Push for $15 minimum wage

[soulcougher73]

I think its that expectations need to be changed. You shouldnt work a minimum wage job and expect to make rent, make car payments and have extra necessities all paid in full.
You must accept that your lifestyle will not be the same as someone else who has worked himself out of a minimum wage job. Someone who now has value in the market. Being willing to work 60-80 hrs a week, having roommates to help out with rent and giving up eating out or going to the movies or buying designer clothes or the new iphone is what someone who is working minimum wage needs to accept.
And if society left it like this it would be enough motivation for most people to do something about it and either study harder, or get trained in a trade or just work up from a common laboror to a shift manager, to a store manager to a district manager etc. Giving people something for nothing will not motivate them to change the ways that have led them to poverty to begin with.

Yeah that is kind of what i meant to get out minus the 60-80 hour/week part. Min wage should cover the basics without gov subsidies IMO. Cheapest cell phone, cheapest cloths/goodwill or the like. If you want iphone, acura, designer cloths, bigger house you'll have to make more. But 1 bedroom apartment, kia forte(used), basic foods(generics, etc) i think should be coverable under min wage.

I just don't like the idea of someone putting in a 40 hour week regardless of the job not being able to have the basics without additional gov. subsided and programs.

 

[glenn1]

Yeah that is kind of what i meant to get out minus the 60-80 hour/week part. Min wage should cover the basics without gov subsidies IMO. Cheapest cell phone, cheapest cloths/goodwill or the like. If you want iphone, acura, designer cloths, bigger house you'll have to make more. But 1 bedroom apartment, kia forte(used), basic foods(generics, etc) i think should be coverable under min wage.

I just don't like the idea of someone putting in a 40 hour week regardless of the job not being able to have the basics without additional gov. subsided and programs.

That's not really the correct perspective. If that "40 hour week" they're putting in doesn't create value equal or more than the minimum wage required to be paid, then they'll never get that 40 hour week to begin with. Either the employer just won't hire them at all (the work simply isn't worth that much salary period) or the job won't be full-time (e.g. I might value the services of a babysitter or housecleaner at $15/hour, but only for an hour or two per week).

So thus the proper question is, "if we're going to provide the essentials to people for humanitarian/social reasons, what will we require from them in return?" Most Americans outside the most progressive would say that "nothing" is a completely unacceptable answer. Many Americans would say "anything we require them to, including making them dig ditches and filling them in 40/week just to make them miserable and hopefully get them to take any job just to get them off public assistance." Polling and repeated election results show that most Americans are far, far closer to the second answer than the first.

And if you make the minimum wage $15/hour, you can pretty much be assured that completely ovewhelming majorities of Americans will move to the second position and we'll end up with a two-tiered lower class like southern Europe - a small number of low or unskilled people holding jobs (often in government) whose pay is way higher than their skills warrant, and a huge amount of basically unemployable underclass that will never, ever see standard employment arrangements in their entire lives. You couldn't come up with a better way of creating a Morlock subclass of people if you tried.

 

[Spungo]

kia forte(used) i think should be coverable under min wage.

Why? Even as a professional engineer, I didn't own a car for the last 2 years.

I'm driving a car right now, and the insurance on the car is about 1/2 the cost of my mortgage. If I include the cost of the car payment, gas, maintenance, and insurance, the car is significantly more expensive than my mortgage. I have zero sympathy for someone who is poor yet owns a car. That's self-inflicted poverty.

 

[buckshot24]

That's not really the correct perspective. If that "40 hour week" they're putting in doesn't create value equal or more than the minimum wage required to be paid, then they'll never get that 40 hour week to begin with. Either the employer just won't hire them at all (the work simply isn't worth that much salary period) or the job won't be full-time (e.g. I might value the services of a babysitter or housecleaner at $15/hour, but only for an hour or two per week).

Liberals don't understand this or choose to ignore it. Companies aren't going to willingly throw money down the drain to keep people employed at a rate higher than their productivity.

Minimum wage laws discriminate against low skill workers since it prices them out of the market.

 

[Spungo]

Minimum wage laws discriminate against low skill workers since it prices them out of the market.

Which is why minimum wage was initially started by white people who were sick of colored folk undercutting them. I won't call them racist because I don't believe that's accurate. It's motivated by a love of money more than it is motivated by a hatred of certain people.

The same mentality exists today and always will. If Americans want $10/h to do work, but some illegal immigrant from Mexico is willing to do the same work for $2/h, Americans direct their anger toward the Mexican who is undercutting them. That's where we get suggestions like imposing severe fines on companies caught hiring illegal immigrants, putting up border fences, shooting illegal immigrants caught sneaking across the border (lol), sending illegals back to Mexico, etc. It's always about getting rid of people who are undercutting.

As a ghostly-white woman, I support minimum wage. If an employer is forced to choose between me and some black woman, I know I'll get hired first, and that black woman can't undercut my labor price

 

[Sonikku]

Trade schools aren't even that expensive though. The difference between them and college is that the people that attend the former want to finish as quickly as possible, and do it for the direct purpose of making money. A lot of people attend college because it's fun and they can get shitfaced and put their loans in the back of their head until they graduate/are failed out.

Sounds to me than it's a good idea all around then. Lower burden on the tax payer, Americans gaining skills to pay the bills as opposed to a lolberal arts degree, all the meat without all the fat of people just wanting to "hang out". Sounds like the kind of investment our country almost can't afford not to make if our generation of low skill citizens is any indication.

 

[glenn1]

Which is why minimum wage was initially started by white people who were sick of colored folk undercutting them. I won't call them racist because I don't believe that's accurate. It's motivated by a love of money more than it is motivated by a hatred of certain people.

The same mentality exists today and always will. If Americans want $10/h to do work, but some illegal immigrant from Mexico is willing to do the same work for $2/h, Americans direct their anger toward the Mexican who is undercutting them. That's where we get suggestions like imposing severe fines on companies caught hiring illegal immigrants, putting up border fences, shooting illegal immigrants caught sneaking across the border (lol), sending illegals back to Mexico, etc. It's always about getting rid of people who are undercutting.

As a ghostly-white woman, I support minimum wage. If an employer is forced to choose between me and some black woman, I know I'll get hired first, and that black woman can't undercut my labor price

Or they'll say "why does this crazy ass white woman think I'm going to pay her $___ to do _____? I don't need it done that badly to pay that much."

 

[Spungo]

Or they'll say "why does this crazy ass white woman think I'm going to pay her $___ to do _____? I don't need it done that badly to pay that much."

Then I'll accuse them of rape, and the media will jump to my side with absolutely no proof whatsoever. You can either pay me $15/h or you can go to jail and have your life ruined. You have the honor of flipping the coin, but I will win regardless of which side it lands on.
#patriarchy #oppression #fatshaming

 

[OutHouse]

Its free so who cares

serious question. Why do you think it is free?

 

[OutHouse]

Why? Even as a professional engineer, I didn't own a car for the last 2 years.

I'm driving a car right now, and the insurance on the car is about 1/2 the cost of my mortgage. If I include the cost of the car payment, gas, maintenance, and insurance, the car is significantly more expensive than my mortgage. I have zero sympathy for someone who is poor yet owns a car. That's self-inflicted poverty.

yea urban sprawl is a bitch, hope you have good shoes because the limited bus service does not go to where the job is. Oh and you cant move closer because of the 300K condos and 1500 a month apartments are way out of your budget.


dude can you be anymore snobbish?

 

[sm625]

I can't help but scratch my head at this. Econ 101 taught me that introducing a price floor on anything creates a surplus of that product, which in this case is labor (people).

That is what welfare is for! Cant you see how well that has worked for the inner cities! Free stuff for everyone, wealth for no one! It is the socialist commie dream. $15 minimum wage, where few have jobs, and those that do only get to work maybe 10 hours a week. And of course the H1B workers and the amnestied illegals will be made exempt from the $15 minimum wage law. (Yes they would be that openly corrupt about it, and yes, these idiots would still vote for moar and moar of it.)

 

[Spungo]

yea urban sprawl is a bitch, hope you have good shoes because the limited bus service does not go to where the job is.

So you're saying you made minimum wage but chose to live in the suburbs with the upper class people? Sorry, no sympathy here. That's self-inflicted poverty.

 

[OutHouse]

So you're saying you made minimum wage but chose to live in the suburbs with the upper class people? Sorry, no sympathy here. That's self-inflicted poverty.

thats not what i said at all.

 

[glenn1]

So you're saying you made minimum wage but chose to live in the suburbs with the upper class people? Sorry, no sympathy here. That's self-inflicted poverty.

No, he's saying producers should not only provide everyone with $15/hour jobs, but the transportation to get there. Because people like us and our selfishness and refusal to accommodate is the constraint that's preventing them from living the American dream.

 

[Spungo]

thats not what i said at all.

I would like to know which city is in that deep of a recession. You're forced to live outside of the city, but the best job you can find is a minimum wage job located in the city. The area you are describing might be the most economically ruined region in America.

 

[JSt0rm]

It is funny watching people try to speak that cant think past the current world we live in. I don't know how they go about their day to day lives. Such scum. I get tired of scraping these "in the way" people off my boots every night.

But seriously, it is like talking to a 2 year old sometimes with their simple minds that cant see past today.

Its really sad. And these people are supposed to be intelligent.

 

[OrByte]

Minimum wage isn't the issue

wage disparity/economic inequality/costs of living/jobs moving overseas are the issues.

I think there is a partial solution to these issues, that has to come with an overhaul of our education system.

But there are no easy answers.

 

[JSt0rm]

our education system was developed in the way it is to create drone workers for the ruling elites and they like it the way it is. A population with real critical thinking skills and a vested interest in their own well being is exactly what they dont want.

 

[Sonikku]

Maybe wages wouldn't be so bad if free trade and subsidies to help with the costs of off shoring jobs weren't off shoring jobs. Makes the people that remain have to work twice as hard or make half as much to remain as "competitive".

 

[SMOGZINN]

Liberals don't understand this or choose to ignore it. Companies aren't going to willingly throw money down the drain to keep people employed at a rate higher than their productivity.

Minimum wage laws discriminate against low skill workers since it prices them out of the market.

Except this never happens when we raise the minimum wage because we have a relatively few employers that have conspired together to undercut the negotiation ability of labor to the point that labor is forced to take jobs well below the marginal value of the work being done.

We know this because profit margins are so high. Those margins come directly out of the disparity of the value of the labor being preformed from the compensation for that labor.

 

[realibrad]

Except this never happens when we raise the minimum wage because we have a relatively few employers that have conspired together to undercut the negotiation ability of labor to the point that labor is forced to take jobs well below the marginal value of the work being done.

We know this because profit margins are so high. Those margins come directly out of the disparity of the value of the labor being preformed from the compensation for that labor.

Maybe for large companies, but what about small businesses?

My dad is a mechanic in the Bay Area of CA. His shop is near a 2 High Schools and kids have come looking for a job. He could pay a kid a few $ to clean the shop, but that is about it. He would benefit and the kid would benefit, but he cannot. That is because the cost of labor is simply too high for it to be worth it. So, he cleans his own shop, and the HS kid does not get the job.

 

[JSt0rm]

pretty sure your dad could hire a kid to clean his shop. Does your dad want to hire someone onto payroll? thats different.

 

[zinfamous]

The trimming drone will do it. Did you download the shapes you wanted for your bushes and load them into the drone? The drone is doing the entire neighborhood.

Will those drones be able to trim down below?

 

[realibrad]

pretty sure your dad could hire a kid to clean his shop. Does your dad want to hire someone onto payroll? thats different.

Are you saying my dad should risk legal action by hiring someone under the table?

 

[SMOGZINN]

Are you saying my dad should risk legal action by hiring someone under the table?

No, but he is quite capable of telling the kids that he needs to have the shop cleaned and he will willing to pay $n for the task. The kids is then a 1099 independent contractor, that he is not paying, but instead paying for a job. Just like when I hire tree trimmers to cut down a tree I don't ask how many man hours they are going to need to do it to be sure that it pays them minimum wage.