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The $15 will create a huge differential between Seattle and the surrounding burbs (@$9.32).
What I think will happen is that many jobs that can be contracted (cleaning, security, landscaping) will be outsourced to the burbs. There will be some relocation of businesses, and increased automation. There will be some jobs like gas station clerk that cannot be outsourced or automated, and those people will be the lucky ones. However, the $15 jobs will go mostly to people with connections now, not people walking in off the street.
Politically speaking, this looks like virtually a done deal to me. Seattle is going to have a $15 min wage. The mayor's plan is to phase it in over several years, but the leader of the $15 proponents (Kshama Sawant) wants $15 starting in Jan, 2015.
As a democrat and strong supporter of what most people consider to be "liberal policies" I must admit I cannot say I am fully on board with this $15 an hour for minimum wage push.
Fast food workers across the country are striking for higher pay, and the mayor of Seattle is pushing hard to raise the minimum wage in the city to $15 an hour. That seems way too high for unskilled labor. I do agree that the minimum wage SHOULD be raised, I'm personally on board with Obama's proposal of about $10-$11 an hour. Minimum wage SHOULD be a living wage, that is what FDR said when it was first passed back in the 1930's. However, it should not be a way to live well or comfortably.
Minimum wage work is primarily for people who have little to no education and very little in the way of skills or laboring. It's mostly for high school kids or people who chose not to pursue a career path. There are a LOT of skilled jobs and jobs that require education that don't pay $15 an hour. Hell, teaching positions in most states pay a salary of around 30-35k annually, which is around $15-$19 an hour, so now we are proposing to pay minimum wage workers as much as a teacher with a bachelor's degree and a much more stressful job who can't get paid for overtime?
Also, I'm not sure how people think that more than doubling the minimum wage won't cause an increase in prices. Sure, you're giving more spending power to the poorer class, and that will likely mean that these people are less dependent on government programs, so that'd be a boost to the government's budget, but it would likely be at the cost of the economy. Businesses won't be able to afford paying people that much money, and if they are forced to pay that much they will then be forced to lay off a lot of their workforce.
Am I way out of line for thinking this way as a democrat? Am I that misinformed? Or am I just more of a realist? I don't know, I really don't understand how or why people think burger flippers are entitled to make over $30,000 a year. Maybe I'm not as liberal as I thought and people claim me to be.
You are thinking things through instead of jumping on the liberal bandwagon. Keep it up and you may be able to see past it all (a mind of your own). Keep doing that and you may be on your way to getting somewhere in life.
Now keep thinking and look at all the money that is taken from your pay. Which is more valuable, a raise or getting to keep more of the money you already made?
Yeh, businesses who can't afford $15/hour dont have the right to exist
Not if your business model is making you $8hr for clay pots....doesn't sound like an expandable business without relying on the government to subsidize the workers.
That is exactly what I feel. It will punish a lot of other people who actually pay to learn a specialized set of skills or education who currently make around $15 an hour because then they will be grouped with the large swath of people who have no skills or education. Unless somehow all of these other businesses decide to raise the wages of their workers to way above $15 an hour just because it's the minimum wage. This seems like a really bad idea.
Exactly
Keep thinking ColdAilment. Remember, businesses don't pick money off trees and they will just raise prices. As prices increase the people who are more skilled will not get raises and their money will be less valuable. More people in poverty.
You may be a social liberal but starting to think like a conservative. Me, I believe that we have to be financially healthy first before we can help others.
So we should have working poor make less than what they already do, this will help working Americans how?
The ones working, not worth $15, will be making less. Labor is a commodity, and when any commodity gets too expensive, corps utilize alternatives. The alternative may be reduced staff at restaurants, for instance, as tablets reduce the time needed by humans per table, and that time drives headcount. Now you'll notice the girl getting a big raise over this, but not the girl who lost her job.due to the tablet.
That is exactly what I feel. It will punish a lot of other people who actually pay to learn a specialized set of skills or education who currently make around $15 an hour because then they will be grouped with the large swath of people who have no skills or education. Unless somehow all of these other businesses decide to raise the wages of their workers to way above $15 an hour just because it's the minimum wage. This seems like a really bad idea.
I do believe $7.25 is too low, but $15 an hour is FAR too high. $9-$10 an hour is more realistic with maybe $11 an hour or so in the really expensive areas. I'm not sure, but $15 an hour in a podunk town in Mississippi will be living pretty comfortably, and most businesses there cannot afford to pay out those wages, not even close.
Where do you come up with all these numbers? If you think you can divine the correct price (wage rate is just the price of labor) why not do it with other prices too? Why not minimum (or maximum) prices for food, drink, housing, TV's, automobiles, etc?
So we should have working poor make less than what they already do, this will help working Americans how?
tell them to teach their children not to make the same mistakes they did
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