TOTALLY GEEKED!

ed11563 · Guru

Raise the minimum wage?

Lady Gaga Snerd · Guru

No.

Lawyerlady · On the bright side...... Christmas is coming! (Mod)

Uh huh. And all those restaurants and small businesses that have closed because of this? They mean nothing?

Lady Gaga Snerd · Guru

All it will do is raise business costs which will get passed on to consumers which will raise the costs for everyone which will accomplish nothing. Sooo, business 101.

Lawyerlady · On the bright side...... Christmas is coming! (Mod)

Shops have closed their doors. That's a fact they don't want to publicize. Small businesses already struggle to compete, and now - they can't absorb this.

Lady Gaga Snerd · Guru

The Left doesn't care what the real world implications are LL. They want to enact policies that simply Feel Good to them. And ,even if shops close, those are the "bad" people who weren't paying up in the first place.

Southern_Belle · Nothing's Impossible

Then they would have to raise welfare benefits because the people who actually work would be that much higher than those who don't.

Lady Gaga Snerd · Guru

The Govt seems to live under the illusion that they can magically Blink or sign something into law with a pen and paper and that by putting a govt stamp on something, then in the Magic World of Govt LaLa Land, that all those problems are solved by them having signed something into LAW and that they have actually done something.

huskerbb · Guru

I don't mind doing this gradually. I don't think a $10 minimum wage is out of line.

However, it shouldn't be $15 all at once.

I would also make it $8 for those 17 and younger.

People have to realize that society pays wages based on skills and value, for the most part. You could argue that teachers have a higher value than what they are paid--and movie stars and athletes are overvalued--but generally, wages are based on skills, education, and relative value to society.

Sorry, but a fast food worker, or a Wal-Mart floor employee just isn't that relatively valuable. They don't have a unique skill set. LOTS of people can do their job. They don't require much education, and only minimal training.

Lady Gaga Snerd · Guru

I think that is the wrong approach. I think the larger problem is that companies can go overseas without any problem. There is no "free trade". Other countries put penalties our our goods and they don't make our goods as accessible. I think there should be incentives to manufacture right HERE. Until we do that, all this minimum wage talk is just so much nonsense and completely misses the point.

Renegade Time Lord · Am I A Good Man?

The minimum wage here is $7.25. In a place where "affordable housing" means $389,000.00 for a 1 bedroom condo. Where the average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment is around $1800.00.

So the plan is to raise the minimum wage to $10.00 over a 4-year period. Like that is going to help. Meanwhile the homeless population is booming and social service agencies have their hands out very frequently for donations. I give what I can, but it will never be enough. And the state is raising the price for school lunch again. For those who do not qualify for free breakfast and lunch, it will be a stretch.

The minimum wage here must be raised quicker than what is planned. To have such a low minimum wage and such a high cost of living just is not working, but it seems no one cares.

aergia · Regular

maybe I have the wrong idea. I dont think these unskilled fast food jobs were ever meant to be a living wage for single income families. they were for picking up shifts, elders returning students etc. I always thought this is what you did for a while. But then you went and got a real job.
After you got skills and progressed in life.
30000$ is not a lot of money for a single or for a single breadwinner.
Get smarter, get trained. Sit at the home or library computer and learn skills.

This from LindaLiberal

huskerbb · Guru

Renegade Time Lord wrote:
The minimum wage here is $7.25. In a place where "affordable housing" means $389,000.00 for a 1 bedroom condo. Where the average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment is around $1800.00.

So the plan is to raise the minimum wage to $10.00 over a 4-year period. Like that is going to help. Meanwhile the homeless population is booming and social service agencies have their hands out very frequently for donations. I give what I can, but it will never be enough. And the state is raising the price for school lunch again. For those who do not qualify for free breakfast and lunch, it will be a stretch.

The minimum wage here must be raised quicker than what is planned. To have such a low minimum wage and such a high cost of living just is not working, but it seems no one cares.

NO ONE who is making only minimum wage isn't getting free school lunch for their kids--unless they don't apply for it. You can make up to 185% of the poverty level and qualify for free lunch.

Lindley · Guru

aergia wrote:
maybe I have the wrong idea. I dont think these unskilled fast food jobs were ever meant to be a living wage for single income families. they were for picking up shifts, elders returning students etc. I always thought this is what you did for a while. But then you went and got a real job.
After you got skills and progressed in life.
30000$ is not a lot of money for a single or for a single breadwinner.
Get smarter, get trained. Sit at the home or library computer and learn skills.

This from LindaLiberal

this

ed11563 · Guru

My mother graduated from high school and taught herself to type ...

150 words per minute, and didn't need an eraser.

She made a GOOD income as an executive secretary, after working her way

through less wonderful secretarial jobs, basically typing, data entry and proofreading, a lot better than most people.

People who have no salable skills can still make a good living if they will do jobs no one wants to do.

And work harder than most are willing to work.

huskerbb · Guru

ed11563 wrote:
My mother graduated from high school and taught herself to type ...
150 words per minute, and didn't need an eraser.
She made a GOOD income as an executive secretary, after working her way
through less wonderful secretarial jobs, basically typing, data entry and proofreading, a lot better than most people.

People who have no salable skills can still make a good living if they will do jobs no one wants to do.
And work harder than most are willing to work.

No one wants to work anymore, either.

I know what to do_sometimes · Frozen Sucks!

Minimum wage jobs are for High Schoolers. If you have a family and working a minimum wage job, your issues are way beyond minimum wage issues. And Walmart and McDonalds Corporate have raised the wage beyond minimum wage in the past few weeks.

lilyofcourse · My spirit animal is a pink flamingo.

This is not a simple situation.

Raising minimum wage has a major ripple effect. All the way to the top. Cause no way every one from the bottom to the top wont want a comparable raise as well.

Wal-Mart is not a bad place to work in most places. I worked there. They have insurance, profit sharing, employee discounts, and now they have on site medical care and education programs.

So to raise their pay, they would have to lose something.

There is always a price to pay.

Restaurants are not the easiest places to work. You have the normal job and then you have the customers that come in that try to make your job as hard as possible.

But, at the same time, it isn't saving the planet or anything. It's basically doing what you do at home in the kitchen all day and repeatedly.

I do think there is room for a raise but not to $15 and hour.

huskerbb · Guru

It's sort of like protectionism that was alluded to earlier. Yes, we could put high tariffs on imported goods in order to protect American industries and jobs.

However, that has ripple effects, too. Yes, it MIGHT keep and/or create some jobs, it MIGHT raise wages, at least in certain industries.

However, without access to cheaper, imported goods, most of the wage increase, if not even substantially MORE--would be eaten up with inflation due to higher costs for consumer goods.

I think the U.S. should have done more to protect their steel industry. Electronics would have probably been futile to try to protect.

Why? Because U.S. Steel could have been sold and used domestically. It wouldn't have needed a good export base to survive.

Electronics, on the other hand, would have needed a global market to compete and thrive in--and cheaper foreign electronics would have eventually driven U.S. companies out of business, anyway, despite a "secure" domestic market.

Lawyerlady · On the bright side...... Christmas is coming! (Mod)

A hike that more than doubles the minimum wage in one fell swoop is stupid beyond belief. Businesses can't absorb that.

Think about it - what if your rent was doubled? Your electric bill? Your tax rate? How would that affect you? Would you still be able to just go about your life business as usual? I don't think so. What if your daycare rates doubled? Could you still afford to hire your daycare? That's what this is doing to businesses.

flan327 · Itty bitty's Grammy

Lawyerlady wrote:
A hike that more than doubles the minimum wage in one fell swoop is stupid beyond belief. Businesses can't absorb that.

Think about it - what if your rent was doubled? Your electric bill? Your tax rate? How would that affect you? Would you still be able to just go about your life business as usual? I don't think so. What if your daycare rates doubled? Could you still afford to hire your daycare? That's what this is doing to businesses.

It should be a simple concept, right?

flan

Lady Gaga Snerd · Guru

There needs to be an incentive to build factories here and employ Americans. Minimum wage is just a feel good side issue in my opinion.

I know what to do_sometimes · Frozen Sucks!

Rather ironic that Europeans are noted as encouraging the American worker to protest. The European economy is more in the toilet than ours.

huskerbb · Guru

I know what to do_sometimes wrote:
Rather ironic that Europeans are noted as encouraging the American worker to protest. The European economy is more in the toilet than ours.

No kidding. Check out the exchange rates for the Euro, lately?

I know what to do_sometimes · Frozen Sucks!

huskerbb wrote:
I know what to do_sometimes wrote:
Rather ironic that Europeans are noted as encouraging the American worker to protest. The European economy is more in the toilet than ours.
No kidding. Check out the exchange rates for the Euro, lately?

Yep, Friday the Euro closed at $1.07. This time last year it was something like $1.40. That is a huge drop.

Mellow Momma · Sniff...sniff, sniff. Yay! A Bum!

I know what to do_sometimes wrote:
huskerbb wrote:
I know what to do_sometimes wrote:
Rather ironic that Europeans are noted as encouraging the American worker to protest. The European economy is more in the toilet than ours.
No kidding. Check out the exchange rates for the Euro, lately?
Yep, Friday the Euro closed at $1.07. This time last year it was something like $1.40. That is a huge drop.

We are SO excited! Typically when we go to Europe we get screwed on the exchange rate. This summer we should do alright! For a change.

WYSIWYG · Guru

Anyone that believes an increase in Minimum Wage to $15 per hour is a good idea, doesn't have even the most basic idea of economics. When you raise pay, the employer must raise cash generation to cover the added expense. The employers do this by raising prices, making the cost of living usually match or exceed the pay increase. The result being either breaking even or actually losing value.

TOTALLY GEEKED!

These photos from around the world should scare the pants off of McDonald's and Walmart.

Low-wage workers all across America are walking off the job today to protest for a $15-per-hour minimum wage and a union.

Because contrary to popular belief, most minimum- and low-wage workers aren't teenagers working a first job. And most aren't fast-food workers either.

They're health care workers like this:

And professors like this:

And retail workers like this:

I'm talking far-away places, people.

So yeah. This thing is getting real. Really, really real.