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There has been no job destruction in Australia they pay 17 an hour and there unemployment rate is comparable to ours. Seattle also passed 15 an hour and guess what Mcdonalds and other low wage employers are still there employing and hiring people most curious. Granted rich people make a little less but there still rich and they still own the businesses and the nice houses. I'm not losing any sleep over them not making slightly higher profits by screwing working people over.
While I too think our minimum wage needs to be higher to better reflect a living wage, and I can't speak for Seattle, as an Australian (albeit one who now calls the U.S home), I did want to clarify a few things about the Australian minimum wage.
In Australia, a graduated system is in place (which to an extent is a good idea) wherein workers are paid depending on age. For inatance, age 14-15 year olds only get paid $6.51, 16 year olds get paid $7.98, and it goes up slightly each year until a person is in their early 20s and receives the full minimum.
In consequence, you'll find that many places like McDonalds, grocery stores, etc, predominantly hire young high school students and school leavers. While Federal Minimum may be almost $17 at the max, across the board, McDonalds Australia only pays an average of $11.
Additionally, housing prices in Australia are much higher than much of the U.S, as well as other services, so the $17 even doesn't go that far.
While unemployment is low, underemployment, like here in the U.S, is still a big issue. Over 40% of Australias population is on some kind of government welfare/assistance in comparison to 21% of Americans.
Australia does get some things right, but the situation back there is still far from perfect.
While I too think our minimum wage needs to be higher to better reflect a living wage, and I can't speak for Seattle, as an Australian (albeit one who now calls the U.S home), I did want to clarify a few things about the Australian minimum wage.
In Australia, a graduated system is in place (which to an extent is a good idea) wherein workers are paid depending on age. For inatance, age 14-15 year olds only get paid $6.51, 16 year olds get paid $7.98, and it goes up slightly each year until a person is in their early 20s and receives the full minimum.
In consequence, you'll find that many places like McDonalds, grocery stores, etc, predominantly hire young high school students and school leavers. While Federal Minimum may be almost $17 at the max, across the board, McDonalds Australia only pays an average of $11.
Additionally, housing prices in Australia are much higher than much of the U.S, as well as other services, so the $17 even doesn't go that far.
While unemployment is low, underemployment, like here in the U.S, is still a big issue. Over 40% of Australias population is on some kind of government welfare/assistance in comparison to 21% of Americans.
Australia does get some things right, but the situation back there is still far from perfect.
How is forcing people at gunpoint to pay for something at the above fair market rate is moral in anyway?
Just plugged in the numbers Australian minimum is around 12.67 USD still light years ahead of the backwards US system not to mention the free healthcare. Australian workers are much better off than there US counterparts.
The "free" healthcare is a huge positive, and I miss that aspect, but again, it is far from perfect. For "good" healthcare, you still have to pay for Private. When I left, a lot of doctors had begun not accepting Medicare at all, or charging hefty surcharges for Medicare patients (ie: $100 a visit).
Sure, it is still better than nothing, and I think we in the U.S can learn a lot from what is right, what is wrong, but here in the U.S we would need to adjust our expectations of our healthcare providers.
How is forcing people at gunpoint to pay for something at the above fair market rate is moral in anyway?
How is receiving that money moral in anyway?
Oh, you're funny!
What is fair is that an employer pays their employees a living wage for a 40 hour work week. If an employer can't afford to do that, maybe they need to revisit their business plan.
While I too think our minimum wage needs to be higher to better reflect a living wage, and I can't speak for Seattle, as an Australian (albeit one who now calls the U.S home), I did want to clarify a few things about the Australian minimum wage.
In Australia, a graduated system is in place (which to an extent is a good idea) wherein workers are paid depending on age. For inatance, age 14-15 year olds only get paid $6.51, 16 year olds get paid $7.98, and it goes up slightly each year until a person is in their early 20s and receives the full minimum.
In consequence, you'll find that many places like McDonalds, grocery stores, etc, predominantly hire young high school students and school leavers. While Federal Minimum may be almost $17 at the max, across the board, McDonalds Australia only pays an average of $11.
Additionally, housing prices in Australia are much higher than much of the U.S, as well as other services, so the $17 even doesn't go that far.
While unemployment is low, underemployment, like here in the U.S, is still a big issue. Over 40% of Australias population is on some kind of government welfare/assistance in comparison to 21% of Americans.
Australia does get some things right, but the situation back there is still far from perfect.
Glad to hear from a Australian. Granted the situation is not perfect but compared to the USA it seems Australia is more developed and advanced.
What is fair is that an employer pays their employees a living wage for a 40 hour work week. If an employer can't afford to do that, maybe they need to revisit their business plan.
Maybe if we had two job designations, a career job meant to provide a primary income and a service job meant to provide a supplemental income, we could find a solution that was more equitable to both employer and employee. Some jobs are not meant to provide a primary living, and would end up going away if they were forced to pay out a primary wage. This would not help people looking for supplemental income.
If there are not enough career oriented jobs to provide primary incomes to families, then that is the problem that we need to address, not the fact that secondary jobs don't provide primary incomes.
Liberal here. I DO NOT support $15/hr. I'm a professional engineer and my husband is a PR and Marketing professional. We also own a business together. Yes, we are capitalists. Yes, you can be liberal and still believe in capitalism.
Conservatives need to stop portraying all liberals as leeches and welfare queens.
You want slavery. Plain and simple. Forcing people to pay for services and products is slavery by definition.
You want to force people to pay up because YOU can't get their money or you don't want to earn the money from hardworking.
This is despicable to the say the least. Evil is proper term.
I see you dodged my question.
I am asking you again. How do your justify this evil plan?
The real evil here is this system called capitalism.
Sure it gives us good benefits by motivating people to innovate, but it turns people into greedy blood sucking monsters who could care less about humanity, society, the environment, except for themselves. As far as I know, the government is there to tame it. The more it gets tamed, the better off we all are as a society.
"Taming" will obviously interfere with your ideal thinking of a "free market", but no market is truly free here, even in the markets were it's ranked highest in economic freedom. This does NOT mean, we need to get rid of capitalism, we only need to set the rules of the road that benefits society as much as possible a whole.
Sometimes it pays dividends to not only consider what's in your own personal interest, but to consider society as a whole, the world as a whole, Earth, etc.. Quite a thought for your narrow mindset I know...
It's a $15 minimum wage. So while the Walmart greeter is paid $15/hour (still not a living wage in many areas), the skilled worker would be paid more than that.
There are a lot of jobs like that walmart greeter in this country. It's all about skill IMO that should dictate what you make.
If you can take anybody off the street & give them a job that they can do correctly within a few hours then it's a low skilled type job.
There is a reason doctors should make more than most people. Because hardly anybody in the population can do that job without years of school & training.
One of the downfalls of this country I see is people get content with their new hourly wage & they stop wanting to do better. Then the people who already made more get tired of working harder because they can just take a few dollar p/hour pay cut & have a lot less stress/difficult job.
The job I have right now. I'd quit in a heart beat if I could find a job making around 5k less with no stress. There is a price on stress/frustration IMO for most people. Not going home mentally drained has a price.
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