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I get that it's important that even our poorest folk have a decent standard of living, but it seems like raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour is going to hurt more people than it helps, especially the working class.
There aren't that many people making $7.35 an hour, or even $8-$9 an hour. There are a ton of people making in the $12-$14 an hour range that don't have a lot, but are making ends meet. Even more people are making in the $15-$17 an hour range, and will see no wage increases while a bunch of people who were making less are now in competition with what they can afford. This will raise rents significantly and make things much more difficult for the lower middle class.
Why can't we propose policies such as raising the minimum wage annually along with inflation, and providing housing subsidies for those who can't afford housing, instead of being reckless?
I think a federal minimum wage of $15 is fair... if you consider the fact that wages has been stagnant for the past 40 years while all other costs have increased. Now if you consider your personal interests... "whether it's fair to pay this dude flipping burgers versus x", then we'll never solve the problem. Federal government is NOT interested in your own interests. It is interested in society as a whole (i.e. homelessness, poverty, education rates, etc..)
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.
To an extent, I agree with you.
However, I think there would be a lot of grey area if those designations were made, especially since the U.S has been shifting towards a more service based economy for decades.
For instance, I worked in Hotel Management for years prior to becoming a SAHM. At the bottom of the hotel industry rung were the housekeepers. While a few of them were only doing it during a transition period in their life (ie: one housekeeper at one hotel I worked for left to go to Yale), it is still fair to say that many were in those positions as they did not have the education or aptitude for something greater. Many of them were fantastic at being housekeeper, but would have unlikely been successful as a revenue manager, lawyer, electrician, or anything else we automatically think of as a "career".
Should that make them less deserving of a living wage? Even though they bust their behinds to clean 16 dirty hotel rooms every day, 5 days a week?
Also, people would be less likely to need supplemental income if pay was better in the first place, right?
However, I think there would be a lot of grey area if those designations were made, especially since the U.S has been shifting towards a more service based economy for decades.
For instance, I worked in Hotel Management for years prior to becoming a SAHM. At the bottom of the hotel industry rung were the housekeepers. While a few of them were only doing it during a transition period in their life (ie: one housekeeper at one hotel I worked for left to go to Yale), it is still fair to say that many were in those positions as they did not have the education or aptitude for something greater. Many of them were fantastic at being housekeeper, but would have unlikely been successful as a revenue manager, lawyer, electrician, or anything else we automatically think of as a "career".
Should that make them less deserving of a living wage? Even though they bust their behinds to clean 16 dirty hotel rooms every day, 5 days a week?
Also, people would be less likely to need supplemental income if pay was better in the first place, right?
The bolded may be a big part of the problem right there.
I guess the erosion of the nuclear family was in part engineered to create more people relying on housekeeping type jobs to support an entire household.
We're all decent, for the most part. We just disagree on what will work to actually solve a problem, or whether a problem needs to be solved or managed or is even a problem at all in some cases. I think many of us have lost sight of the fact that at the end of the day we all want to do what's right, even when we don't agree on what right is.
Thats not necessarily true. A lot of people feel that it is important for their own status in life that we have a large desperate underclass.
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.
Fairness never comes out of a gun barrel.
Pointing a gun at people and forcing them to pay is slavery and robbery by definition.
I'm a liberal and I think $15/hour minimum wage is a bad idea. Does a Walmart greeter really deserve to be paid the same as an accounting clerk, a carpenter helper or many other jobs that require skills? In addition as already posted it will simply cost jobs as many will go away to automation.
I agree that somewhere in the $10/hour range sound about right but regionally set so the guy in NY makes more than the guy in a low cost area such as Alabama.
A $15 floor on wages mean that people making $15 now have a much better bargaining position. A minimum wage hike lifts far more boats than simply the people making minimum wage. Unlike the "trickle down" scam.
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.
Posts like this only confirm my belief that the words “conservative” and “liberal” have become meaningless. They’re nothing more than stereotypes: liberals are rich coastal elites who drive a Prius, go to Starbucks and shop at Whole Foods. Conservatives live in the Midwest or South, drive big Ford F-150s, go hunting, and shop at Wal-Mart. On actual policy issues, the terms mean nothing.
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.
What should a ambulance driver earn then? I am curious. They earn $12 an hour now. One dollar more than laundry and dry-cleaning workers. I just dont see why ordinary Americans who do a proper shift each day shouldnt be allowed to live with some peace of mind.
There is a minimum wage, and it has NEVER changed. The minimum wage is zero. That's the wage you get when you don't have a job. Increasing the "minimum wage" simply results in more people making the actual minimum wage.
A better solution, one which already is in place to some extent, would be to increase the amount available through things like the earned income tax credit. For those unfamiliar, this is a refundable tax credit (meaning that you still get it even if it's larger than the tax bill you would otherwise owe) that is available only to those with wage income (so no freeloaders on welfare allowed ), but fall within certain income guidelines. Expanding that to higher income levels and/or increasing the amounts available through it would likely be of greater benefit to the working poor than would a minimum wage increase that might well jeopardize the jobs they do have and make finding new jobs more difficult.
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), but fall within certain income guidelines. Expanding that to higher income levels and/or increasing the amounts available through it would likely be of greater benefit to the working poor than would a minimum wage increase that might well jeopardize the jobs they do have and make finding new jobs more difficult.
