originally posted in:Secular Sevens
Fast food workers definitely do not deserve $15 /hr. The only that will do is drive prices across the bored. Its always relative. Minimum wage was never designed to provide a roof. Adults who are earning minimum wage often lack the skills to work in a better field. Capitalism is about opportunity to make a better life by busting your butt and earning (trust fund kids are a different story). Want a better job, get an education or you will be left behind.
With that said, the disparity between rich and poor will always be prevalent in any type of system. Even in socialist countries there is a disparity between rich and poor. Socialism basically just removes the middle class, and you are left with rich and poor. This has happened since the beginning of society.
It is caused by human nature and will never change. No matter how you "spread" the wealth someone will find a way to exploit people for money. There was a study on this not to long ago which showed a natural curve that occurs in all societies.
There is some issues with tax breaks and i believe these are what harm societies the most. Corporate tax breaks i think should be given to those that dont produce in other countries just because their corporate hq is within the states. I would like to see tax breaks for companies that keep at least 65% of their business within the country. I also believe companies should be given incentive to pay higher wages, provide healthcare(not forced), and help with retirement of its workers. Pensions and 401k matching needs to come back. Companies have gotten very greedy and no longer care for those who helped build their business. This is why there is no company loyalty anymore. They dont care about you, why should you care about them?
Now on individual taxing, this is what needs to change the most. The tax ceiling needs to go. Being taxed on only $200k is bs. It only harms the poor. You should be taxed on all income no matter how much you make. Made $8 million, get taxed on $8 million. The super rich hardly get taxed and it creates issues in which there is not enough tax money to properly allocate funds to other projects, like the education system.
Sorry for the rant, i too have thought quite a bit on this.
English
-
So what about those who go to university, get a degree and still can't get a job, despite being more than skilled? Flawed argument is flawed.
-
Thats due to lack of jobs in the country. That has nothing to do with minimum wage. Lack of jobs is whats hurting the country, not minimum wage. The majority of minimum wage earners dont live in poverty. They are typically teens or secondary jobs/income. Have tried looking in other states? Sometimes you just have to go where jobs positions are available.
-
I don't know, I lie in England. I'm not even thinking about jobs until I finish my A-Levels.
-
Flawed society is flawed
-
[quote]Fast food workers definitely do not deserve $15 /hr. The only that will do is drive prices across the bored. Its always relative. Minimum wage was never designed to provide a roof. Adults who are earning minimum wage often lack the skills to work in a better field. Capitalism is about opportunity to make a better life by busting your butt and earning (trust fund kids are a different story). Want a better job, get an education or you will be left behind. [/quote]If someone is trying to live off minimum wage, how do you expect them to go to school for a better job? Minimum wage is already below the cost of living; no way you can pay for school while covering normal living expenses. If it costs $15/hr to live in a city, for example Seattle, why shouldn't minimum wage be $15/hr?
-
You get grants and take out loans like the rest of us. A state regulated minimum wage would make more sense than a federal. Cost of living is cheaper in some states and outrageous in others. There are plenty of opportunities to get an education. Some utilize these resources , some do not. I have my associates in network infrastructure, i make about $15/hr. I dont think someone who can barely put an order together properly deserves $15/hr. Minimum wage is offset by programs like snap and the welfare system. No one ever said being successful was easy. People want to live a middle class life without having to earn it. It shouldnt be given to you. You need to earn it. Raising minimum wage is only going to cause more inflation. They are always relative to each other.
-
[quote] I dont think someone who can barely put an order together properly deserves $15/hr. [/quote] protip: the concept of 'deserving' a wage is only valid macro-economically insofar as it describes appropriate incentivisation of different behaviours. Helping people live better lives is a good thing.
-
People need to learn how to manage their money. People on minimum wage walk around with new cell phones, buy stupidly price clothing and shoes and try to buy pre-packaged food. Its about budgeting. Learn how to cook. I can feed my family of 3 with $150 a month. That is within the realm of viability on minimum wage. On $7 an hour wage, no you cant go out to eat constantly, you cant afford a cell phone, and you cant do the things others who make more can do. People on minimum wage are trying to live outside their means. Helping people is good, but not at the cost of dragging everyone down to do so. Thats what my tax dollars are for. For programs like food stamps and assisted housing. If you raise minimum wage to $15/hr, what do you suppose companies will do to cover the added cost? Well its simple, they will raise prices across the board. And your now $15/hr wont be enough to "live" on. I find it hilarious when politicians try to live on minimum wage. They cant do it and say its hard. Well yea, you are use to living on a lot more money. Plain in simple, live inside your means. You cant afford much but you sure as hell can get by, which is what minimum wage is for. Cell phones, flat screen tv, air jordans, internet etc are not necessities, they are wants not needs. Others stupidity and failures in life are not my problem. You either figure it out and thrive or dont and live with your head barely a above water and struggle.
-
I used to live on minimum wage by myself when I rented out an apartment in Hawaii. $7.25 doesn't cover my apartment expenses which were a generous $600/month. I also had to pay for my own food and transportation. $7.25/hr while also going to school will [b][u]NOT[/u][/b] and will [b][u]NEVER[/u][/b] be able to pay for rent, food, and transportation. Even now, in California I'm getting $9/hr. It's a good thing I'm living with my parents now or else I wouldn't even be able to pay for my own apartment or even a studio apartment while also going to school and paying for my own food. My food while in Hawaii consisted of dollar menu items from McDonalds, ramen cups that I bought in bulk for around $0.25 per cup, and even asking my neighbors if they could spare me dinner. I only lasted 3 months before I had to ask my parents to send some money to me since I was in the red at the end of the third month. Internet was a necessity for my first AND second semester because I had an online class in both of them, so I spent a good portion of my time traveling pretty much across Oahu just to go to class, and I spent more of my time in Starbucks mooching off of their free wifi just to get my homework done. Cell phones are mandatory as well. It's a form of communication. I don't know what authority you have saying that minimum wage is livable, because from my own experiences for a year and a half, as well as some change, minimum wage is NOT livable unless I want to be homeless and mooch off of people from time to time.
-
Edited by SoggyDiapers: 8/1/2014 7:00:28 PMIn Hawaii, no $7.25 is not livable. I dont agree with federal minimum wages. This is a state issue not a federal. States need to set their own. Our country is far to diverse for a one size fits all approach. $7.25 where i live is. $7.25 in Hawaii might get you 1 gallon of milk. Where i live i could buy 3-4 gallons. To raise the minimum wage to $15/hr means you are saying a non-skilled worker is valuable as a skilled worker. The price paid to skilled workers is not going to increase because of a wage hike. Minimum wage is not there to provide you with internet, cell phone (there are other forms if communication. Uh landlines? They are cheap as crap) as well as other options as you had the internet. I worked for 5 years as a server making $2.22 an hour plus tips. When i was 20 i literally made only $11,500 one year. This while i was putting myself through school, and an apartment. I ate ramen noodles and mustard sandwiches (not kidding). I walked to my local libraries and places that had wifi just to do some of my work. I had to write large papers on a library computer. I communicated mainly by email alone for 3 years. You do what you have to do. I cut out everything unnecessary. You are not entitled to crap. Wealth is earned, not given. I am by no means rich, but i worked my butt of to get to where i am. So no i dont think someone doing the bare minimum should be paid the same as what i get paid. Those that bust their butts like i and may others have done, will eventually move out of it poverty. You might only make $9/hr and no you wouldnt be able to afford much in california. Guessing you are mid-20s? It will get better. A degree is important but it only opens the door. I worked a lot if crap paying jobs before i got what i wanted to be in. Worked those jobs just to put food on the table. Worked two jobs for about a year and picked up side work. I had no personal life. The Job market blows right now. This is what causes people to get paid less for the same job as they might of a few years ago. You cant hand someone more money and actually expect them to break out of poverty. Raising the minimum wage is just a band aid for the actual problem.
-
Cost increases associated with minimum wage increases don't even remotely outweigh the increased earning power of people at or near the minimum wage. So, essentially, raising the minimum wage will help a lot of people, but you don't want to purely on principle. Are you really that sociopathic?
-
Raises in minimum wage are always the last to rise. When they do prices for everything go up shortly after. Raising the minimum wage does not solve the problem. Its just putting a band aid on gunshot wound. It solves nothing.
-
Again, that's not correct. [url=http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/44995-MinimumWage.pdf]This really isn't debatable[/url].
-
The cbo? Really? They are not the best place to get information from. Do you believe the unemployment rate is lowering too? Cause if you do you are really misguided. Most economist agree the minimum wage requirement causes job loss. Its no big secret. Where do you think companies will offset this cost? By cutting the same people the wage increase is meant to help. Lets take a look at what happened during the last wage increase in 2009. This is exactly what happened. Wages went up, so did unemployment. http://www.aei-ideas.org/2013/02/lets-review-the-adverse-effects-of-raising-the-minimum-wage-on-teenagers-when-it-increased-41-between-2007-and-2009/#mbl
-
You're seriously going to cite the CBO? Thats hilarious. They are well known for flubbing facts and numbers. The truth is a minimum wage increases unemployment. Minimum wage goes to $15/hr we will see yet an even bigger unemployment rating. Companies will just find ways to offset that added cost. Guess who will be the first to go to save money. Employees. They will either be let go or have the hours cut. Once again, raising minimum wage actually has an adverse effect than what it is intended to do.
-
Edited by Seggi: 8/1/2014 2:06:18 PM[quote]You're seriously going to cite the CBO? Thats hilarious. They are well known for flubbing facts and numbers.[/quote] What? No, they're not. The CBO doesn't have a political agenda, it's a purely technocratic agency. [quote]The truth is a minimum wage increases unemployment.[/quote]I take it you didn't read any of the report. Try page 2.
-
Look, we can both argue this till we are blue in the face. This has been an on going debate for many years. I just dont see how raising the minimum wage works. Job creation is what pulls large groups out of poverty. Merely raising what they get paid does not. Less than like 7% of full time workers live in poverty that make minimum wage. There are much better ways to help poverty families. Tax credits are the best place to start. I am not surprised to see obama wants to raise the minimum wage. Everyone wants to make more money. It brings votes for the democratic party. It sounds great, but is poorly implemented. The truth is its only a temporary fix. The real problem is lack of full time jobs in the country and taxes. Two things he does a piss poor job of. I think states need to spearhead this. It clearly costs more to live in california than it does in kentucky. $7.50 here actually is a livable wage. But would not be in california. I would like to see our government "encourage" states to raise their own minimum wage. I believe seattle just raised theirs. This is great news. I think states have to combat poverty in their own state, as the things that affect it are different from state to state.
-
I read the article. There are positives and negatives to raising the minimum wage. The benefits do not out weigh the negatives. It does not reduce poverty. It never has. If it did, we wouldnt need to raise it again and again now would we. The cbo reports are often wrong in its findings. This is due to the fact that they dont actually do any studies. They merely take numbers from other studies and add in a systematic response. Often their reports are later found to be, well, full of crap. The truth is a minimum wage does not do what it is intended to do. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffreydorfman/2014/02/22/the-minimum-wage-debate-should-be-about-poverty-not-jobs/
-
[quote]I read the article. There are positives and negatives to raising the minimum wage. The benefits do not out weigh the negatives. It does not reduce poverty. It never has. If it did, we wouldnt need to raise it again and again now would we. [/quote] [url=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/History_of_US_federal_minimum_wage_increases.svg]Um, the minimum wage hasn't really been raised since the 60s.[/url] The fact that it's not pegged to the rate of inflation means it's constantly losing value, and none of the nominal increases that have been implemented since the 80s have undone the extent to which it's slid since then. The federal minimum wage right now in the United States is about the same as it was in 1950. [quote]The cbo reports are often wrong in its findings. This is due to the fact that they dont actually do any studies. They merely take numbers from other studies and add in a systematic response. Often their reports are later found to be, well, full of crap. [/quote] You keep saying this, but it's completely unsubstantiated. The CBO is going to get things wrong sometimes (mostly because there's a huge amount of variation that's possible in any given possible modelling scenario that nobody can predict - and the range of the possibilities the CBO usually outlines reflects that) but they're still unbiased and effective, and are certainly much more reliable than explicitly right wing organisations like the AEI and Forbes (or explicitly left wing ones, for that matter). If you simply dismiss what it has to say because you think it's biased when it's clearly not then you obviously have no interest in the actual reality of the situation, you're just trying to get the world to conform to your ideological preconceptions. [quote]The truth is a minimum wage does not do what it is intended to do. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffreydorfman/2014/02/22/the-minimum-wage-debate-should-be-about-poverty-not-jobs/[/quote] You can't say the CBO is unreliable and then cite an article which relies on the CBO's analysis. Be consistent. Anyway, that piece is pretty misleading. It says that 29 percent of the increased earnings would go to households over three times the poverty level, but neglects to mention the fact that it's because those higher income households account for about 65% of all workers. [url=https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/246803608/cbo-1.jpg]In terms of the individual household's benefits before tax and transfers,[/url] households below the poverty threshold would see a 3% increase in income, households between 1 and 1.5 times the poverty line would see a 1% increase, households between 1.5 and 3 would see an increase of about 0.5%, and high income households (over 3 times the threshold) would see a negligible increase (0.05%) or a decrease. And that also brings up something important: the success of a minimum wage increase can't just be measured by the number of people brought out of poverty, because it would also benefit a number of households below the poverty line who would remain in poverty, as well as a lot of working class households above the poverty line (and, to a lesser extent, a lot of lower middle class households, too). Saying that it's '110 thousand dollars per person lifted out of poverty' is absurd because lifting people out of poverty isn't even close to the only effect of the policy (although It's also flat out wrong because the figure redistributed to low wage workers is 31 billion, not 100). [quote]There are much better ways to help poverty families. Tax credits are the best place to start.[/quote] Of course there are better ways to help families in poverty, but increasing the minimum wage isn't done to the exclusion of other policies that might help to alleviate poverty or generally to redistribute wealth downwards. It also doesn't directly cost the government anything, making it a lot easier to implement, especially when you consider that the main disagreement in Congress over the EITC expansion is about where to get the money for it.
-
[quote]You get grants and take out loans like the rest of us.[/quote]Taking out an extensive loan without any promising income in the future is irresponsible. [quote]I dont think someone who can barely put an order together properly deserves $15/hr.[/quote]You're making a lot of assumptions and generalizations about minimum wage work.
-
Edited by SoggyDiapers: 8/1/2014 2:47:59 AMIf your an adult making minimum wage, chances are you didnt make very good decisions in life. Thats is of no one else's fault but your own. Taking out a loan to better your life is better than doing nothing. Its pretty responsible to be honest. Investing in yourself? How is that bad?