I meant in LA in general. Plenty of people struggling.

Obviously not me in my glorious ivory tower turning everyone green with envy.

Oops again.

You're where I'd like to be, yes. Certainly not for material reasons, I have standards!

Southern California is very expensive, it is up here as well. $15 an hour might help with rents, so I'm glad to see that it was passed.

Most US min. wages are far too low, and end up likely costing the government more in government assistance programs then it would to just provide a decent wage and reduce the need for these programs. Part of why they have to exist is because its becoming harder and harder to find employment that pays a wage you can survive on.

10/hr in Seattle, Los Angeles, and other major city's is not enough for a single person, let alone anyone with a kid.

We have 10.25 CAD min wage here in BC, and its even too low for a single person to make ends meet. If working 40 hours per week, brings in 1,640 per month pre-taxes. After tax take home pay is approx 1,400 per month.

Where I am average rent for a 1 bedroom apartment is 900 per month.

Do the math and you can quickly see even 10/hr is not a wage one can live on.

Some say min. wage jobs are for teens and not adults, well we are now at a point where adults rely on them. We don't have the kind of blue collar jobs we used to have in North America, so the blue collar workers who would have worked in say manufacturing, are now in service jobs with none of the opportunity blue collar workers had in the past.

At the risk of making interactions with you circular, the answer is in your own hands: get some qualifications whether academic or vocational, and work towards getting better paid work. Not just you, of course, but most of those on MWJs.

I wouldn't want to survive on $10 an hour where I am. I wouldn't want to survive on $15 an hour even.

I understand that, but you also have to understand not everyone can for whatever reason go to school and do those things.

That said, I have decided to give school another go, wont start til January, and first 2 years is all academic upgrading to meet entrance requirements for the program of interest, once in the program its another 4 years, so within 7 hopefully I'll be done.

Of course its all dependent on government funding as the tuition is beyond my ability to pay out of pocket.

$15 per hour is about equivalent of $23.50 in Switzerland since the Swiss Franc is so overvalued. When the referendum was voted on, the Swiss overwhelming rejected the minimum wage. Although that wage would only affect about 10% of the Swiss workers, it can have a negative psychological effect on about a 1/3 of the workforce since they can perceive themselves as being in a sub class instead of middle class.

Most large California cities already have a minimum wage above $10 per hour but pushing the minimum wage to what would be considered a "living wage" in those large cities could be higher than $27 per hour or $56,000 per year and consumers would pay the bill. Unfortunately if $27 was the minimum wage, employment for gardeners, day care, maid service, and many other jobs would likely drop as people could no longer afford those services.

surviving? living on? steak on food stamps? Obama Phone? 60 inch flat screen TV?

To whom does the term "living wage" refer?

A single person earning 10 bucks an hour, for a 40 hour week, in rural "anywhere" would probably manage quite well on their 19K a year.

The same person living in a large metropolitan city would struggle more.

A guy with 2 children and wife earning 10 bucks an hour even in rural "anywhere" is definitely going to struggle - but should the mininum wage (commonly interchanged with living wage) be increased because he decided to have children but not to improve his earnings to accommodate his growing family.

As has been said in this thread, minimum wage jobs have in the past been regarded as entry level, getting started jobs with people moving on up the career and salary ladders - usually undertaken by younger, single workers.

Nowadays one hears constantly about whole families (husband, wife, children) surviving on minimum wages, with calls to increase such wages to support the needs of such families.

Whatever happened to that saying "cut your coat according to your cloth"

For what it is worth I can think of quite a few people earning not a lot who have gone through higher education.

I have also come across quite a few who have many qualifications but to whom I would not pay minimum wage.

The issue is that the growth has been in the low wage sector and the loss in the middle.

The only trend I can see is that this will continue.

It seems people are getting stuck in these jobs and the minimum wage has stagnated.

Education may be part of the answer but cannot fully address it.

A lot of adult children seem to live with their parents here as they cannot afford their own place.

The people really suffering are the day workers who have to turn up at places like those that supply WalMart and just see if anything is available each morning. They are merely eking out an existence.

Possibly with the huge profits WalMart makes, this could be seen as a little unjust.

Then again, it's the system we have here and no doubt I will be told to FIFO.

Unfortunately you are right for once. Raising the minimum wage too high doesn't solve the problem since if it is too high, jobs will be lost as consumers decide that they can't afford those services.

It's a complex issue and most developed countries don't have an easy solution to solve the problem without causing job losses. A good example is day care where both parents may work but nearly 100% of one parents salary is being used to pay for day care. If the cost of day care increases 50%, for many families it won't make financial sense for both to keep working.

I always wondered how many jobs require the education they ask for.

Day care is a classic example, not only is it labour intensive but Governments on both side of the pond have made it more and more expensive to provide.

And will continue to do so.