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Minimum Wage jobs are NOT meant to be Primary Household Income jobs but a secondary job, teen-ager job, or a "pin money" job(I like that term).
If you want to compare income levels in different parts of the world with completely different economic models you need to compare expenses too... $8.50 vs $20.00 is meaningless in-and-of-itself.
There can be drastic differences in the cost of living within different parts of the US, this is something the job search counselor in college told us to keep in mind when looking at job offers.
you arent supposed to pay off student loans and raise a family on minimum wage. its supposed to be for the least skilled worker. you dont want minimum wage? develop more skills.
No, the government is quite insistent that those who earn minimum wage repay their student loans, and often garnish the minimum wages of those who do not. Plus they tack on a substantial 'fee' for their 'services'.
Minimum Wage jobs are NOT meant to be Primary Household Income jobs but a secondary job, teen-ager job, or a "pin money" job(I like that term).
If you want to compare income levels in different parts of the world with completely different economic models you need to compare expenses too... $8.50 vs $20.00 is meaningless in-and-of-itself.
There can be drastic differences in the cost of living within different parts of the US, this is something the job search counselor in college told us to keep in mind when looking at job offers.
Sorry, Charlie. Half of all minimum wage workers in US are over the age of 25.
the government is quite insistent that those who earn minimum wage repay their student loans, and often garnish the minimum wages of those who do not. Plus they tack on a substantial 'fee' for their 'services'.
You're describing a voluntary impoverishment.
This has NOTHING to do with whether what minimum a wage pay is intended for.
And yet people are graduating, not finding work in their chosen field, and having to pay off their student loans and raise a family on minimum wage. Which of course, they will never be able to live long enough to pay it all off. The America dream, or nightmare, depending on how you look at it.
A few years ago I calculated that at my current monthly payment it would take me 41 years to repay my student loans, except I'll be dead before then. Without the hefty fee the government is charging me for garnishment services, the loans would be paid off in under 10 years.
The Treasury is making a considerable sum of money off student loan defaulters.
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Originally Posted by Osito Actually teenaged and young adult unemployment is pretty high due to all of the adults presently stuck in minimum wage and entry-level jobs.
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Originally Posted by move4ward
About 5% of workers make the minimum wage. Most people don't stay in those jobs.
Half of all minimum wage workers are over the age of 25.
It will mean people being let go because they are not more productive than they cost! (people for work for others do not think of this)
WHY should someone get more just for doing the minimum for a length of time?
One of the guys I hired, went from $10/hour to $13/hour in 6ish months.
He was willing to work, worked hard, and learned new skills.
One pay raise was given when it was seen, 2 others he asked for, made a case for, and got.
If a worker is worth the money, he will be paid it to stay on.
Minimum wage jobs often do not have benchmarks by which workers can make a case for a raise. It's not as if they get yearly performance evaluations or reviews.
At my previous job, two dozen employees were all paid within a 20-cent range (max was 20 cents above minimum wage).
Do you care to argue with a straight face that the worth of every single worker was within such a narrow range?
So as the title suggests. Why is the minimum wage in USA so low? And another thing half the populations works for like $10/Hr or less. I think it's one of the problem in USA which has hurt the economy to some extent ever since the year 1990 when nominal prices (forget real prices as they'll paint a worst picture) started to outpace wages which have stagnated.
Like most issues, there are two sides to this one. One one hand, we'll have the conservatives bringing up good points such as, the minimum wage being intended as a starting point for young people rather than a lifetime wage, that businesses will have to increase prices as wages increase, and that people have a responsibility to improve their skill sets if they want higher wages.
On the other hand, we'll have the liberals bringing up equally good points such as, more money in the hands of consumers will benefit the whole economy, sub living wage incomes put additional demand on the taxpayers via increased need for social programs, and the idea that some companies exploit workers in this economy by offering a low wage knowing desperate people will take it.
The way I see it, all of these are true to some degree, but they are just symptoms of the real problem. The real problem is that we have eliminated far too many jobs where regular people could reasonably expect to start at the bottom and work their way up to a decent standard of living. We have allowed entire industries to be off-shored to China and other low cost parts of the world instead of keeping them here. It isn't just manufacturing or factory jobs anymore either. The white collar world has been affected by this too. Technology, finance, and customer support type jobs have been especially hard hit in the last decade.
What we're left with is a service based economy. Most service jobs don't pay a whole lot and we have more and more people trying to get these jobs.
Equally important is that we have a currency which simply isn't worth anything. Inflation goes up while the real value of our money goes down. This hurts working people more than anything else IMHO.
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