Recent comments in /f/dataisbeautiful

CharlotteRant t1_j4st7zf wrote

Reply to comment by Stormtrooper01 in The Number of Hours You'd Have to Work at a Minimum Wage Job to Afford a Year of Tuition in Each State by SandyBeaches2016

Or that a lot of states have the federal minimum wage, but like 5% or even less people earn that.

Found the stat on BLS:

> In 2020, 73.3 million workers age 16 and older in the United States were paid at hourly rates, representing 55.5 percent of all wage and salary workers. Among those paid by the hour, 247,000 workers earned exactly the prevailing federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. About 865,000 workers had wages below the federal minimum. Together, these 1.1 million workers with wages at or below the federal minimum made up 1.5 percent of all hourly paid workers.

North Carolina data from 2015 only because I knew it was out there:

> Regional Commissioner Janet S. Rankin noted that the 122,000 workers earning the federal minimum wage or less made up 5.1 percent of all hourly paid workers in the state. Nationwide, those earning the federal minimum or less accounted for 3.3 percent of the hourly paid workforce. (See table 1. The North Carolina minimum wage is equal to the prevailing federal minimum wage.)

5

Definitely__Happened t1_j4srdai wrote

Reply to The Number of Hours You'd Have to Work at a Minimum Wage Job to Afford a Year of Tuition in Each State by SandyBeaches2016

In my opinion, the state median hourly wages would provide a more realistic picture due to the fact that, for example, many (16) states follow the federal minimum wage requirement of $7.25, but only 1.25% of the US population actually makes the federal minimum, hence the data can become significantly skewed towards the minority of the population within those states rather than the average or majority of college students the data is depicting.

To make a quick illustration of my point, take Wyoming, for instance:

Wyoming's state minimum wage is $7.25, however, the median annual income for a Wyomingyte is $33,031, or $14.7 an hour. Using your own methodology then this would result in a halving of the number of hours needed for the average college student to pay for their college tuition and fees unless all of Wyoming's college students someone ended up falling inside the percentage (1.9%, according to Statista) of workers within the state that's meeting the state's minimum, which seems unlikely.

Please don't take this as some sort of comment on the cost or work required to pay for tuition nowadays; I'm in agreement with everyone else that It's way too expensive. I just feel that the output from the data used is not truly representative of the "average."

0

y0da1927 t1_j4sm5ss wrote

Reply to comment by Robot_Basilisk in The Number of Hours You'd Have to Work at a Minimum Wage Job to Afford a Year of Tuition in Each State by SandyBeaches2016

Community college. Online school, or go to another country. A better accreditation system would help as currently the colleges themselves get to gate keep who can offer classes and how.

But there are affordable schools out there. Cuny Brooklyn is like 5k tuition for example.

1

Yodoliyee OP t1_j4sj6hz wrote

Reply to [OC] What if the UK used the German electoral system? by Yodoliyee

Seat map of the United Kingdom House of Commons if the 2019 Election was held under the German electoral system. The number of constitutencies won by a party was halved and rounded down to the nearest whole number. Despite SNP, DUP, and Sinn Fein not making the 5% threshold, they sill get full proportional representation, as they won more than 3 constituencies. Parties for ethnic minorities (I considered Plaid Cymru as such) also get full proportional representation, regardless of how many votes or constituencies they got. The reason the parliament has 800 seats is because according to their vote share, the DUP would win 3 seats, but as they won 4 constituencies, all other parties need extra levelling members to make the seat distribution proportional.

Tools: https://parliamentdiagram.toolforge.org/parlitest.php, https://app.flourish.studio/visualisation/12472140/edit

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_United_Kingdom_general_election

14

DrTonyTiger t1_j4shtcx wrote

Reply to The Number of Hours You'd Have to Work at a Minimum Wage Job to Afford a Year of Tuition in Each State by SandyBeaches2016

The specific scenario modeled here should not play out very much. If your income is that low, the financial aid package will be more generous. The exception is for-profit schools that were established to fleece the poor out of all the money they have and all the money they are able to borrow on student loans.

0

Robot_Basilisk t1_j4sennw wrote

Reply to comment by y0da1927 in The Number of Hours You'd Have to Work at a Minimum Wage Job to Afford a Year of Tuition in Each State by SandyBeaches2016

Except there is no alternative. There are no cheap, no-frills schools that let the consumer choose an education without all the amenities.

There are, however, tons of Midwestern state schools that have absolutely garbage amenities but still cost $24k per year to attend.

You'd think you're going to the no-frills, affordable universities because the dorms are from the 70s and full of mold, the single cafeteria seats about 100-200 at a time, most of the desks are from the 1960s, and the carpet hasn't been replaced anywhere since the 1980s, but then the bill comes due and it's still 70+% what the best state schools charge.

Because they know students have no other options. And there is zero incentive for anyone to come along and "compete" by opening a cheaper school, an endeavor that would cost millions of dollars just to get off the ground. Who would spend millions just to charge less?

What is the capitalist answer to this?

3