I think minimum wage raises = necessary for prices to go up btw.
Ok, so this is a bit confusing, I get it if this doesn't make sense, It took a lot of crying to get to this point of understanding.
See it's closer to the other way around, Wages don't really go up as the price goes up, the price is going to go up regardless because of the Supply and demand curve, and increase in demand makes the price go up same with the increase in supply. Supply doesn't just shift when their is more stuff to sell. So the people who own companies want their products to sell and if they are selling well they want them to be more expensive, If their making a large enough profit then their going to make more of that product increasing the supply. This is kept in check by the Demand curve (This is all in graph terms because that's what supply and demand is it's a graph, well it's a real thing but you track it on a graph) As the price for an Item goes up, the less in demand it is, usually. That's not what happens with essential items like food. There is always a demand for food and it is always rising, so people who sell food want to hike up the prices so they can get more profit.
So when it comes to Inflation it comes into pay because your power in the economy comes from your ability to spend, the more money you have they more spending power you have. If you had a choice you would sell your product for the highest bid, so the people with money have the ability to push prices up and keep them there.
Inflation isn't bad, we can see with Supply and demand that inflation happens in a healthy economy. The issue isn't with the inflation it's with the wages.
Inflation happens every year, Minimum wage doesn't go up every year, peoples wages in general don't go up every year. If you get a 2% increase in your pay check, but the rate of inflation is 4% you're not earning more money, you're earning less money, 2% less money. That's what the issue is with Inflation and business owners, they aren't increasing wages with Inflation, so over time the cost of living goes up and peoples ability to afford that goes down.
Minimum wage In Idaho is 7 ish dollars an hour. So that means if a person works 8 hours a day 5 days a week for a month, that's around 1,120 a month. The average price of an apartment with 1 bedroom in Idaho, is 580 that is not covering utilities, over half your income spent on a few walls, lets be generous here and say that utilities are only adding on an extra 100, that's being very nice for one person. If you're keeping track, you're down to 440 of your 1,120, Now food one person , we'll say 40 that is very bare minimum and you are going to start having some vitamin deficiencies, I haven't even talked about taxes yet and we're down to 400 dollars. Let's say you have medicare for health insurance, State taxes, federal taxes, and Social security, which by the way isn't optional. That's going to put you back about 215 more, you're down to 185 dollars, Let's say you take public transport, well, the month pass is another 90 dollars, you could walk every where but we all know that's not really an option depending on what part of town you're in and where your work is which lets be honest, probably isn't within walking distance if your apartment is as cheep as yours is. Toiletries, well, if your frugal with your soap and tooth paste, you can get away with 25, a month. 70 dollars, do you need to pay for laundry every week because lets be real at a bare minimum 1 bedroom apartment you're not going to have a washing machine. That's going to be 2 dollars a load on average. you probably don't have a large wardrobe and you need to wash your work clothes so, you're back another 5 or so. 65, see what I'm getting at here, heaven forbid you be a woman and need to spend an additional ten dollars a month on feminine products. I don't need to keep including the cost of living to get my point across.
It wouldn't hurt a lot of business owners to pay the workers more, not when your pay check is getting you in a million or more every year, that's the problem , they can afford to pay their people more and it wouldn't make a dent in their earnings, they would still be set for life. but they don't. Just raising minimum wage doesn't help either. But that is another can of worms and I'm in the middle of watching a show so. For now here you go.
