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If you make $11 an hour, you're not supposed to have your own apartment. People having their own apartments like we expect today is extremely rare throughout the course of human history.
What gave you the idea to make up that gem? Exactly what do you Google to see if apartments were the norm throughout humanity? Are you trying to say individuals don't have their own apartment?
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Originally Posted by yowps3
The disparity between CEOs, CFOs, the board etc is still huge.
As it should be. they worked harder, stayed in school longer and have a better skillset.
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Originally Posted by yowps3
USA is a disgrace to humanity.
What have you done to make it better? Feel free to leave.
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Originally Posted by Rakin
Anyone past the age of 21 should have enough skills to find a better paying job than just MW.
Exactly...it was intended to be a minimum while your career is at a minimum.
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Originally Posted by Rakin
Stay in school, don't do drugs, get some skills and you will find a job to make a living. You just may need to move out of places like Detroit to do it.
Stay in school yes, and don't forget to keep your legs crossed and your pecker in your pants if you aren't prepared to have a child and often be relegated to MW forever. However, I don't think you need to avoid drugs. Many, many leaders of today did drugs when younger. Its not an automatic sentence to poverty like the prior habits are.
Notice how close in pay with other retailers are. WalMart is not paying much if any different than other retail stores. Retail has never been known to pay very high.
I realize that, but I don't really shop at the other huge corporate retailers either. The only big store I buy anything from on a regular basis is Costco.
I can't remember the last time I set foot in one of these places. I'm not really into the American past time of charging cheap Chinese crap onto credit cards. That cheap Chinese crap isn't so cheap when you have to replace it every 6 months. It's not just the pay either, it's the terrible working conditions.
The truth is, if they paid the wages some are demanding, all of them would go broke and out of business. Retail is too competitive and operate on insufficient income to pay what people want them to pay
Low-pay employees aren't always cheap when you factor everything in. These companies with a revolving door of minimum wage mercenaries often spend a fortune on hiring and training costs and over staffing because their employees aren't efficient and aren't good at their jobs. Or they result in lost business from poor customer service.
I work at a manufacturing facility, for example, and for us it's cheaper in the long run to pay guys a little more and keep them there. They're a lot more productive, reliable, knowledgeable, and don't get injured nearly as much. They're not spending a bunch of time watching videos or filling out paper work. They can be moved around to different jobs without having to be trained. They don't cause quality issues that lose us business. They can be given more autonomy and don't have to be micromanaged. They provide valuable insight on ways to improve efficiency and safety. They don't damage the building, mobile equipment, or other company's trailers resulting in expensive repairs.
In the past when we had high turnover we would get killed on worker's comp costs with costs for some employees running well into six figures. You could hire a guy in at $11 instead of paying $15 to keep another guy, and in the first month the $11 guy gets his foot ran over with a forklift and ends up costing you $600,000. Suddenly the $15 guy wasn't so expensive after all.
In college I worked at a restaurant and 3 good employees could run the whole line on a busy shift, for crappy employees it would take 5. When we had new people working the line the whole kitchen would often completely go to crap and the managers would end up comping hundreds and hundreds of dollars worth of food for angry customers. Not to mention all the future lost business from people having poor experiences , many of which never say anything. They just don't come back, and they tell their friends about it. We had a lot of really expensive $8 an hour employees when you factor in the true costs.
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Originally Posted by oldtrader
If minimum wage went to $15 an hour, it would kick this country into high enough inflation within a year, the same percentage of minimum wage earners would be back to living in poverty. Plus the rest of the employees around the country would be back to paying the same percentage of their income for the same goods in stores.
IMO, minimum wage should be up to each individual state, there should be no federal minimum wage. Even then, cost of living can vary quite a lot within a state, so the state would have to set it towards the low end and then more expensive cities within each state could set a higher rate if they chose. $15 is most definitely way too high for a federal minimum wage either way.
An increase in minimum wage would most definitely benefit minimum wage workers though, at least those that kept their job. Their spending power would rise quite a bit more than inflation. If minimum wage increased 30%, prices wouldn't increase 30% because wages may only be 5 or 10% of the price. If you increase minimum wage 30% prices might rise, say, 5%. What happens with minimum wage increases is wage compression. Minimum wage workers get a little closer to middle class and the middle class workers get a little closer to minimum wage.
Last edited by EugeneOnegin; 02-27-2014 at 04:29 PM..
Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not allowed
I've seen other figures a little lower (~160%). I think the figures for San Francisco vary a lot since housing has increased massively in the last year or two, much more so than most places. So if you get a figure from 2011, 2012, or 2013 it probably makes a substantial difference.
Here's an article I read today about teachers being priced out of the housing market in California despite having the highest salary of any state:
I live in the Bay Area. And in one if the dangerous cities (I live in a nice neighborhood).
One of my close friends is a teacher. And she is married to a software engineer. So they are doing ok. They can't afford a home near work. It doesn't matter if they ever find something relatively reasonable priced near their targets but they sell to all cash buyers in a week. They don't have $800k lying around to get a 1300 square foot place that needs renovations.
I am making more than that average teachers salary. I can't find a place in my budget/target ($300k) that meets my pretty short list of requirements. There are around 2-5 condos on the market at a given time in my budget that meet my list, most short sales, and they go for over asking to cash buyers. It is 20-30% more to live in the city I work in.
I live in the Bay Area. And in one if the dangerous cities (I live in a nice neighborhood).
One of my close friends is a teacher. And she is married to a software engineer. So they are doing ok. They can't afford a home near work. It doesn't matter if they ever find something relatively reasonable priced near their targets but they sell to all cash buyers in a week. They don't have $800k lying around to get a 1300 square foot place that needs renovations.
I am making more than that average teachers salary. I can't find a place in my budget/target ($300k) that meets my pretty short list of requirements. There are around 2-5 condos on the market at a given time in my budget that meet my list, most short sales, and they go for over asking to cash buyers. It is 20-30% more to live in the city I work in.
So obviously we have problems.
No kidding, it's bad when the combined salaries of a teacher and a software engineer can't afford a house.
In college I worked at a restaurant and 3 good employees could run the whole line on a busy shift, for crappy employees it would take 5. When we had new people working the line the whole kitchen would often completely go to crap and the managers would end up comping hundreds and hundreds of dollars worth of food for angry customers. Not to mention all the future lost business from people having poor experiences , many of which never say anything. They just don't come back, and they tell their friends about it. We had a lot of really expensive $8 an hour employees when you factor in the true costs.
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I wouldn't mid seeing restaurants with a staff of 5 telling their $8 per hour staff, "If you can be so productive, we can get by with 3, I'll pay the best 3 $13 per hour, and use the other $1 for the unemployment insurance going up as I will fire the other 2 employees".
That would be a fair way to provide higher wages for better work.
No kidding, it's bad when the combined salaries of a teacher and a software engineer can't afford a house.
Right? Just about the only people I know that seem to be able to buy houses have $200k+ combined incomes. And a little help from their parents for a down payment. Or they have been making $100k plus for a decade so they were able to save up $200k for a down payment (or got lucky with stock or options). And they aren't rolling in mansions. Totally modest homes. ***
***i know a few other people who managed to score short sales. And another 6-figure income single who bought her first place in her mid-40s.
Just to put things into perspective to those that assume that minimum wages are only for those not intending to live off it. The first profession posted is definitely true. My friend's husband is a cargo and small passenger plane pilot (non military). He only does it because of his love for flying and definitely makes relatively small earnings. They as a couple accept that.
I can see a lot of other hard working people in similar situations... living off the minimum wages of the area. I personally am still on the fence on it but my gut tells me that we should leave it up for the individual states to decide rather than adjust minimum wage at the federal level.
What gave you the idea to make up that gem? Exactly what do you Google to see if apartments were the norm throughout humanity? Are you trying to say individuals don't have their own apartment?
Duh, of course people have their own apartments. But if you know anything about history, you'll know people in the past did not live as luxuriously as we do today. My point is large percentages of people living alone in their own apartments or houses in the large percentages we have today is one of those luxuries that many assume is a necessity.
No kidding, it's bad when the combined salaries of a teacher and a software engineer can't afford a house.
That scenario is not all that unusual in the Bay Area. You really need 2 software engineer type salaries to afford a house here if you don't want to be house poor.
Last edited by mysticaltyger; 02-28-2014 at 11:16 PM..
That scenario is not all that unusual in the Bay Area. You really need 2 software engineer type salaries to afford a house here if you don't want to be house poor.
And you will only be able to afford a modest house.....
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