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Obviously there is a fatal disconnect working in Middle Class America. Upwards of 30 million jobs went away in 10 years. The country only has ~310M people. What percent were working? What impact might the loss of 30M jobs have? Have you wondered about the really bright guy or gal working at your local Home Depot or Lowes? I know personally a few white collar professionals that have been downsized to minimum wage service sector jobs. They will never work a white collar job again. Their former employers will see to it. There are pilots being forced to fly so many hours that they essentially earn minimum wage. Have some freaking empathy some of you! I get that its not you personally behind that 8 Ball, but it could be. Don't bet that it can't. Even if all your ducks are in a row... you could get sick... this is America... get cancer... even a mild case and you are WIPED OUT. You could have the best insurance in the world, your end of things will be more than the average punter on C-D can pay off in a lump sum. HAVE SOME EMPATHY. It could be you in those minimum wage shoes some day.
As a liberal I do have empathy and a desire to move more people into the middle class. The problem is increasing the minimum wage is not a good way to achieve that and, it is in reality, counter productive to that goal. All that will happen is that millions of low paying jobs will disappear and high school and college kids will no longer be able to find part time work for pocket money. They will not be able to get that valuable work experience which can later be parleyed into getting that first post college 40 hour per week career path position.
It's just a fact that some people have low skills or do a job which simply doesn't generate much value added. If you raise the minimum wage then you simply price those low skilled workers (mostly teens and college kids but also some immigrants with limited education and job skills) out of the job market and deny them the opportunity to get experience and upgrade their job skills. That makes it HARDER for them to move into the middle class not easier.
Our goal is the same, more people in the middle class and an improved standard of living, but your method of achieving that simply won't get you where you want to go.
But since according to Obama, if we raise the wage, everything will be good. So if that's the case, raise it. And if you're making minimum wage, you don't qualify for welfare or food stamps. I think that's a fair trade.
Of course you do.
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Originally Posted by ambient
So what do these people do? Just die?
See above.
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Originally Posted by Spaten_Drinker
If you can't get more than minimum wage, then you should have paid more attention in school.
Certainly! Get a different brain, too! Be born with more money to afford enough food to concentrate in school! Acquire new talents from God! Go for it, you can do it! There's nothing in their DNA holding back anyone in America! We're all born smart, talented, healthy and entrepeneurial, so everyone should be able to invent Facebook and stuff.
Obviously there is a fatal disconnect working in Middle Class America. Upwards of 30 million jobs went away in 10 years. The country only has ~310M people. What percent were working? What impact might the loss of 30M jobs have? Have you wondered about the really bright guy or gal working at your local Home Depot or Lowes? I know personally a few white collar professionals that have been downsized to minimum wage service sector jobs. They will never work a white collar job again. Their former employers will see to it. There are pilots being forced to fly so many hours that they essentially earn minimum wage. Have some freaking empathy some of you! I get that its not you personally behind that 8 Ball, but it could be. Don't bet that it can't. Even if all your ducks are in a row... you could get sick... this is America... get cancer... even a mild case and you are WIPED OUT. You could have the best insurance in the world, your end of things will be more than the average punter on C-D can pay off in a lump sum. HAVE SOME EMPATHY. It could be you in those minimum wage shoes some day.
H
They simply don't believe it, won't believe it, cannot conceive of it. There is no such thing as bad luck or a crappy economy. It's OUR fault for not being born smart enough and having exactly the right skills and talents that the economy currently values. Clearly you haven't been reading here at C-D for very long.
This is very much the same thing that America went through several decades ago. In many areas of the world they are just having their industrial revolutions. 75 years from now China's working conditions will abhor the thought of sweatshops, but no society has moved from agrarian to technology based without going through an industrial phase. I don't think most Americans know how amazing we have it today.
The difference is that having acheived so much, America wants to return to the pre-industrial labor paradigm albeit with the post industrial profit scheme. Wage and benefit cuts for airline pilots, really? Flight attendants? Air traffic controllers? Just to name a few... there aren't many labor sectors where some way of getting the same amount of productivity with a lower wage payout isn't at work. What's up with that? Its one thing to be in a post bubble enterprise but airline profits are booming. Why are pilots being busted back to 1970's salary levels? Why should they like it? Why should any American be overjoyed to work 55 hours a week, no pension, no healthcare, no family leave... NO JOB SECURITY. Have you really thought this through?
Well last night the dumbass called for raising the minimum wage to a "livable wage".
Where do these morons get the notion that minimum wage is meant to be a living wage? It is an ENTRY level wage, it's not something meant to support your family on.
Minimum wage is for low to no skilled workers, nothing more nothing less. This is just another tactic designed to increase the costs incurred by business owners and will result on a net loss of jobs if this jackass gets his way.
Obama is living in fantasy land. Where did he graduate from? Did he even pass economics?
As a liberal I do have empathy and a desire to move more people into the middle class. The problem is increasing the minimum wage is not a good way to achieve that and, it is in reality, counter productive to that goal. All that will happen is that millions of low paying jobs will disappear and high school and college kids will no longer be able to find part time work for pocket money. They will not be able to get that valuable work experience which can later be parleyed into getting that first post college 40 hour per week career path position.
You're way too late. Unless you live in a fairytown your young people already don't work... unless they are Hispanic. White kids don't work until they graduate college. No one will hire them except places where its simply all white people. Don't even ask about Blacks. Unemployment of blacks 16 - 21 is 98% vs 45% for whites. So lets can it about the minimum wage hurting young people. They already are hurt. The people working in fast food are not teens. This is what I mean about "disconnect". Don't you go out? Don't you see what is happening to the country??
I'm white and only in my mid 30's and I worked as a teen and in college as did everyone I knew (who were mostly white). I see lots of young white teens working here but most of them would likely become unemployed if the minimum wage got pushed up high enough. Of course, the first ones to lose their jobs would be minorities so once again your proposed solution would only make matters worse.
A far better solution is free college education and free continuing adult education so workers can upgrade their job skills and there by qualify themselves for better paying jobs. Trying to make it so the bag boy gets paid an absurdly high rate just results in the bag boy getting fired and everything becoming self check out. I'd rather not price those low skilled workers out of the job market.
Last edited by Think4Yourself; 02-13-2013 at 01:52 PM..
Why is that my business, instead of his? Whose idea was it that he would raise a family without having a job that pays enough to raise a family?
Why? Who says that?
Liberals, that's who. Not normal people who believe that people should pull their own weight, and help each other only on the occasions when they need help.
As things are in our world, taxpayers pay complimentary income to those who work for minimum wage. That is a fact of life. Same as you and I pay for illegals that need medical care. Same as we pay for undocumented immigrants' children to go to school.
(The problem with minimum wage is that is becomes irrelevant when some are willing to work for less. And there are plenty of them).
If you can't get more than minimum wage, then you should have paid more attention in school.
And stayed in school.
I love hearing some leaders yelling about . "We need jobs for our people" when most of their people never even finished high school, then wonder why no one will hire them or can only gey "burger flipper jobs and can't move up.
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