Fast Food workers declare minimum wage "unlivable"

"How in the bloody hell is fixing an already existing minimum wage law more government?"

Taxcutter says:
The very existence of a minimum wage is too bloody much government. It is a waypoint on the road to the USSR.

 

I think my wage is unlivable!!!! In order to raise it, I must convince my boss and he has to convince his boss that I have increased my value enough to warrant a pay raise. If they refuse, I either threaten to quit and they give me the raise since replacing me will cost X amount, which could be more than the raise itself, or they thank me for my years of service and say good day. Or, I stay and suck it up and figure out a way to prove to them that I am more valuable than I was yesterday the next time its appropriate to ask for a raise. Or I could apply for a different job in the company that pays more, which of course demands that I prove I can do that job.

That's how the real world works at least. Not sure how it works in Liberal fantasy land=) Never lived there.

 

I think the $9.27/hr rate sounds completely fair. As does tying any changes to the rate of inflation. If "not on welfare" is going to be our definition of "livable," then I'm not sure what a legitimate argument against that plan would be. I've seen claims that raising minimum wage causes inflation, but I haven't seen the evidence for it.

 

That works for talented people and people who are only responsible for themselves. For average workers and people with heavy responsibilities, not so much. Employers are concerned about keeping expenses down. How many people complain about not getting raises for years or raises below inflation increase. Management has had the upper hand for 30 years. Any chart will show you that.

Now let me tell you my "subversive" idea. When 40.28% of wage earners make less than $20,000, raising the minimum to $10.10 per hour will be a big boost to distributing our wealth fairer. My god, It would give more to that 40.28% and take it away from the profit earners. Wow, I didn't realize so many blood vessels would appear at once on so many foreheads.

 

Considering I'm talented and have a wife and 2 kids to take care, it all works for me=) If it doesn't work for average workers, maybe thats the reason it doesn't work? Stop being average and suddenly you can demand a raise because by being above average, your employer will see you as more valuable and stop paying you an average salary? Its the basics of being employed. Chik-fil-a for example pays more than average because they don't hire average workers. Shocking concept right.

Be average, earn average pay...thats minimum wage I guess. Be above average and become successful in whatever it is you do.

 

So you ignored the rest of what I said to pat yourself on the back. I never worried about getting raises either.

Explain why people should not get raises equal to inflation or more?

 

Raising minimum wage won't make anyone work any better or harder. Businesses who want to pay more will, sort of like what Chikfila does. They pay more than McDonalds, but they expect a lot more as well. Or do you think any of the typical BurgerKing or McDonalds people are as polite and well spoken as those at Chikfila? If you said yes, you'd be very WRONG. Same basic job really, but you notice rather quickly the different caliber of worker one fast food chain has over the other. Much of it is training but much of it is also basic work ethic and pride. Chikfila kicks the "average" worker to the curb. Understand=)

So, no I didn't ignore anything you said. You just seem to think we should spread the pay around to make it more "fair". ^&*#*#@!@ fair. You want a better job, go earn that ^$*#(@!. You want to get paid more, earn it. If businesses think simply raising everyone's pay would make them more successful they would do it. But they're smarter than your average Liberal. They know it wouldn't mean squat. It would just hurt profit with no benefit. Go become a small business owner and see how far you go being "fair" just for the heck of it, at the expense of your productivity and profit. You'll soon realize, its not worth it.

If life was fair, we'd all be sitting around on our a$$es eating bon bons and collecting welfare and driving BMWs. Guarantee you a good percentage of minimum wage workers know exactly why they're still earning minimum wage and its because they screwed up in life and continue to screw up. Some won't admit it, but they certainly KNOW it.

I'm not patting myself on the back. I'm stating facts, because there are loads of people like me and we're NOT getting paid minimum wage and its not by accident or any big mystery. We work our buts off for what we get, whatever career we happen to be in.

 

I'm dating myself, but I remember Reagan running against Carter. I had just joined the USAF the year before. Reagan wasn't playing with a full deck. I remember him promising he would make a much lower minimum wage for blacks than for Whites. That goober wanted to slide Slavery back into America a little at a time. Guy was a freak. [video=youtube;kXFEh4cdCog]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXFEh4cdCog#at=23[/video]

 

"Explain why people should not get raises equal to inflation or more?"

Taxcutter says:
That's easy. They don't get raises because what they do does not increase in value.

 

Let's see. They also have 1.7 million employees. So, if McDonald's decided to distribute ALL of its profits to employees, they'd each get a whopping extra $15 a week...or for a full-time employee an extra 39 cents an hour.

 

Considering fast food joints are mostly owned by franchise owners, that puts it all in perspective as well. McDonalds the corporation really doesn't pay all these people. Jon Smith the small business owner who invested X amount to purchase/run the franchise, does. If he wanted to pay his people more, I don't think there is law that says he can't.

 

Reagan proposed a lower minimum wage for teens, not for blacks...

 

First of all, it is no such thing.

Second of all, thanks for acknowledging that you are in fact not interested in an actual discussion that discusses actual solutions, since NO ONE believes that the minimum wage laws are either bad for the US OR going to be repealed.

Let us know if you decide to join the adults in a real discussion that actually acknowledges reality.

 

NO ONE with a brain is arguing that average workers should earn more than average pay. The ENTIRE problem is that the currrent minimum wage is BELOW average, as evidenced by the fact that a person who works at $.50 an hour > the current minimum wage for 40 hours a week can STILL qualify for welfare.

Only a brain dead moron could not do that simple math and say yep when a person who works a full time job for minimum wage or even 15% over minimum wage then the minimum wage is set below average pay.

So frankly I think in regards to you either you are not capable of more and am doubtful that you are earning more than minimum wage yourself , or you're lying about not agreeing with the math.

 

Well since it is the government that manipulates markets, plays favorites, and caused a less than desirable economic environment for more businesses to exist (AKA competitive environment) they certainly would be the responsible party in the current decline in economic choices, but, and that is a big BUT, raising the minimum wage does very little to answer the problems that have caused the situation.

It raises the costs of everything even the stuff not effected by the minimum wage.

It reduces a persons wage that has already worked for several years to get to that level.

The money has to come from somewhere and unless raising the minimum wage adjust maximum wages/salaries to compensate, nothing is accomplished by forcing businesses to pay more. They simply pass that cost on to consumers.

 

Plenty of people think min wage laws are harmful, they deny people to work their way up the ladder of opportunity.

 

Of course a minimum wage is a waypoint to a reprise of the USSR.

The whole point of the USSR was total government control of the economy. Wages, prices, allocation of resources. Government usually does not move as radically as the old USSR did but that doesn't change what they did.

How did that USSR thing - with its totally government controlled economy - work out. That it lasted as long as it did is a testimony to the ferocity of the Cheka/NKVD/KGB and the Gulag.

Government usually moves in nearly imperceptible increments but its destination is often unacceptable. that's why one must resist any incremental steps toward the goal realized by the USSR.

Is minimum wage tied to a minimum standard of value delivered by the minimum wage worker?

 

Pardon, I meant no one with a brain. I of course acknowledge that there are plenty of stupid people out there.

 

Like Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman, how many you got?

[video=youtube;ca8Z__o52sk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca8Z__o52sk&list=PLYcuLAArq58SstCWrKP-IBrR0C7wPsTGd&index=8[/video]

 

what a bunch of BS

Of course it isnt . Wages at such jobs are NEVER tied to the actual value of the employee. This is fact. As evidenced by what my friend who actually owns a McDonalds told me he would pay me as an hourly worker.

There TOP hourly pay is $9 an hour. No matter how good of an employee you are.That right there tells you that pay is not tied to employee worth.

 

"Of course it isnt . Wages at such jobs are NEVER tied to the actual value of the employee."

Taxcutter asks;
So their wage is just welfare, paid for by the customer?

 

Its not unless you work up into management by going to school to get a two year degree or higher and show your worth promoting. Going on strike is not going to look good is it or showing you know little about the business model of fast food.

But cooking and food preparation can be a career look at any chef.

 

um what?

Look man, let's cut the BS okay?

I don't think you are so stupid that you don't understand that a wage that is 100% dictated by the employer is not a result of the free market. I pray that I am right on that.

Actually the way isn't 100% dictated by the employer, the more correct way to say it is that it is 100% dictated by the employer with respect to the law which won't let them pay less. Which they would assuredly do if they could.

Let's put the shoe on the other foot. Let's suppose someone changed the minimum wage to $25 an hour and businesses had no choice but to pay that if they wanted employees. Would you be telling them employers "too bad, that is the actual value of those employees?"

Of course you wouldn't, because reasonable and logical people know that in EITHER case actual value has nothing to do with it.

And if we want to assess ACTUAL value, then we need to look at REAL dollars over time, and see that for some odd reason you wish us to believe that the actual value of a minimum wage employee has decreased by 30% over the last 40 hours even though inflation has increased 200%. Care to explain that discrepancy?

Oh that's right, ACTUAL value has NOTHING to do with the minimum wage.

 

Let's see

Let's take people who are already disadvantaged, let's give them jobs which are not full time, and pay them very little an hour, then let's price everything including college out of their reach, then let's (*)(*)(*)(*)(*) about them being "unproductive" members of society.

Some of you people are unbelievable.

 

You forgot make the public school system a failure mill, eliminate small private owned business, and destroy the working middle class. Except for those few items you have the economic plan for the best government corporate money can buy (the two party scam) for the past 40-50 years.