Fast Food workers declare minimum wage "unlivable"

You make a good point. In the past that was the case. However, in todays economy, the undermployment rate among recent college graduates is 44%.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business...are-underemployed-and-thats-good-news/277325/

Which means people in their 20s are largely forced to choose between taking low paying unskilled jobs, or being supported by their parents. So you have an entirely different demographic being forced by economic realities to take minimum wage (or close to minimum wage) jobs. The number of college grads working at Starbucks and other similar jobs is very high. Many of those people with significant debt loads.

PS. They are in a better lot than me though... I currently work for free, at an unpaid internship. It is a good opportunity and I learn a lot, but I am being supported by my girlfriend on her loans for medical school while I wait to find employment I will actually be paid for!!

 

I admire you if you can make it with minimum wage.

I think that the key to make things work economically is not by how much you make but by the way you spend.

 

Which is entirely dependent on the cost of living where you reside. A person in rural west virginia would be fine living on minimum wage, because things are very cheap. In the cities where the protests are planned, the cost of living is more burdensome, so protests make much more sense.

 

You are correct. I didn't consider this issue in my reply.

 

I suppose that means you can not answer the question.

 

No. Negotiating a wage out side of the market is not the market at work. That manipulation actually has a consequence as the market tries to fix itself. Such as inflation as one example.

Just admit that you hate the concept of a supply and demand market because you want to manipulate it?

 

I believe we should reserve labor, at the rock bottom cost of a form of minimum wage, with which to pursue other opportunity costs.

 

Sorry, you think that business determines what labor is worth. No, they determine what is the least that they can pay to get that labor. Doing the last 30 years, the workers' wages have gone down and workers have had no power to change that. Business started getting more power under Reagan. He brought down 2 unions and give others unions a single. The NLRB was stacked with pro-business personnel so labor had nowhere to go. Laws were written to weaken labor's influence. And the public has been fed Big Business lies about unions. The public doesn't realize that unions have help all workers get better pay. I know that you will not accept any of that. But I really don't care.

Your business spiel will continue no matter what I say.

 

In what warped world is collective bargaining outside of the market? Individual businesses have far more bargaining power than individual workers. However when workers bargain collectively, they eliminate the asymmetrical nature of the negotiations. It is no more outside the market than bargaining between individual workers and businesses is. The idea that it is, is absurd.

PS. What about supply and demand are people meant to hate? It is a complex concept, one you are abusing for your own ideological purposes.

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No it has two parts. The value people are willing to give for labor, and the value people are willing to provide labor for. There are two sides of the coin, obviously. You ignore one to score ideological points.

 

Since when? I do know that you use BS.

Why do you think that you have to use flipping burgers as an example. Really back in the 50s, 60s and 70s people got wage increase even for doing the same job. I was part of management in the 60s, 70s and we all gave increases. See, businesses actually shared the wealth. People under 40 must think it has always been this way and they can not believe that workers did share in the wealth. What a shame.

 

Allow me to remind you that slavery was abolished in 1865.

If the workers unionize and are able to get wages that they want, it makes no difference what people think. Replacement by robots? You've been reading too many Orwellian novels. Face it, most Americans are getting fed up with being paid poverty level wages and lack of rights in the workplace. They finally woke up and its only going to multiply as time goes on and there isn't much you can do about it.

 

Do you understand that we are already manipulating the market? We are not a free market.

 

I believe we should simplify our market manipulation as well; what objection can there be to simply subsidizing surplus labor on an at-will basis through unemployment compensation, as a form of minimum wage.

 

Who do you think is going to be cleaning it and loading it? In any case teens are not the only people for the most part filling those positions. Oh sure you will see a few more during the summer months but the biggest part of the work staff at fast food establishments are adults who need a job.

Yes you are demonizing them, and blaming them for things they have little to no control over. Instead of attacking the school systems that have failed them, broken families that let them down, and a cost of living that makes it almost impossible to survive in, you demean and belittle the people who have the least responsibility for the current environment they are at least trying to survive in.

Heard a very interesting analogy about the current college situation this weekend. We have kids borrowing money that we don't have, to go into debt trying to get jobs that do not exist. There just are not enough jobs to go around and some people need entry level positions to keep them off the government dole. Unfortunately those jobs do nothing to keep you off the dole, if anything they make you a permanent fixture. If there is something that needs to be done, it is either lowering the cost of living or bringing in better jobs that can pay a comparable wage to the current cost of living. Neither is going to happen by the way.

NOBODY said money should be handed out from this end. I am simply looking at the situation at hand, and making comments on my observations. 30-40 years ago the average family could provide all the things a modern family of the day needed, on a single income. Today both parents (if they are together), have to have 3 or more jobs to provide the same basic needs families needed then, and to be prevalent in this society. There are not enough hours in the week for families that will be here in another 10-20 years, much less 3-=40 years from now.

You can kick the dog every time grandma farts but it isn't going to change the fact she is the one farting.

 

Two wolves and a sheep vote on what's for dinner. That stupid sheep deserved what he got, he should have worked harder to become a wolf.

 

Not it's nature.

 

"Flipping burgers" is not as easy as it sounds. There are complicated rules to follow and organization that most other companies should emulate, it is a good job who's skills can be applied to many other jobs. Now that's out of the way the real meat of the argument is minimum wage. Many say that these jobs are entry level jobs but unfortunately they are now the only jobs available to many with families since the draconian cuts and economic debacle of the previous administration. With the absence of a jobs bill that would lift many out of poverty we must work on raising the middle class to it's former size and power. 8 bucks an hour won't buy a sick hooker a hotcake let alone put food on the table for 3. A regionally adjusted minimum wage is needed to lift those out of poverty, this isn't a mystery, a myth, or a left wing conspiracy-it is a working model used in the past that languished since Reagan. Reagan was wrong in every way possible excepting his support for gun control and social security. Take every "axiom" used by the conservatives since Reagan and throw it out of your head, they don't work. Raise the minimum wage, pass a jobs bill and we will have a growth not seen since the end of WWII.

 

..... no, you didn't go far enough. Once the stupid sheep is voted as dinner and eaten, the wolves will sooner or later find themselves hungry again, and the wolves will start eating each other.

In a capitalistic environment, if the wolves are smart, they trick the sheep to grow corn, wheat, chicken, etc. in exchange for safety, "free stuff", "obamacare", Iphones, and cable tv.



Things work out well for everyone wolves don't have to eat each other and the sheep are happy in their cozy homes

 

A jobs bill has been put forth several times by the house, only to land, "DOA", as Harry Reid put it, on his desk.

Reagan was correct on most issues and in every case we've had a democrat controlled congress, and/or president the economy tanks. Of course, all we hear then for the entire length of that democrat control is it was the predecessor's fault...like we've heard all the whining about Bush for the last 5 years. It's been 5 years now, what is the current excuse for the crappy and worsening economy? Who are you dems blaming today?

Again, the referenced minimum wage and a family of 3. No argument from me on that. Minimum wage won't support 3 people. Maybe family member #2 needs to get job and/or minimum wage earner shouldn't be playing house making only minimum wage.

We always, always admonish those who are financially irresponsible with their income, except when it comes to families and kids...as if somehow just because you can we whip it out and make some babies it's some sacred thing that now falls outside the lines of personal responsibility. Horse puckey. Everything we do has financial consequences these days and if you can't afford children you shouldn't be having them.

Society today relies on jobs to pay for everything. These aren't the old days where having 5-6 or more children was common and the whole family worked on the farm growing their own food.

As has been noted, more than once, people making minimum wage are a small percentage of all hourly wage earners... 4.7% of all hourly wage earners in 2012, down from over 5% in 2011.

It would seem that 95.3% of all the rest of the hourly earners figured it out. It would seem too that if all these evil, slave driving greedy companies were only interested in paying everyone minimum wage, there'd be a lot higher percentage of actual minimum wage earners...fortunately, that isn't the case.

 

You want clarification, how artificially labor valuation, is outside of free market concepts?

Business manipulation of the markets, by lobbying, buying legislation, etc. is all "outside the market" too.

These actions have consequence on the market as it self adjusts as well.

Its becoming clear to me, that most liberals don't have the slightest idea what a free market it.

No, its quite simple to free market people like myself.

The market is the market is the market. Any abuse or manipulation of that market by government should be minimized.

The market doesn't need human interaction to exist. That is the point. Something clearly you are not understanding.

And proof.

The PEOPLE don't determine these values, the market does.

 

We should be minimizing the manipulation, not exaggerating it as the repercussions of our manipulation, and its unintended negative consequences, are pretty plain to see.

 

Thanks. You concisely explained what has been happening during the last 30 years.

 

Interesting that nobody has complained about hookers demanding more money.

 

So if you make $.10 over minimum wage or hell even $2.00 more you are rolling in the financial clover eh?

Saw a bumper sticker of a trust fund baby the other day, it said; Redistribute my WORK ETHIC, not my wealth.

The stupid little cretonne doesn't even have the sense to know he doesn't have a work ethic. But he certainly did everything right. He fell out of the right vagina, went to the finest preparatory schools, used his parents three 'c's to get into Yale/Harvard, credentials, clout, and cash. Got a $100,000.00 car he desecrated by putting a bumper sticker on it, for graduating high school with a C+ average, and graduate from college with a C-, well there was that F and a D, that daddy made go away but other than that it was a hard C-. For graduation he got a mansion, and a 10 year membership to the country club, and on his first actual 'day' of work, he was made VP of daddy's firm.

I only mention this because these are the type of people who hate the poor/poor working class, and believe the world would be a much better place except for the burden the poor bring on everybody else. That or a toothless, beer bellied, redneck white trash who hasn't had a descent job in 20 years but owns his own trailer house.

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Do hookers demand money? I thought their Johns demanded service?

 

Look at Boehner's face. He knows that it is a joke. You, of course, would fall for it. Here is good article on these "jobs bills": http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/gops-claim-house-passed-30-jobs-bills-bogus

3.6 million people. Oh, wait, people don't matter to you. Oh, and that is $7.25 per hour, not any of the people making a little more.