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Here is the thing, i dont know how it is in your neck of the wods but here in central CA for a single person, even earning 12 an hour is woefully inadaquate. At that wage you can not have even a shabby car to drive and not even a mediocre place to live and pay electric, utilities ect and gas for work, shopping ect. Everyone deserves a livable wage if they want to work.
At the current min wage here in CA 8.00 per hour you have no chance of living on your own and having a car ect. What seems to have happened is there has ben an insidiouse restructuring of skilled labour wages so that you see everyone from concrete workers to carpenters who once made a prevailing wage of 23 to 35 per hour making ten or eleven in desperation to make any money at all. This seems to be the way things are going to stay.
That may seem like alot, but it realy isnt. 23 34 per hour is a good livable wage allowing you to live a medium style life. Take into account the rise of gas, higher prices for everything and you will see that any min wage today is just laughable. What we are going to is some kind of capatalistic fuedual caste system where the low wage workers..(the majority) have NO chance to break free and earn better income, they are trapped by the elite few into a life of near poverty or poverty wages while being controled by corporate america.
The min wage is set so that companies don't go below it.
A company can always pay more. There's no law preventing them from giving starting salaries of $12/hour. But as long as they have people willing to work for min wage then they will continue offering it.
When no one shows up to apply for that min wage job then they would offer more to get workers but I don't see that happening.
Why do you want the Fedgov to "fix" this for you ?
I feel shame for you people who want the value of your labor to be dictated by some bureaucrat.
So you'd be happy to return to the days of slavery, where people are paid $1 an hour because that's what the market decides they're worth? Meanwhile, the CEO continues to pay himself more per year than most people earn in a lifetime.
So you'd be happy to return to the days of slavery, where people are paid $1 an hour because that's what the market decides they're worth? Meanwhile, the CEO continues to pay himself more per year than most people earn in a lifetime.
Slavery is illegal.
Do you make minimum wage now?
If no, why not? (hint: because your skill set and the demand for it, dictates your pay, not the "greed" of a CEO)
There should not be a federal or state minimum wage.
The employers will not dictate one either.
The free market always finds the correct wage for the value of a job.
That what they said in the South 150 years ago." The free market always finds the correct wage for the value of a job " =zero. After all free trade is free. Now fair trade.......
That what they said in the South 150 years ago." The free market always finds the correct wage for the value of a job " =zero. After all free trade is free. Now fair trade.......
But if you have no one showing up to apply for those low wage jobs and you need workers then you'd up the starting salary to attract them..yes ?
As long as people agree to work for what you are willing to pay then there is a market for that labor.
That worker then has no "right" to cry that they don't make enough.
They applied and were willing to work for that amount.
Slavery is illegal.
Do you make minimum wage now?
If no, why not? (hint: because your skill set and the demand for it, dictates your pay, not the "greed" of a CEO)
That's where the market fails though. It dictates that a CEO is worth 300 times more than the average person and that someone busting their arse in a warehouse is barely worth minimum wage, despite the fact that without warehouse workers, the company would not function. The bar for paying construction workers and plumbers as an example has been set too low by the market.
For those unable to influence the free market (most of us), the market will always dictate that the lower the better, to maximise profits. Human beings are subject to being taken advantage of, whereas it's harder to nickel and dime (as you say) other businesses.
Minimums are needed to prevent expiration. Any honest day's work deserves the bare minimum of a living wage. Anything below that is abuse and exploitation of human beings.
I voted for the first option - "no minimum wage." BUT, I do not agree that it should be entirely an employer's or company's decision. I support state minimum wage laws, though I wouldn't support increases in the minimum wage in my state.
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