California's new minimum wage: $6.75/hr

[DABANSHEE]

Hey did you know that people on the dole (welfare for the unemployed) in Northern Europe get more than Americans on the minimum wage.

 

[Croton]

thedarkwolf & yakko

i totally agree w/you. A while back, Los Angeles had that janitor's strike. they wanted raises so they could support their families on a janitor's salary.

well, i thought it was a load of crap. how do u expect to make a living as a janitor? if you really wanted money, you would have to earn it rightfully. cleaning office buildings doesn't constitute them getting $9 an hour.

i worked my ass off at Blockbuster video and earned $4.25 an hour. i never complained because it was a menial job w/a lot of physical labor. i sure as hell didn't deserve to earn more than $5.00 an hour. but what pissed me off was that this bimbo girl (i found out) earned $5.50 an hour, just because the manager had a hard-on for her. and she did jack sh!t. (u can tell that i'm bitter still).

anyway, flame away. this is what my beliefs are. if you wanna earn money, then u have to earn the right to.

 

[BoberFett]

Dabanshee

That's their problem not our.

 

[Croton]

do you call being a janitor an challenging job? i'm not saying that if you work w/your hands means you should get paid more. but if you have no education and perform such a simple job, it does not constitute better pay.

Red Dawn, please explain to me why what i said was ignorant.

 

[DABANSHEE]

Actually many IT firms are totally unproductive in the economic sense, afterall how many IT firms actually add to the ecenomic output of the nation, look at all the dot-coms, 99& don't even make a profit & 100% don't even have any tangable outputs.

You know a good way to tell someones productive output is by seeing what happened if they stopped turning up to work. Here in Australia warfies doing unskilled labour on the warves earn $70000 a year for a 35 hour week & if they have crane/forklift tickets & do overtime they earn much more. Well the conservative govt triedto cut their wages as they didnt beleive that manual labourers should earn so much, the warfies then went on strike & the economy was brought to its knees as there were no more exports or imports. Which shows how much warfies are needed. Now if IT professionals went on strike what effect would that have on the economy, the banking & finance world might go a bit haywire but in general it would make buggerall difference. Can you imagined if all dot-coms went on strike, it would actually be good for the economy as money spent on unproductive dot-coms would be spent in more productive ways.

 

[Croton]

IT jobs has challenging work involved in it. plus the revenue that they bring in is what pays the employees. and typically w/IT jobs comes the training and schooling that goes into it.

 

[denali]

Well it looks like Santa Cruz is going to raise the minimum wage to $11/hr if you get benefits and $12/hr if you don't get benefits. This can only have a negative impact on the overall economy of Santa Cruz.

 

[thebestMAX]

Yakko, Croton and Darkwolf,

I agree with everything you have said and summed up in one sentence when ABRACADABRA said he worked for a nickel. I answered:

Yeah and you didnt even earn that !!! (no disrespect to A meant here)

I was in many of the situations mentioned, worked for .35 an hour, earned a GOOD living with no diploma and so on. Want to make money? It takes work and sacrifices of time, effort and pleasure.

I'd go even father and do away with minimum wage altogether. It helps a few but hurts the majority. Another bleeding heart liberal sounds good to me plan gone astray.

Didnt Ca. just do away with Affirmative Action? Least they got one right.

 

[kuk]

Ugh, last year I worked for 1,00$/hr. At MERCEDES-BENZ !!! OK, I was 15, but hey, I worked my ass of and got $180,00 in the end of the month!!!

Hell, I should've worked @ MTV. I wouldn't receive anything, but it would be a hell more fun than going through tons of truck parts paperwork.

 

[Croton]

red dawn
no offense taken however, there is always someone willing to work for a lower wage.

what pissed me off about that janitor strike was that they thought effective striking would be to block off 2 entire blocks of wilshire blvd from 9am to 6pm.

 

[SuperTool]

Hmm, I am job hunting right now. Also deciding where I want to stay. Silicon valley is pretty expensive (2br will set you back 2K) but they do pay more there, by about 10K then say in Austin for engineers. On the other hand, austin is cheap, and no state taxes.
Tough to say which is better.

 

[ForeverSilky]

i'm moving to the midwest, cheap as hell to live there.

 

[thebestMAX]

They dont want you. or anybody else for that matter.

 

[DaBoneHead]

During 87-88 I worked on a PGA-A rated golf course, mowing tees greens and fairways (all push mowers, except fairways), planting sod, digging drainage ditches, operating backhoes, and all the rest for a whopping 3.13$ an hour. Before that, I worked on a farm for 3 years, making 20$ a day, regardless whether I worked 6 hours or 16. Making a statement like 'all minimum wage jobs are easy' is just a stupid generalization. Some minimum wage jobs are back breaking and even dangerous.

<reality check>

And don't put a value on people just because they have gone to school... that is insulting. Some of the best people in any industry didn't finish college, or didn't go to college at all. Once you get a job, you will see that the college you went to and the grades you made really don't come into play in your day to day job. After you get a job, your success is directly proportional to your work ethic, and don't be surprised if someone with less education passes you up if you just sit around on your ass thinking, 'the world will come to me because I have gone to <insert university name here>'.

</reality check>

Minimum wage is a joke too. Every time it comes up for an increase in congress, the republicans lament that it will cause inflation and decrease jobs. That has not happened in a long time, our economy is growing to fast to get impacted like that. I think of the family whose parents have to work more than one job because of low wages. Children growing up in such families hardly see their parents, the stress of working multiple jobs and still being in debt leads frequently to family instability, alcohol abuse, and divorce.

Republicans then have the nerve to complain about 'family-values', when in fact if they'd take those silver spoons shoved in each of their orifices, they'd realize that their own policies are causing much of the erosion of the family-unit in America. Minimum wage should not leave a family in poverty. At the present wages, a person could work 2 jobs fulltime at minimum wage and still be below the poverty level. This is not right.

But that is just my opinion, I could be wrong.

 

[yakko]

I think the point you guys are missing is not whether Taco Bell has to pay someone $9/hr to do the job but whether they a required by government to pay $9/hr. I think a lot of jobs get paid more than what I think they are worth but that is the companies decision to make not the governments. If Microsoft can hire enough people to work for $5/hr let them hire those people. If they can't find them for $5/hr then they will have to increase the pay until they can find the people to fill the openings.

 

[Cknyc]

In reality increasing wages through legislation via minimum wage will prob create some unemployment depending on the industries and how much economic rent they reap. Wages in Europe are set in a similar fashion, institutionally or through labot unions. If you know anything about the european labor market you would know that they have unemployment rates of 11-15%. Europes situation is somewhat different because it is mostly middle income wages that are kept up. If unemployment does occur however, because of increases in minimum wages it will affect very low income households(usually minority or immigrant) and teenage labor. They will be the ones out of jobs..

 

[Shazam]

If Taco Bell paid $5/hr, there would be no Taco Bells open anywhere... Sorry, but workers do have same leeway, especially in an economy like this one.

yakko, when you turn 50 and see the minimum wage at $15, will blame this on &quot;the government&quot;, or will you understand what the terms price level and inflation mean?

 

[VisionsUCI]

i don't think that the wage increase will affect many of us, although i do know that here in college, some of the students will be much happier. the majority of students get paid minimum wage here.

 

[VisionsUCI]

i don't think that the wage increase will affect many of us, although i do know that here in college, some of the students will be much happier. the majority of students get paid minimum wage here.

 

[yakko]

<< If Taco Bell paid $5/hr, there would be no Taco Bells open anywhere >>



Yeah whatever you say. You just keep smokin what you are smokin and the world will be just fine. When I was managment at Taco Bell the only reason we started paying people more than $5/hr to start is because minimum wage went up.



<< yakko, when you turn 50 and see the minimum wage at $15, will blame this on &quot;the government&quot;, >>


Yes I will blame the government. There is absolutely no reason that they need to make minimum wage more than $5/hr.

 

[Shazam]

Man, aren't we convinced?

Yakko, do you realize that minimum wage used to be 10 CENTS?

Gee, hmm, I wonder why it isn't 10 CENTS anymore.

Gee, I wonder why $60K isn't all that much money anymore.

Wow, what's Inflation? What's Price Level?

Gee, does it REALLY cost $1450 for a 2 bedroom in Cali?

 

[Shazam]

Oh yeah, an addendum. In Alberta where I live, McD's is paying EIGHT dollars an hour right now. The minimum wage is < $7. How can you explain this?

 

[yakko]

<< McD's is paying EIGHT dollars an hour right now. The minimum wage is < $7. How can you explain this? >>



I can explain it by the fact that McDonalds chose to pay $8 an hour instead of $7/hr.



<< Gee, does it REALLY cost $1450 for a 2 bedroom in Cali? >>



I could give a flying fsck. I live in Florida. My two bedroom two bath was $550. What's inflation? What's price level? I make just under $11/hr to sit on my ass and talk on the phone. Explain this. I know of other tech support jobs that pay more and others that pay less. Holy sh!t! How can that be? Companies that actually chose there own wages based on what they can/need to spend to get the job done. The government did not mandate my pay. I make more now as a tech than I did as a mechanic. I think that the mechanic job is worth more but the shop could not aford to pay me more. So I left. Explain that.

 

[Suicidal]

yakko's just being cynical. I used to work at a Taco Bell years and years ago when i was in high school. It wasn't always an easy job, personally, i thought it was tough trying to keep up with all the menu additions and what went on what and all that. That why i mostly just washed dishes. But that was when i was a dumb kid, now i'm a dumb 24 year old who finished college last year and is still looking for a &quot;real&quot; job. I would love it if New York State would up the min. wage, i think that would be great for everyone. I'm glad i'm moving in with my girlfriend because i couldn't afford to live on my own on min. wage. There are many people who are &quot;professionals&quot; who for damn sure don't deserve their 50 grand a year jobs, just as yakko says there are lazy kids who don't deserve more than 5 dollars. I'm fortunate enough to have the opportunity to secure a good job because of my education but there are many people who aren't as lucky. Should they suffer due to their socio-economic situation? No, they shouldn't. Do they suffer? Yes. That's life. I'm used to making 14 dollars an hour and more but sometimes things happen and jobs get lost and when you have no choice but to take a min. wage job, you'd be glad they raised min. wage so you can afford rent AND eat something other than microwave burritos. People are losing sight of the big picture here. For everyone one of you at this forum, i bet there are many times as many people who aren't computer literate and struggle everyday to raise a family. These are good people, even if they don't know what Windows 2000 or how to send email or work at a help desk. Don't mistake their ignorance for stupidity, it just makes you arrogant. Remeber that your life is not meant merely for you to accumulate money and it certainly isn't to judge others. If some of you are so rich, give your money to the poor and start over. I'm not a religious person, i'm not a real nice one either but i'm fair and i give people the benefit of the doubt and i appreciate what i have.

 

[Croton]

going to school doesn't mean that you get a better paying job.

working hard at a challenging job should constitute that you get paid more.

i don't agree w/a lot of salaries in the different job fields, but that's the way it is.

but if you can't even earn a decent salary, then why are you having a family in the first place?