by juiceCake at 11:26 AM on September 9, 2015 [7 favorites]


Wow, that fucking billboard. I'm surprised they didn't photograph the guy sitting on a pile of 30,000 $1 bills. LOOK AT ALL THAT MONEY
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:33 AM on September 9, 2015 [5 favorites]


Honestly I'm still trying to figure out who save for Lucille Bluth-esque millionaires considers $30,000/year to be a princely sum in NYC.
posted by griphus at 11:37 AM on September 9, 2015 [8 favorites]


NYC is a place unto itself and needs a different, higher minimum wage.

I've had long discussions with a good friend of mine who is relatively conservative and a small business owner about minimum wage. He was pretty incensed that the minimum wage was about to dramatically (or potentially) rise.

For him, it would mean more than much higher labor costs for his entry level employees - he would also have to raise the wages on more experienced employees who he was already paying significantly more than minimum wage. Hell, he pays his entry level employees quite a bit more than minimum wage. But if minimum wage is raised to what he's already paying them, then he must up their wages in order to keep them (otherwise they could take a fast food job with less responsibilities and stress).

Anyways, another (legit, in mind complaint) he had was that minimum wage discussions often centered around the high cost of living in large cities, and a minimum wage for say, Toronto should not be the same minimum wage as rural Ontario.

As the minimum wage doesn't automatically increase with cost of living increases, when the legislature does make adjustments they tend to be dramatic ones to balance how long its been since the last increase. That large adjustment can be very difficult for the small businessmen.

I proposed the following: minimum wage being tied to the cost of living in the city the job was in. So Toronto minimum wage would be significantly higher than rural Ontario. Minimum wage should automatically go up as the cost of living goes up (and go DOWN if the cost of living goes down).

Despite his angst about the proposed increases to the minimum wage that were currently being proposed, he agreed that those two things would be more fair to the worker and to the employer.

Anyways, sorry for the minimum wage derail, but livable wages certainly do relate to being able to afford an apartment.
posted by el io at 11:48 AM on September 9, 2015


For him, it would mean more than much higher labor costs for his entry level employees - he would also have to raise the wages on more experienced employees who he was already paying significantly more than minimum wage. Hell, he pays his entry level employees quite a bit more than minimum wage. But if minimum wage is raised to what he's already paying them, then he must up their wages in order to keep them (otherwise they could take a fast food job with less responsibilities and stress).

Tough...shit?
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 12:01 PM on September 9, 2015 [13 favorites]


Tough...shit?

Or, maybe it would mean he would have to let a percentage of his workforce go (1 employee would be 1/3 of his workforce). Small businesses are often running at a very very low profit margin; as a small business owner his pay is significantly less than minimum wage.
posted by el io at 12:13 PM on September 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Rest assured the poor have considered these suggestions, however well intended. This isn't a poor-people-lack-imagination problem.

Suggestions like that often remind me of the Forbes column where a middle aged white guy lays out what *he* would do if he were a poor black kid.
posted by rmd1023 at 12:13 PM on September 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


maybe it would mean he would have to let a percentage of his workforce go

Could be. Has he said so?
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 12:18 PM on September 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Could be. Has he said so?

Yes.
posted by el io at 12:19 PM on September 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


To underail a bit...

A couple of years ago I was looking at living SF. I was warned that it would be harder to find an apartment than it would be to find a high-paying job (I work in tech).

I looked at apartment prices in the city proper, and I swear they were higher than New York's prices.

I asked a friend of mine who lived in the area how everyone who worked in lower paying jobs (service industry, non-tech/finance/etc) how they could possibly afford to live in the city.

The response that I was given was relatively blunt - they don't. They commute into the city and live far outside the city.*

That's when I knew that SF as a city was fundamentally broken.

*I'm sure some do live in the city, subletted in apartments they share.
posted by el io at 12:22 PM on September 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


If your friend cannot run his business economically and still pay his employees a living wage, he should go out of business and hand over the space to someone who can.

If you can't make a lot more than $15 an hour's worth of value out of an employee in your business, you're simply a bad businessman. Why should society subsidize your shoddy business by allowing you to employ people at shoddy wages?
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 12:23 PM on September 9, 2015 [19 favorites]


I worked for a few years in a place where when minimum wage went up, only those making minimum wage got raises. Nobody quit and got fast-food jobs when the wage that they had been earning before became the new minimum, because a lot of people do not want to work in fast-food. Yes, there was grumbling, but there was no mass exodus. We were earning low wages, anyway.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:23 PM on September 9, 2015 [7 favorites]


If you can't make a lot more than $15 an hour's worth of value out of an employee in your business, you're simply a bad businessman.

He's obviously hired too many people, the tried and true method is to cut payroll and increase the work load of those remaining to get maximum added value out of them.
posted by MikeMc at 12:35 PM on September 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


If you can't make a lot more than $15 an hour's worth of value out of an employee in your business, you're simply a bad businessman. Why should society subsidize your shoddy business by allowing you to employ people at shoddy wages?

10$/hr is not necessarily a shoddy wage in rural NC (as a random example). It could very well be a living wage. I'd be willing to bet that 10$/hr isn't a bad wage in Grand Rapids, Michigan (a relatively large city in which you can buy a house for 30k). [minimum wage in Michigan is 8.25$]

I'm not sure if you read the entirety of my comment regarding minimum wage. I sure as heck agree that NYC minimum wage should be 15$/hr (at least). But it's ignoring several economic realities to suggest that a nationwide minimum wage is appropriate.

Specifically I was suggesting that minimum wage should be tied to the cost of living for an area. What my friend pays his employees is better than 15$/hr in NYC.
posted by el io at 12:39 PM on September 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


I think a big part of the problem is that some people view fast food work as some kind of easy-street carefree joyride of a job. When, in reality, it is hellish on every level, and extraordinarily stressful. They should try it, and then try going home to what $8/hour will buy

^THIS^

Combine this with the prevailing attitude that retail/fast food workers = uneducated (or at the very least, pitiable) people and it's pretty easy to spot the kind of people who recoil at the idea of a living wage. Generally it's not people who have had to hope they can pay rent AND utilities this month.
posted by Kitteh at 12:46 PM on September 9, 2015 [9 favorites]


Anyone who think that people earning minimum wage are slacking, or that fast food work is easy, has obviously never had to work one of those jobs for a living.

My experience of jobs, has been that the hourly wage rate of the job is a pretty darn good indicator of how you, as an employee, will be treated. The less they pay you, the more they'll mistreat you. Just getting that dollar an hour jump from minimum to slightly-over-minimum means the job will be paradise compared to the minimum wage job. Any employer who pays exactly the minimum wage, will torment their employees pointlessly in ways that don't even improve their bottom line, just because they can. Those are the worst possible jobs.
posted by elizilla at 1:05 PM on September 9, 2015 [15 favorites]


As the minimum wage doesn't automatically increase with cost of living increases, when the legislature does make adjustments they tend to be dramatic ones to balance how long its been since the last increase. That large adjustment can be very difficult for the small businessmen.

Minimum wage increases at best catch up with simple monetary inflation (and often do not even achieve that ) never mind cost of living increases. So really what you are saying is that it will difficult for friend to adjust to the loss of what was really a partially free ride that he had grown accustomed to.

In Chicago the minimum wage increase will be gradual with it reaching $13 by 2019. Future increases will be tied to inflation (capped at 2.5% so only tied to low rates of inflation!) and only occur if unemployment is below 8.5% (currently it is at 6.5 but it was over 8.5 from around 2009 to 2014). Also when you bring up food service as tipped employees realize their minimum wages are shockingly low - $5.45 in Chicago). Disabled, students and first 90 day employees, trainees can be paid less than minimum wage. 3 employee or fewer businesses are exempted. This is practically the pinnacle achievement of the current mayor in a staunchly Democratic city and only happened because it was election season. That is it was a gain you probably shouldn't count on ever being repeated.

Paying someone the minimum wage is the absolute least you can do for a person in your employ and if you do that you are the absolute minimum of employer quality.
posted by srboisvert at 1:38 PM on September 9, 2015 [5 favorites]


Yes.

Eh, whatever. If he pays above minimum wage now, it's certainly not guaranteed he'll need to raise the wages he offers. I mean, if "they'll just go to stress free fast food" is the level of critical thinking we're talking about, here...
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 1:39 PM on September 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


> I think a big part of the problem is that some people view fast food work as some kind of easy-street carefree joyride of a job. When, in reality, it is hellish on every level, and extraordinarily stressful.

Working at Lick's, which I did for three months in 1996, was so bad that my next job (at Subway) seemed like a Workers' Paradise by comparison.
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:53 PM on September 9, 2015


they could take a fast food job with less responsibilities and stress

I worked at A&W years ago for 2 months. When I got hired there were 11 employees and the manager. My first day on the job saw the number of employees reduced to 4 from 11, 2 of which were new (including myself). The rest had quit because it was such a hell hole to work at, as I quickly discovered. The manager was a nightmare who would scream at everyone and treat us all like we we couldn't put 1 + 1 together. They refused to pay overtime and with only 4 employees there was a lot of it. Nothing you ever did was recognized and there was no positive reinforcement. You had to cook burgers within a set time, that often left them under cooked, which was your fault (just as it was your fault if you didn't get them out on time). It seemed one of the most important duties was to collect as much of the old deep frying grease as possible in metal barrels to sell to the cosmetic companies. It was terrible and extremely stressful.

It also seems to be the model for employers these days. Less workers, shitty pay, more work, no respect, treat them like unworthy worthless idiots, fuck training, and fuck anything approaching reasonable. Granted at the time I was a teenager and still lived with my parents so I didn't have rent stress as I do now but there are a lot of adults working fast food these days who do have that. It's got to be absolutely miserable.
posted by juiceCake at 1:56 PM on September 9, 2015 [8 favorites]


I love how capitalism has conditioned us to think low wages = low stress and high income = hard work, without exception, despite the many, many instances to the contrary. It seems to pervade every discussion about what is the least amount of value someone's labor has. Like some secular version of "prosperity faith".
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 2:07 PM on September 9, 2015 [28 favorites]


Yeah even in the world where every job paid exactly the same, I would still take the office job that I have now ANY day over my college waitress gig, which on no day would ever be considered low-stress.
posted by matcha action at 2:11 PM on September 9, 2015 [6 favorites]


There was some study I read about once where the researcher handed a 100 dollar bill to person A and then asked the test subject questions to determine who was smarter/more trustworthy/more dependendable, person A or person B (person B was not handed anything)

The study showed that people tended to think that the person who had the money was a better person. I feel like it was on the "youarenotsosmart" blog but I had trouble finding it.
posted by RustyBrooks at 2:12 PM on September 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


alternately property owners could respond to rising minimum wages by cutting their own standards of living, which tend to be atrociously high in comparison to the standards of living of minimum wage workers.

in fact, I believe that if minimum wage increases merely led to cuts in payroll rather than to possible threats to their own atrociously high standards of living, then the business running property owning classes wouldn't object to it nearly as strenuously.

tl;dr: opponents of minimum wage increases are oppressed-feeling hegemons, people who act like they're persecuted by any slight reduction of their unearned privileges.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 2:14 PM on September 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


Slavery of the employed; go figure so many people simply do not participate in the work force fully. After the cost of transportation, clothing/uniform for the job each day, increased personal hygiene/grooming costs, a meal away from home, misc. expenses (hello childcare i.e.); just do the math, and a lot of these jobs are actually paying three or four dollars an hour. Why bother makes sense at that point. Earn nothing; and all will be provided.
posted by buzzman at 3:49 PM on September 9, 2015


@xigxag
While I think you're right to question the terminology and target of media price, I think it's a good target, and here's why. As a renter I've had to move with just 30 days notice before. I don't know how I could find another apartment in my area at such short notice.

If you can afford an average median rental, this gives you not only the possibility of avoiding more of the mold and pest infested s#1t holes, and access to a larger market for the inevitable short notice move. If that's your starting place, what's the alternative? You could loose so much and not get out of the hole for many years. Realistically and practically you live where you can. But as a measure of drastic change in the culture of our cities, it's a good measure.
posted by xtian at 3:56 PM on September 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Renting affordably in NYC is impossible no matter what you make. NYC rents are insane.
posted by corb at 4:12 PM on September 9, 2015


I say this partially in jest, but it does irk me when people make the statement that something, say, rents, are unaffordable, which is the complete opposite of reality.

Prices in the economy are demand driven - the buyer sets the price, not the seller. If no one was willing to pay more than $100 a week for rent in NYC, rents would be no more than $100 a week no matter how much the landlords moaned and groaned.

Rents are high precisely because people CAN afford to pay those rates, and in fact are willing to continually bid UP the price, leading to rising rents. Which is the very opposite of the word "unaffordable".
posted by xdvesper at 4:40 PM on September 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Rents are high precisely because people CAN afford to pay those rates

Some people. It is worth considering whether you want a city filled with only people from certain socioeconomic classes.
posted by jaguar at 4:52 PM on September 9, 2015 [4 favorites]


xdvesper: "Rents are high precisely because people CAN afford to pay those rates, and in fact are willing to continually bid UP the price, leading to rising rents. Which is the very opposite of the word "unaffordable"."

Since you say this in jest, I imagine you do understand that when people complain about cost of living, they’re not going to be mollified by your explanation that they’ve chosen the wrong words. And people do, in fact, agree to rents that they can’t truly afford in the long term, or can only afford it after making some difficult decisions about what else they spend money on.

The fact that people are willing to pay an exorbitant amount for rent just throws light on both the rock and the hard place that such people are caught between.
posted by savetheclocktower at 5:08 PM on September 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Some people. It is worth considering whether you want a city filled with only people from certain socioeconomic classes.

Certainly there's benefits to having a mix... there's an interesting parallel with a twist, in Melbourne, Australia, so similar to NYC I assume there's "public housing" where state owns significant numbers of units that it rents out to people in need who apply for it, and here the cost of public housing rent + basic utilities is capped at 25% of your income. Because of the cradle to grave welfare system, you're always going to be on some kind of income, minimum wage is at $656 per week, so you'll pay $164 for rent and have $492 for expenses, and if you're not working you get Newstart, which is $260 a week, so you'll be paying $65 for rent and have $195 to survive your week.

Anyway, in the past the government built special purpose tower blocks for public housing since it was most efficient, you could warehouse thousands of poor people in them. They quickly discovered this was a bad idea, because they each quickly became a nexus for heroin and meth use and distribution. There are about 40 of those tower blocks around town... anyway, the next evolution, I've heard, from someone who works in city planning, is that right now, the government compulsorily acquires a few units of each new building development (as a sort of tax I suppose) that gets dedicated to public housing, so even brand new skyscrapers with units selling for $1 mil per apartment will have some units dedicated for public housing.

Some areas like the one adjacent to mine have as much as 30% of all units set aside as public housing, and simultaneously also have a median house price of about $1 mil and median apartment price of about $600k.
posted by xdvesper at 5:14 PM on September 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


Prices in the economy are demand driven - the buyer sets the price, not the seller. If no one was willing to pay more than $100 a week for rent in NYC, rents would be no more than $100 a week no matter how much the landlords moaned and groaned.

yep, I could just chose not to buy shelter! Sure, that means probable death by hypothermia 6 months of the year. But I'll probably have just starved to death by then anyways, having quit my minimum wage job because the pay was too low.

Econ 101 cannot and does not usefully model how the need for the necessities of life (food, shelter) works. Need for that is inelastic, and will force one to make awful choices. People have eaten their own (pre-deceased) children to avoid starving to death.

Actually, the North American economy is suffering from a serious demand crisis. Due to stagnant wages and growing cost of necessities like housing, the population has less and less money to spend, meaning there is not enough demand to keep our economy healthy.
posted by jb at 5:18 PM on September 9, 2015 [6 favorites]


I say this partially in jest, but today I moved out of my parents' house because I realized that, if you think about it, all housing is affordable. I am now stuck on an unfamiliar street with a flat tire and a dying phone battery.

Help me out here, guys.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 5:20 PM on September 9, 2015 [12 favorites]


Seriously. Isn't the reason that people started moving from rural areas to urban centres the promise of wealth and stability? That reality is now laughably absent. Should we not now be seeing a mass exodus of the working class out of cities and back into small towns and rural communities?

As has been noted many times, cheaper areas have fewer resources and fewer opportunities. People aren't being crazy, stupid, or deluded to move from poor rural areas to expensive cities. They understand that the schools are better, jobs pay better, and there are more and better services.

That said, the incredibly increasing inequality of the past years (and the policies that support that inequality) takes particularly awful form in big city housing options, and it seems less sustainable all the time.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:44 PM on September 9, 2015


Prices in the economy are demand driven - the buyer sets the price, not the seller. If no one was willing to pay more than $100 a week for rent in NYC, rents would be no more than $100 a week no matter how much the landlords moaned and groaned.

Most cities unfortunately grant landlords and homeowners the ability to restrict the supply of housing through 'public consultation' which always seems to devolve into automobile storage concerns thus necessitating the reduction or freezing of housing stock in order to preserve parking and traffic flow.

So when you can choke off supply the notion of simple econ supply and demand curves don't work. In Chicago for instance we actually have a significant population reduction underway in two of the safest and most desirable neighborhoods in the city. The demand is there but it next to impossible to supply. Just this year two high rise developments in the midst of all the other high rises have been kiboshed by the car concern trolls.
posted by srboisvert at 5:53 AM on September 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


The whole "no really it's the renters who set the rent" argument only works if everyone living in the city is making the same salary. Which they aren't. As always, landlords can raise rents and still find buyers, sure, but the rent can be demonstrably high enough for it to render it impossible for minimum wage and other low-wage earners to afford to live in anything resembling decent housing. It isn't the city's waitresses and bus drivers who are demanding rent increases. Which is another example of reality trumping theory based on cherry-picking data.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 10:31 AM on September 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


So when you can choke off supply the notion of simple econ supply and demand curves don't work.

They don't actually work at all, if Steve Keen is to be believed (and having read some of his work I have little reason to disbelieve him).
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 1:19 PM on September 10, 2015


Oh, and yes, car culture is fucking awful in Chicago, and one of the things (next to the humidity) I least miss about the place.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 1:20 PM on September 10, 2015


So when you can choke off supply the notion of simple econ supply and demand curves don't work.

To be fair, this is exactly what supply and demand curves predict, if supply gets restricted then prices will rise in response.

To me it's debatable that landowners are deliberately restricting supply: there's no cartel that decides collectively to not build any more units: if anything, most cities have new skyscrapers coming up at breakneck speed (so it is in mine, at least). For every 1 or 2 skyscrapers that get blocked another 3-4 get built instead. I see blocking the construction of new units as a practical step: you need infrastructure to support additional residents, and there's no practical way to widen the roads in the inner city, so we have to be realistic about how many residents any given infrastructure system can afford. My opinion is that most of the rise in rental is demand driven, not supply driven.

That being said, cities could support far more residents by going the opposite route - in my city there's continual efforts to remove road infrastructure. Over the years I've seen hundreds of on street parking lots on my street removed and replaced with bike lanes, and the number of lanes cut from 2 to 1, and there's a progressive move to eliminate cars from streets and turn it into tram / bike / pedestrian malls. They city really doesn't want you to have car parks - car parks attract cars, and cause congestion - so business owners are looking at paying between $1200 to $2200 per year in penalties per car lot to the city as a congestion fee.
posted by xdvesper at 8:42 PM on September 10, 2015


The New York area isn't as unaffordable as you'd think.

I recently heard about a young attorney, newly minted, renting at a little higher than $2300 in a bustling area of lower Manhattan. Sounds high. But this individual's starting salary is north of $160K, leaving plenty of room to pay down loans and enjoy the city. Many legal and executive jobs now pay starting salaries at that rate.

If you're okay with being outside of Manhattan, many parts of Brooklyn rent at under $2000. And apartments can be found in certain parts of New Jersey, such as the Journal Square area of Jersey City, in which you can land a studio for about $850. Here, you'll be situated within ten minutes by foot to the Path train, which arrives ten minutes later at the New York financial district. In other words, you're twenty minutes door-to-door from Wall Street.

Development money is piling into Jersey City as millennials learn its convenience and charms. Thankfully, the neighborhood is still rich with the cultures of its many nationalities, and the outstanding cuisine and desserts, largely from India, that they've brought into the area.

The flip side is that, like Brooklyn, Jersey City may soon become a magnet for an overflow of millennials, driving up its rents. The rental game in the New York region is about striking while the iron is hot.
posted by Gordion Knott at 12:59 AM on September 11, 2015


If you're okay with being outside of Manhattan, many parts of Brooklyn rent at under $2000. And apartments can be found in certain parts of New Jersey, such as the Journal Square area of Jersey City, in which you can land a studio for about $850. Here, you'll be situated within ten minutes by foot to the Path train, which arrives ten minutes later at the New York financial district. In other words, you're twenty minutes door-to-door from Wall Street.

the parts of Brooklyn that rent under 2k are actually quite far from Manhattan, and a studio may not be feasible for someone with a family.

And I also notice that you're focusing on what may be affordable for "legal and executive jobs". What about the SECRETARIES for those jobs? Or the HR associates for the human resources departments in those companies? Or the tailors who make their suits? Or the waiters who serve their business lunches? Or the word processing departments in their companies? Or the IT team at those jobs? Or the receptionists in their offices? Or the security staff in their buildings? Or the cleaning staff in their buildings? Or the construction staff? Or the telephone installation and repair guys? Or the newsstand guys they get their papers from every morning? Or the coffee shop workers at the spot where they get their first coffee?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:20 AM on September 11, 2015 [10 favorites]


What about the SECRETARIES for those jobs? Or the HR associates for the human resources departments in those companies?

I absolutely agree with you. The further you move down the food chain, the tougher the housing crisis. Unfortunately, New York City, in the past, has largely addressed this problem with the rent regulation system, but a large number of rent-controlled and -stabilized apartments have been snapped up by people with white-collar jobs. And alas, the current administration hasn't delivered on its promise to support the building of affordable housing. It's a mess.

the parts of Brooklyn that rent under 2k are actually quite far from Manhattan

I've heard that that's the case. Approximately how far are these areas from, say, the financial district in Manhattan? Is there a reason why their occupants haven't moved to Hoboken or Jersey City, when a twenty-minute door-to-door commute from Journal Square via the Path train (to cite my above example) puts you in the heart of the financial district, and requires a meager $850 (for a studio) or $1200 (for a one bedroom) in rent? I'm asking these questions out of basic curiosity, rather than an attempt to be provocative.
posted by Gordion Knott at 4:12 AM on September 11, 2015


A solid portion of people who live in Brooklyn or Queens or the Bronx also work in Brooklyn or Queens or the Bronx. How far Jersey City is to the Financial District is about as relevant as how far the Earth is to the moon. On top of that, there's about ten thousand places people need to be at least kind of close to that aren't where they work, and I guarantee those places aren't anywhere near the financial district if you're living in the boroughs. I mean I've known people who moved out to Jersey and commute in and they're doing fine, but if you have roots here and those roots aren't where the PATH drops you off, moving to Jersey to cut down on your rent isn't that useful.
posted by griphus at 5:07 AM on September 11, 2015 [2 favorites]


a meager $850 (for a studio)

Going along with the idea that there really are a bunch of $850 studios on the market - which seems unlikely to me, because in DC that's considered a very good price for one room in a big group house in a 'bad' neighborhood and all my broke friends in New York are paying more for worse living situations, but I don't know New York so I'll take this as a given.

Let's say you make $15 minimum wage, that'd be about the equivalent of a $31,200 annual salary if you work 52 weeks a year, which would come out to about $23,000 net pay. So the meager $850 for a studio would cost you 44% of your salary, which conventional wisdom suggests is unwise and makes you vulnerable should something bad happen... not including utilities, health insurance, and the $110 you'll pay in PATH fare a month.

Rough. You can live paycheck to paycheck but have little hope of improving your situation as long as you're making minimum wage - saving up for a family, whatever, and an illness would easily bankrupt you. But it's doable.

EXCEPT this is in the ideal, beautiful case when we actually raise the minimum wage to $15 bucks an hour, and until then all these minimum wage workers we're discussing are making a lot less than that. Hell, a ton of people in the next rung of wage earners (like social workers, secretaries, etc.) are making in the 30s.

It's just hard for me to look at all that and see where people are coming away with the idea that New York is affordable to minimum wage workers if they would just try a little harder and live in a cheaper part of the city.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 6:32 AM on September 11, 2015 [3 favorites]


Considering that most minimum wage workers have trouble getting 35 hours, let alone 40/week, it would be fairer to set the estimate at $15 x 30 x 50 (because even minimum wage take holidays) = $22,500, before taxes.

As for the "well, they could get a second job" - not only is 30 hours of min wage + committing already very stressful (you're on your feet, you are constantly moving, your only breaks are carefully measured - you for sure aren't checking Metafilter or Facebook while "working" like I've seen white collar workers do), but many employers require you to be on call for more hours than you actually work, and don't give you your schedule until the week (or less) before.
posted by jb at 6:58 AM on September 11, 2015


Just to reiterate:

I've worked as a historian, as a research coordinator/admin, and as a barista.

Working 8 hours in an office is less stressful than working 8 hours in an archive -- but both are much, much less work than working for even 6 hours as a barista.
posted by jb at 7:00 AM on September 11, 2015 [6 favorites]


If you're okay with being outside of Manhattan, many parts of Brooklyn rent at under $2000.

Since many landlords won't take tenants who don't make at least 40x monthly rent in annual salary, that's saying that there are many apartments that are affordable as long as you make $80k a year. Let's remember that the median salary in NYC is around $55k.

And apartments can be found in certain parts of New Jersey, such as the Journal Square area of Jersey City, in which you can land a studio for about $850. Here, you'll be situated within ten minutes by foot to the Path train, which arrives ten minutes later at the New York financial district. In other words, you're twenty minutes door-to-door from Wall Street.

Not everyone works on Wall Street. I moved from Queens to Brooklyn to change my hourlong commute to a 20-minute commute since I had been working downtown for several years-- and promptly got a job on the UWS, bringing my commute back to an hour. I guess I should move to Morningside Heights, Washington Heights, or Inwood but I like where I am other than the commute and moving is not cheap.
posted by matcha action at 8:24 AM on September 11, 2015


>the parts of Brooklyn that rent under 2k are actually quite far from Manhattan

I've heard that that's the case. Approximately how far are these areas from, say, the financial district in Manhattan?


I'm using the neighborhood of Canarsie, Brooklyn as an example; it's a neighborhood that's residential, lower-cost, and on the south part of Brooklyn. Canarsie is just shy of an hour-long commute to the Financial District. I'm not sure why you are focused on the Financial District, either, so I also calculated Canarsie's commute times to other parts of the city:

Midtown east - 1 hour, 5 minutes
Times Square - 56 minutes
Upper East Side - 1 hour, 12 minutes
Upper West Side - 1 hour, 13 minutes

Is there a reason why their occupants haven't moved to Hoboken or Jersey City, when a twenty-minute door-to-door commute from Journal Square via the Path train (to cite my above example) puts you in the heart of the financial district, and requires a meager $850 (for a studio) or $1200 (for a one bedroom) in rent?

Several reasons:

* Many of the people who live in Canarsie are families for whom a studio or a one-bedroom would not be feasible.

* Working in New York City, but living in New Jersey, creates one hell of a hassle come tax time. I did it the opposite way for a year (lived in Brooklyn, worked in Weehauken) and my tax return that year was a pain in the absolute ass, because I had to file returns in both states even though I earned all my income in one state.

* Commuting from Jersey City to Wall Street on the Path may be 20 minutes. But let's look at the commute from Jersey City to the other places people work:

Midtown East: a half hour to 45 minutes, requiring a transfer from the PATH to the MTA subway
Times Square: ditto
Upper East side: 45 minutes, requiring a transfer from the PATH to the MTA
Upper west Side: ditto

Which is still not bad, but is still not the whiz-bang of a ride you keep mentioning that it would be to Wall Street.

* The MTA and the PATH system charge separately, whereas the MTA will let you transfer free between the subway and the bus. So I was charged double for my commute to and from Weehauken, and people commuting from Jersey who have to then transfer onto an MTA city or bus would also be charged twice per ride by each separate transit system.


I keep noticing, finally, that in your efforts to understand the demand for rent, it seems like you are concentrating on one specific part of the city (the Financial District) and one specific demographic (single people or childless couples working in the financial district). It is the single people and childless couples working in the financial district who would be most interested in the studios and one-bedrooms in Jersey City - and, quite honestly, it is the single people and childless couples working in the financial district who often claim these apartments in Jersey City.

However, the people who are being most affected by the high rents are not single people and childless couples working in the financial district. The people who are being most affected by the high rents are single mothers of three kids working as secretaries in Murray Hill or aspiring artists with day jobs as baristas in Chinatown or unmarried men who are looking after their aging parents who work as construction workers up in Harlem or junior adjunct professors at Columbia University or schoolteachers in Queens or bakers in Staten Island or...

I do respect that you are asking your questions sincerely. And I too am asking sincerely if there is a reason you are confining your thought patterns to such a narrow demographic, and to only one part of the city where people work.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:46 AM on September 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


a twenty-minute door-to-door commute

You have said this twice like it's some kind of fact, but that is the perfect scenario in an ideal world, which when dealing with public transit never, ever happens, so I'm gonna go with 40 minutes door to door on an average day.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 8:49 AM on September 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


You have said this twice like it's some kind of fact, but that is the perfect scenario in an ideal world, which when dealing with public transit never, ever happens

That's a good point; train delays and missed trains and stalled trains happen all the time. And for all the cases I mentioned above, where someone was transferring from the PATH to the MTA - consider that for every transfer, that doubles the likelihood of encountering problem with a train.

My current commute involves 3 different transit vehicles - first a bus, then a short hop on one subway, and then a change in the middle to another subway - and usually it's 45 minutes door-to-door. However, the bus could be late one day, and on another day the bus could be fine but the first subway could have a problem, or the bus AND one of the subways could be glitchy, etc.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:21 AM on September 11, 2015


Working in New York City, but living in New Jersey, creates one hell of a hassle come tax time.

That's a dimension of the problem that didn't occur to me. Given the complexity of filing taxes, this presents a strong incentive to renters to remain in a single state.

And I too am asking sincerely if there is a reason you are confining your thought patterns to such a narrow demographic, and to only one part of the city where people work.

If I could re-write the post, I'd include the disclaimer that my pinpointing of the lawyer/executive demographic was random, and in no way intended as a degradation or derailment of the problems of low and middle earners, which deserve the focus of housing policy in the halls of the New York City government. These earners far outnumber the city's lawyers and executives and money managers, and the stress of long commutes adds to the stress and fatigue of work in the service, clerical, and construction industries. From the view of an outsider, it appears that New York City, like many parts of the US, has backburnered any attempt to cope with this disaster.
posted by Gordion Knott at 1:13 PM on September 11, 2015


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