202 replies to this topic

[Eagles]

 

 

Is anyone demanding an instantaneous shift to a $15 minimum wage? 

 

 

When fast-food workers staged protests this summer to demand the federal minimum wage be raised from $7.25 to $15 an hour,

Uhh.. no one except the people that are demanding it....

[Bone]

Uhh.. no one except the people that are demanding it....

 

instantaneous

ˌɪnst(ə)nˈteɪnɪəs/

adjective

 

1. 1.

   occurring or done instantly.

[Eagles]

Just take a look at your article again. Does it not clearly point how much of a fail raising the minimum wage would be? 

My apologies that the article does not say instantaneously.. but when you riot you expect things to be done immediately or in the short foreseeable future. Not a year or two down the road. 

[Bone]

Just take a look at your article again. Does it not clearly point how much of a fail raising the minimum wage would be? 

 

Did you read past the second paragraph?

[Mishelle]

As far as the iPhone goes... i personally know a few (maybe 50) people that are in their late twenties and have worked minimum wage jobs their whole lives. I would estimate that 20 of them have iPhones... and about 40 of them have another version of a smartphone

Once a new iPhone comes out the old ones become immediately obsolete and the price drops significantly. I could get a 4s for $50. It's a lot cheaper to pay a one time payment of $50 for the next couple years than to pay recurring bills such as rent, food, bills, clothes for your kids etc.

California raised our minimum wage back in June and unemployment has continued going down.

Edited by Mishelle, 18 September 2014 - 06:49 AM.

[Frizzle]

Okay, rant- For those fast food employees striking for $15 an hour, let’s do some math. At $15 an hour Johnny Fry-Boy would make $31,200 annually. An E1 (private) in the military makes $18,378. An E5 (sergeant) with 8 years of service only makes $35,067 annually. So you’re telling me, Sally McBurgerflipper, that you deserve as much as those kids getting shot at, deploying for months in hostile environments, and putting their collective asses on the line every day protecting your unskilled butt?! Here’s the deal, Baconator, you are working in a job designed for a kid in high school who is learning how to work and earning enough for gas, and hanging out with their equally goofy high school pals. If you have chosen this as your life long profession, you have failed.

Let's just forget the fact that the armed forces provide free accommodation, heating, water, food, electricity, furnishings, technically and academically useful courses as well as a wage then yeah?

[Eagles]

Of course I did. Its telling me that the people working these minimum wages jobs should be teenage kids, not adults for a full-time salary. I don't understand how these adults cannot be anymore qualified than high schools students. Criminal record? Past drug abuse records? Seems to me people like this ruined them lives themselves. I have minimal sympathy for them

 

 

California raised our minimum wage back in June and unemployment has continued going down. 

California has a much higher cost of living than the majority of the United States

 

 

academically useful courses

Wow! The topic of education came up. It is relatively inexpensive to get an online degree nowadays...

Edited by Neopetsaddict123, 18 September 2014 - 06:54 AM.

[Mishelle]

Of course I did. Its telling me that the people working these minimum wages jobs should be teenage kids, not adults for a full-time salary. I don't understand how these adults cannot be anymore qualified than high schools students. Criminal record? Past drug abuse records? Seems to me people like this ruined them lives themselves. I have minimal sympathy for them

California has a much higher cost of living than the majority of the United States

But the cost of living is rising everywhere while wages are remaining stagnant everywhere.

[Eagles]

 

 

 while wages are remaining stagnant everywhere. 

clearly not everywhere

[Adam]

@Psyduck

 

Okay, rant- For those fast food employees striking for $15 an hour, let’s do some math. At $15 an hour Johnny Fry-Boy would make $31,200 annually. An  E1 (private) in the military makes $18,378. An E5 (sergeant) with 8 years of service only makes $35,067 annually. So you’re telling me, Sally McBurgerflipper, that you deserve as much as those kids getting shot at, deploying for months in hostile environments, and putting their collective asses on the line every day protecting your unskilled butt?! Here’s the deal, Baconator, you are working in a job designed for a kid in high school who is learning how to work and earning enough for gas, and hanging out with their equally goofy high school pals. If you have chosen this as your life long profession, you have failed. 

 

Amen! Sorry McBurgerflipper, but if you make $15 an hour I better be getting a pretty huge pay hike as well. Every day I'm on the flight-line is another day that I'm exposed to countless amounts of hazmat, and other occupational safety hazards that could kill me. I do, however, disagree that not everyone who works in fast food has chosen that profession; sometimes jobs are hard to find, and sometimes you have to settle for less than what is deserved and what is needed.

[Eagles]

I have to go to class. I will be back later. Keep debating and lets get more people involved!

[Mishelle]

clearly not everywhere

http://www.motherjon...ica-chart-graph

Clearly everywhere. It's been a trend nationwide for decades.

[Bone]

Of course I did. Its telling me that the people working these minimum wages jobs should be teenage kids, not adults for a full-time salary. I don't understand how these adults cannot be anymore qualified than high schools students. Criminal record? Past drug abuse records? Seems to me people like this ruined them lives themselves. I have minimal sympathy for them

California has a much higher cost of living than the majority of the United States

Wow! The topic of education came up. It is relatively inexpensive to get an online degree nowadays...

 

So...you're unable to be empathetic towards people who you think are below you, to the point where you don't think they deserve livable wages? Even if they don't have the knowledge or tools to move into a "better" career?

[Waser Lave]

what is preventing people from getting a better education, or attending free seminars, or other various programs? This might be somewhat irrelevant, but i had a summer job doing landscaping for $15 an hour. Some of my friends had jobs at McDonalds working for minimum wage. There were job opening in the landscaping business.. but they did not want to take them due to "too much work". Don't you think to some extent that poor people sometimes just do not want to work harder to get somewhere in life?

Is it the cost of education that is preventing these minimum wage workers from getting an education? I'm just a college student sitting here trying to understand. Don't get me wrong i am passionate in my views but I am more than open to hear the other side and perhaps change my opinion. I just need compelling evidence as to why the poor cannot do ANYTHING to better themselves and instead must rely on the government to force businesses to pay them more

 

On this point (since I haven't had time to read the posts made since this morning), after all these millions of low income people go away and get an education as you suggest they should, where are all the higher paying jobs coming from for them to fill now they're better qualified? That's such a ridiculously naive argument that it makes me question if it's just you trolling... I'll play along anyway.

 

As anybody who knows a little about economics or economic demographics knows, the most basic way of looking at a developed economy in terms of structure would be a pyramid shape with lots of lower paid jobs at the base and narrowing as the jobs get better paid. In reality, the structure of the economic demographics of most developed countries is more akin to that of a particularly fat-bottomed girl with a huge, wobbly mass of low paid jobs at the bottom, a slight bump in the middle for middle management etc and then not much happening up top. If all these millions of low paid people did get a better education (as you seem to think that's the panacea to all their problems) all you'll end up with is having millions of people still in those low paid jobs but now they've got a piece of paper saying how qualified they are plus a load of debt they'll be unlikely to pay off any time soon. It's something that many governments have tried in the last few decades and it's going to cause big problems in the future for a lot of them. As an example, in the UK over the last couple of decades there's been a big push to get more young, working class people to go to university and in order to do that the government has underwritten students loans for them which they require to be repaid on variable terms once the person is earning at least £21,000 a year (previously £15,000). As a result around half of young people now go to university (the numbers might have changed since I last checked) but there aren't enough graduate-level jobs to go around so a large proportion of them are still working in low paid jobs (and therefore less likely to repay their student loans to the government in the coming decades). Their economic circumstance isn't a result of their lack of hard work or endeavour, it's a result of the fact that we're still recovering from the biggest recession in generations and the subsequent restructuring that's taking place in the economy.

[Frizzle]

Wow! The topic of education came up. It is relatively inexpensive to get an online degree nowadays...

Wow! I didn't know you could engineering, construction, plumbing, electrician, driving courses and construction work online?

@Psyduck
Amen! Sorry McBurgerflipper, but if you make $15 an hour I better be getting a pretty huge pay hike as well. Every day I'm on the flight-line is another day that I'm exposed to countless amounts of hazmat, and other occupational safety hazards that could kill me. I do, however, disagree that not everyone who works in fast food has chosen that profession; sometimes jobs are hard to find, and sometimes you have to settle for less than what is deserved and what is needed.

You already receive minimum wage and benefits, what more do you want for a job that requires no prerequisites?

[Psyduck]

You already receive minimum wage and benefits, what more do you want for a job that requires no prerequisites?

 

If you look at the military health benefits, you would be surprised to find out that we are actually just get the bare minimum. You bring up a valid point that they give us housing and utilities, but that's only if you live on post. Most families like to get away from that, and we only receive so much for our Basic Housing Allowance. We end up paying a lot more to just maintain our homes and to keep up with everything.

 

Those academic courses you talk about? A basic engineering course or a basic infantry course only gets you so far in the cilivian world. The civilian world doesn't give two shits about military courses at all, because military courses focus on cheap alternatives whereas civilians look to build for sustainability.  And I'm sure @Adam could back me up on that.

[Bee]

Wow! The topic of education came up. It is relatively inexpensive to get an online degree nowadays...

 

I'll jump in here. Just a skim of American online courses on Google shows that for someone earning minimum wage, these courses will look expensive. Add in matriculation fees, travel expenses for courses that have labs, internet fees, a decent computer, and they all add up.

 

I can't value in dollars, so I'll use the equivalent in pounds. Someone earning minimum wage in America earns about £8000 a year. The cost of an 3 credit undergraduate degree online is roughly about £920. That's at least 11.5% of a year's wages going towards an education that doesn't entirely ensure a better job at the end, as Waser has said. I'm not sure my hypothetical someone thinks it's worth it.

[Frizzle]

If you look at the military health benefits, you would be surprised to find out that we are actually just get the bare minimum. You bring up a valid point that they give us housing and utilities, but that's only if you live on post. Most families like to get away from that, and we only receive so much for our Basic Housing Allowance. We end up paying a lot more to just maintain our homes and to keep up with everything.

Those academic courses you talk about? A basic engineering course or a basic infantry course only gets you so far in the cilivian world. The civilian world doesn't give two shits about military courses at all, because military courses focus on cheap alternatives whereas civilians look to build for sustainability. And I'm sure @Adam could back me up on that.

Well that seems to be your governments fault. Our basic cannon fodder get around $28k - $30k a year as well as housing, food, utilities etc... There on just above minimum wage.

On top of that, most courses earned in the military are easily transferrable skills. Electrical courses, engineering, transporting/driving courses. There's a direct transfer scheme in place so after you do your x amount of years you can leave and do a skilled labour job.

I just don't buy into the whole "I'm risking my arse everyday to keep you safe" bullshit line.

For 1. Most squaddies who use that are barely out of basic training. They know nothing of danger.

2. You chose that job. I guarantee ive been in more dangerous situations that the majority of troops. I don't bitch (other than to colleagues, it gets your through the day and it's the epitome of british culture). I just don't think I'm a hero either even though I've literally saved lives, been in riots, been stabbed etc...

3. It's incomparble to the topic at hand anyway. Which is providing the basic living wages to the less fortunate of our society. I guess I'm just a huge commie socialist for wanting people to be safe, educated and warm.

[Eagles]

 

So...you're unable to be empathetic towards people who you think are below you, to the point where you don't think they deserve livable wages? Even if they don't have the knowledge or tools to move into a "better" career?

 

Since when was minimum wage not livable? Millions of people are living just fine off a minimum wage salary. They might not have the best living conditions, or best foods, but they are sustaining a family and have food to eat. Where do you see that minimum wage is not a livable wage?

[Waser Lave]

Since when was minimum wage not livable? Millions of people are living just fine off a minimum wage salary. They might not have the best living conditions, or best foods, but they are sustaining a family and have food to eat. Where do you see that minimum wage is not a livable wage?

 

London. There's no way you could afford to live on just the minimum wage in London, it wouldn't even cover accommodation.

[Eagles]

We are not talking about London... we're talking about America. We're talking about raising the minimum wage in America

I should have rephrased my question. I meant where in America

[Waser Lave]

We are not talking about London... we're talking about America. We're talking about raising the minimum wage in America

 

Substitute it for any major American city then... The point is the same.

[Eagles]

So you're telling me everyone in everyone major city that has a minimum wage job is not receiving livable wages? Bullshit

[Kaddict]

Substitute it for any major American city then... The point is the same.

That isn't the case though. There are plenty of cities in America where $7/hr is enough. In big urban cities, it isn't close, but that is why those cities have higher minimum wage. 

 

EDIT: I just noticed the word major in your post. But major cities already have higher minimum wages. It is the smaller ones that would be screwed

Edited by Kaddict, 18 September 2014 - 08:26 AM.

[Rocket]

Since when was minimum wage not livable? Millions of people are living just fine off a minimum wage salary. They might not have the best living conditions, or best foods, but they are sustaining a family and have food to eat. Where do you see that minimum wage is not a livable wage?

minimum wage is not really liveable in any major city. Major cities being where the cost of living is higher than most.

 

I can tell you, when I lived in Hawaii (where the cost of living is near the top in the nation) and minimum wage is low, there is no way any one person can live on their own there. It's why you see families living 3 generations in a home, no one can afford to have electricity, rent, food, etc on a single minimum wage job working 40 hours a week. You'd be living in your car (if you're lucky enough to have one). The only good thing about Hawaii was it was warm, so the homeless didn't have to worry about freezing to death at night.