General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Sitting in a restaurant today I realized how much trouble we are in for [View all]Cirque du So-What
(25,949 posts)First, assume that he's making minimum wage (which is a stretch, as restaurants aren't required to pay minimum wage) and working 40 hours a week (also a stretch) and that he's making 20% in tips consistently (a Stretch Armstrong-worthy stretch):
40 x $7.25 x 120% x 52 = $18,096 per annum
I still feel that's being overly optimistic, but I'm not getting any more complicated than this...for now.
If he was working at a manufacturing job that pays $15/hour, that works out to:
40 x $15 x 52 = $31,200 per annum
That's not at all unrealistic - and is probably on the low side for a good manufacturing job.
The difference:
$31,200 - $18,096 = $13,104 per annum
Multiply that by an estimated number of high-tech manufacturing jobs lost since 2000:
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-01-18/business/ct-biz-0118-tech-jobs-20120118_1_high-tech-manufacturing-jobs-job-losses-research
That's not counting the LOW-tech manufacturing jobs that vanished.
$13,104 x 687,000 = $9,002,448,000 per annum
Next, see how much is lost to Social Security coffers:
$9,002,448,000 x 4.8% = $432,117,504 per annum
I believe this 'conservative' estimate is actually much higher, and that's just for one year. It's not taking into account that the loss of manufacturing jobs is never likely to return to previous levels, despite recent gains.