pay check to pay check (minimum wage, salary, illegal, healthcare)

[baystater]

Living paycheck to paycheck gets harder - Yahoo! News (broken link)

[katzenfreund]

Good article.
I live in New England and we have oil heat, so I am dreading the coming heating season. Plus the cost of gas and higher cost of food...the wages are not going up to keep pace with cost of living and haven't for a while now.

[TriMT7]

::Puts on my Libertarian/Republican mask::

"If you don't want to live paycheck to paycheck, get a better job. We have plenty of illegals willing to do your job."

[katzenfreund]

LOL, Trimt7....

We don't live paycheck to paycheck. But the rising costs are preventing us from saving more for retirement. I am a big saver! :-)

[pghquest]

Originally Posted by TriMT7

::Puts on my Libertarian/Republican mask::

haha..

Not sure why people dont understand that wages and income levels are going down for the poor, because of the lack or need to make more and because the government is willing to fill in the "need" of the citizens, removing the "need" to make more.

As I stated in another posting, one reason is the lack of a need for unions. When the government is paying the bills that you cant pay, there is no need for unions to be created, and no need to look for another job.

As pro-business as I am.. I'm utterly amazed that the anti-union proposals being put out by the Democrats. All these proposals do is encourage businesses to keep lowering wages, and keep milking the employees.

[Nothing12]

that is their problem for not putting all their money in Oil Stocks when Bush was announced President back in 2000

God Bless President Bush and God Bless America

[Nothing12]

a Republican will read this article and think it is disgusting these people are getting a free hand out

[jabogitlu]

I honestly don't see how families with car payments, house payments, and all the other things that go with them are even surviving. It's hard enough for me as a single individual with a paid-for car (which has enabled me to get Internet!). I basically live paycheck to paycheck, too.

Luckily, mine is temporary -- well, at least, I hope it will be. *mumbles things about poor college kid*

[TriMT7]

Originally Posted by pghquest

haha..

Not sure why people dont understand that wages and income levels are going down for the poor, because of the lack or need to make more and because the government is willing to fill in the "need" of the citizens, removing the "need" to make more.

I don't understand your point.

Originally Posted by pghquest

As I stated in another posting, one reason is the lack of a need for unions. When the government is paying the bills that you cant pay, there is no need for unions to be created, and no need to look for another job.

The government certainly does not "pay the bills" for poor people. Women on welfare can only collect welfare for X amount of years. It isn't the 70s and 80s anymore.

The reason why unions don't work anymore is because business can simply pick up and move offshore.

Global capitalism has destroyed all utopian visions of capitalist paradise in America.

Originally Posted by pghquest

As pro-business as I am.. I'm utterly amazed that the anti-union proposals being put out by the Democrats. All these proposals do is encourage businesses to keep lowering wages, and keep milking the employees.

Like?

[pghquest]

Originally Posted by TriMT7

I don't understand your point.

The government certainly does not "pay the bills" for poor people. Women on welfare can only collect welfare for X amount of years. It isn't the 70s and 80s anymore.

The reason why unions don't work anymore is because business can simply pick up and move offshore.

Global capitalism has destroyed all utopian visions of capitalist paradise in America.

Like?

You cant possibly not understand that with every increase in the minimum wage and every new governmental entitlement, now proposed healthcare for those making up to $80K a year etc, minimizes the benefits of unions.

Very real scenario we are facing
Employee makes $8 an hour.
Employee receives $2 benefits per hour.
Company pays $1 per hour to manage benefit packages

Government raises minimum wage to say $9
Government states that every employee making $9 per hour receives medical benefits.

Results
Company raises salary to $9 and removes benefits.
Company saves $4160 per employee.

Where does this $4160 go? Right into the upper managers pockets, or company stock holders due to increased profit margins.
Employers taxes go down, less costs, less expenses on benefit packages.
Employees taxes go up, due to making more.

Tell me who benefited more? The employee who lost $1 per hour + additional taxes or the company who saved $2 per hour + tax savings. The middle and upper management in this company would receive huge bonuses for saving their company millions, while the employees get poorer, making even less.

Rich get richer, while the poor get poorer, the whole time the government is helping them and union benefits are being washed away. What will a union ask for? Benefits when all of the employees are getting free benefits from the government?

I have seen people making $20K a year, turn down their yearly pay raise at the company they worked for because it would mean they would no longer qualify for free daycare. Where is the incentive to make more, to grow, to work to get promoted, to negotiage better benefits, better wages when the government actually encourages some people not to.