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No person working a full-time job should live in poverty in a first-world country. That's just simply unacceptable. We're better than that.
Having said that, a $15/hour minimum seems rather arbitrary and illogical. There are simply too many variations in cost of living around the country to establish one standard wage. Wages should be decided locally, tailored to the cost of living in any particular area.
Nobody lives in poverty in USA. As per any world standard, everybody in USA is fabulously rich.
The poorest of the poor in USA have food, running fresh water, AC, often a car and go to to schools or hospitals for free. That is kind of luxury most people in the world don't have.
Sweden does not have a minimum wage. Instead most jobs are unionized, and the union, with its professional negotiators, obtains a decent wage for workers.
Swedish liberals are much smarter than American liberals.
I’m a dumb American liberal, and I agree that the Swedish strategy is probably better. The cost of living varies too much to have one arbitrary minimum wage.
Private sector unions have done a lot of good both here and in other developed countries.
Work conditions would still be unimaginably bad if it weren't for unions.
I agree to a certain extent. The problem is unions have also made it next to impossible for employers to get rid of underperformers. This is fine and all for a while. But over time, the underperformers start to build up their numbers and you end up with a bunch of underperformers that will do the absolute minimum amount of work they could get away with.
I'm not saying we should be heartless regarding people who can't do the work properly.
I lead a team of engineers. A few years back, I was given a guy to incorporate into my team. My boss asked me to take him in as a favor. Why? My team would make it the 4th team for him. He got kicked out of the previous 3 teams. When he started working in my project, I started to see why he got kicked out of the other 3 projects. The guy had no common sense. He couldn't do the most simple calculations on his own. His work needed constant revisions. I had him for about 3 months before I threw up a white flag and just assigned him very simple tasks to get through the day. He even came into the office drunk one time. When my boss came back and asked how he was doing, I told him the truth. He was let go not too long after. But think about it. We gave the guy 4 reboots over a year's time. So, clearly, we are not heartless. But at the same time, we need some kind of mechanisms to get rid of underperformers.
On the other hand, there was a project I was involved in where we had an operator that... we called him Hugo the Destroyer. Within a span of 3 months, with an excavator he ran into someone's van, ran into a signal light and knocked it over, took out 4 electrical lines AT THE SAME TIME, drove into another excavator, and came to work drunk out of his head. This was a few years back. A couple years ago on a different project they sent me this guy again. On this project, he did the same things. Took out electrical lines and driving his excavators into things. We could not get rid of him. Why? Because he was part of the union. There was no mechanism to get rid of someone like him.
It is even worse with public sector unions. A few years back I worked in a DOT building on a design project. Everyday, I came in and saw a couple of guys just sitting there playing with their phones. Throughout the day, I would see them not do any work at all and just play on their phones. I eventually asked around about these guys. Finally got an answer. These guys were so incompetent that the project managers were afraid to give them any work to do. It was also impossible to get rid of them. So, their bosses did the next best thing: not give them any work at all. And these guys were perfectly happy coming in everyday, sit at their desks without doing any work for 8 hours, and leave.
Look, I used to support the union. I really did. I think they did a lot of good in the past. But for godsake, don't make it impossible to get rid of someone due to incompetence. Oh, I'm sorry, underperformers tend to call it "job security".
I am a Republican and am pro-private sector union. It's just the public sector unions I am anti. There is a world of difference between the two.
The problem is that the public sector unions have pulled the private sector unions into their web. But we may have just fixed that w/ the Janus decision.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MetroWord
I work with both public and private sector unions. They're both bad.
Public sector unions are bad by design: when they negotiate a contract, sitting across the table are the reps of the politicos whom the union has likely helped elect. So instead of opposing interests that have to meet somewhere in the middle, there are common interests on both sides.
Private sector unions can be bad under poor leadership, but don't have to be. Also increasingly there are mixed unions like SEIU and the Teamsters that have both. I once asked a teamsters official what pct of his local was public sector, and the reply was 60% public, 40% private. Thus the entire union is infected with the problems of the public sector side.
An honest and informed version of the minimum wage would operate like farm price supports. The market wage would be allowed to float according to supply/demand, but if it drops below the minimum, the gov't makes up the difference with a subsidy.
The fiat minimum wage (what we have now) hurts those it is purported to help--low wage workers.
The farm price support system was devised by a well-organized group (the farm lobby) seeking legislation that would actually help their members (farmers). The minimum wage was devised by disingenuous politicians (mostly Democrat) seeking to pull a fast one on those whom they represent (low-info voters).
Quote:
Originally Posted by stremba
That was my point. We already have the mechanism in place to effect this. It's the earned income tax credit. We just have to increase it and possibly update the income levels at which it takes effect to make precisely this happen.
Good point! And it just underscores the dishonesty of Democrat politicos like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama both of whom made a big deal about increasing the fiat minimum wage, which harms those it purports to help.
Good point! And it just underscores the dishonesty of Democrat politicos like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama both of whom made a big deal about increasing the fiat minimum wage, which harms those it purports to help.
It’s not meant to help people.
It’s designed to profit those who already have a job at the expense of others.
Nobody lives in poverty in USA. As per any world standard, everybody in USA is fabulously rich.
The poorest of the poor in USA have food, running fresh water, AC, often a car and go to to schools or hospitals for free. That is kind of luxury most people in the world don't have.
I knew many people growing up who regularly went hungry because their parents couldn't afford food, people whose water and utilities got shut off regularly, and the mere existence of homeless people alone nullifies your argument.
As for AC...lol. my husband grew up lower middle class, but they could never afford to use AC. And this was in NYC, where it gets horrendously humid as well as hotin the summer.
You must be incredibly sheltered if you think that everyone has access to all those things.
Oh I'm completely against public unions...if anything, I think they make all unions look bad, when in reality, private unions can be invaluable for workers ensuring decent working conditions.
Liberals: why are so many of you supporting a $15 minimum wage?
Because the majority of liberals make about $10/hr.
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