Arizona minimum wage increase discussion (Phoenix, Yuma: apartments, credit, buy)

[Valley Native]

Poll: Most Arizona voters buy a $12 minimum wage

Proposition 206 will be on the November ballot, which if approved by the majority of voters, will raise the state's minimum wage from the current $8.05 per hour to $12 per hour by 2020. I am highly opposed to this for various reasons, but it seems as though I may be in the minority because a recent poll suggests that the majority of Arizonans would be in favor of this.

Let's hear the pros and cons to raising the minimum wage. I especially would like to hear from the "pro" side as to why they believe that jobs which are largely occupied by unskilled & uneducated people deserve a boost in pay, when many middle class jobs which require at least some skill & education have not seen wage increases of any noteworthiness in many years.

[FirebirdCamaro1220]

Originally Posted by Valley Native

Poll: Most Arizona voters buy a $12 minimum wage

Proposition 206 will be on the November ballot, which if approved by the majority of voters, will raise the state's minimum wage from the current $8.05 per hour to $12 per hour by 2020. I am highly opposed to this for various reasons, but it seems as though I may be in the minority because a recent poll suggests that the majority of Arizonans would be in favor of this.

Let's hear the pros and cons to raising the minimum wage. I especially would like to hear from the "pro" side as to why they believe that jobs which are largely occupied by unskilled & uneducated people deserve a boost in pay, when many middle class jobs which require at least some skill & education have not seen wage increases of any noteworthiness in many years.

Minimum wage increase helps those at the bottom keep up with cost of living. Housing costs at all levels (including craphole apartments) have increased at a higher % than minimum wage has, in 2001 AZ min wage was the federal $5.15/hr and you could get a studio apt for $300/month. Now, AZ min is $8.05/hr, a 56% increase where a studio around here is now $600/month, a 100% increase; this has caused an increase in the need for welfare for people who are working, to top off their ever meager wages. Raising it would prob see a decrease in welfare spending, which I know you are all for

[PhoenixSomeday]

Minimum wage increases are good, but I feel like it's a problem of escalation. Every time the minimum wage goes up, prices for all the important stuff goes up too; namely housing. No easy way to solve this since no one is going to stop worshiping at the altar of the gods of moremoremoremore profit anytime soon. When I worked at a pizza place throughout high school in the mid to late 90s, I saw this all the time. During that time, it seemed like the minimum wage was going up all the time. And every single time it did, a couple of months later we would get a new box of the fold-up menus you put on the tables and the prices were higher by exactly the same amount as the minimum wage. And this was Round Table Pizza, back in 1997 when a large pizza was already $17 to begin with (compare to $5-$6 from most of the garbage pizza places back then). Cost to make was about $2.50.

Even if the prices for everything were to miraculously not go up, hardly anyone ever builds automatic inflation adjustments into the minimum wage (haven't looked at the AZ version, so I don't know if it does). So after a few years we're back at square one anyway and the gap just continues to widen.

As for who has the minimum wage jobs, theory vs reality is a stark contrast. The fantasy of minimum wage jobs is that it's for high school and college kids, and retirees, or bored houseparents. The reality, which will never ever ever ever change, is that the people that work these jobs are doing so because they can't find anything better. Aside from a college education not being the key to financial success anymore, let's be real, logistically - every single person out there can't have a high paying corporate/white collar/whatever job. There just aren't enough of them for the entire working adult populace. Even if there were, someone still has to do the other jobs like man the gas station, work the checkout line at the store, etc. And it's NEVER going to be exclusively, or even majority, of the fantasy demographic of teens and old people.

To address a common thing that comes up, there are other jobs that pay now what the minimum wage is going to be at a later point. So the argument is "Why do you deserve to get paid what I do when what you do is so menial and uneducated?" Wrong question to ask. The right one is why the F*** is someone who is responsible for people's lives only getting paid $10-$12/hour to do it. Same goes for other super-important-and-lots-of-training-and-accountability-but-bizarrely-underpaid jobs out there.

[Diane de Poitiers]

My question is......how would this affect those who of us who work in, say.....city government jobs? Because our contracts/pay are negotiated by the union, and much of that depends on the city's budget.

[madison999]

$4 in 3 years is too much too fast

[FirebirdCamaro1220]

Originally Posted by Diane de Poitiers

My question is......how would this affect those who of us who work in, say.....city government jobs? Because our contracts/pay are negotiated by the union, and much of that depends on the city's budget.

Supposedly union scale is in relation to minimum wage, like a ratio, so if min goes up like 25%, so does the union scale

[FirebirdCamaro1220]

Originally Posted by madison999

$4 in 3 years is too much too fast

I'd say it's too slow. If you make less than about $36k/yr in the valley, you are going to have a very hard time making it without roommates and/or food stamps/ACCHS, and that's for a single person, increase that figure to $52k/yr if kids are involved

[JGMotorsport64]

We have two choices:

1. Keep the minimu wage low so that these workers depend on taxpayer funded benefits to supplement their incomes.
2. Move the minimum wage to a point where they don't rely on taxpayer services.

I'm in favor of employers paying the whole salary so that we don't have to supplement it for them. On the flip side, places like Phoenix and Sedona can absorb these hikes, but what about Eloy, Safford, Yuma, Parker, etc.

The wrong question is why do poor people get a raise when middle class people don't, that's arguing for peanuts.

[teddyearp]

This whole discussion is a two edged sword. I do not have a 'degree', but I do have a lot of knowledge and life experience. When first I moved full time to AZ in 1996-7 I did so in the 'blind'. I acquired a job that started pretty low. But my drive, knowledge and perseverance got my pay just about doubled within less than five years.

When I decided to move to WA to help out my family, I again did so 'blind' and gave and gave my all; my motto was to work like I was worth more, just like I did in AZ. However WA has a much higher min wage. It took over eight years for my pay to reach about 1.5x my starting. Then when I did become a manager of my store I saw first hand how some employees work the minimum wage system. They just perform the minimum since they know that the min wage will give them raises since their performance would not merit it.

I also saw how some would like to manipulate their hours so that they could still qualify for their government benefits instead of trying to excel.

[off topic] I think besides minimun wage (de)regulation, we need to get rid of the Earned Income Credit. I think that is the biggest hidden 'welfare check' we have right now in this county. I cannot tell you how many of my employees manipulated their hours to make sure they would get that huge EIC bonus of near $8k and then just blow it. I worked my arse off as a manager to get my profit sharing bonus (never over $5k after tax) and I appreciated and saved it for real things.[/off topic]

[FirebirdCamaro1220]

Originally Posted by teddyearp

This whole discussion is a two edged sword. I do not have a 'degree', but I do have a lot of knowledge and life experience. When first I moved full time to AZ in 1996-7 I did so in the 'blind'. I acquired a job that started pretty low. But my drive, knowledge and perseverance got my pay just about doubled within less than five years.

When I decided to move to WA to help out my family, I again did so 'blind' and gave and gave my all; my motto was to work like I was worth more, just like I did in AZ. However WA has a much higher min wage. It took over eight years for my pay to reach about 1.5x my starting. Then when I did become a manager of my store I saw first hand how some employees work the minimum wage system. They just perform the minimum since they know that the min wage will give them raises since their performance would not merit it.

I also saw how some would like to manipulate their hours so that they could still qualify for their government benefits instead of trying to excel.

[off topic] I think besides minimun wage (de)regulation, we need to get rid of the Earned Income Credit. I think that is the biggest hidden 'welfare check' we have right now in this county. I cannot tell you how many of my employees manipulated their hours to make sure they would get that huge EIC bonus of near $8k and then just blow it. I worked my arse off as a manager to get my profit sharing bonus (never over $5k after tax) and I appreciated and saved it for real things.[/off topic]

Your little off topic thing about taking what little crumbs the people at the bottom get from them is only going to make things worse; you think it will motivate them to work harder, but it is like syphoning a gas tank and still expecting the car to drive 👎