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Because if a job was worth X 50 years ago, it should be worth X today. Otherwise people do more and more for less and less. This is called "racing to the bottom" and does more harm than good. As the last 35 years or so have shown.
I said an answer based on something objective, not your personal feelings. Just because you believe something was worth "X" 50 years ago, doesn't mean it's worth the same today. That's ludicrous and borderline ignorant. 50 years ago, a VCR cost in inflation adjusted dollars about $200. Should VCR's sell for $200 today? That's such an idiotic piece of logic.
Now, let's talk about facts here (instead of your feelings).
Since the minimum wage was instituted, when has it ever provided a realistic living wage?
Oh that's right. Never. Ever. Nearly 97% of minimum wage earners qualify for some form of federal or state public assistance. So how the f*** is it a "minimum wage" if the government still needs to help you survive?!
If you bleeding heart liberals really want to talk about providing a real usable income to low wage earners, then let's be realistic, a minimum wage isn't the answer, and never has been as history has shown.
Any job is worth what the person hiring is willing to pay. Anything above that is an artificial support.
Well the city of Seattle is saying they are worth no less than $15. Based on the COL in Seattle, that isn't considered artificial support, that is just considered reality.
Since the minimum wage was instituted, when has it ever provided a realistic living wage?
Oh that's right. Never. Ever. Nearly 97% of minimum wage earners qualify for some form of federal or state public assistance. So how the f*** is it a "minimum wage" if the government still needs to help you survive?!
You are wrong.
I didn't want to type this all over again, so I copied from a previous post I made:
************************************************** ***************************
The last time I made minimum wage was back in the late 1960s, when it was $1.75/hr and I was in high school.
Just think, from 1967 when minimum wage was $1.75 to 2014, when it is $7.25 (I think). There must have been a few raises in the minimum wage over that period of time. Did our economy fall apart each and every time?
After I married in 1969, I believe the minimum wage had gone up to $1.95/hr. I remember going to the grocery store to buy a week's worth of food for myself and husband. I paid $20 for that week of food and it included a few steaks.
Our apartment rent was $70/month.
Without taxes being taken out, the $1.95 wage brought in $312/month. Say taxes were $50/month, so that would make take-home $262/month.
Food: $80/month
Rent: $70/month
equals $150 for the basics; food and shelter.
That still left $112/month for miscellaneous things. Utilities and such.
And even enough to SAVE a little every month.
(did I mention that my husband worked; I didn't at that time)
Now at the current $7.25/hr minimum wage the gross monthly would be $1,160. Taxes? No clue. Let's say $200/month.
That leaves $960/month for food and shelter. In the Northeast at least, a couple would be hard-pressed to find a safe, decent apartment for less than $800/month. Maybe they can share an apartment. So, $400/month for shelter. That leaves $560/month for all the rest.
However, not everyone can share a place to live, or find a suitable room-mate, so it's back up to $800/month, leaving $160/mo for food and utilities.
It just doesn't compute; it doesn't compare AT ALL with the minimum wage of the 1960s.
A dishwasher deserves exactly what the market says he is worth. Just like a carpenter, plumber, doctor and lawyer.
Which is why a full capitalism system doesn't work to well. When unemployment is high, jobs are basically worth very little. People shouldn't be paid pennies on the dollar just because of high unemployment. That makes the situation worse for those that are unemployed and those that are underpaid.
There is nothing wrong with an area setting a minimum, unless you are a conservative who thinks their employer would never pay them less than what they are making now.
Well the city of Seattle is saying they are worth no less than $15. Based on the COL in Seattle, that isn't considered artificial support, that is just considered reality.
The City of Seattle, not its businesses.
Yes, another "feelings" based argument. The goto tactic of the bleeding heart liberal.
Ask Detroit what happens when you listen to "people's feelings" instead of the market.
I didn't want to type this all over again, so I copied from a previous post I made:
************************************************** ***************************
The last time I made minimum wage was back in the late 1960s, when it was $1.75/hr and I was in high school.
Just think, from 1967 when minimum wage was $1.75 to 2014, when it is $7.25 (I think). There must have been a few raises in the minimum wage over that period of time. Did our economy fall apart each and every time?
After I married in 1969, I believe the minimum wage had gone up to $1.95/hr. I remember going to the grocery store to buy a week's worth of food for myself and husband. I paid $20 for that week of food and it included a few steaks.
Our apartment rent was $70/month.
Without taxes being taken out, the $1.95 wage brought in $312/month. Say taxes were $50/month, so that would make take-home $262/month.
Food: $80/month
Rent: $70/month
equals $150 for the basics; food and shelter.
That still left $112/month for miscellaneous things. Utilities and such.
And even enough to SAVE a little every month.
(did I mention that my husband worked; I didn't at that time)
Now at the current $7.25/hr minimum wage the gross monthly would be $1,160. Taxes? No clue. Let's say $200/month.
That leaves $960/month for food and shelter. In the Northeast at least, a couple would be hard-pressed to find a safe, decent apartment for less than $800/month. Maybe they can share an apartment. So, $400/month for shelter. That leaves $560/month for all the rest.
However, not everyone can share a place to live, or find a suitable room-mate, so it's back up to $800/month, leaving $160/mo for food and utilities.
It just doesn't compute; it doesn't compare AT ALL with the minimum wage of the 1960s.
So the minimum wage according to your personal experience did work back in the 60s.
LOL
Have you heard of globalization? That sort of blows everything you just said into tiny, smoldering, pieces Mrs. 1960.
Yes, another "feelings" based argument. The goto tactic of the bleeding heart liberal.
Ask Detroit what happens when you listen to "people's feelings" instead of the market.
And your bleeding heart is telling you people should be paid however an employer "feels" even if that is only a dollar a day. Why is a minimum so hard for you guys to grasp?
And what does Detroit have to do with this? Did they raise their minimum wage before their economy tanked? If you are gonna use Detroit in an argument, at least use it correctly.
Only a right-wing sock puppet could somehow compare a $15 minimum wage to "entitled people wanting to date hot women." There's simply no comparison unless it is "wanting more than you've earned," which quite frankly happens on both sides of the political aisle.
Let's not forget that the red states have a higher poverty rate than blue ones AND take more money from the Federal government than they receive.
So, if we're going to talk about "hand-outs," how about we stop pouring money down the rat-holes of the Deep South, where hordes of angry Tea Party hypocrites suck up the Federal dollars while "patriotically" flying their Confederate flags and calling for an end to the very government that provides them with hand-outs. Oh, but that's right - they are only hand-outs when minorities get them...
Yes, another "feelings" based argument. The goto tactic of the bleeding heart liberal.
Ask Detroit what happens when you listen to "people's feelings" instead of the market.
Detroit's failure has nothing to do with "feelings". They didn't have a diversified economy and as the auto industry started to decline Detroit suffered.
And your bleeding heart is telling you people should be paid however an employer "feels" even if that is only a dollar a day. Why is a minimum so hard for you guys to grasp?
And what does Detroit have to do with this? Did they raise their minimum wage before their economy tanked? If you are gonna use Detroit in an argument, at least use it correctly.
The market dictates what a job is worth, the end. Anything else (minimum wage, subsidies, union contracts, etc) is an artificial support that either reduces the supply of jobs, or causes companies to look elsewhere to conduct business.
If you don't know what "Detroit" has to do with this, you're simply proving how uneducated you are about the modern globalized economy. Detroit is the epitome of what can happen to jobs where wages are artificially inflated (in this case by Unions). Those jobs are gone and will never come back, all because "people's feelings" determined that someone pressing metal parts for cars should make $25 an hour and get a huge retirement package.
Seriously, go read a few books. If you're going to be a liberal and try to form arguments based on things like "why a minimum wage should exist", at least be educated about the history of American industry.
Recently the liberals got a $15 minimum wage approved in Seattle. Now any dishwasher, or french fry cook can make $15 an hour, and more if they work over time.
What sort of entitlement do you have to have to believe that the job market is wrong about french fry cooks, and that they really deserve $15 an hour?
Is it the same type of entitlement that makes young men like Elliot Rodgers and Seung Hui-Cho believe that they "deserve" to have sex with hot blonde women?
I believe so. This is a dangerous attitude to be teaching to the youth of this country and as long as liberals keep pushing it, it will cost many, many lives.
The minimum wage is fairly popular across political demographics. Clearly conservative elected officials who exist to serve the interests of business are opposed, but the majority of self identified conservatives do support a minimum wage.
What I don't get a about your perspective is it's blindness to reality.
We live in a world in which politics in awash in money from rich people. In which Congress people and the a President as well as Governors and Mayors hold private meetings with business leaders be they local, state wide or national to here those people's thoughts giving them access in ways that regular people don't get.
Rich people go to government officials all the time asking for this or that and this or that often times are regulation or tax law that makes them millions of dollars and conservatives don't consider that an entitlement mentality that is destroying the nation.
Yet when poor or working class people who rarely meet with government officials and go to the government for help, then that's an entitlement mentality which is destroying the nation.
And those two young men were mentality disturbed and feeling entitled to women is all about sexism.
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