If I'm single and childless and make $15/hour

[Recursion]

in most of the country except the absolute most expensive urban cores I'd be doing pretty well. I could rent a studio or a 1BR in most "normal" markets and have some beer money left over.

If I'm a single parent of 2 children, $15/hour is going to be hard to live on. For one thing, I'd need to rent a three bedroom apartment, and $15/hour is not going to be enough for that.

So should the minimum wage be higher, enough to rent a 3 bedroom apartment? But then the single childless person would be able to afford a 3 bedroom apartment, and would probably like the extra space. We don't have enough 3 bedroom apartments built, so the single parent gets priced out.

Should only people with children get the higher minimum wage? That seems problematic too, both because nobody will want to hire people with children if they cost more, and because the politics are going to be just awful particularly when race comes into play.

Should childless people be restricted from renting multiple-bedroom apartments? This is what a lot of central Europe does; you can't just "rent an apartment", there's a housing board and you have to justify that you're using it to capacity.

I don't know the answer I just think by focusing simply on wages we're only looking at one part of the problem. Elizabeth Warren wrote about this in her book "The Two Income Trap", and I don't really know that there's a solution: if e.g. childless couples and couples with children are bidding on the same housing stock, then everybody household is going to wind up having to have both parents working because the price gets bid up.

[Recursion]

2. The yellow vests? Oh God no. They are populist/fascist scum

One of their chief complaints is the existence of public housing for minorities. Don't fall for their schtick; they are really bad people.

[Recursion]

4. They had an "apocalyptic" joint riot on May Day

But they've calmed down since then. They used to close off the entire Champs-Elysee every weekend, but now it's just one or two intersections. I'm still not sure what the point of that is since no actual Parisian goes there on the weekend anyways.

[Recursion]

6. That was either Nice or Marseille

But, yeah: France is in general a higher-risk country for terrorism than the US, so we keep our eyes open.

[DFW]

7. It's often a sticky question here in Europe, too

More so in small, crowded countries (Netherlands, Denmark) than here in Germany. Still, even in my small neighborhood, between 15 and 10 years ago, huge, ostentatious huge houses started being built on parcels of land too small for them (one of them right next to our house). The city building commission should have denied the permits. As soon as the last house was built, the members of the zoning board all left for sunnier climes. Bribery for living space is rampant in Europe, a real disgrace. There is a Turkish concern currently trying to get a permit to build multi-story residences next to our house on the other side (currently the garden of an elderly architect from Austria who is moving away). There is already nowhere to park a car and emergency services can't get through as it is, and they want to put up 30 apartments adjacent to out house. It can't be done without more bribes. Unfortunately, there are many outstretched hands in most city governments in Europe.

It will probably be an eternal conflict between deciding the government ha the power to decide every case, and the government has no power to decide any case. It isn't fair that people should be priced out of decent living space, but I tend to be allergic to having to get government involved in every single aspect of someone's personal life, too (abortion, for example).

Here in Germany, there is no higher wage for people with children (unconstitutional discrimination), but there IS "Kindergeld (child money)" that people with children can apply for and get from the government, as a supplement for the cost of raising the children. If you're well off, it isn't much (around €200 a month per child), but if you're low income, it can mean a lot. That adds up to $2700 a year, after all. It is (surprise!) heavily abused, too. My wife, a social worker here in Germany, had to contend with one man who immigrated here from Lebanon, refused to work, fathered 15 children and kept his wives and the children in one apartment, and kept another for himself that he paid for out of the €3000+ Kindergeld he gets each month from the German state (and some people wonder why there is grumbling from taxpayers, or why the AfD gets more than two votes per election.).

I don't see there being any one solution for this question, though having a huge unwieldy government bureaucracy that is open to bribery being responsible for final decisions does not seem to be the cure.

[Recursion]

8. My experience was in Vienna where construction is basically fixed

Everything in the city itself is historic so it's a question of how you allocate the existing space. But unless you're fabulously rich you don't get to just "move to Vienna" and rent an apartment; you have to have a job in the area and there's a kind of matchmaking public/private housing authority that determines where you can rent and what your subsidy is. (If you're hella rich you just forego the subsidy, but "normal" people can't afford to do that in Vienna.)

[pnwmom]

9. A single parent with two boys or two girls could put them into the same room.

With one of each they could still go in the same room till they were older.

My husband grew up in a home with a brother and only 2 bedrooms. The grandmother slept in one of them and the boys in the living room. Eventually they added a bedroom.

My parents lived with three children in a 2 bedroom house -- the baby in their room with them. By the time the 4th came along, they could afford a bigger house.

I think part of the problem is people think they need more space than they really do.

[Recursion]

10. I'm curious how many unused bedrooms there are in hot markets

Maybe I can find some data on that to crunch

[pnwmom]

11. Unfortunately in many hot markets there is a mismatch right now

because baby boomers are still living in the homes they raised their children in, have fully paid for, and enjoy having the space to accommodate their children and grandchildrens' visits. Also, many of them are still working at jobs that are a reasonable distance from their homes. Why pay more for a close-in city apartment?

I think the problem may be that builders aren't building enough affordable smaller homes that couples of all ages might like to live in.

[tymorial]

14. The building of affordable homes is a very important issue

Especially here in southern new England where real estate can be expensive and the market competitive. Builders are still creating these mcmansions in some areas while destroying the little unprotected forest areas we have. It drives wild life into the cities because they have lost their habitat. The latter would be a problem even if they built smaller homes that were affordable and maximized the space but it would at least be a positive step.

They just built a new development near where I live. They opened up a wooded area and dropped a cookie cutter collection of over sized colonials with huge yards all priced up to 600k. Its preposterous. There are few homes in this area that are anywhere near that value. They could have doubled the amount of homes built and still provided adequate room for a yard and a decent living space... but some people still demand their huge unneccessary yards and 3000 sqft homes.

[Kaleva]

22. I knew a family with 5 kids that lived in a 2 BR home.

The mother slept in one bedroom with the 3 girls and the father slept in the other with the two boys.

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. This is what a tax, tax credits and benefits system is for

You set a minimum wage at the level needed to keep a single adult in basics - healthcare, a basic place to live (like a studio or 1 bed apartment) they can heat, and a decent diet (eating in). The employer, who is paying for an unskilled person, is then paying the basic costs of such an unskilled person remaining fit to do the job, which is fair. The healthcare would be arranged through the state in an advanced economy.

You might make it more than that, but then say they'll pay some of it as tax; because those with children need more. You do that with some combination of them paying no tax, getting tax credits, or benefits.

Some, perhaps all, of the cost of tax credits and benefits will come from progressive taxes on higher income earners. They are helping to pay for a healthy generation of new citizens with good potential for being integrated, productive and sociable members of the community, just like they do by financing public schools, for instance. Children who grow up in poverty are more likely to end up turning to crime, if society gives them little hope.

[Recursion]

13. I think that's a good way to look at it

I think wages are only one leg of the stool, as it were; there also need to be taxes and benefits.

[fescuerescue]

15. They really have "housing boards"

To see if you deserve the apartment you want?

Yikes. That sounds like stuff we heard out of Soviet Russia.

Kinda afraid to ask where.

[Recursion]

16. That was Vienna, Austria

They determine your housing subsidy. If you're hella rich you can just live wherever, but most people will need a subsidy so the board gets some say in where you live.

[fescuerescue]

20. O I C

Certainly if there is a subsidy involved then need should be evaluated. No qualms there.

[Codeine]

17. My kids share a room.

Even with a decent job upgrading to a three bedroom apartment is a bit beyond us at the moment; SoCal rent is high.

[LanternWaste]

18. Outta curiosity, what are the median rents for a 1, 2 and 3 bedroom apartment in So CA?

I rent a two-bedroom in a warehouse district in north central TX for $800/mnth, and was simply curios as to the disparity.

[Codeine]

19. I have a two bedroom

and one of those is probably a “bonus room” legally, as it has no windows. For that we pay $1150, and that’s only because my landlord is a softie who I’ve known for thirty years. A three bedroom would be minimum fifteen hundred or thereabouts, two grand in a nicer complex.

And we’re not even in the “expensive” part of southern California.

[Kaleva]

21. One can get a 3 BR house where I live for $500 a month.