Raising the minimum wage is going to kill a ton

[Godzuki]

of the mom and pop restaurants, cleaning companies, landscaping, etc. etc.

This is why i don't understand why Dem's are pushing this right now. Well i get it in the respect that they'll get a lot more minority votes of working class citizens but they can't be so naive to think every business can afford a few extra dollars more PER employee they have doing menial tasks. To think every restaurant is going to have to pay each peeler, bus boy, dish washer, etc. etc. a few dollars more PER HOUR PER EMPLOYEE is going to run most of them out of business.

That is not even factoring in the business taxes business's have to pay already between payroll, unemployment, workers comp, withholding, etc.

I don't even know how some of the restaurants i see that are half dead with 5-6 waiters are even surviving right now. To think the 5-6~ tables with customers tabs are supposed to make up for those 5-6 waiters along with the cost of food, taxes, overhead, etc. just makes no sense how some of the places i drive by stay in business.

I swear so many of the Dem's in office are out of touch fiscally but its easy to pretend like everyone lives to government employee standards. i'm 100% with them on social issues, just can't understand how they can push something like this at this time when many of those smaller type of businesses that rely on low end labor are going to die, when they're already hurting.

I just feel like the Dem politicians are shooting themselves in the foot with this in the long term. kills me how i have to side with Republicans fiscally way too often.

[nathanjizzle]

getting paid 7 dollars an hour is a crime against humanity.

[Jameerthefear]

It got blocked anyways.

[kNIOKAS]

This was aimed at Walmart.

[9erempiree]

I was hoping they would raise minimum wage because I would be asking for a raise too. If I am getting paid more than the minimum due to my skill, shouldn't I be compensated too if the minimum goes up.

[russwest0]

I was hoping they would raise minimum wage because I would be asking for a raise too. If I am getting paid more than the minimum due to my skill, shouldn't I be compensated too if the minimum goes up.

not how it would work unless your pay was above minimum but below the wage they are raising it to.

I don't totally agree with raising the minimum wage but I can't think of a better alternative so I can't really say I oppose it either

[Jameerthefear]

i hope they end up raising it. 10.10 sounds a lot better when I do get a job :D

[Droid101]

You know how I know Godzuki knows nothing about business?

[Godzuki]

You know how I know Godzuki knows nothing about business?

why are ISH responses always like this? basically a know it all condescending statement half put down without any explanation?


by all means tell me how....i'll be amused by the flawed blanket stats you're going to throw out without breaking it down on a realistic level i did. you probably don't even know all of the government taxes/insurance related to payroll business's are already paying and have to pay....

[Brizzly]

This is why i don't understand why Dem's are pushing this right now. Well i get it in the respect that they'll get a lot more minority votes of working class
They knew it was gonna be blocked.


but they can't be so naive to think every business can afford a few extra dollars more PER employee they have doing menial tasks.

All it will lead to is less tipping and and higher prices.

[Godzuki]

They knew it was gonna be blocked.



All it will lead to is less tipping and and higher prices.


less jobs as well. there is just no way every business can account for a 30%+ increase in payroll, which then gets taxed, and like i said unempoyment and workers comp, including withholding are based on payroll.

the most ridiculous thing is the government is taking away what most people should be earning and could earn if they got rid of a lot of the taxes related to payrolls, where the business's would have no problem giving that money to their employee's.

the government is making more off the increase because payroll is taxed and related to insurances, and throwing all of the cost on the business's. its a disaster waiting to happen...at best every business will be a lot more conscious of how many low end employee's they have working each day. i think many will go under, especially those teetering right now that rely on low end employee's.

[Droid101]

So, since you don't want it raised, I can infer that you want it lowered or removed all together, yes?

[Dresta]

So, since you don't want it raised, I can infer that you want it lowered or removed all together, yes?
Should be removed completely. Would be far easier for youngsters to get started in life if they weren't all working for free as interns because their labour is worth **** all. I'd rather work for $5 an hour than for nothing, as a lot of people are forced to do because they can't get proper jobs without an abundance of experience.

[Godzuki]

So, since you don't want it raised, I can infer that you want it lowered or removed all together, yes?


you mean the minimum wage right? I am fine where its at, even maybe okay with a 25 cent - $1~ raise but a $3~ raise? :wtf:

there is a lot more to it than everyone being richer. you're killing off the small business's the most who don't make nearly as much as the big corporations. McDonalds has all of the money to afford this but i feel real sorry for the small restaurants, cleaning services, and any company not already doing very well for themselves that require a lot of low end employee's I keep thinking restaurant since they need peelers, cooks, waiters, hosts, dishwashers, etc..

to make up for -$3/hour x #employee's + more business taxing/insurance costs IS going to have some real obvious negative consequences.

[Blue&Orange]

you're killing off the small business's the most who don't make nearly as much as the big corporations. McDonalds has all of the money to afford this but i feel real sorry for the small restaurants, cleaning services, and any company not already doing very well for themselves that require a lot of low end employee's I keep thinking restaurant since they need peelers, cooks, waiters, hosts, dishwashers, etc..

to make up for -$3/hour x #employee's + more business taxing/insurance costs IS going to have some real obvious negative consequences.
Did you ever thought that McDonald's workers will have more money to spend? Maybe they can start to go restaurants once a while.

[Godzuki]

and the thing that bothers me the most is the government(politicians) judges everything from their standards. they tend to spoil and pretend thats the normal standard in the country. thats why i think they jumped it so much.

[Godzuki]

Did you ever thought that McDonald's workers will have more money to spend? Maybe they can start to go restaurants once a while.


thats a good point

but i tend to think that money comes from somewhere, and in most cases you're bankrupting the already teetering business. I mean that $3~/hour x employee's is being taken away off the bat, they can only hope the people that earn it give it back to them.

[embersyc]

Look I'm Dem, and I think 7.whatever is low, but I think raising the minimum wage will only lead to inflation. Prices on everything will go up as a result, and then the rest of us will be demanding cost of living increase and in 5 years everybody will be bitching about how nobody can live on $10/hr, we need to raise it to $15.

I think $8 is a better goal if people are serious. I mean it was $5.25 in the nineties, last time I had a minimum job. So it's raised $2 in 20 years and now people want to raise it $3 at once?

[DeuceWallaces]

I don't believe it was ever that high in the 90's. My first job was 4.25.

[IamRAMBO24]

You know how I know Godzuki knows nothing about business?

What an idiot.

[IamRAMBO24]

why are ISH responses always like this? basically a know it all condescending statement half put down without any explanation?


by all means tell me how....i'll be amused by the flawed blanket stats you're going to throw out without breaking it down on a realistic level i did. you probably don't even know all of the government taxes/insurance related to payroll business's are already paying and have to pay....

:rockon:

These idiot ISH kids do it all the time. Nice calling them out.

[Akrazotile]

You know how I know Godzuki knows nothing about business?


Here we have a blindfold Democrat.

He has absolutely no idea why he supports anything, except that it makes him feel like a super sensitive Robin Hood.

Is it a recipe for disaster in a month? In a year? In ten years? He doesnt care, because hes too stupid and ignorant to think. He just wants whatever the current magical "happy pill" is today for all the supposedly disenfranchised, he wants it now, he doesnt care what it costs (its not his money) he doesnt care what it means (hes too stupid to understand) he just wants to be the one who shouts "GIVE THEM MORE!!!!!!" in front of everyone because hes just that corny.


I swear this dude is a 17 year old emo f@ggot. He couldnt possibly be anything else. Hes one of the 5 biggest crybabies on this site. Literally does not have testicles. As in they are physically absent from his person.

[Akrazotile]

Did you ever thought that McDonald's workers will have more money to spend? Maybe they can start to go restaurants once a while.



:facepalm



If youre makin min wage and goin out to restaurants to eat? YOU are doing something wrong. Youre a fukcing idiot.



How are people supposed to feed their cats and keep their spinning rims polished on seven dollars an hour!? Huh??? ANSWER ME THAT YOU COLD HEARTED BASTARDS. ANSWER ME THAT. :cry: :cry: :cry:

[DeuceWallaces]

Well if anyone knows about minimum wage it's Starface.

[The_Yearning]

I'm getting a measly $9 an hour at a job I just started. I work 40 hours a week + 1 hour of overtime, and I'm not paying for insurance. My check is like 290 a week.

I don't know how people can live on less than that. That would barely get me by if I was on my own.

Maybe they would pay you more if you knew how to do simple math.

[Jameerthefear]

Maybe they would pay you more if you knew how to do simple math.
tax?

[DeuceWallaces]

Maybe they would pay you more if you knew how to do simple math.

Lol, ever heard of taxes ya dipshit?

[Brizzly]

Maybe they would pay you more if you knew how to do simple math.

lmao even a 15 year old kid is smarter than you:roll:

****ing idiot.

[DeuceWallaces]

Yeah, he's gone until the July 2014 class.

[Akrazotile]

Well if anyone knows about minimum wage it's Starface.


Thats why they call me the workin man.

[KevinNYC]

of the mom and pop restaurants, cleaning companies, landscaping, etc. etc.

This is why i don't understand why Dem's are pushing this right now. Well i get it in the respect that they'll get a lot more minority votes of working class citizens but they can't be so naive to think every business can afford a few extra dollars more PER employee they have doing menial tasks. To think every restaurant is going to have to pay each peeler, bus boy, dish washer, etc. etc. a few dollars more PER HOUR PER EMPLOYEE is going to run most of them out of business.

That is not even factoring in the business taxes business's have to pay already between payroll, unemployment, workers comp, withholding, etc.

I don't even know how some of the restaurants i see that are half dead with 5-6 waiters are even surviving right now. To think the 5-6~ tables with customers tabs are supposed to make up for those 5-6 waiters along with the cost of food, taxes, overhead, etc. just makes no sense how some of the places i drive by stay in business.

I swear so many of the Dem's in office are out of touch fiscally but its easy to pretend like everyone lives to government employee standards. i'm 100% with them on social issues, just can't understand how they can push something like this at this time when many of those smaller type of businesses that rely on low end labor are going to die, when they're already hurting.

I just feel like the Dem politicians are shooting themselves in the foot with this in the long term. kills me how i have to side with Republicans fiscally way too often.

There's actually a lot of research on what happens when you raise the minimum wage. One study looked at PA and NJ when NJ was going to raise its minimum wage. They specifically looked at fast food restaurants along the border. They didn't find that NJ restaurants went out of business, in fact, they found no effect on employment.

Another recent study of studies looked how raising the minimum wage affected teen employment. The results looked like this. The higher the dot is, the more accurate the study is indicated to be. ALL the accurate studies show close to ZERO effects on teen employment
http://nccendpoverty.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/min-wage-funnel-graph.png

[Jailblazers7]

A lot of landscaping and cleaning type businesses already pay people under the table so they wouldn't be impacted by a min wage increase. I think smaller mom and pops have more flexibility with stuff like that because they are able to stay off the government radar.

[KevinNYC]

When the University of Chicago polled economists across the spectrum and asked if the benefits of raising the minimum wage and thus increasing low-wage workers income outweighed any other costs. 49% felt it was worth it. 9% felt it was not.

[KevinNYC]

I think $8 is a better goal if people are serious. I mean it was $5.25 in the nineties, last time I had a minimum job. So it's raised $2 in 20 years and now people want to raise it $3 at once?

If you earned minimum wage in 1968, you comparatively would have $2 more an hour buying power than if you earned minimum wage today. If it kept pace with inflation, it would be over $10 an hour today.

[Kblaze8855]

Thats always the case against it rising...this isnt a new argument.

Its gonna happen at some point..and life will go on after a brief fluctuation where people get used to it.

Besides a lot more people are impacted in non mom and pop operations. I read a report once on the companies where most low paying people work(It was on I believe Walmart, Home depot, target, Mcdonalds, and a couple others). If you paid the people at the minimum wage 12 dollars an hour...the difference would be less than 1% of their yearly profit. The PROFIT. And thats with 12 an hour not 10.

An awful lot of companies are pleading poverty on these issues but flat out lying. Id maybe set it up so companies over a certain revenue cant pay people 7.25 an hour. If you believe for a second that Walmart cant afford to pay people 9 bucks you are an idiot.

They dont because nobody makes them. They do 476 billion in sales. Profit 16-17 billion a year. Have any idea how small a piece of that would be needed to bump up the lot guys and cashiers to 10 bucks an hour?

And how many people on food stamps and other programs would be off them given better pay?

Friend of mine is on food stamps. Makes 7 and change at a gas station. When she worked at a place that ships BMW parts she made 11 something an hour and didnt qualify for food stamps. She would if she had kids but...still. We are talking a lot of people spending a lot of taxpayer money that wouldnt have to if not for these huge greedy companies.

Walmart got caught handing out foodstamp signup forms to employees. They encourage people to go on government programs after they pay them like crap.

How much money would be saved just off government programs people wouldnt be eligible for if they made closer to decent money?

Lot of angles to look at it from.

[Brizzly]

Thats always the case against it rising...this isnt a new argument.

Its gonna happen at some point..and life will go on after a brief fluctuation where people get used to it.

Besides a lot more people are impacted in non mom and pop operations. I read a report once on the companies where most low paying people work(It was on I believe Walmart, Home depot, target, Mcdonalds, and a couple others). If you paid the people at the minimum wage 12 dollars an hour...the difference would be less than 1% of their yearly profit. The PROFIT. And thats with 12 an hour not 10.

An awful lot of companies are pleading poverty on these issues but flat out lying. Id maybe set it up so companies over a certain revenue cant pay people 7.25 an hour. If you believe for a second that Walmart cant afford to pay people 9 bucks you are an idiot.

They dont because nobody makes them. They do 476 billion in sales. Profit 16-17 billion a year. Have any idea how small a piece of that would be needed to bump up the lot guys and cashiers to 10 bucks an hour?

And how many people on food stamps and other programs would be off them given better pay?

Friend of mine is on food stamps. Makes 7 and change at a gas station. When she worked at a place that ships BMW parts she made 11 something an hour and didnt qualify for food stamps. She would if she had kids but...still. We are talking a lot of people spending a lot of taxpayer money that wouldnt have to if not for these huge greedy companies.

Walmart got caught handing out foodstamp signup forms to employees. They encourage people to go on government programs after they pay them like crap.

How much money would be saved just off government programs people wouldnt be eligible for if they made closer to decent money?

Lot of angles to look at it from.

They still going to want to make as much profit so raising the minimum wage will only lead to raised prices. I am not a economist or whatever but in the end it will only lead to the same shit. Which is in five years people will want the minimum wage to be increased yet again.

[nathanjizzle]

OP, your point about the minimum wage being raised is really a simpletons look on the subject matter. without even assuming anything, we can agree that 7 dollars an hour is garbage and unfair. Raising the minimum wage to a descent minimum will do many good things. one of them being that the unemployed would be more willing to work for that new minimum wage instead of a measly 7 dollars. Thats more people being apart of a working economy and less relying on financial aid. It also helps the younger people that do minimum wage work, these people are usually balancing going to school and their work, paying a car note, and tuition for school. how can someone efficiently work for 7 dollars an hour, go to school, have time to study, pay tuition and other bills. How is that an efficient society for a young person to live and work to climb the ladder? It can be the deciding factor if this young person drops out of college and relies on government funding, or finishes their schooling and becomes a benefit to society. Overall it makes society more efficient for minimum waged workers. The idea that small businesses would go out of business is stupid. If your business is going to close because you cant pay 10 dollars an hour vs's 7 dollars an hour, your business wasnt going to survive in the first place. Yes some business will layoff, but someone that got laid off at 7 dollars an hour, is now in a job market that can only offer this person minimum 10 dollars. Minimum wage jobs arnt hard to find.

[nathanjizzle]

also, go eat a dick.

[Kblaze8855]

It wasnt 1 percent. It was a fraction of one percent..of the profits not the gross...and that was if it went to 12. 10 an hour would be nothing for these giants to manage.

Some on the brink small time operations would struggle. Not a place like target. Not the places actually employing most people making minimum wage.

Mcdonalds had a damn "Mcresources" line:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olUsgn-Ubh0


Which told employees(who made 8 dollars an hour after TEN YEARS) about federal assistance like food stamps.

Company makes 6 billion in profit...and its telling people to go get on food stamps.

Why the hell should these huge places be forwarding people to government programs when they could pay people enough to not need(or in many cases qualify for) them with literally a fraction of a percent of their profits?

These arent mom and pop operations. They are raking in billions and passing on the cost of paying people next to nothing to the states. Walmart employees are the biggest group of Medicaid recipients in the country.

Probably food stamps too but they dont have concrete data on that.

The average burden on the state per employee of walmart blows away any other company.

They literally had food stamp signup sheets in break rooms before they got caught!


Something has to be done....

[PHX_Phan]

Lol, you stand a much better chance getting paid above minimum wage from a local business or regional chain than you do a massive corporation. It will be a larger adjustment for multi-billion dollar companies that always pay their employees bare minimum.

[Kblaze8855]

Larger adjustment but easier to absorb.

[Dresta]

Thats always the case against it rising...this isnt a new argument.

Its gonna happen at some point..and life will go on after a brief fluctuation where people get used to it.

Besides a lot more people are impacted in non mom and pop operations. I read a report once on the companies where most low paying people work(It was on I believe Walmart, Home depot, target, Mcdonalds, and a couple others). If you paid the people at the minimum wage 12 dollars an hour...the difference would be less than 1% of their yearly profit. The PROFIT. And thats with 12 an hour not 10.

An awful lot of companies are pleading poverty on these issues but flat out lying. Id maybe set it up so companies over a certain revenue cant pay people 7.25 an hour. If you believe for a second that Walmart cant afford to pay people 9 bucks you are an idiot.

They dont because nobody makes them. They do 476 billion in sales. Profit 16-17 billion a year. Have any idea how small a piece of that would be needed to bump up the lot guys and cashiers to 10 bucks an hour?

And how many people on food stamps and other programs would be off them given better pay?

Friend of mine is on food stamps. Makes 7 and change at a gas station. When she worked at a place that ships BMW parts she made 11 something an hour and didnt qualify for food stamps. She would if she had kids but...still. We are talking a lot of people spending a lot of taxpayer money that wouldnt have to if not for these huge greedy companies.

Walmart got caught handing out foodstamp signup forms to employees. They encourage people to go on government programs after they pay them like crap.

How much money would be saved just off government programs people wouldnt be eligible for if they made closer to decent money?

Lot of angles to look at it from.Funny that companies take advantage of idiotic government oversights like that. If they didn't have entitlements plugging the gap then they would be forced to pay their employees more because few would work for them if they didn't pay enough to live on.

[DCL]

Well if anyone knows about minimum wage it's Starface.

are you sure? i thought he was an expert in long-term unemployment benefits.

[Kblaze8855]

Once again, corporations are basically legally bound to make as much profit as possible, small companies are not.

A lot of these places cut pay for the same positions over time. They were no less required to benefit their shareholders 5 years ago than now. And plenty with the same requirements treat people better.

Besides when you want to take it legal...thats even more reason to federally mandate the raises.

Companies will not do the right thing when there is more profit in doing whats wrong. Especially when you can cloak it in the law.

There comes a point where we get to right and wrong.

And a company making billions while paying people like dirt and intentionally...systematically....passing them onto the taxpeyers? Wrong.

[Dresta]

OP, your point about the minimum wage being raised is really a simpletons look on the subject matter. without even assuming anything, we can agree that 7 dollars an hour is garbage and unfair. Raising the minimum wage to a descent minimum will do many good things. one of them being that the unemployed would be more willing to work for that new minimum wage instead of a measly 7 dollars. Thats more people being apart of a working economy and less relying on financial aid. It also helps the younger people that do minimum wage work, these people are usually balancing going to school and their work, paying a car note, and tuition for school. how can someone efficiently work for 7 dollars an hour, go to school, have time to study, pay tuition and other bills. How is that an efficient society for a young person to live and work to climb the ladder? It can be the deciding factor if this young person drops out of college and relies on government funding, or finishes their schooling and becomes a benefit to society. Overall it makes society more efficient for minimum waged workers. The idea that small businesses would go out of business is stupid. If your business is going to close because you cant pay 10 dollars an hour vs's 7 dollars an hour, your business wasnt going to survive in the first place. Yes some business will layoff, but someone that got laid off at 7 dollars an hour, is now in a job market that can only offer this person minimum 10 dollars. Minimum wage jobs arnt hard to find.
Please provide an objective standard of fairness if you are going to say things like that. What is a 'fair' minimum wage? There is no answer to this question that isn't completely arbitrary and subjective.

[Dresta]

There's actually a lot of research on what happens when you raise the minimum wage. One study looked at PA and NJ when NJ was going to raise its minimum wage. They specifically looked at fast food restaurants along the border. They didn't find that NJ restaurants went out of business, in fact, they found no effect on employment.

Another recent study of studies looked how raising the minimum wage affected teen employment. The results looked like this. The higher the dot is, the more accurate the study is indicated to be. ALL the accurate studies show close to ZERO effects on teen employment
http://nccendpoverty.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/min-wage-funnel-graph.png
:rolleyes:

Oh, i guess that's that then: if a graph says it it must be so and it must be a universal truth. I don't know what needs to be going through your head to not realise that youth unemployment would be far lower if there was no minimum wage. The only reason it isn't even higher is because we're hiding loads of them away at Colleges where they don't belong, paid for with subsidised loans that have created a huge education bubble.

[ZenMaster]

Please provide an objective standard of fairness if you are going to say things like that. What is a 'fair' minimum wage? There is no answer to this question that isn't completely arbitrary and subjective.

Working a regular 35-40 hour week and not being paid so little money that you're still considered poor and have to rely on things like food stamps.

[Dresta]

Working a regular 35-40 hour week and not being paid so little money that you're still considered poor and have to rely on things like food stamps.
That isn't an objective measure man: it is your own personal and subjective opinion. I agree it sounds nice in principle, but what about the inevitable impact on marginal workers? Is it 'fair' that some have no job so others can enjoy what you consider to be fair? How do you calculate this 'fair' wage? What happens when others consider it not fair and think it should be higher or lower? Where is your objective measure then?

Minimum wage laws never have been and never will be anti-poverty measures - instead they hurt the most needy, and the least privileged.

[Brizzly]

Minimum wage laws never have been and never will be anti-poverty measures - instead they hurt the most needy, and the least privileged.

So correct, the people that are poor, like really poor, doesn't have a job to begin with. How can it help them get a job when you raise the minimum wage? secondly most of these minimum wage jobs, it isn't the primary earner that works those, it is for the most part young people that live at home or the mom of the house making some part time money.

If people think raising the minimum wage is an effective way against poverty you need to rethink.

[WoGiTaLiA1]

It's really very simple, the business will rise the prices to offset the increase in payroll expenses, probably result in reduced tipping from customers as well to offset the increase in payment.

In Australia our minimum wage is around $20 for an adult and that is offset by basically everything being more expensive. This is fine because the minimum wage employees (the unskilled and poorest of society in theory) are being paid significantly more. Australia has had one of the best economies in the world for the past 15 years, even with a high minimum wage or perhaps because of a high minimum wage.

Basically if you raise wages any good business owner is going to raise prices. If they don't raise prices there are only two real explanations, they are a bad owner and the business would have failed in the long term anyway or they were already making so much that it doesn't matter.

[Dresta]

It's really very simple, the business will rise the prices to offset the increase in payroll expenses, probably result in reduced tipping from customers as well to offset the increase in payment.

In Australia our minimum wage is around $20 for an adult and that is offset by basically everything being more expensive. This is fine because the minimum wage employees (the unskilled and poorest of society in theory) are being paid significantly more. Australia has had one of the best economies in the world for the past 15 years, even with a high minimum wage or perhaps because of a high minimum wage.

Basically if you raise wages any good business owner is going to raise prices. If they don't raise prices there are only two real explanations, they are a bad owner and the business would have failed in the long term anyway or they were already making so much that it doesn't matter.It's because you export a load of shit to China not because of a high minimum wage smh.

[kNIOKAS]

Thats always the case against it rising...this isnt a new argument.

Its gonna happen at some point..and life will go on after a brief fluctuation where people get used to it.

Besides a lot more people are impacted in non mom and pop operations. I read a report once on the companies where most low paying people work(It was on I believe Walmart, Home depot, target, Mcdonalds, and a couple others). If you paid the people at the minimum wage 12 dollars an hour...the difference would be less than 1% of their yearly profit. The PROFIT. And thats with 12 an hour not 10.

An awful lot of companies are pleading poverty on these issues but flat out lying. Id maybe set it up so companies over a certain revenue cant pay people 7.25 an hour. If you believe for a second that Walmart cant afford to pay people 9 bucks you are an idiot.

They dont because nobody makes them. They do 476 billion in sales. Profit 16-17 billion a year. Have any idea how small a piece of that would be needed to bump up the lot guys and cashiers to 10 bucks an hour?

And how many people on food stamps and other programs would be off them given better pay?

Friend of mine is on food stamps. Makes 7 and change at a gas station. When she worked at a place that ships BMW parts she made 11 something an hour and didnt qualify for food stamps. She would if she had kids but...still. We are talking a lot of people spending a lot of taxpayer money that wouldnt have to if not for these huge greedy companies.

Walmart got caught handing out foodstamp signup forms to employees. They encourage people to go on government programs after they pay them like crap.

How much money would be saved just off government programs people wouldnt be eligible for if they made closer to decent money?

Lot of angles to look at it from.
It's this.

There's a video playing with what the wages of Walmart employee's would be enough for them to not participate in food stamps:
If Walmart Paid Its Employees a Living Wage, How Much Would Prices Go Up?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAcaeLmybCY



Once again, corporations are basically legally bound to make as much profit as possible, small companies are not.
This should be illegal. Oh well but in America...

[ZenMaster]

That isn't an objective measure man: it is your own personal and subjective opinion. I agree it sounds nice in principle, but what about the inevitable impact on marginal workers? Is it 'fair' that some have no job so others can enjoy what you consider to be fair? How do you calculate this 'fair' wage? What happens when others consider it not fair and think it should be higher or lower? Where is your objective measure then?

Minimum wage laws never have been and never will be anti-poverty measures - instead they hurt the most needy, and the least privileged.

It depends on what kind of society you want and strive for, how much social and economic divide you can live with as a society.

The way your society is going now you have a HUGE economical divide(1%'ers), that doesn't change unless you make changes in the rules.

IMO letting people work 37 hours a week while paying them so little that they're still considered poor and have to be in government help programs is only a few steps above slavery. Somebody said on the first page it's a crime against humanity, I don't disagree with that. But that's me, I grew up in a country with social democracy.

[Balla_Status]

It's because you export a load of shit to China not because of a high minimum wage smh.

So true. The backbone of Australia's economy is its natural resources. Gonna start shipping a bunch of natural gas that way to many asian countries shortly.

The tourism isn't even that big here and any tourism is all backpackers who have no money.

[Balla_Status]

Gotta love idiots that compare their country to America. America has its issues but your country is vastly different and you compare your best to America's worst because that's all you get in the media.

[rufuspaul]

Here we have a blindfold Democrat.

He has absolutely no idea why he supports anything, except that it makes him feel like a super sensitive Robin Hood.

Is it a recipe for disaster in a month? In a year? In ten years? He doesnt care, because hes too stupid and ignorant to think. He just wants whatever the current magical "happy pill" is today for all the supposedly disenfranchised, he wants it now, he doesnt care what it costs (its not his money) he doesnt care what it means (hes too stupid to understand) he just wants to be the one who shouts "GIVE THEM MORE!!!!!!" in front of everyone because hes just that corny.


I swear this dude is a 17 year old emo f@ggot. He couldnt possibly be anything else. Hes one of the 5 biggest crybabies on this site. Literally does not have testicles. As in they are physically absent from his person.



:oldlol: Starface may be a troll and all but this is quite an accurate description of the idiot OP.

[rufuspaul]

When the University of Chicago polled economists across the spectrum and asked if the benefits of raising the minimum wage and thus increasing low-wage workers income outweighed any other costs. 49% felt it was worth it. 9% felt it was not.


And the other 42% said "**** it" and went to the movies? :confusedshrug:

[Godzuki]

:oldlol: Starface may be a troll and all but this is quite an accurate description of the idiot OP.


your bitterness from being bullied by me back in the day constantly shows. its funny tho how bold you've gotten all of a sudden knowing i'm not trying to get into beefs with people anymore.

like i said weasel describes you perfectly....especially when you can't ever seem to express any views yourself on anything with any explanations because you don't know much.

[Godzuki]

It's really very simple, the business will rise the prices to offset the increase in payroll expenses, probably result in reduced tipping from customers as well to offset the increase in payment.

In Australia our minimum wage is around $20 for an adult and that is offset by basically everything being more expensive. This is fine because the minimum wage employees (the unskilled and poorest of society in theory) are being paid significantly more. Australia has had one of the best economies in the world for the past 15 years, even with a high minimum wage or perhaps because of a high minimum wage.

Basically if you raise wages any good business owner is going to raise prices. If they don't raise prices there are only two real explanations, they are a bad owner and the business would have failed in the long term anyway or they were already making so much that it doesn't matter.


problem with that is it still doesn't save those already hurting. the big stores will raise prices but the small ones will go under. i just don't think everyone raising prices is the effect, more than the after effect after many of those already struggling go under.

Consumers are more reluctant to buy their services as the costs go higher, which slows their business opportunities. If a restaurant raises prices consumers are less likely to eat out. even with a extra $3/hour in every layman's pocket there is no guarantee that money will come back around to them. probably more likely to go to the TGIF's or big chain Cheesecake Factories than some small mom and pop with their new found fortunes. Same with cleaning services that have commercial accounts. Those commecial accounts will probably look elsewhere for a company not as expensive. Business owners can't just raise prices all of the time while retaining clientele, if only it were that easy.

my other thing with what people are saying in this thread is i don't really think $7.25 or whatever it is, is as bad for people with no skills and the lowest end jobs to be making. a 30-40% raise for them is ridiculous imo.

[KevinNYC]

And the other 42% said "**** it" and went to the movies? :confusedshrug:

They said it was unclear what effect it would have.

[Rake2204]

My other thing with what people are saying in this thread is i don't really think $7.25 or whatever it is, is as bad for people with no skills and the lowest end jobs to be making. a 30-40% raise for them is ridiculous imo.This is a rough topic for me because I can see both sides but I struggle to conclude as to what the proper solution may be (which is likely why this is so divisive in the first place).

However, I will say, as someone who works with people who don't have a degree and oftentimes not even a diploma (whether that be from their own willful neglect, growing up in an awful environment, or numerous other factors), sometimes it's tough for me to accept that they can work 40 or more hours a week and still end up well below the poverty line.

Many of the students I encounter have made mistakes - they ignored school, they had a child at a young age, they got caught up in the wrong crowd- but I still struggle with the idea that whoever finds themselves in those minimum wage jobs, whether for good reasons or not, that the struggle may forever be perpetual.

Unfortunately, again, perhaps the most frustrating aspect of all this is I don't know what the answer may be. I know it's easy to say, "Raise minimum wage!" But I understand it's not that simple, as there are ramifications. I just don't have enough information or knowledge to weigh in in that regard.

[DukeDelonte13]

If minimum wage is kept low enough where workers can't afford to live, the government picks up the tab.

In a sense the government subsidizes these companies' labor costs.

If it's raised where these people can afford to live, Uncle Same isn't paying out for these people.

It's kind of f*cking bullsh*t that i gotta pay taxes to feed walmart and mcdonald's employees. I'd rather pay an extra couple of cents for my burger.

[rufuspaul]

your bitterness from being bullied by me back in the day constantly shows. its funny tho how bold you've gotten all of a sudden knowing i'm not trying to get into beefs with people anymore.

like i said weasel describes you perfectly....especially when you can't ever seem to express any views yourself on anything with any explanations because you don't know much.


Weaksauce, even coming from you.

We all know the purpose of this thread was you trying to feel better about the low wage your uncle pays you to sweep up the shop, but your argument doesn't hold water and the point is moot considering the Senate nixed the bill before you even made the thread.

Doesn't surprise me though, coming from a pathetic simpleton Democrat *** slurper such as yourself.

[Blue&Orange]

What happen to free market? If you conclude that raising minimum wage is going to raise prices than you are basically saying there is no free market. :lol

Which is true, there is no free market there is a market controlled by corporations, i just think it's funny right wing idiots basically agreeing with that notion while being to ignorant to understand what they are doing.


Worried about mom and pops? How about them BILLIONS that corporations DON'T pay in taxes and that mom and pops pay?

[Godzuki]

Weaksauce, even coming from you.

We all know the purpose of this thread was you trying to feel better about the low wage your uncle pays you to sweep up the shop, but your argument doesn't hold water and the point is moot considering the Senate nixed the bill before you even made the thread.

Doesn't surprise me though, coming from a pathetic simpleton Democrat *** slurper such as yourself.


you should just go hide in the corner and let the other old timer buddies of yours fight your battles like you used to do, especially with the beefs you start with people now knowing they're not trying to fight.

like i said you're the consummate weasel here. You still can't make a argument for anything and still bitter as fukk over the past. its just the principle of being 'that' guy who is weak and knows he's weak but taking shots knowing i'm not trying to fight these days. you're just lame is all i'm pointing out, nothings changed from back in the day with you where you'd just go silent every time i clowned you while your ISH buddies had to fight for you.

anyways good luck making a real argument at some point :cheers:

[rufuspaul]

you should just go hide in the corner and let the other old timer buddies of yours fight your battles like you used to do, especially with the beefs you start with people now knowing they're not trying to fight.

like i said you're the consummate weasel here. You still can't make a argument for anything and still bitter as fukk over the past. its just the principle of being 'that' guy who is weak and knows he's weak but taking shots knowing i'm not trying to fight these days. you're just lame is all i'm pointing out, nothings changed from back in the day with you where you'd just go silent every time i clowned you while your ISH buddies had to fight for you.

anyways good luck making a real argument at some point :cheers:


:rolleyes: Good luck living in your fantasy world where you actually believe the bullshit you spout.

[Godzuki]

If minimum wage is kept low enough where workers can't afford to live, the government picks up the tab.

In a sense the government subsidizes these companies' labor costs.

If it's raised where these people can afford to live, Uncle Same isn't paying out for these people.

It's kind of f*cking bullsh*t that i gotta pay taxes to feed walmart and mcdonald's employees. I'd rather pay an extra couple of cents for my burger.


thing is most minimum wage jobs are introductory jobs so they're not really meant for people to live well off of, at least thats not my expectation of minimum wage jobs.

yes many foreigners end up with them which is probably more the issue than 16 year olds getting their first job, and many can't really move up the pay scale ladder with maybe limited english or educational opportunities. But that is generally the expectation to earn higher than minimum wage in this country, to better yourself through education or trade skills, and earn it.

I swear my biggest issue with this is the fat cats in Washington live by a different standard and perspective of tax payers money, much like Wall Street Exec's with shareholder/investors money, oblivious to them spending what they themselves have earned. So a $3~ raise is the expectation to their spoiled standards of living in this country.

[kNIOKAS]

problem with that is it still doesn't save those already hurting. the big stores will raise prices but the small ones will go under. i just don't think everyone raising prices is the effect, more than the after effect after many of those already struggling go under.

Consumers are more reluctant to buy their services as the costs go higher, which slows their business opportunities. If a restaurant raises prices consumers are less likely to eat out. even with a extra $3/hour in every layman's pocket there is no guarantee that money will come back around to them. probably more likely to go to the TGIF's or big chain Cheesecake Factories than some small mom and pop with their new found fortunes. Same with cleaning services that have commercial accounts. Those commecial accounts will probably look elsewhere for a company not as expensive. Business owners can't just raise prices all of the time while retaining clientele, if only it were that easy.

my other thing with what people are saying in this thread is i don't really think $7.25 or whatever it is, is as bad for people with no skills and the lowest end jobs to be making. a 30-40% raise for them is ridiculous imo.
I think it has already been mentioned that raising the minimum would primarily effect the big companies.

However it is true that some industries employ people for minimum, and the business model there would be ineffective otherwise. Lets trim the fat and close down the unsustainable business, then.

[BigBoss]

If you aint talkin bout large money-whats the point?

[Godzuki]

I think it has already been mentioned that raising the minimum would primarily effect the big companies.

However it is true that some industries employ people for minimum, and the business model there would be ineffective otherwise. Lets trim the fat and close down the unsustainable business, then.


but i feel most of them, or the 'fat' as you call it, are more industry based on business's that need many low end employee's to function who are going to get killed. like restaurant industry, cleaning services, etc.

the chains like YUM brands who own KFC's, taco bells, pizza huts, etc. will get hit hard too but they're all so constantly busy and seemingly raking in the money they can at least make up for it.

but every mom and pop or small restaurant you see going to work every day which are probably dozens are going to get killed. I can't emphasize how much more liability a extra $3~/hour per employee on top of taxes on it is....that type of raise in cost for those businiess's is surreal to me.

[Rake2204]

yes many foreigners end up with them which is probably more the issue than 16 year olds getting their first job, and many can't really move up the pay scale ladder with maybe limited english or educational opportunities. But that is generally the expectation to earn higher than minimum wage in this country, to better yourself through education or trade skills, and earn it.I'd wonder what the limit is of people being able to better themselves and their employment opportunities through education. It seems like the market would be awfully saturated in that regard. For instance, the education market is already overfilled with people who want to teach. Hundreds of people are applying for single teaching positions. If everyone were expected to work toward those sort of jobs, that would seem to be a problem.

As we know though, everyone won't go that route. For some reason or another, I think there will always be adults whose ceiling will be the types of jobs that pay minimum wage. I've known a lot of honest, good folks where that just seemed to be what it was going to be. And if they didn't work those jobs, then someone else like them would. There's millions of people in that position. Many "earned" that position by screwing up their own opportunities. Many didn't. Either way, I feel it's tough to say, "Welp, yeah, you're working 40 hours a week, but it won't matter, because you're always going to be in poverty."

I suppose I believe if someone works full-time, they should at least be able to reach the poverty line, if not more. My admitted ignorance comes in not having the slightest clue as to how to make that happen.

[DukeDelonte13]

thing is most minimum wage jobs are introductory jobs so they're not really meant for people to live well off of, at least thats not my expectation of minimum wage jobs.

yes many foreigners end up with them which is probably more the issue than 16 year olds getting their first job, and many can't really move up the pay scale ladder with maybe limited english or educational opportunities. But that is generally the expectation to earn higher than minimum wage in this country, to better yourself through education or trade skills, and earn it.

I swear my biggest issue with this is the fat cats in Washington live by a different standard and perspective of tax payers money, much like Wall Street Exec's with shareholder/investors money, oblivious to them spending what they themselves have earned. So a $3~ raise is the expectation to their spoiled standards of living in this country.


you are totally ignoring the fact that there are MILLIONS of adults working these types of sh*tty jobs in this country. It's not just kids living with their parents.

and i really don't know what you are getting at with the last part. Spoiled standard of living? We are talking about basic necessities. You can't afford rent without section 8 on a minimum wage job in most of this country.

[kNIOKAS]

but i feel most of them, or the 'fat' as you call it, are more industry based on business's that need many low end employee's to function who are going to get killed. like restaurant industry, cleaning services, etc.

the chains like YUM brands who own KFC's, taco bells, pizza huts, etc. will get hit hard too but they're all so constantly busy and seemingly raking in the money they can at least make up for it.

but every mom and pop or small restaurant you see going to work every day which are probably dozens are going to get killed. I can't emphasize how much more liability a extra $3~/hour per employee on top of taxes on it is....that type of raise in cost for those businiess's is surreal to me.
The industry could re-invent itself... It is painful, but what to do. Anyway, I would guess that it would hit the big companies first, and small b-ness would be fairly ok with (no matter how counter-intuitive that seems).

Also, the current policies favour big corporations over the small business anyway. It is unclear on what values do you base argument that small business should be sustained. Or is it that they should be sustained, meaning not priviliged enough to prosper, not pushed hard enough to close.

[Jailblazers7]

What does a minimum wage increase do for jobs that make less than minimum wage because of tips? Would they see a similar % increase in their wage?

[Godzuki]

I'd wonder what the limit is of people being able to better themselves and their employment opportunities through education. It seems like the market would be awfully saturated in that regard. For instance, the education market is already overfilled with people who want to teach. Hundreds of people are applying for single teaching positions. If everyone were expected to work toward those sort of jobs, that would seem to be a problem.

As we know though, everyone won't go that route. For some reason or another, I think there will always be adults whose ceiling will be the types of jobs that pay minimum wage. I've known a lot of honest, good folks where that just seemed to be what it was going to be. And if they didn't work those jobs, then someone else like them would. There's millions of people in that position. Many "earned" that position by screwing up their own opportunities. Many didn't. Either way, I feel it's tough to say, "Welp, yeah, you're working 40 hours a week, but it won't matter, because you're always going to be in poverty."

I suppose I believe if someone works full-time, they should at least be able to reach the poverty line, if not more. My admitted ignorance comes in not having the slightest clue as to how to make that happen.


i get what you're saying and i agree with you that there does seem to be a over saturation of education based jobs. I also think the whole professional world is slowly changing to more tech based in a lot of regards, like engineers being so sought after these days. While factory workers are all feeling the change of industries our country is going through and the only reason some of them are still getting paid well is because of their union agreements. Same with government downsizing and people not able to get government jobs as easily anymore, even the military is downsizing a lot. People today getting hired by the government aren't getting anywhere near the pay and benefits they did a decade ago.

So yeah its not as black and white as just getting a education, which costs a fortune these days anyways. and trade skills to perhaps become a mechanic is very over saturated with a ton of mechanics around these days. There isn't a easy answer for them tbh, only thing i can say is giving them a 40%~ raise is just way overboard imo and is at the sacrifice of jobs/business's.

[ZenMaster]

thing is most minimum wage jobs are introductory jobs so they're not really meant for people to live well off of, at least thats not my expectation of minimum wage jobs.

yes many foreigners end up with them which is probably more the issue than 16 year olds getting their first job, and many can't really move up the pay scale ladder with maybe limited english or educational opportunities. But that is generally the expectation to earn higher than minimum wage in this country, to better yourself through education or trade skills, and earn it.

I swear my biggest issue with this is the fat cats in Washington live by a different standard and perspective of tax payers money, much like Wall Street Exec's with shareholder/investors money, oblivious to them spending what they themselves have earned. So a $3~ raise is the expectation to their spoiled standards of living in this country.

[QUOTE]Squeezed by rising living costs, a record number of Americans

[Godzuki]

you are totally ignoring the fact that there are MILLIONS of adults working these types of sh*tty jobs in this country. It's not just kids living with their parents.

and i really don't know what you are getting at with the last part. Spoiled standard of living? We are talking about basic necessities. You can't afford rent without section 8 on a minimum wage job in most of this country.


It depends on how hard you work. I think taking home a pay check of $300~/week which amounts to about $900-$1200/month with a bit over 40 hours a week is possible to live off of. You can't probably afford your own place and live well but you can rent with roommates, or have family working as well, and depending how frugal they are, i think its very possible. 2 jobs and i think its very possible, but obviously all you're doing is working 7 days a week...

I think most Americans standards of living, even the poor, are higher than what their bottoms are. like you see lots of poor people with cell phones, nice gear, etc. who are even on some government assistance programs. Like if immigrants came over they'd probably be very happy with what they could afford at that wage.

[Godzuki]

The industry could re-invent itself... It is painful, but what to do. Anyway, I would guess that it would hit the big companies first, and small b-ness would be fairly ok with (no matter how counter-intuitive that seems).

Also, the current policies favour big corporations over the small business anyway. It is unclear on what values do you base argument that small business should be sustained. Or is it that they should be sustained, meaning not priviliged enough to prosper, not pushed hard enough to close.


i think the small business's generally aren't marketed enough with the money behind them and the name brand known, to be as successful as the big chains. Every businiess is so different, so with restaurants i think a lot of it is marketing. with stuff like Walmarts, no small stores can get products as cheap as they can in the bulk they buy.

in the end i think our politicians are basically putting many of the small business's related to some industries more than others, out of business. i just think the big ones are making so much money they can afford the extra costs more than the small ones, but i have no doubt they're going to be watching their employment numbers as well.

[Just2McFly]

It depends on how hard you work. I think taking home a pay check of $300~/week which amounts to about $900-$1200/month with a bit over 40 hours a week is possible to live off of. You can't probably afford your own place and live well but you can rent with roommates, or have family working as well, and depending how frugal they are, i think its very possible. 2 jobs and i think its very possible, but obviously all you're doing is working 7 days a week...

I think most Americans standards of living, even the poor, are higher than what their bottoms are. like you see lots of poor people with cell phones, nice gear, etc. who are even on some government assistance programs. Like if immigrants came over they'd probably be very happy with what they could afford at that wage.
1200 a month in Toronto ? dawg that shit is impossible to live off of...maybe in middle america that can fly but there are certain places where you might as well go beg for change in your spare time

[Jailblazers7]

i think the small business's generally aren't marketed enough with the money behind them and the name brand known, to be as successful as the big chains. Every businiess is so different, so with restaurants i think a lot of it is marketing. with stuff like Walmarts, no small stores can get products as cheap as they can in the bulk they buy.

in the end i think our politicians are basically putting many of the small business's related to some industries more than others, out of business. i just think the big ones are making so much money they can afford the extra costs more than the small ones, but i have no doubt they're going to be watching their employment numbers as well.

Businesses like Walmart killed the mom & pop general stores and shit like that but that is only one business strategy in retail. Most local stores are niche places like organic, locally sourced groceries, hispterish clothing brands, specialty stores, etc. Nobody is going to beat Walmart on cost so people have stopped trying for the most part.

I think the impact to businesses would be all that dramatic other than reducing their workforce if they can't meet cost. Honestly, minimum wage workers are probably underutilized at work. Places will move more toward a smaller workforce where fewer people are given more responsibilities and tasks so that their marginal value is equal to their wage.

[Godzuki]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/15/census-shows-1-in-2-peopl_1_n_1150128.html



http://www.workingpoorfamilies.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Winter-2012_2013-WPFP-Data-Brief.pdf


I just feel like these type of summaries aren't practical to reality.

Like talking minimum hourly wages and whats earned in a 40~ hour work week, then calculating what they take home after taxes and what expenses are, is a more realistic than going by these 'poverty line' statistics.

There are a ton of variables here.

Do they have to have their own car? Can they take the bus?

Do they have to own their own place? Can they rent? can they have roommates? do they have family they can work and add to income?

Do they have to eat out, and if they do will they get Lil Caesars $5~ pizza's? KFC $2.49 ToGo cups? If they eat at home are they getting steaks or ramyun?

When they get a phone, are they getting a Iphone or Tracfone?

There are just a lot of sacrifices that can be made to live decently off of IMO, but most people's standards of living especially for those born here are higher than the necessities.

[Godzuki]

Businesses like Walmart killed the mom & pop general stores and shit like that but that is only one business strategy in retail. Most local stores are niche places like organic, locally sourced groceries, hispterish clothing brands, specialty stores, etc. Nobody is going to beat Walmart on cost so people have stopped trying for the most part.

I think the impact to businesses would be all that dramatic other than reducing their workforce if they can't meet cost. Honestly, minimum wage workers are probably underutilized at work. Places will move more toward a smaller workforce where fewer people are given more responsibilities and tasks so that their marginal value is equal to their wage.


but some business's NEED a big low skill work force to operate more than others. theyre already types of business's that aren't making money hand over fist. Like i said there are dozens of restaurants people have to see going to work every day that will get hit real hard by this who aren't rolling in dough already, and that is not even bringing up the cleaning companies, moving companies, etc. etc. that rely on low skill workers to operate. They can't really just down size their work force unless they want to down size their productivity/income.

[Rake2204]

So yeah its not as black and white as just getting a education, which costs a fortune these days anyways. and trade skills to perhaps become a mechanic is very over saturated with a ton of mechanics around these days. There isn't a easy answer for them tbh, only thing i can say is giving them a 40%~ raise is just way overboard imo and is at the sacrifice of jobs/business's.That's actually another good point. When working with youngsters and adults who are attempting to earn their diploma, my end-game has always been, "Keep pushing. Do you have a plan after graduating? Have you looked at colleges? Filled out a FAFSA? That should be our goal."

But I've really been re-thinking that push lately. A part of me has begun to think, "What am I pushing them toward? They're living in poverty as it is, working over 40 hours a week just to not live with any sort of comfort. And here I am telling them enrolling in college and paying over $10,000 dollars a year is the next logical move?" Two semesters of tuition could meet or exceed their entire year's salary.

Many people realize how unrealistic it'd be for them to enroll in secondary education. That's why I've tried to diversify my approach. It's not all about getting to college when working with my students anymore. We still provide all the necessary information and assistance for students who want to go that route, but we also keep an eye on trade schools and other possibilities.

To very honest, a lot of the students I've worked with (including adults returning after dropping out) just want a diploma so they can qualify for jobs that are going to end up paying them $7.25 an hour. College is completely unrealistic for them. At this point, they're working their butts off to choose between poverty and ultra-poverty.

If nothing else, it gives me perspective.

[mr.big35]

That's actually another good point. When working with youngsters and adults who are attempting to earn their diploma, my end-game has always been, "Keep pushing. Do you have a plan after graduating? Have you looked at colleges? Filled out a FAFSA? That should be our goal."

But I've really been re-thinking that push lately. A part of me has begun to think, "What am I pushing them toward? They're living in poverty as it is, working over 40 hours a week just to not live with any sort of comfort. And here I am telling them enrolling in college and paying over $10,000 dollars a year is the next logical move?" Two semesters of tuition could meet or exceed their entire year's salary.

Many people realize how unrealistic it'd be for them to enroll in secondary education. That's why I've tried to diversify my approach. It's not all about getting to college when working with my students anymore. We still provide all the necessary information and assistance for students who want to go that route, but we also keep an eye on trade schools and other possibilities.

To very honest, a lot of the students I've worked with (including adults returning after dropping out) just want a diploma so they can qualify for jobs that are going to end up paying them $7.25 an hour. College is completely unrealistic for them. At this point, they're working their butts off to choose between poverty and ultra-poverty.

If nothing else, it gives me perspective.

What do you teach if you dont mind

[Jailblazers7]

but some business's NEED a big low skill work force to operate more than others. theyre already types of business's that aren't making money hand over fist. Like i said there are dozens of restaurants people have to see going to work every day that will get hit real hard by this who aren't rolling in dough already, and that is not even bringing up the cleaning companies, moving companies, etc. etc. that rely on low skill workers to operate. They can't really just down size their work force unless they want to down size their productivity/income.

It is very easy for cleaning, moving, and landscaping companies to pay wages under the table. Avoids min wage policy and taxes so they can pay less while workers get more take home pay. It is much easier for small companies to work around the formal economy and its regulations. I'm sure some business would seriously be hurt by an increase but I don't think it would be as dramatic as you make it out to be. The biggest risk is probably to small towns but I'm not really sure how to avoid that.

[Godzuki]

It is very easy for cleaning, moving, and landscaping companies to pay wages under the table. Avoids min wage policy and taxes so they can pay less while workers get more take home pay. It is much easier for small companies to work around the formal economy and its regulations. I'm sure some business would seriously be hurt by an increase but I don't think it would be as dramatic as you make it out to be. The biggest risk is probably to small towns but I'm not really sure how to avoid that.


you're right about that, and it goes on now with a lot of the non corporate small business's. no business likes paying all of the taxes and insurance hikes on wages.

i suppose that will be the answer for them.

[ZenMaster]

I just feel like these type of summaries aren't practical to reality.

Like talking minimum hourly wages and whats earned in a 40~ hour work week, then calculating what they take home after taxes and what expenses are, is a more realistic than going by these 'poverty line' statistics.

There are a ton of variables here.

Do they have to have their own car? Can they take the bus?

Do they have to own their own place? Can they rent? can they have roommates? do they have family they can work and add to income?

Do they have to eat out, and if they do will they get Lil Caesars $5~ pizza's? KFC $2.49 ToGo cups? If they eat at home are they getting steaks or ramyun?

When they get a phone, are they getting a Iphone or Tracfone?

There are just a lot of sacrifices that can be made to live decently off of IMO, but most people's standards of living especially for those born here are higher than the necessities.

A lot of the low in come jobs being in late hours is very practical to reality when you're dealing with raising a family. Parents having to work 7 days a week is a start for kids ending up as criminals.

[Rake2204]

What do you teach if you dont mindI teach within a high school alternative education environment, with an emphasis on adult education. We're a branch of our community's public high school (though off-campus) and serve students who do not fit within a traditional educational environment, whether that be due to discipline issues, disinterest, being victims of excessive bullying, extended truancy or someone who's just looking to work at their own pace (in some cases to graduate early).

With the adult education program, I work with people aged 18 and above who are seeking their high school diploma or GED. Even in my modest-sized community, we get a pretty eclectic mix of enrollees. It helps cement the notion that everyone has their own unique story and set of circumstances. It makes it tough to solve issues with blanket statements like, "If people just worked harder, they'd get what they want." Unfortunately, I've worked with 56 year olds who've worked harder in their life than I ever will but still may never have the opportunities or luxuries I do.

It's fascinating work if nothing else.

[The Iron Sheik]

It depends on how hard you work. I think taking home a pay check of $300~/week which amounts to about $900-$1200/month with a bit over 40 hours a week is possible to live off of. You can't probably afford your own place and live well but you can rent with roommates, or have family working as well, and depending how frugal they are, i think its very possible. 2 jobs and i think its very possible, but obviously all you're doing is working 7 days a week...

I think most Americans standards of living, even the poor, are higher than what their bottoms are. like you see lots of poor people with cell phones, nice gear, etc. who are even on some government assistance programs. Like if immigrants came over they'd probably be very happy with what they could afford at that wage.

$900 per month in america? lol good luck with that. half of your money is gone to rent right off the bat unless you're living in the slums. even worse for you if you have a kid and are single.

and there's no guarantee you'll get 40 hours per week or more. also, some places will work you ~33 hours per week so that you're technically part time and don't get healthcare benefits, but still work almost a full schedule.

[The Iron Sheik]

900 doesn't even cover my rent:(

where do you live? east coast?

[Jailblazers7]

Yeah, $900 does get you very far at all. Pittsburgh is a very affordable city and even here a halfway decent apartment will run you like $600 per month plus $100-200 for utilities.

[Just2McFly]

Yeah, $900 does get you very far at all. Pittsburgh is a very affordable city and even here a halfway decent apartment will run you like $600 per month plus $100-200 for utilities.
i dont expect that f*cktard to know anything about adulthood since he still lives with his parents

[Just2McFly]

900 doesn't even cover my rent:(
same

[rufuspaul]

i dont expect that f*cktard to know anything about adulthood since he still lives with his parents


:oldlol:

[Just2McFly]

rather pay 1000+ a month and be in the city than 400 and be in the middle of nowhere though
exactly. location is everything fam

[Godzuki]

if you're making minimum wage do you deserve to have your own place? your own car? Sure its inconvenient but thats the point of being poor, you aren't going to have as ease of life.

like i said earlier standards for living for most Americans are higher than whats necessary.

I mean you could get a roommate or roommates and pay $300-$500...if you have a family your wife and kids can work so you're not the only income. I mean you all living by yourself while making minimum wage and expecting to pay for some townhouse is unrealistic.

There are classified ads in Maryland for rooms for rent for as low as $500~/month. There is public transportation which i see the same people taking every morning. Its very possible with sacrifices, but people don't want to make sacrifices here and live by everyone elses standards they see.

[Godzuki]

exactly. location is everything fam


beggars can't be choosers

[The Iron Sheik]

if you're making minimum wage do you deserve to have your own place? your own car? Sure its inconvenient but thats the point of being poor, you aren't going to have as ease of life.

like i said earlier standards for living for most Americans are higher than whats necessary.

I mean you could get a roommate or roommates and pay $300-$500...if you have a family your wife and kids can work so you're not the only income. I mean you all living by yourself while making minimum wage and expecting to pay for some townhouse is unrealistic.

There are classified ads in Maryland for rooms for rent for as low as $500~/month. There is public transportation which i see the same people taking every morning. Its very possible with sacrifices, but people don't want to make sacrifices here and live by everyone elses standards they see.

you're missing the point. minimum wage can't even provide what's "necessary" on its own. if you think adults wanting to be able to provide basic necessities for themselves and their children is, "standards for living higher than whats necessary" then you're either an idiot, a teenager/young adult who still lives at home, or both.

[The Iron Sheik]

I have a roommate and my rent is 1100

and what the fvk do you mean "the point of being poor":oldlol:

you're poor because you chose to be poor so you don't deserve to be able to feed your family lol. guy is a moron.

[Godzuki]

you're missing the point. minimum wage can't even provide what's "necessary" on its own. if you think adults wanting to be able to provide basic necessities for themselves and their children is, "standards for living higher than whats necessary" then you're either an idiot, a teenager/young adult who still lives at home, or both.


You keep pretending like a family only has one person who can work. Its like you are pushing some pity party, but realistically a family should at the least have 2 adults who can work, and 2 should be working if the 1 can only make minimum wage. You want your wife to stay at home, or your kids not to work, while your earner makes minimum wage, and the government just gives you the rest?

I just broke down what is 'necessary', but i can bet you want a lot more than what is necessary with this depiction like its impossible.

[DukeDelonte13]

if you're making minimum wage do you deserve to have your own place? your own car? Sure its inconvenient but thats the point of being poor, you aren't going to have as ease of life.

like i said earlier standards for living for most Americans are higher than whats necessary.

I mean you could get a roommate or roommates and pay $300-$500...if you have a family your wife and kids can work so you're not the only income. I mean you all living by yourself while making minimum wage and expecting to pay for some townhouse is unrealistic.

There are classified ads in Maryland for rooms for rent for as low as $500~/month. There is public transportation which i see the same people taking every morning. Its very possible with sacrifices, but people don't want to make sacrifices here and live by everyone elses standards they see.


Yeah f*ck it, they are poor. People with less money then you and I deserve to live a sh*tty life. :wtf:


The whole point which you are making yourself is it is damn near impossible to live on minimum wage. When it's impossible to live on minimum wage you take part in government programs like Section 8, foodstamps, medicaid, etc. So by allowing Mickey D's to pay their employees sh*t wages, you get to help them rake in even more profit by subsidizing the cost of their labor force.

I'm so glad people like you are out there fighting the good fight to make sure that the top 20 or so people in the company get paid ultra handsomely while middle class america foots the bill.

It doesn't make sense to be anti welfare and be anti minimum wage increase, just like it doesn't make sense to be anti big government and pro-life.

[Godzuki]

I have a roommate and my rent is 1100

and what the fvk do you mean "the point of being poor":oldlol:


the point of being poor is making sacrifices to keep things in budget. i've made countless examples like taking the bus instead of having a car and paying car insurance. Like renting with roommates, if you have a family then make your wife/kids work. If you're telling me the only place you can get where you live is $1100 just to have a roof over your head you're BS'ing....either that or you're spoiling yourself and not taking the alternative of living in a place further away than where you want to be for less than half that price.

either way a lot of you aren't be straight up, more pity partying.

[Godzuki]

Yeah f*ck it, they are poor. People with less money then you and I deserve to live a sh*tty life. :wtf:


The whole point which you are making yourself is it is damn near impossible to live on minimum wage. When it's impossible to live on minimum wage you take part in government programs like Section 8, foodstamps, medicaid, etc. So by allowing Mickey D's to pay their employees sh*t wages, you get to help them rake in even more profit by subsidizing the cost of their labor force.

I'm so glad people like you are out there fighting the good fight to make sure that the top 20 or so people in the company get paid ultra handsomely while middle class america foots the bill.

It doesn't make sense to be anti welfare and be anti minimum wage increase, just like it doesn't make sense to be anti big government and pro-life.


lol i don't give a shit about these lame guilt trips you're all throwing at me, all i care about what is realistic. I'm not against poor people, i'm against a raise in the minimum wage that is extraordinary and out of line with what business's can afford, and ultimately will cost you job opportunities.

Break it down where you can't live on minimum wage. i want the numbers like i broke down. Don't BS me about how you have to live in a $1100/month rent just to have a roof over your head, or how a whole family can only be supported by one minimum wage worker like earlier posters have.

Don't even feed me this BS like its beneath poor people to have to take the bus, to have to rent or find roommates, etc. because thats just spoiled crying. Break down how making $1200/month~ can't be lived on at all if you're frugal and seriously attempting to live within your means.

[The Iron Sheik]

You keep pretending like a family only has one person who can work. Its like you are pushing some pity party, but realistically a family should at the least have 2 adults who can work, and 2 should be working if the 1 can only make minimum wage. You want your wife to stay at home, or your kids not to work, while your earner makes minimum wage, and the government just gives you the rest?

I just broke down what is 'necessary', but i can bet you want a lot more than what is necessary with this depiction like its impossible.

so there are no single adults or single parents? every family has 2 adults that are capable of working and has no mental or physical debilitation that prevents them from working?

i really...REALLY hope you're just being facetious right now.

[DukeDelonte13]

the point of being poor is making sacrifices to keep things in budget. i've made countless examples like taking the bus instead of having a car and paying car insurance. Like renting with roommates, if you have a family then make your wife/kids work. If you're telling me the only place you can get where you live is $1100 just to have a roof over your head you're BS'ing....either that or you're spoiling yourself and not taking the alternative of living in a place further away than where you want to be for less than half that price.

either way a lot of you aren't be straight up, more pity partying.


Monthly buss pass here is like 90 bucks.

[rufuspaul]

like i said earlier standards for living for most Americans are higher than whats necessary.



What the **** are you basing this on? Median income? If you look at standard of living stats there are plenty of countries that do a better job than the USA.

The purpose of a minimum wage is to prevent slave labor. A minimum wage should be able to provide a basic living. As it stands now, the minimum is not enough to raise one above the poverty level.

[GimmeThat]

Just like the affordable care act.

If the government actually knows what the f*ck they are doing, it would work.

[The Iron Sheik]

the point of being poor is making sacrifices to keep things in budget. i've made countless examples like taking the bus instead of having a car and paying car insurance. Like renting with roommates, if you have a family then make your wife/kids work. If you're telling me the only place you can get where you live is $1100 just to have a roof over your head you're BS'ing....either that or you're spoiling yourself and not taking the alternative of living in a place further away than where you want to be for less than half that price.

either way a lot of you aren't be straight up, more pity partying.

there is no "point in being poor". no one strives to be poor. it isn't some goal.

public transportation? nonexistent in my area. i'd have to relocate to an entirely different part of the city (downtown) to take advantage of it.

don't have roommates. not everyone wants to live with someone else. at least none that i'm aware of in my immediate area. most still live with their parents (like you).

someone tells you where they live and how much it costs and because it doesn't go along with your bullshit, you say that they are bullshitting? :oldlol: priceless. just shows how clueless you are. not everyone is fortunate enough to have mommy and daddy take care of them until they get their shit together.

a person is spoiling themselves by not living in a downtrodden shithole and eating ramen everyday? hilarious.

[Godzuki]

so there are no single adults or single parents? every family has 2 adults that are capable of working and has no mental or physical debilitation that prevents them from working?

i really...REALLY hope you're just being facetious right now.


thats what government programs are for, to help the unfortunate in those situations. MOST families have at least 2 capable adults tho, if not kids who can work, so you guys adding all of them into this based on one single minimum wage earner isn't so realistic.

[DukeDelonte13]

Just like the affordable care act.

If the government actually knows what the f*ck they are doing, it would work.


:oldlol: please do enlighten us.

[Godzuki]

there is no "point in being poor". no one strives to be poor. it isn't some goal.

public transportation? nonexistent in my area. i'd have to relocate to an entirely different part of the city (downtown) to take advantage of it.

don't have roommates. not everyone wants to live with someone else. at least none that i'm aware of in my immediate area. most still live with their parents (like you).

someone tells you where they live and how much it costs and because it doesn't go along with your bullshit, you say that they are bullshitting? :oldlol: priceless. just shows how clueless you are. not everyone is fortunate enough to have mommy and daddy take care of them until they get their shit together.

a person is spoiling themselves by not living in a downtrodden shithole and eating ramen everyday? hilarious.

all i see is i don't want to do this, i don't want to do that, i just want to be spoiled even tho i make minimum wage.

you're the epitome of the guy that wants everything handed to them without any inconveniencing of yourself.

[The Iron Sheik]

thats what government programs are for, to help the unfortunate in those situations. MOST families have at least 2 capable adults tho, if not kids who can work, so you guys adding all of them into this based on one single minimum wage earner isn't so realistic.

if minimum wage were raised maybe those individuals wouldn't need government programs though, no?

you can ask anyone making minimum wage and on foodstamps if they would rather keep making what they do now and keep getting foodstamps, or stop getting foodstamps and make $3 more per hour. all of them will choose the latter.

[DukeDelonte13]

thats what government programs are for, to help the unfortunate in those situations. MOST families have at least 2 capable adults tho, if not kids who can work, so you guys adding all of them into this based on one single minimum wage earner isn't so realistic.


Most people living in sh*tty neighborhoods aren't married.

I dated a girl in high school who had to help pay rent since as soon as she could work. I knew quite a few kids that had to do that. Sh*t sucks. Glad my parents were nice enough to let me keep the money.

[rufuspaul]

well I'm not poor, this isn't the only place I could get. I live where I want to live.


How dare you?

[The Iron Sheik]

all i see is i don't want to do this, i don't want to do that, i just want to be spoiled even tho i make minimum wage.

you're the epitome of the guy that wants everything handed to them without any inconveniencing of yourself.

you're right. my circumstances are perfect i just refuse to take advantage of them for...whatever reason.

i don't make minimum wage btw. i actually make way above minimum wage. i have a place to live and my own car. the difference between us is just that my head isn't lodged in my rectum and i have actually lived in the real world.

[Godzuki]

if minimum wage were raised maybe those individuals wouldn't need government programs though, no?

you can ask anyone making minimum wage and on foodstamps if they would rather keep making what they do now and keep getting foodstamps, or stop getting foodstamps and make $3 more per hour. all of them will choose the latter.


if only a $3 raise got rid of all of the social programs where people didn't need them anymore. truth is it won't even make a dent in them since a lot of government assistance is given to people who don't or can't work.

[Godzuki]

So you pretty much think low income people should have hard lives? They should have to make tons of sacrifices and struggle to get by?


pretty sure thats the norm for being poor anywhere and everywhere, which is why people strive not to be poor.

its not what i think, its a fact of life in general thats what comes with being poor.

[KevinNYC]

I'm not against poor people, i'm against a raise in the minimum wage that is extraordinary and out of line with what business's can afford, and ultimately will cost you job opportunities.

It's not going to cost job opportunities. You may have convinced yourself that it will, but studies of previous raises do not bear this out.

It will have a positive effect on income at the lower margins. It has a small negative effect on income on the upper margins. It has near no effect on employment.

The overall result is a raise in overall household income (total for everyone.)
There's a very small decrease in income for those who make their money off mininum wage workers.

[Godzuki]

you're right. my circumstances are perfect i just refuse to take advantage of them for...whatever reason.

i don't make minimum wage btw. i actually make way above minimum wage. i have a place to live and my own car. the difference between us is just that my head isn't lodged in my rectum and i have actually lived in the real world.



then you should learn to make a better argument for those who earn minimum wage instead of 'i don't want to do this or that'....

i honestly don't think you know much about anything in the 'real world', and definitely not how the business world works.

[The Iron Sheik]

if only a $3 raise got rid of all of the social programs where people didn't need them anymore. truth is it won't even make a dent in them since a lot of government assistance is given to people who don't or can't work.

another falsehood. it's also irrelevant. besides foodstamps aren't given out in most states if you don't work. even before those regulations were put in place, a lot of adult recipients were employed, like at walmart. a lot of the others accounted for are children. and the maximum a single person with no kids can get is $200 per month which isn't much unless you're going to be eating garbage all month, especially if you're unemployed.

welfare? you get 3 years of welfare after that you're cut off. and it isn't that much anyway unless you have kids. there is no such thing as a "welfare queen". nobody is living large from just welfare alone or foodstamps. you're living worse off than someone making minimum wage if those things are the only sources of income you have.

[The Iron Sheik]

then you should learn to make a better argument for those who earn minimum wage instead of 'i don't want to do this or that'....

i honestly don't think you know much about anything in the 'real world', and definitely not how the business world works.

when did i use the phrase "i don't want to do x" in any post? i explained to you how things are set up. public transportation for instance. someone in my neighborhood who doesn't have a car is ****ed. not because they think they're "too good" to ride the bus, but because bus service IS NOT OFFERED in my neighborhood. don't know what's so hard for you to get about that. to pretend that everyone's circumstances are ideal and perfect is ignorance at it's finest.

[christian1923]

Why do people take minimum wage jobs unless you have felonies. There are other jobs that'll pay you better. Go be a valet Parker. You can make 700-800 a week doing that if you want to put in the hours.

[Godzuki]

It's not going to cost job opportunities. You may have convinced yourself that it will, but studies of previous raises do not bear this out.

It will have a positive effect on income at the lower margins. It has a small negative effect on income on the upper margins. It has near no effect on employment.

The overall result is a raise in overall household income (total for everyone.)
There's a very small decrease in income for those who make their money off mininum wage workers.

you don't know it won't. there are tons of variables regarding any demographic chart you want to cite where every variable can't be factored in. even then just breaking it down realistically knowing what business's will have to make up for PER HOUR PER EMPLOYEE makes it rather obvious it will have a significant effect on some business's.

even Warren Buffet said that is the real question and he implied it will cost jobs, just how many is the big question.

thats why a lot of Dem 'poverty line' speak, or the charts they cite i can't take seriously.

[DukeDelonte13]

you don't know it won't. there are tons of variables regarding any demographic chart you want to cite where every variable can't be factored in. even then just breaking it down realistically knowing what business's will have to make up for PER HOUR PER EMPLOYEE makes it rather obvious it will have a significant effect on some business's.

even Warren Buffet said that is the real question and he implied it will cost jobs, just how many is the big question.

thats why a lot of Dem 'poverty line' speak, or the charts they cite i can't take seriously.


so you won't accept economic studies but you'll accept something that some uber-rich guy blurts out. :oldlol:

[Godzuki]

so you won't accept economic studies but you'll accept something that some uber-rich guy blurts out. :oldlol:


no i go by very simple logic that most business's with many low end employee's having to pay a extra $3~/hour per employee ARE going to cost people jobs over any chart, as well as making many business's go under.

do you know how often these 'economists' have been wrong? Last i checked most of them agreed we were headed into catastrophe under Obama's fiscal policies since he took office. Economists say a lot of stupid shit all of the time. if you follow our economy since the Clinton years you'd know how often they've been wrong.

oh and that uber rich guy is a lot more business savvy than you or i...

[rufuspaul]

actually I want to move to NW DC. My lease ends in the summer. Marriage hitting any rough spots? Maybe try separation for a while?


You could stay at my mountain house. I'd just have to give you a heads up when me and the fam are coming up so you can hide in the basement.


What does rent go for in Woodley Park? I liked that area when I was up there last week.

[Godzuki]

and you don't think we should try and improve as a society?


If by improving is taking away jobs and small business's because fat cats over compensated standards of living based on their own, then no. A $3~ raise on people earning $7~ is ridiculous. i can't believe they came up with a 40%~ wage increase...i would've sworn when they did minimum wage increase it was by .25-.50 before, maybe i remember wrong.

[rufuspaul]

If by improving is taking away jobs and small business's because fat cats over compensated standards of living based on their own, then no. A $3~ raise on people earning $7~ is ridiculous. i can't believe they came up with a 40%~ wage increase...i would've sworn when they did minimum wage increase it was by .25-.50 before, maybe i remember wrong.


If you factor in inflation, which you should, the raise is a lot lower than 40%.

[Rake2204]

So you pretty much think low income people should have hard lives? They should have to make tons of sacrifices and struggle to get by?pretty sure thats the norm for being poor anywhere and everywhere, which is why people strive not to be poor.

its not what i think, its a fact of life in general thats what comes with being poor.I think this exchange raises a compelling concept regarding what we really need versus what we have. In truth, basic life necessities are food, water, and shelter, yes? It'd be possible to survive in a room the size of three refrigerators, given that we had enough water and gruel. But many of us have been afforded much, much more. To take it to the extreme, owning more than a couple of outfits could likely be viewed as excessive.

All that said, in America we generally seem to have a pretty solid standard of living. Many folks living in poverty could probably be thankful for at least having a room over their head and owning a shower, even if its amongst seven family members shoved inside a small trailer. On the other hand, the surviving middle class is likely at least well enough off to live inside a two-story home with all the enjoyable amenities -smart phones, computers, HD TV's, wireless internet, basketball hoop, multiple cars, couple of kids who get to eat food they like, etc. As for the upper class, at that point we're talking boats, hot tubs, gated communities, sports cars, and courtside season tickets.

I guess the wonder is, with how little truly needed to survive, is there no way to find a means with which to bring the impoverished up a level, just so they can maybe work 40 hours a week and move into their own trailer? Or maybe even an apartment? Maybe enjoy life a little? Is it necessary for them to struggle so mightily? Must they be poor? Is it really a matter of us vs. them? Do we really need to earn and take what we need, but then also take an additional 50 times that amount just so we can live glorious lives feeding many of our wants while the poor struggle to meet their basic needs?

TL;DR: Isn't our country in pretty darn good enough shape to allow a large portion of 40 hour minimum wage workers to elevate their living standards while still allowing us to remain more than comfortable with our own perks and earnings?

[Godzuki]

I think this exchange raises a compelling concept regarding what we really need versus what we have. In truth, basic life necessities are food, water, and shelter, yes? It'd be possible to survive in a room the size of three refrigerators, given that we had enough water and gruel. But many of us have been afforded much, much more. To take it to the extreme, owning more than a couple of outfits could likely be viewed as excessive.

All that said, in America we generally seem to have a pretty solid standard of living. Many folks living in poverty could probably be thankful for at least having a room over their head and owning a shower, even if its amongst seven family members shoved inside a small trailer. On the other hand, the surviving middle class is likely at least well enough off to live inside a two-story home with all the enjoyable amenities -smart phones, computers, HD TV's, wireless internet, basketball hoop, multiple cars, couple of kids who get to eat food they like, etc. As for the upper class, at that point we're talking boats, hot tubs, gated communities, sports cars, and courtside season tickets.

I guess the wonder is, with how little truly needed to survive, is there no way to find a means with which to bring the impoverished up a level, just so they can maybe work 40 hours a week and move into their own trailer? Or maybe even an apartment? Maybe enjoy life a little? Is it necessary for them to struggle so mightily? Must they be poor? Is it really a matter of us vs. them? Do we really need to earn and take what we need, but then also take an additional 50 times that amount just so we can live glorious lives feeding many of our wants while the poor struggle to meet their basic needs?

TL;DR: Isn't our country in pretty darn good enough shape to allow a large portion of 40 hour minimum wage workers to elevate their living standards while still allowing us to remain more than comfortable with our own perks and earnings?

i agree with everything you say in principle, but not at the sacrifice of small business's that are already hurting who bust their ass making meager profits, where this will kill them.

It'd be great if we could figure out a way to take it from the very rich or the corporations but i don't feel the minimum wage increase does that. I think its more a small business killer, i'd say more the jump which is just way too much on a per hour basis and some business's require many low end employee's to function more than others. Its ridiculous to me how they came up with that jump in raise.

When the largest disparity between rich and poor are the billionaires at the top vs everyone else, not so much everyone in between, i would hope there are better solutions to bring the poor further up from the bottom.

i do think the standards for living in America are high where ignorance is bliss to what being poor can be like outside of our country. I think the norm of low income living isn't the impossibility people exaggerate it to be here.

There is just a lot of inequity in this country like Wall Streeters making hundreds of millions because they deal in a market game that is the basis for investing and make their commissions or have inside info on their investments....like anyone in the upper management of oil...like high end real estate. If you can figure out a way to allocate it from them then i'd be all for it.

[DukeDelonte13]

no i go by very simple logic that most business's with many low end employee's having to pay a extra $3~/hour per employee ARE going to cost people jobs over any chart, as well as making many business's go under.

do you know how often these 'economists' have been wrong? Last i checked most of them agreed we were headed into catastrophe under Obama's fiscal policies since he took office. Economists say a lot of stupid shit all of the time. if you follow our economy since the Clinton years you'd know how often they've been wrong.

oh and that uber rich guy is a lot more business savvy than you or i...


it's a very very stupid thing to think, oh that billionaire says the government should do this, he must be right, because he's really really rich.

I know it's hard to believe but a lot of times billionaires support governmental policies that favor their own class.

[Godzuki]

:oldlol:


that would be per hour which is significant.

any reasonable people would do it slowly and gradually. at least you can see things coming instead of some sharp spike in business closures or unemployment going up. Why not $.50 cents to start off? move it to a $1.00~ in a year or two? what possible reason could there be not to take a more cautious approach? who gets a 40% raise anywhere, and we're talking 40% PER HOUR RAISE lol?!!

[Godzuki]

it's a very very stupid thing to think, oh that billionaire says the government should do this, he must be right, because he's really really rich.

I know it's hard to believe but a lot of times billionaires support governmental policies that favor their own class.


well Buffet has always been outspoken to his detriment. he was the billionaire saying they should be taxed a lot more. he's pragmatic.

[Godzuki]

These broke fvks are getting paid by the hour!?!

fvk them all to hell then


i only added that because mocking $7 + $3 doesn't sound bad, but added 'per hour' to it adds perspective.

something i just thought about but don't data programmers only make like $10/hour and they have typing skills? do they get a $3 bump too? shouldn't they be insulted no skill or lowest end workers are making what they make now? would this not have a snowball effect all of the way up? I mean there has to be a lot of jobs around $10~/hour that weren't considered lowest end and obvously can't stay there.

[oarabbus]

I don't know what people make, rude question to ask

I just know 7 an hour is really gross


Depends where you live. Maybe you live in North Dakota, and $7 an hour is livable, even though it's not much money.

Or maybe you live in a metropolis in CA or NY (who both have state min wages higher than that, btw) where even double that wage isn't a living wage.

[KevinNYC]

even Warren Buffet said that is the real question and he implied it will cost jobs, just how many is the big question.
Please show me where he said this.

[outbreak]

Maybe they should put a cap on earnings (I'm talking the guys making 100's of millions a year) to subsidize the minimum wage. Never happen. For a country that likes to talk about how superior they are a large number of their population lives like shit. If they just raise the minimum wage when a businesses profit isn't increasing won't that just lead to less minimum wage jobs and people being fired from chains that can't afford to have that much staff on a higher wage? It's a complex problem and I don't know the answer but I don't think the simplistic view of just raising the minimum wage solves things. None of us are economists and can figure this out.

[oarabbus]

Maybe they should put a cap on earnings (I'm talking the guys making 100's of millions a year) to subsidize the minimum wage. Never happen. For a country that likes to talk about how superior they are a large number of their population lives like shit. If they just raise the minimum wage when a businesses profit isn't increasing won't that just lead to less minimum wage jobs and people being fired from chains that can't afford to have that much staff on a higher wage? It's a complex problem and I don't know the answer but I don't think the simplistic view of just raising the minimum wage solves things. None of us are economists and can figure this out.


Economists do a remarkably poor job of predicting the effects of changes like this. They may have the right general idea but beware when they give you a specific number on anything. Hell, 99% of economists were wrong about the 07 financial crisis.

[Dresta]

Businesses like Walmart killed the mom & pop general stores and shit like that but that is only one business strategy in retail. Most local stores are niche places like organic, locally sourced groceries, hispterish clothing brands, specialty stores, etc. Nobody is going to beat Walmart on cost so people have stopped trying for the most part.

I think the impact to businesses would be all that dramatic other than reducing their workforce if they can't meet cost. Honestly, minimum wage workers are probably underutilized at work. Places will move more toward a smaller workforce where fewer people are given more responsibilities and tasks so that their marginal value is equal to their wage.
This basically. Marginal workers will get canned; minorities and the young will likely bear the brunt. Supermarkets in the US pay people to stand around packing bags. I haven't seen anybody working this kind of job in higher minimum wage countries like the UK & France.


It's not going to cost job opportunities. You may have convinced yourself that it will, but studies of previous raises do not bear this out.

It will have a positive effect on income at the lower margins. It has a small negative effect on income on the upper margins. It has near no effect on employment.

The overall result is a raise in overall household income (total for everyone.)
There's a very small decrease in income for those who make their money off mininum wage workers.
:facepalm

I can't believe you actually think this. Why not raise the minimum wage to $20 then, how about $30? By your logic it will make everyone richer and somehow lead to an increase in wealth. All you've done is posted a graph that you don't really understand and accepted its conclusions as gospel. Meanwhile, in the real world, one can see that the last time the minimum wage was hiked this drastically, between 79-81, unemployment jumped and didn't come down until inflation had inflated away the increase in minimum wage anyway (same could be said for 07-09 increases if massive increase in part-time work and flawed government statistics are taken into account). Then again, i'm not surprised because you're still clueless enough to revere the GDP stat and think consumer demand is what drives economic growth. You probably read Krugman's blog on the regs, and actually believe the bullshit that shameless sophist chats.

[Brizzly]

Maybe they should put a cap on earnings (I'm talking the guys making 100's of millions a year) to subsidize the minimum wage. Never happen. For a country that likes to talk about how superior they are a large number of their population lives like shit. If they just raise the minimum wage when a businesses profit isn't increasing won't that just lead to less minimum wage jobs and people being fired from chains that can't afford to have that much staff on a higher wage? It's a complex problem and I don't know the answer but I don't think the simplistic view of just raising the minimum wage solves things. None of us are economists and can figure this out.


That is bullshit, if I start a company it is well in my right to take out as much money as I want if the opportunity presents itself. Shit like this will only make companies or creative ****s open up shop in other countries. It is not an effective method.

[ballup]

7 dollar don't get you what it used to get you back in the day.

[Brizzly]

7 dollar don't get you what it used to get you back in the day.

dont blame inflation, blame security cameras.

[PHX_Phan]

What does a minimum wage increase do for jobs that make less than minimum wage because of tips? Would they see a similar % increase in their wage?

They have to make minimum wage or better with their tips, so if they are not already making the adjusted minimum, the business will have to either bump up their hourly or pay them out every time they average less than minimum.

Which, again, will mostly only effect big corporations who pay those employees the minimum (like $3/hr in AZ) and have a low tip average. Most other gratuity based pay jobs make well over minimum wage.

[Jailblazers7]

basically. Marginal workers will get canned; minorities and the young will likely bear the brunt. Supermarkets in the US pay people to stand around packing bags. I haven't seen anybody working this kind of job in higher minimum wage countries like the UK & France.

A lot of those jobs are disappearing anyway from what I've observed. Places like Aldi's have already eliminated that and even bigger places have increased the self checkout registers and have a couple baggers that rotate to busy registers.

[longtime lurker]

I've read articles that minimum wage workers make up a small portion of the workforce and are mostly secondary income earners. I've also heard about studies that showed that a raise in minimum wage would pump billions into the economy and reduce welfare subsidies as well. If that's the case I don't see why you wouldn't raise the minimum wage. I don't believe all this doom and gloom about businesses shutting down. There are plenty of countries in the world that have a higher min wage and they seem to be doing well.

[Boarder Patrol]

More pay = people have more money = people spend more = businesses make more

Raising the minimum wage won't kill the economy, it'll pump a lot of money into it.

[TheGreatDeraj]

More pay = people have more money = people spend more = businesses make more

Raising the minimum wage won't kill the economy, it'll pump a lot of money into it.

more pay = have less employees/price increase = less people have money to spend/people buy less because prices are higher = pump money to the ruling class while the working class fights over less jobs/higher prices

[kNIOKAS]

more pay = have less employees/price increase = less people have money to spend/people buy less because prices are higher = pump money to the ruling class while the working class fights over less jobs/higher prices
I have a feeling it would be exactly the opposite... Hard to make sense of it, though.

I'll try to get there sometime.

[kNIOKAS]

Anyway,

It might be right to suggest that there is not an equilibrium in the (labour) market, and increasing the minumum wage would not be as disruptive, because it would rather lead closer to the equilibrium than distort it.

Therefore, it might be normal to think that small business operate not in a "free" market condition, and their business model is simply flawed.

Yet, the rebalancing of the labour market would first be about major companies, well, because they employ more people than the small business do. It would hit major players first.

Thinking of it as a zero-sum game, it is obvious that big companies are better off with the low minimum wage. Therefore, small business cannot compete with the big companies well under the small minimum wage.

Does it make sense to let small business sustain themselves in a short run, so that in a long run they are even more disadvantaged versus the big comapnies?


Another thing is service industry in general, about meaningless jobs it provides and the general state of current economy - there aren't many well paying jobs (in your country). There are generic minimum wage jobs that are not empowering by any means. Why try to sustain them?

[rufuspaul]

Looks like everyone's opinions in this thread will be tested:


Seattle Raises Minimum Wage to $15/hr (http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/05/01/3433227/seattle-15-dollar-minimum-wage/)

[ace23]

More pay = people have more money = people spend more = businesses make more

Raising the minimum wage won't kill the economy, it'll pump a lot of money into it.
Well, that settles it then.

[Godzuki]

Please show me where he said this.


http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2014/04/23/n-warren-buffett-minimum-wage-earned-income-tax-credit.cnnmoney/

[oarabbus]

If I wanted a min wage job and wanted to have no bball team I'd be all over that. I hear seattle is awesome


look up the "Seattle freeze" lots of people say the opposite

[Godzuki]

More pay = people have more money = people spend more = businesses make more

Raising the minimum wage won't kill the economy, it'll pump a lot of money into it.


it gets relocated to mostly big corp. most people spend with them, the small business's can only hope they get that money back.

[KevinNYC]

http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2014/04/23/n-warren-buffett-minimum-wage-earned-income-tax-credit.cnnmoney/
Thanks for the link. I had read an article say he was unsure of any effects on employment, but now I think his answer is broader than just employment.

He basically says he doesn't know the answer. And depending on which part of that clip you emphasize, you can have him on both sides of the issue. The reason is (and this is not terribly clear) that he seems not against any raise in the minimum wage. He's against a too high raise in the minimum wage. The example he gives is raising it to $15 an hour and he feels that would affect employment too much to justify it, but then later in the video he is asked if the President "is misguided" about pushing for $10.10 minimum wage and he says no. Here's how the print article discusses it. (http://money.cnn.com/2014/03/03/news/economy/buffett-minimum-wage/index.html) Note that the headline is biased one way.
If you could have a minimum wage of $15 and it didn't hurt anything else, I would love it," he said. "But clearly that isn't the case."
However, he added, he wouldn't argue with President Obama's proposal for a more modest increase, to $10.10 an hour from $7.25 an hour currently.

[ballup]

I was just thinking, shouldn't there be another national salary floor? Say, have dependents earn the low $7/hr minimum wage while those who are not dependents earn a minimum wage of X, which is adjusted to a calculated minimum standard of living.

[GimmeThat]

This might be nessecary in order to offset the whole stimulus effect.

If the Government doesn't just raise the minimum wage, but can expect the Fed to not just slow down the stimulus plan, but also the U.S. treasury department to start buying back outstanding loans/bonds.

We might be able to not let inflation go out of control, while improving the qualify of the life style of the people.

All in the name of countering Inflation, folks!

[GimmeThat]

I was just thinking, shouldn't there be another national salary floor? Say, have dependents earn the low $7/hr minimum wage while those who are not dependents earn a minimum wage of X, which is adjusted to a calculated minimum standard of living.

Yes.

Because many stores could survive on just young adults working (Dairy Queen) places a mix of both (McDonalds, Wendys) while some others, mostly adults (Walmart)

There ARE jobs that requires larger responsibilities, even though they are all being paid at the minimum wage rate right now.

[secund2nun]

The min wage needs to be a living wage. It should be greatly increased. The ****ing corporations and banks are having record profits yet wages are still pathetic.

[Dresta]

A lot of those jobs are disappearing anyway from what I've observed. Places like Aldi's have already eliminated that and even bigger places have increased the self checkout registers and have a couple baggers that rotate to busy registers.
Can't say i'm surprised. Those workers are hardly very productive, and are more of a courtesy thing if anything. I lived near an Aldi 2-3 years ago (in Birmingham, UK) and they had only a handful of staff, and only seemed to open one register (always with huge line). There are still clearly far more of these kind of marginally productive jobs in the US than in the European countries i've been to. We will see an increase in zero hour type contracts that will protect employment figures but still hurt marginal workers as well.

[BigDaddyK]

The min wage needs to be a living wage. It should be greatly increased. The ****ing corporations and banks are having record profits yet wages are still pathetic.


I ****ing hate it when people talk about the "evil" corporations.

Lets look at it this way lets say you start off working at a small restaurant as a teenager you think you can make a better restaurant, so you work hard get a loan and spend years of your life dedicated to that restaurant. You took the risk. In fifty years that restaurant becomes Burger King, and you have made hundreds of thousands of jobs available to people that are willing to take the position or that need a little help.

If those jobs you are offering people don't require a lot of skill so they don't pay a lot than people shouldn't take them if they want a higher pay.

How would you like it if you took all the risk to start something and follow your dream and then you have someone telling you how you can run your business.

These corporations are providing tons of jobs although they may be low paying when you first join the company a lot of them have a way you can work your way up in.

Your not suppose to be thirty flipping burgers for six years, when a fifteen year old kid should be doing your job.

Sorry for the grammar and spelling no time to proof read this.

[BigDaddyK]

Also do people think that every job out there needs to be able to support a family if you work fourty hours a week?

How about you get paid for the value you can bring.

The real problem is people having kids to young and kids role models being some retard.

The choices you make as a kid are important, and that sucks because as a kid you don't realize it.

If you are work hard and try in school you are looked at as a loser nerd but if you don't do shit all day sit at home and smoke weed your looked at as being hard when in reality your a loser and a baby who can't support himself.

[ZenMaster]

I ****ing hate it when people talk about the "evil" corporations.

Lets look at it this way lets say you start off working at a small restaurant as a teenager you think you can make a better restaurant, so you work hard get a loan and spend years of your life dedicated to that restaurant. You took the risk. In fifty years that restaurant becomes Burger King, and you have made hundreds of thousands of jobs available to people that are willing to take the position or that need a little help.

If those jobs you are offering people don't require a lot of skill so they don't pay a lot than people shouldn't take them if they want a higher pay.

How would you like it if you took all the risk to start something and follow your dream and then you have someone telling you how you can run your business.

These corporations are providing tons of jobs although they may be low paying when you first join the company a lot of them have a way you can work your way up in.

Your not suppose to be thirty flipping burgers for six years, when a fifteen year old kid should be doing your job.

Sorry for the grammar and spelling no time to proof read this.

The beauty of your argument is that it can be used all the way till the wealth disparity reaches something close to 5% of the population holding 95% of the money.

[BigDaddyK]

The beauty of your argument is that it can be used all the way till the wealth disparity reaches something close to 5% of the population holding 95% of the money.


Yeah I understand that I am not saying I'm 100% right or that I know the the answers.

Once you have an extreme amount of money than it is definatly easier to turn that into even more money and leverage your businesses and endevers to be even more profitable but who is to blame for the 1% are they to blame for continuing to grow. Or is nobody to blame and that is just the way life is?

[The Iron Sheik]

Also do people think that every job out there needs to be able to support a family if you work fourty hours a week?

How about you get paid for the value you can bring.

those guys flipping burgers are what keep restaurants afloat. if every burger flipper quit then bk would go out of business. they're the foundation.

and that "move up" shit doesn't make sense in your example. if a teenager is supposed to be flipping burgers instead of an adult, how will he advance? it's gonna take years and years of putting work in as an adult to even have a chance. secondly, not everyone gets an opportunity to advance in the first place. nepotism, favoritism and plain bad luck are all relevant things in the workplace. a guy already in a position above him doesn't want a guy below him taking his spot.

these people already work shitty jobs. they should at least be able to eat something that's not ramen when they get off work. doesn't have to be steak but shit

[kNIOKAS]

Yeah I understand that I am not saying I'm 100% right or that I know the the answers.

Once you have an extreme amount of money than it is definatly easier to turn that into even more money and leverage your businesses and endevers to be even more profitable but who is to blame for the 1% are they to blame for continuing to grow. Or is nobody to blame and that is just the way life is?
Part of it is that it's the way life is...

Another part is that we (or you, as an american) declare that you have no socioeconomical classes or that they are fluid - meaning that individual is able attain wealth and is not restricted moving up the ladder. Also, that individual's vote counts and the government answers to the people.

Those two have become false.