The Minimum Wage? Seriously Mr. President?

I could ask you, "who" deserves a living wage, right? Maybe you could tell us?

All I ever hear is how bad raising minimum wage is, so I logically concluded that lowering it, MUST be a great thing. If RAISING IT is bad (like the right ALWAYS claims), then LOWERING IT, has to be good, using that same logic. I don't see how you couldn't agree.

 

Truth is nobody 'deserves' anything and this in itself is a problem in the USA if people believe they 'deserve' something...

 

I could somewhat agree with that logic.

Whenever the super wealthy advocates puke their rhetoric though, they say they "earn" it. Maybe the discussion should be HOW they 'earn' it?

 

Nobody cares to have that discussion...I see. (The ostrich effect?) Only poor people deserve less than what they get, apparently. I stand corrected.

 

if you can't live off of 40 hours worth of work (at the hourly rate you agreed to work at), then you should get a 2nd job .

There is no rule that says you should only have to work 40 hours a week.... sorry, you should work until your goal is met, or make economic sacrifice and decide if that latest iPhone is really a MUST HAVE item, or if food is.

 

Continue down the path you're on and you will arrive at what's best. Eliminating it.

 

Let's look at both sides and no I don't have any facts to work with but when did that stop anybody.
The econimy runs on money, people have to spend money to make it work. Yes,,No
If you do away with min wage, welfare, food stamps, u.i.,there will be less money in the market place Yes,, No
People will have to work for less and as they have less money, all wages will be forced down over time Yes,, No,, Maybe
There will be more crime. Yes,, No
There will be more pan handlers or beggers. Yes, No

If you double the min. wage.
That would be to great of a shock to the system and cause havec in the market.Yes,,No
Raising the min. wage does affect all mom and pop small business. The ones that try their best to keep employees and pay slightly more than min and this goes on up the ladder. Yes,, No
This will cause inflation as all prices go up, either by need or greed. Yes,No
Capitisim works best with some inflation. Yes,, No
If you have min. wage and inflashion is a matter of fact should it follow the inflation rate so the poor and rich and all thoise in between can plan for it and work with it? Yes,,No

 

Easy. Everyone who earns one - as long as they don't do it via government. If they do, no telling what they deserve their pay was given voluntarily.

 

I know, I know. 80, 120, or more. After all, 3 or 4 pennies are better than one.

If the employer can't pay a livable wage, they should move to China entirely, and take their fat piggish, corporate profiteers with them. I don't do iPhones, either. Somehow, we all survived just fine with land lines over the years.

- - - Updated - - -

Absolutely. Purely free, slave labor with no compensation whatsoever. That's what I thought.

 

I see. So, 'earn' is the key., so then, what constitutes earning? Inheritances?

 

The fear with eliminating it is the market will certainly prevail. When you have a situation like we have now with millions looking for work, those willing to work for less can then bargain their way into jobs at a lower wage than the next guy. Even in desperation, some money is better than no money, especially once benefits run out. So we get a situation where the lowest bidder can become the employee at a wage below our current minimum. What then? "Normal" then becomes whatever someone is willing to work for so we could end up with workers out there for just a dollar or two per hour, which is more than none but catastrophic to the nation to do so as the problem spreads and persists. But it would be wonderful for those who have those job openings and need to hire people because it assures higher profits at the expense of the worker, which is what got us here in the first place.

 

Excellent post! You just described crapitalsim to a tee, and what the right wing, and the corporate raiders, all want. Like I've said many times, they want two cents an hour, and then, 'no cents'.

 

it means economic choices must be made by the low paid employee.


see, bleeding hearts equate "liveable wage" with comfortable living. I worked hard AND made good decisions in life and sacrificed many 'wants' early, so I could afford the luxuries I now enjoy in middle age. You can be a hard worker, but if you make poor decisions early on in life.... you mortgage your value later in life.


this is what's happened. Poor decisions in the important years after highschool. "crap, I don't have a condom.... but I'm horny now. I'll just pull out and everything will be ..... whoops, she's preggo.... guess I have to drop out of college now...." (one example)

and now, they can't find good work no matter how hard they work.



I'm sorry a burger flipper can't afford a house with a 2 car garage, in a good neighborhood, 3 cars and a dog, and the latest smartphone like a guy with a college degree can, but instead, have to live in a studio apartment with a roommate, rides a bike everywhere, even in the rain, and has to make a choice between cigerrettes and christmas presents for his 3 kids.... that's economic choice.

 

Here is a truly novel idea for you: No employer should be able to hire any worker for less than a living wage because when employers do that, it costs taxpayers the difference between the wage paid and the wage required to keep a worker and the worker's family (i.e. the next generation of workers) alive.

I'm for compromise though, for the sake of small businesses, raise the minimum first only on very profitable companies. As the economy picks up, small businesses (with plenty of tax breaks as needed) can catch up.

But hey, if you want to keep subsidizing the lifestyles of trust fund kids by paying their workers for them, go for it.

- - - Updated - - -

Want more jobs and a living wage at the same time? Ban sweatshop goods from our shelves and raise import taxes on the rest.

 

You went on quite the wild tangent there. I was talking about keeping some form of lower barrier in place to prevent us from people being so willing to work for less than what our minimum wage is that it destroys incomes for an entire group of people as businesses capitalize on desperation. We have illegal immigrants who come here and are often able to work under the table for less than minimum wage. Imagine if that were just ok for anyone to work for less than minimum wage. Then you find competition amongst the lowest earners with jobs going to those willing to work for the least. I was only talking about preventing people from earning wages so low because things left to the free market entirely would end up with much work going to lowest bidder. Businesses look for opportunities to cut costs so finding able bodied workers to work for less is a natural thing for them to do. That's why we have a minimum in the first place so we don't have exploited workers making pennies per hour, but thankful to have that because it's all they can get.

I'm not a liberal, but arguing for no minimum wage at all would just let businesses capitalize on desperation when available workers outnumber jobs. And I didn't argue to raise minimum wage, but rather argued that it needs to stay in place in some form to protect the lowest earners from exploitation.

Edit: you ignored the fact that many able bodied, skilled workers were sent home in recent years. They surely looked for jobs doing what their skills enable them to do, but when the number of those jobs dropped dramatically, what would they then do? They worked hard, just like you did, and they had skills, just like you do. Do you still blame them? They're the ones taking lower paying jobs, some of them multiple part time jobs, or even minimum wage jobs in areas hardest hit, yet you talked about low wage workers as if they're all a bunch of losers, completely ignoring our current economic condition right now with tens of millions out of work and 20% of our production capacity sitting idle because there aren't enough dollars from remaining workers to generate demand to put skilled workers back to work.

 

if their economic value is only $4 an hour... that's better than $0 an hour due to the fact they can't find a job.

problem is, they can't have all the cool things I described above and they then have to make economic choices and sacrifice....


none of this is based on their value as a human... it has everything to do with value as an employee....

 

And if you understood market forces in a free market you'd realize that millions of people fighting for thousands of jobs = low pay if those jobs are minimum wage jobs because they generally require zero skill to obtain them. So then you can just see who will fit the job and accept the least amount of money.

The economic value of a worker heads toward zero as available people far outweigh available jobs. It's how markets work. That's why there is a minimum so that people are not exploited for working for pennies on the dollar just because a business can get them to do so. We have heard complaints about China's working conditions all my life, with wages being one huge problem. We would be in the same boat if we removed a minimum wage. The only winners in that game are the businesses until they realize, like now, that demand drops tremendously when businesses take all the money and workers have little to spend, making the products those workers make worth less because there's little demand for them. China is just fortunate they had Americans to buy up all their goods all these years to allow them to get away with paying people next to nothing.

 

your job, as a citizen, as a human, is to assure yourself success... noone else will, or should, least of all, the govt....

the govts job is to provide equal opportunities....

if your only skill you provide is burger flipping, you should only get what market value of burger flipping is.... so long as McD's, wendys and Burger King aren't colluding to keep the rates artificially low.... then that's the only role govt should have in determining wages

 

So when jobs become scarce and bottom earners compete in a race for the lowest wages to assure some level of income, you're ok with that? And do you not realize the role government plays in the economy as the largest consumer and employer within it?

Your analogy of burger flippers is noted. You ignored what I said about people with real skills who are forced into some of the lowest paying jobs in our nation. What about them? They have skills that they developed and worked hard, but their companies found themselves victims of decreased demand. So what about their "only skills" since you've categorized all of our lowest earners into the category of burger flipping.

Government protecting wages from falling below the minimum in no way assures success. It prevents what would amount to abusive pay practices if people who feel as you do were in control of hiring and setting wages.

 

I would argue that if you have a 'real skill' but are forced into a min wage job because you can't find work in your field.... you obviously aren't as valuable as you thought you were and need to reevaluate, and then find a way to increase your value....

ie - I was a teacher, had tenure, was set. I moved to a new district and couldn't find a teaching job and got a "min wage" job at Lowes as a cashier. Had it for a year.... I survived... it sucked, but I survived. Lots of hard economic choices had to be made. Little things like cutting back on expenses, using an outdated phone longer than I wanted.... getting a cheaper prepaid phone, etc. Meanwhile... I had to figure out a way to get back into teaching. Problem was, I was only certified in social studies... a field within teaching that has a HUGE glut of applicants. I had to reevaluate what was important. So I added 2 more certifications, one in ESE and one in elementary education (both cost about 500$ each to take the test, and then add to my certificate). Plus I had to drop $1k on certifications WHILE working a min wage job WHILE NOT collecting unemployment.

I had a real skill, I just wasn't as valueable as I thought I was. Difference is... instead of complaining that the greedy Lowes CEO's come off their profits to make up for the fact I couldn't find a better job at the time, I buckled down and improved myself and eventually found another job teaching the next school year.

a degree does not entitle you to a job.... a bad degree is as worthless as a highschool diploma a lot of times. In fact, it could be WORSE than having nothing. A degree in history or liberal arts is pretty useless unless you get the education part with it.... The two guys I know with degrees in history work at Lowes and the other is a trash man.... They weren't forced into lower paid jobs because the economy sucks so bad... they got forced into a min wage job because they STILL aren't valueable to society

 

Regarding for example, minimum wage and SS payments, so many advocate that these payouts rise in value at the same rate as inflation...like you state in your last question above. Assuming this policy...what do you think should happen to minimum wage and SS payments if we have deflation?

 

And then we can watch the fun begin as the jobs go away because the people working those jobs simply cannot be worth that kind of money, so instead the bosses who did not get their positions by being pants on head stupid either halve the number of employees or halve the hours or automate the workplace and get rid of the lot. Then we can beat up on them for not being able to get a job -- no chit, you just priced them off the job market. Most of them are worth $7, maybe a top-flight one would be worth $8, but most of them are not worth $10 even. So the question is not "do they need to get paid enough to live on", but the fact that these people are so unproductive that they cannot earn enough to live. We should thank those that DO hire these people for lessening the cost of welfare for these people, not trying to give them "raises" so that we can stick them on the government teat forever. Which is what WILL happen if you raise the minimum wage. They won't have any jobs, and we'll be funding them forever -- pet humans.
OK, my point;

If you are unskilled you should know enough to delay having kids until you have a useful skill. If you're a "breadwinner" and the best you can do is McDonald's, you should give those kids up for adoption. Sorry, but you don't get to breed and breed and breed and demand that the fact that you have no useful skills and are incapable of using a condom requires that the rest of us who are capable of planning pay for your stupidity.

Kids who are returning home mostly picked stupid majors. Gender Studies, Art History, and Literature do not teach useful skills, they're vanity degrees, and if you let your kid study something like that, you shouldn't be all that shocked that he's living on your sofa. Parents should take the responsibility to make sure that their kids are growing into productive members of society.

And in your little scheme, no one will ever work more than 20 hours a week again. Good luck with that. I know that your college professor thinks you're "smart", but you're a moron. this is pants on head stupid. $20 an hour AND health insurance for anyone who shows up with a pulse? Idiots whose "career" is making french fires cannot make these types of decisions. They're where they are because they are functionally illiterate and have no skills to speak of. I'm sure you can find a book with pictures that explains the concept of health insurance and IRAs, but they aren't capable of making those decisions.

No, most business is actually international. The same sold here is sold in China and India and Japan. If no one in America can afford a Coke, they'll simply sell them in Japan. The corporations you hate don't need you, and punishing them is just going to mean that the entire global economy will bypass the US.

 

Our government does represent all Americans.

If you allow government to control the private sector you no longer have capitalism...you have nationalism.

I can't answer your question about anti-trust laws, heavy metals, and rat droppings because it's too vague.

People MUST live within their means! If their means is $7.25/hour then this is ALL they can spend. This means they won't own a home, won't own a new car, won't be buying all the latest electronics, won't be gambling, etc. A person who earns $7.25/hour cannot carelessly spend what little money they have then complain it's not enough to live on. If that person is not happy with $7.25/hour, then work more hours or obtain more education and skills.

I'm not against child labor laws...your question is too vague to answer.

Minimum wage policy might do more harm than good.

I have no problem with OSHA as long as their rules benefit both labor and business...