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This is what I'm hearing you say, please do tell me if I'm wrong. Your saying, in a nutshell, that we shouldn't have to work that many hours to be able to afford what we want.
Just wanting to understand more. Thanks!
Stripping down a conversation to a pithy statement like this eliminates all nuance, and nuances are important. Plus, your statement is inherently misleading.
Was rodent objecting to working those hours because of her wants, or her needs? Is our society and the associated laws structured appropriately that people have equal, or at least appropriate, access to resources and opportunities? Do we value labor as much as capital, or do we place too much emphasis on one of the other? Does our tax structure unfairly penalize one sector of society or another? Do we have any rights because we are members of this society? Does a reasonable amount of government regulation benefit all?
I would argue that if people have to work 80 hours a week to provide basic food, clothing, shelter and education/training we have structural issues in our economic system
This is different if somebody needs to work 80 hours because they want things above and beyond basic food/clothing/shelter/education/training.
<$15 hour is basically the market saying you are not worth the resources to keep alive ie have food clothing and shelter. So the market does its work and enough people die so that there is enough loss of labor supply to force wages to levels where people can survive. Do we really want to let the market correct itself that way?
Or think of it like this. A ship wrecked onto a deserted island. Fortunately there is enough food for everyone. Except it is decided that one person should get 90% of the food, more than he could ever eat and everyone else gets 1% not enough to sustain themselves. That is basically what is happening with capitalism right now.
Agreed.
The minimum SHOULD provide the bare necessities of life. But currently it does not.
McDonald'sput out a rudimentary budget showing how employees "could live on their minimum wage jobs ".
Guess what was prominently missing? HEAT OR A/C COSTS.!!!! are you trying to tell us they should freeze in the cold climates and swelter in the hot ones?
Most minimum wage people around here have more than one job and work 60 hour weeks. Sure, any idiot cam flip burgers or stock shelves, but should they be denied a life? Don't you EAT at restaurants? Don't you shop retail? Don't you utilize the services they provide? If there were no restaurants and no retail grocery stores, are you preparex to grow your own food and slaughter your own animals? THAT'S what will happen if people refused to work for minimum wage.
Not everyone is cut out for college, not everyone can be an astronaut, either.
I have long said minimum wage SHOULD be a tirered system. Thoss under 18 get bare minimum, most live at home and have their food and shelter climate covered.
Then those 18-21 should get a higher minimum wage. Some are college and some are on their own.
Then those over 21 get a third higher tier of minimum as they should be on their own.
That would keep the fat cats happy, and give some people a wage they can live with.
I'm a hotel front desk clerk, a basic minimum wage job. It takes 3 weeks of training just to learn the computer system. Then it takes about 3 months to uncover all billing and payment options and learn those on the computer, on your own. Does that warrant a little better than minimum? When you check in, you get it matters. Especially if your company is paying for your room!!!
THERE IS a,lot of skills going into retail equipment operation these,days. No longer is it just slap a price on it and use an adding machine to tally your purchases. I remember when we went computer point of sale systems in the 80s, boy was there lots and lots of training on how to use the systems!
So minimum wage jobs are not without high-tech solutions designed by someone making sic figures or more.
A chain is only as good as the weak link. The weak link in our economy IS the minimum wage jobs. Shouldn't we STRENGTHEN IT instead of CONDEMNING it???
Stripping down a conversation to a pithy statement like this eliminates all nuance, and nuances are important. Plus, your statement is inherently misleading.
Was rodent objecting to working those hours because of her wants, or her needs? Is our society and the associated laws structured appropriately that people have equal, or at least appropriate, access to resources and opportunities? Do we value labor as much as capital, or do we place too much emphasis on one of the other? Does our tax structure unfairly penalize one sector of society or another? Do we have any rights because we are members of this society? Does a reasonable amount of government regulation benefit all?
I would argue that if people have to work 80 hours a week to provide basic food, clothing, shelter and education/training we have structural issues in our economic system
This is different if somebody needs to work 80 hours because they want things above and beyond basic food/clothing/shelter/education/training.
That is why I asked, to get clarification of what rodent was meaning. Without seeing the person, hearing their voice, many times what is texted or written can be misleading.
As far as your multiple questions: In order
I don't know, that's why I asked.
Yes, I do believe so.
Depends on the situation, some business' are capital intensive while others are labor intensive.
Yes, our tax structure does unfairly penalize one sector over another. They are called tax brackets.
Yes, everyone has a right, but not an obligation.
A "reasonable" amount does favor all. But reasonable is extremely vague and weak.
I disagree completely. At certain times of our life we don't have the education nor the experience to only work 40 hrs and make as much as someone who is well educated and has many years of experience. Has nothing to do with the structure of our economic system. It's the structure of the individual, not the whole.
Yes, that is true. But education and training is not a basic needed to live. Nor is a cell phone, car, etc.
This is what I'm hearing you say, please do tell me if I'm wrong. Your saying, in a nutshell, that we shouldn't have to work that many hours to be able to afford what we want.
Just wanting to understand more. Thanks!
Straight up no. I'm saying no one should have to work that many hours his entire life to get the things they need to have their basic necessities met.
And those basic necessities should be met by a minimum wage job at 40 hours a week. Food, shelter, healthcare. Those are the basics for everyone. Other needs may come up as time goes by. For instance, I may be able to take a bus to work, but someone else might need a car. I was fine with a landline phone at home, someone else's job requires them to have a cellphone. Those are needs that come up as you go along and whether a minimum wage should cover them depends a lot on the circumstances.
I'm telling you, you can't sit back and decide on a life plan if you're fighting the wolf at your door every day (not to mention you can't get out the front door to do anything either). If you can back the wolf off for a while and take a respite, you can start to make plans for the future. When you're not worrying about expenses every day and robbing Peter to pay Paul, you start worrying less about today and thinking more about tomorrow. And isn't that the goal everyone should have? To think about tomorrow?
Straight up no. I'm saying no one should have to work that many hours his entire life to get the things they need to have their basic necessities met.
And those basic necessities should be met by a minimum wage job at 40 hours a week. Food, shelter, healthcare. Those are the basics for everyone. Other needs may come up as time goes by. For instance, I may be able to take a bus to work, but someone else might need a car. I was fine with a landline phone at home, someone else's job requires them to have a cellphone. Those are needs that come up as you go along and whether a minimum wage should cover them depends a lot on the circumstances.
I'm telling you, you can't sit back and decide on a life plan if you're fighting the wolf at your door every day (not to mention you can't get out the front door to do anything either). If you can back the wolf off for a while and take a respite, you can start to make plans for the future. When you're not worrying about expenses every day and robbing Peter to pay Paul, you start worrying less about today and thinking more about tomorrow. And isn't that the goal everyone should have? To think about tomorrow?
Yes, I agree to do what you need to do to get to where you can think about tomorrow. My point is, I'm not going to blame or rely on anyone else to do that for me. I've got to do it myself. I'm not going to expect others to make less money so my rent is cheaper, or that my wage is higher. I don't want to rely on someone else or the gov't to "help" me out. If I don't have what I need, I find a way to earn it.
This is fine if all you want to do is supplement your paycheck. But do really want to work 60 and 80 hours a week for the rest of your life just to survive? Do we really expect people to do that? And what about their health? We already complain because of the costs of health care coming out of our pockets for people who are obese or who smoke, so why don't we complain when people have to work until they drop dead from exhaustion and all the medical problems they face before that happens?
That is a good point, but it will fall on deaf ears.
Yes, I agree to do what you need to do to get to where you can think about tomorrow. My point is, I'm not going to blame or rely on anyone else to do that for me. I've got to do it myself. I'm not going to expect others to make less money so my rent is cheaper, or that my wage is higher. I don't want to rely on someone else or the gov't to "help" me out. If I don't have what I need, I find a way to earn it.
Although this attitude makes for great slogans, this is such a simplistic view of the world that it is unworkable.
First, nobody can do it entirely on their own.
Let’s take education. To have a functioning, technological society we need a certain level of education, and that costs money. It costs about $10,000/Student a year for operating expenses for K-12, and if you really want to pay your way, you would need to pay an additional amount to pay for the bond debt service required to build the schools. Call it $15k a year, all inclusive. Higher ed is a bit more expensive, once you back out state support, because it requires more equipment and more highly trained educators.
How many first graders can come up with $15,000? Sure, you can argue that the parents should pay, but that doesn’t really help. How many young couples can pay $30,000 a year, assuming 2 kids?
Your simplistic pay-for-yourself system requires that people pay a crippling amount for basic education before they possess the skills to earn any of the money to do that.
Education and training are a societal need, and a societal investment that is best spread across everybody.
You could arbitrarily draw the line between K-12 and higher-ed, but that is foolish too. Now you have an investment of $180,000 in a kid to get them out of high school, but you make college/trade school so expensive that they are unable to do it, therefore are unable to really contribute as a tax paying member of society.
A libertarian, Randian, right-wing conservative political philosophy inevitably results in a small number of people with inherited wealth completely dominating a larger underclass of uneducated, unskilled rabble who are prevented from ever contributing to society or having decent lives.
That is both immoral, as well as impractical and unworkable.
It is far better to provide people with the tools to invest in themselves in terms of education, and of course the means to feed and cloth themselves. In my mind, the best way to do this is free, or nearly free, education/training while at the same time allowing people to earn enough to pay for basics. I am not sure that $15/hour is the right figure. Maybe the right figure is $11, maybe it is $17. It certainly isn’t $8 or whatever fed minwage is at the moment.
Yes, I agree to do what you need to do to get to where you can think about tomorrow. My point is, I'm not going to blame or rely on anyone else to do that for me. I've got to do it myself. I'm not going to expect others to make less money so my rent is cheaper, or that my wage is higher. I don't want to rely on someone else or the gov't to "help" me out. If I don't have what I need, I find a way to earn it.
Well, there's ways and ways to think about that. What if you won the lottery? That's money you didn't exactly earn, yet would you turn down 2 million dollars if it meant you could retire sooner, open your own business, or send your kids to college?
Likewise, if you were in an end of the world situation and you had to decide to compromise your ideals or die, which would you do? Or less extreme, would you take government help if it meant your kids would eat?
There's the pragmatic approach as well. If you're going to medical school to be a doctor, would you go to school full time, work part-time and live in subsidized housing so you could get through school faster? Or would you rather work full time, pay full rent, and only be able to go to school part time so you weren't relying on the government for help?
If you get through medical school faster, you can start helping people sooner, sometimes years sooner. That's a lot of people you could be helping by taking help yourself.
We all set our standards and we all decide at which point we'll give on them. I'm in subsidized housing now and this isn't a deal breaker for me because I knew it was a stepping stone to getting a place of my own that I couldn't achieve any other way. Yet I quit a good paying job once after the training period was over because I decided I couldn't and wouldn't hassle people to pay debts they owed the way we were expected to harass them. That created a lot of hardship, some of which I'm still living with, but I've never regretted it.
The thing is, it's great to say you wouldn't do this or you would do that. But if someone else is taking a different approach, say taking food stamps so they can eat or Section 8 housing so they can get off the street, that doesn't mean they're doing the wrong thing any more than you are. I just think you need to have a little more compassion for people who are caught up in these situations. Maybe talk to them and learn their stories. And remember, hind sight is 20/20 and no matter how much people talk about previous "bad decisions", there is no way at all to go back in time and change those decisions. All you can deal with is what's happening now and in the future.
The minimum SHOULD provide the bare necessities of life. But currently it does not.
McDonald'sput out a rudimentary budget showing how employees "could live on their minimum wage jobs ".
Guess what was prominently missing? HEAT OR A/C COSTS.!!!! are you trying to tell us they should freeze in the cold climates and swelter in the hot ones?
Most minimum wage people around here have more than one job and work 60 hour weeks. Sure, any idiot cam flip burgers or stock shelves, but should they be denied a life? Don't you EAT at restaurants? Don't you shop retail? Don't you utilize the services they provide? If there were no restaurants and no retail grocery stores, are you preparex to grow your own food and slaughter your own animals? THAT'S what will happen if people refused to work for minimum wage.
Not everyone is cut out for college, not everyone can be an astronaut, either.
I have long said minimum wage SHOULD be a tirered system. Thoss under 18 get bare minimum, most live at home and have their food and shelter climate covered.
Then those 18-21 should get a higher minimum wage. Some are college and some are on their own.
Then those over 21 get a third higher tier of minimum as they should be on their own.
That would keep the fat cats happy, and give some people a wage they can live with.
I'm a hotel front desk clerk, a basic minimum wage job. It takes 3 weeks of training just to learn the computer system. Then it takes about 3 months to uncover all billing and payment options and learn those on the computer, on your own. Does that warrant a little better than minimum? When you check in, you get it matters. Especially if your company is paying for your room!!!
THERE IS a,lot of skills going into retail equipment operation these,days. No longer is it just slap a price on it and use an adding machine to tally your purchases. I remember when we went computer point of sale systems in the 80s, boy was there lots and lots of training on how to use the systems!
So minimum wage jobs are not without high-tech solutions designed by someone making sic figures or more.
A chain is only as good as the weak link. The weak link in our economy IS the minimum wage jobs. Shouldn't we STRENGTHEN IT instead of CONDEMNING it???
Think people....especially the next time you EAT.
You should organize and bargain for better wages. You have a better chance of getting a raise and better benefits that way than depending on politicians to pass legislation within the next 20 years.
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