Stop Raising The Minimum Wage & Stop Whining

Actually if you look at history it is quite the opposite. Inflation causes us to raise minimum wage not the other way around. The fact is I do understand your and lights point I think anyways. If Im reading you right your saying that it sets a value and if there is no minimum wage people would make more money because it doesnt set that minimum value for the less important jobs. Interesting and thought provoking but I have to disagree. Ill disagree on the premise of look at the wealth gap in the fortune 500 companies for example. The execs make on average 500x their normal employees. So you say to yourself is that fair?

I do own a business (as you know Rock) so I do have room to talk on this. I only make around 3x my average employee and I would never ever think about paying anyone who works for me minimum wage. I believe in paying what is called a living wage for my lower end employees. That is $10.00 and hour. $7 and hour you just cant make it in this world its impossible and if more employers had my mindset where you pay your employees well because its those same employees that come back to buy your products (fordism as it is called) then our country would be in a lot better situation than we are in. We do that and then get rid of the fractional reserve system and bring our manufacturing jobs back here WOW we could really become a great power again.

Wow. Quite a few arguments about getting an education and making something of yourself, then you won't have to work for minimum wage.

I will play along. Lets say everyone in the world decided that was the path they were going to take. They work that job at Burger King and maybe another if needed, borrow money for school, etc. Eventually everyone in the world gets educated equally. No man is smarter than another. So then what happens? We still need people to work at all the undesirable crappy jobs. Only difference is now they will have a college education whle they clean the toilets.

The point is we will always need a segment of the population to work jobs that require little training, what everyone assumes and what I disagee with is that we must have a lower class to achieve this. Most people flipping burgers contribute more to society than those making 10 times what they make. Innovation and education need to be rewarded to some degree, but ultimately wages should be determined by the real worth you bring society as whole.

We have the resources to give everyone on earth a typical American middle class or better existence. Only thing that stops this is the chase for more money. The only way it can work is if we have much parity in wages across all lines of work. Money will just be a measure of what you have actually contributed to society based on total social benefit rather than profit. Invent the cure for aids you will be living pretty large. Flip burgers you won't do near as well, but you will be doing much better than you are now, with that same job. If for no other reason then we either pay higher wages or higher taxes to pay for the social programs taht are neccesary because of the low wages.

We have a LOT of philosophers, physicists, doctors, theologians and such as taxi drivers here in finland. In sweden that is a problem as well. There is a certain limit on education you know, you cannot possibly educate everybody so that everybody gains average income. Economy just doesn't work that way. Prices of goods will always match average income in a certain way.

Not that education is bad, everybody should understand importance of it. However, I suppose that doesn't work in other political systems. Our system is social, so goverment wants to reduce spending by ordering a minimum income so that people get more by working instead of just being around. And no, our social security really isn't a paradise except for those who always eat same kind of very cheap food and buy jsut about everything as used.

reply to post by mybigunit

---

This is one of those threads that amazes me. The data on this is crystal clear. It cannot get any clearer. It is simply a fact that when you remove artificial wages the average median wage rises and quartile median wages rise across all sectors. This happens every time its tested in the economic models. The inflation impact works both ways - the justification for raising the minimum wage from the populist brigade is always because of inflation, but in doing so inflation gets raised yet again. Its a cycle.

I do not understand this obsession over CEO pay. Who cares? It is irrelevant to the topic here. CEOs get paid what the market will bear, and look at the fantastical wages they get paid. Just imagine how much better it would if you removed the artificial floor so that the market can compute wages from everyone from the bottom to the top.

You may pay your employees a "living wage" but as a business owner its up to you to do so, not the government. Plus, not all businesses operate on profit margins wide enough to be able to do such a thing. Most employees who get paid minimum wage are in a very specific industry sector for a reason. Unless your business is in in certain service sector industries, paying people above minimum wage is commonplace.

Of course this is true, but economy does not work that way. When people get paid more, prizes will raise because emloyers have to get paid. Profits would not drop, I can assure you of that, and it is not because you can keep people as slaves.



You must realize that this is only a conversation about moral values. Models are familiar for me as well, but I define certain criteria for a standard of living that everybody should have. In an environment, like western countries and some asian countries, where most people have TV, car, lots of clothes and so on clean water and food with a place to live just isn't enough to counter crimes that will raise when everybody else has more.

Yes, it costs, but I don't have to care where I walk alone. Ever.

reply to post by Solarskye

---

Minimum wage is not enough to live on still.

People do not whine and complain when movie stars and CEO's earn the tens of millions of dollars (now come on is anyone really worth that amount of money) but people whine and complain when the people who do the real work, the people who god bless them are there everyday to serve us our McDonald's ( How much does the CEO at McDonald's make?)

You see the corporations are paying a few people at the top hugh salaries and perks while the folks that do the real work get poop.

Do the math, some people are greedy stingy, they want two three four BIG HOMES (watch HGTV) and some people (many are the ones who do the real work in America) can only dream of having a home or have to live in a tiny cracker box.

People do not realize the injustice of it all and keep allowing our system to continue running in a off balance crazy way it's running.

No, I don't resent the "little guy" making more minimum wage, I think the CEO'S and movie stars and everyone else out there making millions should get a wage cut and add it onto the people who do the real work's pay.

But until EVERYONE wakes up and DEMANDS a more fair system of pay, as well as taxing people more fairly, things will continue as they are.

Instead of complaining about minimum wages going up start complaining about the folks making so much money they can't spend it all in several life times. Minimum wage at present is still not enough to live on.



[edit on 26-7-2008 by ofhumandescent]

Half you guys are soc...
Anti progress???
Lets pay our workers $ 2.00 an hour!

every min wage business follows suit--

Good lord...

If anyone gets rid of the minimum wage - I will personally ruin merchendise- cut holes in sleeves- Lay the largest cloggingest craps--

I will make it my mission to raise cost for every business I encounter consistently

unscrew screws - throw a little olive oil on the floor, my mind is running wild...

If I cannot change your minds, it will cost your a$$.

The anti abortion folks will have nothing on me and my gang!

reply to post by ofhumandescent

---

So you support income redistribution ?

On top of being unconstitutional, thats also one of the basic tenets of socialism. Thats what you really want?

reply to post by ALightinDarkness

---

and you tried to say I came on here with an agenda... holly crap! Boy were you proved wrong!

reply to post by ChocoTaco369

---

oh my god, dude...don't buy into this right wing capitalist propaganda bull crap...the economy is tanking because of George Bush and his phoney war and illigal occupation...he has spent trillions of dollars on this and ran up the deficit and billions upon billions of Federal Reserve Notes have been printed up to cover it...our problems ...believe me...our problems are not because of the trivial and miniscual raise in the minimum wage payed out by private companies...

Don't buy into it...too many hard working people have faught hard and died for workers rights to have them poo poooed on like this by folks who don't have your best interest in mind.

and working folks: don't forget to star the posts that stand up for the cause!


[edit on 26-7-2008 by skyshow]

reply to post by skyshow

---

What motivation is there for people to improve themselves if minimum wage is enough to live on?

Hint: None.

Once again...

If you rid the country of the people making minimum wage, the country will be destroyed.

You need these people. You think your food just magically appears on shelves? You think that dollar burger just makes itself? You think that chemical spill in the hospital is sucked up by underpants gnomes? You think that video you just rented just magically appeared on the shelf and then in your video player? Do you think everything is done by magic? You have to believe in magic to think minimum wage workers are a burden.

BTW, I make more then Minimum wage, so really it increasing doesn't do me any good. I just realize I'd starve to death without minimum wage workers.

Before you say "You could hunt or fish or stuff!" Um, yeah, if I shot at an animal it would be a raccoon or a opossum and if I missed, or heck if I hit and the bullet went through, I'd kill someone in another house/apartment. And fish? Ha, no minimum wage workers to put the fishing pole on the shelf for me to buy. And no minimum wage worker to work the register so I can buy my fishing license. And stuff? Yeah, I'll find some dandelion greens to eat, until winter comes, then I guess I'll eat cake. If you don't get the joke, well, can't say much for you.

Also, to the people with the welfare people horror stories, KICK THEM OUT or CALL THE POLICE! If the boyfriends aren't paying rent they're squattors and tresspassing. If they are lying about their addresses you can call the state and they WILL GO TO JAIL! My Momma rented the addition on the house, called a mother in law apartment around here, to two welfare getters. She got pissed that they wouldn't work but sold drugs and stuff to make more money and in the end she waited for them to get in their car to go sell more crap, called the police on them, then had me and a couple friends go through and make sure we got rid of anything illegal they left in the apartment before the police showed up. Both got caught with lots of cocaine and both went to their seperate prisons.

WTF you doing hunting around houses and apartments anyways?

You get all camo'ed up and go hunting in the suburbs or what?

reply to post by ALightinDarkness

---

I want to quote a bit from "A People's History of the United Staes" by Howard Zinn...pp 581. "By the end of the Reagan years, the gap between rich and poor in the United States had grown dramatically. Where in 1980, the chief executive officers (CEOs) of corporations made forty times as much in salary as the average factory worker, by 1989 they were making ninety-three times as much. In the dozen years from 1977 to 1989, the before-tax income of the richest 1 percent rose 77 percent; meanwhile, for the poorest two-fifths of the population either went down 5 percent (at the poorest level) or went up no more than 8.6 percent. And because of favorable changes for the rich in the tax structure, the richest 1 percent in the decade ending in 1990, saw their after-tax income increase 87 percent. In the same period, the after-tax income of the the lower four-fifths of the population either went down 5 percent (at the poorest level) or went up no more than 8.6 percent."

The biggest losses were among the minorities, of course.

Professor Zinn is a historian, playwright, and social activist. This book is by far the best read in terms of non fiction that I have thus far encountered. I urge you to order it today, and read up on the history you didn't read about in public school.

reply to post by skyshow

---

Youre not actually quoting a well known leftist are you?????

You serious?

reply to post by mybigunit

---

Thank you for chiming in...this is nuts...a graduate student who has so much free time (a big hint...um grad. students don't have time to post for hours on end on ATS) to post bogus crap...I know I've been one! The last thing I would do is post arguments on sites like this (even when my altruism was flaming...and he isn't even standing up for a "people's" cause) while working on research, doing class work, teaching, grading papers, doing my thesis, and working my practicum, but the one so named graduate student here these days seems to have all the time in the world to argue with us for free while he supposedly is paying big bucks to learn from others....sound phoney, yeah to me too!




just like how wet pavement causes severe rain storms! ha haa... god it's so transparent!

[edit on 26-7-2008 by skyshow]

reply to post by slackerwire

---

a historian and professor who recieved his Ph.D. from Columbia University, taught at Spelman College and Boston Univeristy, and has been a visiting professor at the University of Paris, and the University of Bologna. actually, and the book is a best seller. Have you read it?

it's all documented...not made up.... how you gonna trash something not made up?

and are you going to risk your own credibility debating the fact that CEO pay is totally eclipsing the working mans? Are you out of your mind? Everyone knows how crooked that thing is...nobody will ever stand behind you if you even dare to debate this!


[edit on 26-7-2008 by skyshow]

[edit on 26-7-2008 by skyshow]

reply to post by skyshow

---

Surely you don't think it's an unbiased source do you?

Can you even admit he is an extreme leftist?

reply to post by slackerwire

---

regardless, the facts stand. debate him on the facts not on his ideology, and I would say he is populist... who cares. It's a freakin' great read! I have a library full of books...hundreds in fact, and I must say this is by far the best book I have read in a while, perhaps ever, in terms of non fiction. Why does this have you so upset? Truth hurt maybe?

I've read bias books of the left before, and of the right (believe it or not) and this is not bias...he backs up his work with factual history...hard to debate documented historical facts.



[edit on 26-7-2008 by skyshow]

reply to post by skyshow

---

The truth? Nope, the truth and I get along just fine.

What is amazing is that someone could be using such an obviously skewed book by an author who does nothing but promote his own agenda as source material.