Detroit's Problem is a Lack of Job, Not Too Much Gentrification

[bust]

When I started, I would take any job I could find whether it was assembling bowling trophies or scooping and stacking red hot steel pieces as they dropped from behind a forging hammer. I didn't really care.

Today, nobody would be willing to either for less than $20/hr while I was doing it for $5 or $6

I'm not sure when you were doing those jobs or if you already baked inflation into your numbers.

If you were getting paid $6/hour in 1970 that's the same as getting paid $38.70/hour today:

https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc...1&year2=201703

$0.93/hour in 1970 would be equivalent to $6.00 today:

https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc...1&year2=201703

The places where they have implemented a $15 minimum wage require paying the equivalent of $2.33/hour in 1970:

https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc...1&year2=201703

As we get older and we compare what we made and what people are asking for today it's very easy to underestimate how powerfully inflation affects the equation.

[313WX]

I'm not sure when you were doing those jobs or if you already baked inflation into your numbers.

If you were getting paid $6/hour in 1970 that's the same as getting paid $38.70/hour today:

https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc...1&year2=201703

$0.93/hour in 1970 would be equivalent to $6.00 today:

https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc...1&year2=201703

The places where they have implemented a $15 minimum wage require paying the equivalent of $2.33/hour in 1970:

https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc...1&year2=201703

As we get older and we compare what we made and what people are asking for today it's very easy to underestimate how powerfully inflation affects the equation.

Very good point.

It's not just the lack of jobs either, but the lack of good-paying jobs.

In reality, only being able to find a job at McDonalds or Meijer part-time [[or a temporary job) is just as bad as relying on government assistance, if not worse.