I think the median wage is $34K, which is about $17/hour, so this means about 75 million, or 50% of American workers, earn $17/hour or less. If 25% earn $10/hour or less this makes some sense. After all, the higher the pay for a particular job there will be fewer workers and conversely the lower the pay there will be more workers. I think it's interesting that so many politically focus on minimum wage and living wage, etc. when they should be wondering why 50% of US workers can't do better than $17/hour? In the greatest nation on Earth, the best we can do for median wage is $17/hour? Like it or not, American workers are competing with off-shore workers, and as long as off-shore workers wages remain quite low, I suspect American wages will remain quite low...
If you don't want a minimum wage job do something about it. Minimum wage jobs are made for high school and college kids, not meant to raise a family on.
Kind of shows us how well our public education system has done over the past 30-40 years...it's a drop out factory! And today we have tens of millions of Americans who don't have the ability to earn more than the lowest wages. Since this downturn has been going on so long now, it means that parents of current kids, and the kids themselves, that perhaps 50% of them were failed by the education system...and now these kids are having kids and the cycle continues. Our governments allow ghettoes in every city/area of the USA, allow rampant crime, etc. and the people who live in these areas don't have a chance living in war-zones and dilapidated school facilities and gangs, etc. Detroit and Oakland are great examples...
$27,519 per http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/11/4/median-wage-stagnationincomeinequality.html but one of the criticisms about the statistics by me is that they do not count non-monetary assistance/benefits as part of the "income" yet they have an effective cash value. For instance, the extra money your employer contributes toward your SS; the employer contributions to insurances or retirement plans, your PPACA subsidy, earned income tax credits, Section 8, food stamps, SNAP/TANF and the like.
I read where it says 1/4 private sector workers earn less then 10.00 an hour. So raising it to 10.00 an hour will help 25% of workers get off govt aid. It wont do much for poverty levels i know
I guess when the OP is talking about hourly wage this is what we should discuss? How much people earn have very little to do with government spending as stated in the OP. Income does not include FICA contributions, etc.
Not very likely that wages are so low because people in China can serve you your Big Mac cheaper than American workers. You are perpetrating the huge misconception that low wages in the US are caused by low wages in foreign manufacturing but that is not true since low wage jobs are not in manufacturing but in services provided in the US, which are impossible for people in other countries to provide.
IMO world wages are tied together...not precisely but they are relevant and have similar ratios within their cost of living. Just as in the USA workers performing the same job, one located in San Francisco and the other in Medford, OR, one will probably earn 30-50% more than the other, but both have similar ratios to their cost of living index. If the minimum wage in Mexico was $20/hour don't you believe this would effect US wages? In the USA, 75 million American workers, from services to manufacturing, earn less than $17/hour...
In Brisbane Australia, where the cost of living is some 50% lower than in San Francisco, workers at McDonalds make $15 an hour and a Big Mac is 50 cents cheaper. The US is slowly sinking into the ranks of third rate nations, where social and economic mobility declines along with the median income while those at the top reap all the economic wealth. The really stupid thing is that so many people think this is OK.
The average McDonald's worker in the US earns $8/hour compared to your $15/hour. If we increase the hourly wages in the US by $7/hour, for approximately 100+ million workers, can you fathom what this would do to our economy and global competitiveness? Check out Australia versus USA cost of living index; http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/rankings_by_country.jsp The US has a long way to go to sink into the ranks of third world nations; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)
Again, if you don't want a minimum wage job, do something about it. End of story. There is no debate on this at all.
