Minimum Wage

[Flash]

Well since people have been ranting about this on my FaceBook I decided I would come to my other family and ask yalls opinion on the subject.

 

 

Fast food workers are rioting about wanting to get paid $15 an hour. My view on this subject is No we should not raise minimum wage to $15 an hour.

 

1) food prices will drive up drastically ( yes I know this is happening now but it will shoot up a lot more than it is now)

2) gas prices will drive up drastically ( yes the prices now suck but will be even worse)

3) unemployment will drive up insanely due to the fact that businesses will have to fire people to keep the profit that they are making now.

4) employment will drop drastically as well.

 

 

If you disagree with me on raising minimum wage to $15 an hour please be honest with me and tell me your opinion. Same way with if you agree that it shouldn't be raised.

I want different points of views.

 

thank you idiots and have a great rest of your day,

 

Flashhhh!

[little_old_man]

Fast food restaurants are and have always been stepping stone jobs to make money while in school or until you find a better job. They were never meant to be a career with good pay, although people now seem to think those jobs should be careers.

Edited September 19, 2014 by little_old_man

[mouselad]

There aren't enough good jobs with good pay. Someone has to do the shit work. I think if they are willing to work a full time job, and do their job efficiently they deserve a livable wage.

 

15 is a bit high. I think maybe 10 dollars minimum.

 

Now back in 1970 the minimum wage was 1.45/hr.. now.. converted to 2013 dollars that is 11/hr... that seems fair.  the current minimum wage does not seem fair at all. If the minimum wage had kept up with inflation over the years it would be at 10.90.... but it hasn't.

 

People say it will cause inflation, but I think a bigger cause of inflation is the top 1% wealthiest in the nation hording 90% of the wealth. You know how we have always fixed the economy in the past. Tax the shit out of the rich, and dump the money back into the economy creating jobs.. every single time we've gone into a recession or depression this is what has brought us out.

 

 

 

Maybe its because I live in the lowest income and lowest education rate in the nation and really see the struggle daily, but something needs to be done. It is a misconception that minimum wage earners are lazy, and stupid. Many are born into poverty, and don't have as many oppurtunitues  we do to further themselves..

 

If you have ever worked a day in your life in the fields ( i have).. and you think that is minimum wage labor you are sadly mistaken. that is back breaking intensive labor, but most farm workers either get paid min wage or below min wage.

 

I think unions would help out with this, but the people in charge (the rich and wealthy) who control the government and big business try to demonize unions, because the only people not to benefit from them are the rich. They don't want the poor masses who keep this country running to realize that if they organized they would have the power.

 

Past research on how business costs rise with minimum wage hikes indicates that a 10-percent minimum wage hike can be expected to produce a cost increase for the average business of less than one-tenth of one percent of their sales revenue. This cost figure includes three components. First, mandated raises: the raises employers must give their workers to meet the new wage floor. Second, “ripple-effect” raises: the raises employers give some workers to put their pay rates a bit above the new minimum in order to preserve the same wage hierarchy before and after minimum wage hike. And third, the higher payroll taxes employers must pay on their now-larger wage bill. If the average businesses wanted to completely cover the cost increase from a 10-percent minimum wage hike through higher prices, they would need to raise their prices by less than 0.1 percent. A price increase of this size amounts to marking up a $100 price tag to $100.10.

 

If done properly raising the min wage should not cause inflation. there have been studies and reports done by nobel prize winning economist on this.. check out this link for more info.

 

 

http://www.dol.gov/minwage/mythbuster.htm

Edited September 19, 2014 by mouselad

[JohnnyDos]

We're already getting $11.25 here in Ontario Canada.They're going for $15.00.I guess you only need about $7/hr over in the US to survive.Except over here we all get medical coverage.LOM don't yell at me please.Those guys earning that low wage will never buy a house or have enough to retire or much of anything.That's why they have foriengers do those menial jobs cause no one in both our countries want those jobs.

[MrBubbles]

I say give them 13 so we don't have to revisit this next year!

[DeemerXI]

Our brains tend to focus on straight-line causation in thinking about social problems and that we have a difficult time seeing the feedback effects that are actually dominant. Because of this, we concentrate on symptoms and not causes and we thereby create policies that are ineffective, at best. For example, in the 1960s, the housing shortage in the inner city led analysts to the “obvious” conclusion that the government needed to build more houses. Housing shortage? Build houses! But, the real problem was the economic stagnation in the inner city which meant that people living there lacked the income that would have paid for the housing. Had policy makers focused instead on creating jobs, the houses would have followed automatically. Instead, we ended up exacerbating the problem by creating an incentive (i.e., low-cost housing) to stay in an area that was no longer economically viable.

 

 

Likewise, the most effective means of increasing the incomes of the poor is not to legislate an increase in their wages, but to stimulate the demand for labor to the point that firms are induced to pay more by choice. Make them want to pay in excess of the federal minimum wage because they cannot otherwise find enough employees to meet customers’ demands. And we have the tool to accomplish this through federal deficit spending.* This is precisely what we should be doing right now and should have been doing aggressively since the onset of the crisis. In fact, we are moving in the opposite direction.  

 

This is not to say that the federal minimum wage law does not have a role to play. It is intended to protect our most vulnerable from exploitation, as are various other labor laws. Such circumstances will not go away even in a very tight labor market (though they will become more rare). But, it should not be used as a means to reduce poverty. As argued above, it can’t. All these discussions have done is obscured the real problem. We need to get this very important discussion back on track and stop talking about raising wages and start talking about stimulating employment. The latter will do far more to raise the former than anything we can legislate.

 

My 2cents

Edited September 19, 2014 by DeemerXI

[mouselad]

@@DeemerXI more on the housing shortage thing. first people moved to the city because thats where businesses, and factories were. urban sprawl started to happen and these factories and businesses moved further out of the city. most of the people who lived near where they worked could not afford to relocate to where the businesses moved... this created ghettos.  people turned to drugs and alcohol to cope, and others in the ghetto found they could make money off peoples addiction and turned to dealing (because there weren't many other jobs anyways)

[little_old_man]

We're already getting $11.25 here in Ontario Canada.They're going for $15.00.I guess you only need about $7/hr over in the US to survive.Except over here we all get medical coverage.LOM don't yell at me please.Those guys earning that low wage will never buy a house or have enough to retire or much of anything.That's why they have foriengers do those menial jobs cause no one in both our countries want those jobs.

 

FU JOHNNY!

 

Sorry, I couldn't help myself.  

[DeemerXI]

@@DeemerXI more on the housing shortage thing. first people moved to the city because thats where businesses, and factories were. urban sprawl started to happen and these factories and businesses moved further out of the city. most of the people who lived near where they worked could not afford to relocate to where the businesses moved... this created ghettos.  people turned to drugs and alcohol to cope, and others in the ghetto found they could make money off peoples addiction and turned to dealing (because there weren't many other jobs anyways)

 

That is another topic completely that I believe would cloud your original question. It was more of an example of how government focuses its efforts the wrong way.

[Sammy]

Fanciful rant worthy of a Hollywood movie, a book or a conspiracy theory. But just a suggestion that this issue is just one part of something much bigger.

 

 

 

Not as many stones to step to anymore in this country so there isnt much of a choice. They are in other countries where people are much more tractable.  And that is the model. They get the jobs so the incentive to push on everybody is to be more like them.

 

K-12 schools are currently much harder than in the good old days. 3 hrs of homework every day and more on the weekends are the norm not the exception. The school year is getting longer and summers are getting shorter. Sounds good and parents like to think that will help them get into college. However there are some that want differently. They want people to finish high school but no further. So make the cost of that higher education skyrocket so that fewer and fewer can actually get it. Even with the high cost make it harder to get the money from other sources. To get it you must have your own money or be sponsored by other people with money. No govt help. Then give an 'option'. Less education but more training for 'trades' and the 'workforce'. Might be something like fixing a car. Might be learning how to write a computer program. No need for a diploma. Just get a trade certificate. Change the 2-year colleges entirely into trade schools not a mix. In other words, get the skills without the bother of actually educating people to learn how to think. Such things are called 'liberal' and creates subversives that want to destroy America.

 

The question is why this is happening and how does that relate to this whole 'minimum wage' thing. This group that fights it actually also wants to remove it entirely, not just keep it the same. Why bother removing it at all unless the idea is to make wages less? It is just one small part of the age old process of the rulers and the rest. They say its strictly business or making things 'better' but its much more. Regardless if its some union leader, CEO, or Don Corleone. You gotta love how the very people that use "working towards the American Dream" as their argument are also the ones that actively make it harder to reach it. As the old saying goes, it takes money to make money. So what do you do? Make it harder to get the money needed to start with. The only thing that actually works is continually fighting to maintain a balance evolving and adjusting as we go along to keep it that way. We cannot just stand still as everything else changes around us. Nor can we move too much. It is a constant battle that must be fought against those that want to tilt that balance one way or the other. Too many on both sides want to make drones out of people even if they actively dont know it or understand it. The only practical difference would be who is on top.

[Sammy]

@@DeemerXI more on the housing shortage thing. first people moved to the city because thats where businesses, and factories were. urban sprawl started to happen and these factories and businesses moved further out of the city. most of the people who lived near where they worked could not afford to relocate to where the businesses moved... this created ghettos.  people turned to drugs and alcohol to cope, and others in the ghetto found they could make money off peoples addiction and turned to dealing (because there weren't many other jobs anyways)

One wonders what America would be like if all those jobs werent sent out of the country. All those new iPhones people are buying today? Made in China.

[Damage_inc-]

it wont happen.instead why arent people complaining  about every business now only  hiring part time  so they don't have to give you any benefits.they have all followed walmarts profit example which is ruining the middle class here is the good ole usa.we cant survive working part time jobs with no medical coverage or future benifits-its sad

Edited September 20, 2014 by Damage_inc-

[little_old_man]

The way I see it, the jobs that created the middle class from just after WWII until the late 70's are for the most part gone. The middle class was built on manufacturing jobs, and we simply don't manufacture anything anymore. At least not enough to employ a large segment of the population. This has slowly been happening since the late 70's and the huge housing bubble in large part created by the dot.com boom in the 90's then the beginning of our current great recession in 2001 was the end of the good old days. What we are all seeing now is our future and it will not get better. Those who are smart enough and can afford to go to college might do better in the long run, but I am seeing way too many kids who just spent 4 years in college and can't find work. Even in formerly high paying fields like law or medicine, there is no guarantee you will find a good job in your field. About the only exception is computer science or engineering, everything else is almost a waste of time.  Before I retired from insurance a few years ago I employed 3 people with masters degrees in various subjects, and they were all making $11 an hour inputting insurance apps for me. A couple of them had close to $100,000 in school loans and no way to pay them back. What a fucking waste of time and money.

 

When I graduated high school in 78 about a third of graduating students went to trade schools because they knew they would have jobs when they finished. Now it seems they either go to college and hope they can find a job after they're done, or they go to work for a minimum wage job and hope to find something better with no real plan. Both of my grandfathers were machinists and never made more than $10,000 a year in their lives, but both of them owned homes, raised families and retired with over $300k (plus pensions) in the bank for their retirement. Now things are automated, and jobs like those almost don't exist any longer. Manufacturers finally figured out that the combination of high union wages and the huge pensions with lifetime medical coverage were no longer sustainable, and they moved manufacturing overseas instead of going out of business. All of the former high paying manufacturing jobs like steel, textiles, printing, furniture, lumber are all gone. We ship the raw materials to China or someplace else cheap so they can make our materials into consumer goods and ship them back to us. What a horse shit way to do business.

 

It's not just an American problem, it's worldwide. Tens of thousands of Hispanics flood across our border every year because they can't make enough working in their home countries to feed their families. Those who stay wind up working for drug cartels to sell to the American public. The Middle East and Africa are exploding with violence because there are millions of young men who can't find work and have nothing better to do than go to a mosque to learn how all of their problems are the fault of western society. Western and Eastern Europe are having employment problems of their own. China is riding high for now but at some point their bubble will burst and there will be major upheaval with their population.

 

If history has taught us anything it is that when things get as bad economically as they are now all over the world, governments are overthrown and wars happen. I don't have a warm fuzzy feeling about our future and fear for the coming generations. 

 

Raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour will only be putting a very small bandage on a very big wound. I eat fast food on occasion and it's already getting to be more expensive than it's worth. A single burger and a medium drink at Wendy's is about $8 and medium roast beef sandwich and a medium drink at Arby's is about the same price. If it gets any closer to $10 for a drive through lunch, you'll see people not eating there any longer and those people who fought so hard for a pay increase will no longer have jobs.

[Logan]

Good one LOM, except how do explain that in Fort McMurray where basically all the jobs are in the oil industry and wages are high. The fast food chains pay a wage to attract employees that is a lot higher than say Toronto, and they still make money. I think  some/maybe all of these franchise owners are making a killing at the expense of their employees as  Walmart does. They all use the word TEAM like you are part of this huge family where everybody supports and helps each other, BULLSHIT! They only use you because they need somebody to collect the money, and it is not that far off where if they can automate the till and pay fewer employees and scare the rest with employee cutbacks, they will do it faster than Bill Clinton pulling up his pants. I say give the workers an increase and enjoy the ride while you can.

[Sammy]

The same kind of thing is always said about rising gas prices. Keep going up and people will car pool or take the bus or train. But they dont. They pay the higher prices, complain for awhile, then go on with their busy lives. They even spend their money on new cars that have worse gas mileage than the cars they already have.

[little_old_man]

Good one LOM, except how do explain that in Fort McMurray where basically all the jobs are in the oil industry and wages are high. The fast food chains pay a wage to attract employees that is a lot higher than say Toronto, and they still make money. I think  some/maybe all of these franchise owners are making a killing at the expense of their employees as  Walmart does. They all use the word TEAM like you are part of this huge family where everybody supports and helps each other, BULLSHIT! They only use you because they need somebody to collect the money, and it is not that far off where if they can automate the till and pay fewer employees and scare the rest with employee cutbacks, they will do it faster than Bill Clinton pulling up his pants. I say give the workers an increase and enjoy the ride while you can.

 

It's the boom town mentality Logan. The same principal applied here in California during the gold rush. When you have thousands of people all showing up at once doing the same kind of work and making decent money, they can afford to pay more. The people who really got rich during the gold rush opened restaurants to feed the miners expensive meals and hardware stores to sell them tools at greatly inflated prices. 

 

The fast food chains in that area have to pay more to attract people that don't want to work in the oil fields and it will stay like that as long as there is a good job market.

[little_old_man]

The same kind of thing is always said about rising gas prices. Keep going up and people will car pool or take the bus or train. But they dont. They pay the higher prices, complain for awhile, then go on with their busy lives. They even spend their money on new cars that have worse gas mileage than the cars they already have.

 

Maybe where you are Sammy, but out here people are buying hybrid cars like crazy. So many that the state "says" it's losing tens of millions in gas taxes. There is even some talk out here about taxing people on the number of miles they drive in addition to the highest gas taxes in the nation. We also have a new gas tax starting next year that will raise gas somewhere between .40 cents and 1.25 a gallon. I'm glad I don't have to commute.

 

Also don't forget that when gas prices get really high, we all pay a lot more for consumer goods because of the high cost of trucking goods to us. Yes a  lot of people suck it up and pay more for gas and even buy bigger cars, but when the cost of everything we consume costs more it hurts everybody in the wallet.

Edited September 20, 2014 by little_old_man

[BurnnBright]

Wait.......Cobra hasn't asked for this to be moved to political section yet?        

[CobraBites]

cause i havent seen this one yet bb....can we get this moved to political please...just saying...well only cause bb said so lol...ah i stop caring really i think its ridiculous that fast food worker wants so much money ...i worked fast food for over 14 yrs....i still dont believe reg workers deserve so much i believe it shouldnt be higher than 8/hr...which is what i was gtn to be hourly asst manager talk bout suckin...most hourly manager only make 1 dollar more than reg employees...but with the poor quality control in restaraunts these days no fast food worker deserver more than min wage...i was makn 5.10 / hour at buger king when min wage was 4.25/hr and i was taught by managers to be proud of the food u put out...no mistakes no sloppy sandwiches was allowed if u put up the same quality now back then you would get a write up in ur file...now a days no one cares about quality control at fast food which is why i barely eat out anymore....until quality and speed picks up to better standards i say go back to payin these fast food generation ppl today pay them what i got paid ....these restaraunts getn stupid with this shit imo...

[DEEJAYKEG]

I'll give you a UK perspective to compare against the USA and Canada situations.

 

The minimum wage here is set to rise to the equivalent of $10.60 on 1 October for someone aged 21 or over.

For younger workers it is much lower and for apprentices, think around half that.

 

As a previous contributor has opined, jobs that pay this level of wage ought to be gateways into employment

and unskilled.  However, as another said, companies doing business in an economy with high unemployment

are not compelled to pay more to attract recruits.

 

Combine the enduring low levels of pay with a widespread use of "zero hour" contracts here (i.e. you have no

guarantee how many hours per week you will actually get to work) and there's a generation who cannot aspire

to basic expectations of running a car or buying a home ( the average house price in the UK is now $407,487.50).

 

Add in unrestrained immigration from the European Union whose citizens have the automatic right to work here and

the components for the perfect storm are complete.  Meanwhile, those at the top of the pyramid are laughing.

[JohnnyDos]

free trade deals..the government working with big business to kill unions..eliminating the middle class ...business paying miniscule wages and then they all wonder why can't the economy can't get going

 

http://www.newgeography.com/content/004289-large-cities-rankings-2014-best-cities-job-growth

Edited September 20, 2014 by JohnnyDos

[TheLastColdBeer]

LOL to all. When I was a kid, you leaned a trade or received a degree because nobody wanted to get stuck flipping burgers for minimum wage. Now, that's considered a career choice. You have to laugh, because crying doesn't help.

[mouselad]

It has to do with greedy business owners also. looking out for only themselves while not really caring about the country or world as a whole. like @@little_old_man companies make sure to cut hours so that employees don't reach full time status and they don't have to give them benefits.

 

Some companies do pay fair wages and they are doing excellent. for example costco starts at 11.50/hr , In-N-Out Burger starts at 10.50/hr, Traders Joes average is 13.20 an hour and starts at 9. They have an oppurtunity for 2/hr raise every year. Zappos the online shoe retailer call center employees get paid 16/hr. Ben & Jerry's starts at 15.97 an hour.

 

In my honest opinion no one needs billions of dollars... It is pure greed that is going to be the downfall of this country, and maybe the world.

[PimpedOutPete]

How we do business as a nation has changed.

 

After the Second World War, as the economy grew and prospered, so did income across the board. They say that as the tide rose on the economy, it carried everyone, from the factory workers to the owners. Slowly that began to change in the early 1980's to the point where any economic up turn benefits the highest one percent and very little for the working class.

 

It's a so sobering thought.

[DeemerXI]

It has to do with greedy business owners also. looking out for only themselves while not really caring about the country or world as a whole. like @@little_old_man companies make sure to cut hours so that employees don't reach full time status and they don't have to give them benefits.

 

Some companies do pay fair wages and they are doing excellent. for example costco starts at 11.50/hr , In-N-Out Burger starts at 10.50/hr, Traders Joes average is 13.20 an hour and starts at 9. They have an oppurtunity for 2/hr raise every year. Zappos the online shoe retailer call center employees get paid 16/hr. Ben & Jerry's starts at 15.97 an hour.

 

In my honest opinion no one needs billions of dollars... It is pure greed that is going to be the downfall of this country, and maybe the world.

 

Back to LOM posted a while back.  Fast food/minimum wage jobs are not meant to support the well-being of an individual.  Minimum wage was put in place to protect young people from getting taken advantage of; not to make sure you had enough $$ to survive.  And I may not NEED a billion dollars, but if I earned it, its mine.  Bottom line is that it wouldn't impact the large fast food chains, and it would make people semi-happy for a very short term, then they realize their lifestyle is adjusting to the increased wage and they don't have the discipline to budget or save or educate themselves to move up professionally or in life.  They are then pissed at the man for not providing handouts and want to blame everyone else for their shortcomings.