Question for those pushing a "living wage"

[Noomi]

According to the Economic Policy Institute, the minimum wage in the United States would have been $18.28 in 2013, if the minimum wage kept pace with labor productivity.

That is virtually identical to the wage I earn now.

 

[Gadawg73]

That is some scary shit, making sure everyone has a "living wage".
And as soon as they had it they ask for more each what? 6 months, a year?
Capitalism is NO guarantees.
If you are making the minimum wage now as a full time job either you choose to or you are not well educated and little to no skills or both.

 

[Chris]

The business journal Bloomberg Businessweek points out that the country of Denmark has a minimum pay rate of the equivalent of about $20 an hour, but its business climate is sufficiently healthy for the World Bank to ranked it as the easiest place in Europe to do business in 2011, 2012, and 2013. Denmark is also "among the leading countries in income equality and national happiness." Denmark also had a lower unemployment rate (6.8%) and higher labor participation rate (64.4%) than the United States (7.4%, 63.6% as of September 2013) where the minimum wage is far lower ($7.25).

Minimum wage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Gadawg73]

According to the Economic Policy Institute, the minimum wage in the United States would have been $18.28 in 2013, if the minimum wage kept pace with labor productivity.

Minimum wage does not have a damn thing to do with labor productivity.
Those workers tend to be young and 50% of them are under the age of 25. 21% of them are TEENAGERS. 4% OF THE WORKFORCE.
4% of the nations's workforce that are low and no skilled workers have very little impact on this nation's large labor productivity.
This is getting too easy for me, not seeing any real evidence sports fans.

 

[Gadawg73]

The business journal Bloomberg Businessweek points out that the country of Denmark has a minimum pay rate of the equivalent of about $20 an hour, but its business climate is sufficiently healthy for the World Bank to ranked it as the easiest place in Europe to do business in 2011, 2012, and 2013. Denmark is also "among the leading countries in income equality and national happiness." Denmark also had a lower unemployment rate (6.8%) and higher labor participation rate (64.4%) than the United States (7.4%, 63.6% as of September 2013) where the minimum wage is far lower ($7.25).

Minimum wage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Then move to Denmark.
Delta is ready when you are.

 

[Listening]

We have been raising the minimum wage for 50 years. Each time it has been raised, conservatives have whined that it is bad for business, people will lose jobs, the economy will suffer

Somehow, the market adjusts, life goes on, the sun still rises and low wage people have a little more money in their pocket

And how much has the real value of the minimum wage increased?

It has decreased thanks to our conservative friends

But somehow life goes on and people have a little more money in their pockets.

Funny how that works.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[Listening]

If you paid me shitty wages, I'd do a shitty job.

If you work like you post....you'd be lucky to get s****y wages.

Can you ever argue anything instead of moralizing all the time ?

 

[jc456]

Is the thread's premise that everyone who works should not be able to have some level of housing and food and medical care, or that public benefits are so high that able bodied, sound minded people actually choose not to get the best job they are capable of doing because bendfits are so high?

I'm not arguing that there aren't malingerers, but if anyone doubts the working poor aren't working two or three jobs to support families, they need more education.

So you're saying a sixteen year old should make a living wage to buy a house? Aren't they now under parents medical care? What the heck is your point?

 

[Zombie_Pundit]

Is the thread's premise that everyone who works should not be able to have some level of housing and food and medical care, or that public benefits are so high that able bodied, sound minded people actually choose not to get the best job they are capable of doing because bendfits are so high?

I'm not arguing that there aren't malingerers, but if anyone doubts the working poor aren't working two or three jobs to support families, they need more education.

So you're saying a sixteen year old should make a living wage to buy a house? Aren't they now under parents medical care? What the heck is your point?

Sixteen-year-olds are not necessarily eligible for the federal minimum wage. Sixteen-year-old summer job workers are specifically not eligible for the federal minimum wage.

Are you really assuming that everyone has private medical insurance? You've never heard of medicaid, CHIP or SCHIP?

Your questions belong to the 1990s, and the post to which you are responding was from a month ago, so the original author will most likely not respond.

 

[Zombie_Pundit]

How long will this trend last before we are out of the ability to borrow 25 cents of every dollar government spends from the Chinks?
30 trillion or 40 trillion in debt?

Well how about the business owners stop collecting corporate welfare? How about they stop sending the jobs to China?

I don't and most all small businesses do not.
So stay on topic.
The topic is I have worked 70 hour weeks for 40 years full time. Worked all last weekend, a holiday. Drove old cars to put 3 kids through college. Saved my money and invested my hard work and earnings into my business.
So open your ears:
Where is my minimum wage. I RISK EVERYTHING.
Where is my damn guarantee?
That is the 2nd time I asked you.

Oh, the tragedy of driving an "old car". My goodness how you have suffered. These crosses to which people with money nail themselves are absurd.

You have the same right to a minimum wage that everyone else does. All you have to do is abandon your business and get a minimum wage job. If your business fails and you start slinging slurpees and the local 7-11, you will be glad to know that the local 7-11 is required to pay you a minimum wage such that you may continue to eat food, wear clothes, and have a roof over your head.

When your business fails, and I think it will, and you find yourself sobbing over your fate working a minimum wage job please know that you will be grateful for that "old car" you now speak of so scornfully.

 

[Zombie_Pundit]

Is the thread's premise that everyone who works should not be able to have some level of housing and food and medical care, or that public benefits are so high that able bodied, sound minded people actually choose not to get the best job they are capable of doing because bendfits are so high?

I'm not arguing that there aren't malingerers, but if anyone doubts the working poor aren't working two or three jobs to support families, they need more education.

Yes that is the thread's premise. That people don't need food, housing or clothing... or to be fair,

the thread's premise is more like
"Why do I care if you go hungry? Fuck You! I'm eating!"

Note, I responded to this because someone else had already gravedug this post so I figured... why not. Zombie is as Zombie does. BRAINS!

 

[Gadawg73]

Well how about the business owners stop collecting corporate welfare? How about they stop sending the jobs to China?

I don't and most all small businesses do not.
So stay on topic.
The topic is I have worked 70 hour weeks for 40 years full time. Worked all last weekend, a holiday. Drove old cars to put 3 kids through college. Saved my money and invested my hard work and earnings into my business.
So open your ears:
Where is my minimum wage. I RISK EVERYTHING.
Where is my damn guarantee?
That is the 2nd time I asked you.

Oh, the tragedy of driving an "old car". My goodness how you have suffered. These crosses to which people with money nail themselves are absurd.

You have the same right to a minimum wage that everyone else does. All you have to do is abandon your business and get a minimum wage job. If your business fails and you start slinging slurpees and the local 7-11, you will be glad to know that the local 7-11 is required to pay you a minimum wage such that you may continue to eat food, wear clothes, and have a roof over your head.

When your business fails, and I think it will, and you find yourself sobbing over your fate working a minimum wage job please know that you will be grateful for that "old car" you now speak of so scornfully.

Oh, the tragedy of making minimum wage which is more than you are worth.
Started my business in 1979. Have 2 more to go along with it to equal 3.
Never have worked a minimum wage job ever. They paid us $3 a hour in 1969 to bail hay in the fields.
I have 2 million in the bank working 70 hour weeks and driving a 1999 Toyota with 305,000 miles on it.
Something about a work ethic.
Mexicans make $10 a hour here and ones with a SKILL $15.
Skill? Ever heard of that.
But sharpen up your "do you want fries with that" skill of yours.

 

[Zombie_Pundit]

I don't and most all small businesses do not.
So stay on topic.
The topic is I have worked 70 hour weeks for 40 years full time. Worked all last weekend, a holiday. Drove old cars to put 3 kids through college. Saved my money and invested my hard work and earnings into my business.
So open your ears:
Where is my minimum wage. I RISK EVERYTHING.
Where is my damn guarantee?
That is the 2nd time I asked you.

Oh, the tragedy of driving an "old car". My goodness how you have suffered. These crosses to which people with money nail themselves are absurd.

You have the same right to a minimum wage that everyone else does. All you have to do is abandon your business and get a minimum wage job. If your business fails and you start slinging slurpees and the local 7-11, you will be glad to know that the local 7-11 is required to pay you a minimum wage such that you may continue to eat food, wear clothes, and have a roof over your head.

When your business fails, and I think it will, and you find yourself sobbing over your fate working a minimum wage job please know that you will be grateful for that "old car" you now speak of so scornfully.

Oh, the tragedy of making minimum wage which is more than you are worth.
Started my business in 1979. Have 2 more to go along with it to equal 3.
Never have worked a minimum wage job ever. They paid us $3 a hour in 1969 to bail hay in the fields.
I have 2 million in the bank working 70 hour weeks and driving a 1999 Toyota with 305,000 miles on it.
Something about a work ethic.
Mexicans make $10 a hour here and ones with a SKILL $15.
Skill? Ever heard of that.
But sharpen up your "do you want fries with that" skill of yours.

How original, an appeal to ones own wealth. What an authority you must consider yourself to be. And how tragic that you can still can't afford a new car.
Let's see... 16 in 1969 puts you born around 1953. So you purport to be approximately 61 years old... possibly older.
Wow, a whole 2 million in the bank. I wonder why Forbes has not done an article on you yet. A Bank clerk stuffing the max into a 401k for 40 years may match you.
How to be a 401(k) millionaire - Nov. 11, 2013
If you plan to live out your days bailing hay, I guess that sounds okay. But I suspect you'll be glad to get your SS check once your account is depleted to pay for inevitable health issues. And Medicare. You'll be glad for that too.

It's not the guy behind the counter's fault that you're still eating big macs at 61. My advice to you is to stop blaming low-end workers for your personal failure to achieve anything remotely distinguishable and accept that a working person deserves the basics: three squares, a roof, clothes, etc.

 

[thereisnospoon]

If you paid me shitty wages, I'd do a shitty job.

No...See this is the entitlement mentality of the typical lib.
You work, you are paid at the rate to which YOU AGREED when you took the job.
You agreed to do the job to the best of your ability.
You don't get to cry NO FAIR after the fact.
If I caught you doing a shitty job, you'd be shitty out of work and I would not have any problem replacing you. And that is the reason why low skill labor is paid low wages. Because the supply is greater than the demand for low skill labor.
Often, unions protect these slugs. the ones that do shitty work on purpose because they are all pissy about their pay...
If you want better pay, do better work. Acquire additional skills. And STOP complaining.

 

[Slyhunter]

Right wingers take extreme points of view such as minimum wage covering a family. Nobody ever said it had to. What is wrong with a minimum wage that will support 1 person individually, rent, car, utilities. What is wrong with guaranteeing that every job pays enough so that, that employee doesn't have to rent a cubicle, like they do in Japan, or a cage, like they do in Hong Kong?

 

[thereisnospoon]

You do not have any place to work unless someone has put their life's savings and hard work into the place where the work is.
The liberal is a complete dumb ass on anything business.

You wouldn't make a profit unless you had people willing to work so YOU could put aside several hundred thousand dollars and pay them a pittance.

You have that backward....A business owner cannot turn a profit if he depends upon labor.
Here's an example.
My dad and I had 4 employees for our construction business.
We went through their problems with calling in sick, wanting half of Friday off every week, their vehicle breakdowns and hangovers on Mondays..
So we sat down and looked at what it would do to us if we did most of the work ourselves and when we needed, we'd hire day laborers at half the rate we were paying the whiny pains in the ass.
Once we got done with the job we were doing, we declined to call them in for work anymore.
Yeah, we had to do the work ourselves. So what. We increased our profit and cut paperwork and other duties in HALF.
I have a side business. I do all the the work myself. I do not want employees. They do nothing but create headaches.
Best of all I get to keep ALL of the money I make for MYSELF. I earned it..It's mine.

 

[thereisnospoon]

You wouldn't make a profit unless you had people willing to work so YOU could put aside several hundred thousand dollars and pay them a pittance.

Nope.
Self employed, no employees.
Ever.

Then why are you in this thread?

You don't OWN a business. So why are you in this thread?

 

[thereisnospoon]

Well how about the business owners stop collecting corporate welfare? How about they stop sending the jobs to China?

I don't and most all small businesses do not.
So stay on topic.
The topic is I have worked 70 hour weeks for 40 years full time. Worked all last weekend, a holiday. Drove old cars to put 3 kids through college. Saved my money and invested my hard work and earnings into my business.
So open your ears:
Where is my minimum wage. I RISK EVERYTHING.
Where is my damn guarantee?
That is the 2nd time I asked you.

If your business goes under you can get a job making at least minimum wage. That is your guarantee. The same one everyone else has.

When a business 'goes under', do you really think the owner just walks away?
YOu really think it's just that simple?

 

[thereisnospoon]

Then why are you in this thread?

Why are you in it?

Because I earn what you would call minimum wage and I am outraged that people who do the same work I do in the US are not paid what I know they are worth.

Who the hell are you to determine what labor is 'worth'...
First, you don't own a business. Second, you have no idea what is required to own and operate a business. Third, you don't live here. So it's really none of your business and you have NO RIGHT to an opinion.
Lastly. Who gives a flying fuck if you're outraged. Ask us if we fucking care.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Why are you in this thread when you are not earning minimum wage?

You are paid far more than you earn. So consider yourself extremely fortunate. Because with an attitude like yours, I'd fire your ass faster than you can say Kangaroo.