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so you are wanting them to stay at a low level.....hmmm
fact: there are 13800 kids turning 18 DAILY... plenty of replacements to START on the lowest rung of the ladder of success
If this was realistic in any sense, there wouldn’t be a shortage now, would there?
From 2018, but clearly still relevant:
“In fact, according to Andy Challenger, vice president of Challenger, Gray, and Christmas, a national firm that follows workplace trends, parents are not exactly pushing their kids out the door. “Their parents aren’t forcing them to get a job,” Challenger said. “Parents are saying there are other things you can do over the summer that will create value for you – and you don’t have to go flip burgers.””
Our only community college is next door to the airport, surrounded by farms and pastures, roughly 15-20 miles from each of the three major population centers. There is NO public transportation available. You guys love to construct these perfect little scenarios that have nothing to do with the very real obstacles a lot of people face. And how easy is it to say 'they should live in such a way', cripes, can't even come up with a real answer...
I live in the middle of a major metropolitan area. Three blocks from the intersection of 2 major state highways. There is no bus service with 5 miles of my house.
My taxes for the community college system run several hundreds of dollars a year. The taxes on most of the other 4 million + people in the area are higher. My taxes have been frozen for 15 years. Tuition is not free for anybody.
No it doesn’t in comparison to your other expenses.
You drive beaters and do the repairs yourself.
You GQPers keep talking about phones too.
This ain’t 1985. You have to have a relatively new phone because necessary apps require the latest iOS updates. I’m pretty sure the iPhone 6 is about to be obsolete if it hasn’t been already.
You need a smartphone with app capability to do low-level jobs in 2021.
BS.
I use a three year old unlocked, refurbished Moto that was only about $200 when it was brand new.
I use a three year old unlocked, refurbished Moto that was only about $200 when it was brand new.
It runs fine.
Mine’s even cheaper. Either $69 or $79 for the year (I forget), and that included 1400 worth of minutes. I can text, get and send email, get apps, whatever I need. It’s a Samsung. Very nice - takes great photos, too.
They need to live in such a way that they can pay for the dentist, and they probably shouldn’t have a car if they are on minimum wage. And knowing how precarious their situation is, they should take a few courses to learn a trade of some sort.
And remember, we are talking about only 2% of workers. To hear you liberals talk, you’d think that small business owners are paying most of the staff at minimum wage.
Ok, that's all well and good but it isn't the norm.
The main offenders are franchise owners, small restaurant owners, and lawn care owners...from my experience.
The bulk of their employees get up every morning and contemplate suicide before clocking in.
As I said before, it's not a violation of natural law (just like the practice of usury). Two parties free from duress are consenting to associate with each other. I'm just saying it's scummy. I know this concept is a bit advanced for conservatives/Republicans (who are pseudo-capitalists) so it's really just an inward-looking thing.
I personally couldn't live with myself if my employees were miserable people. The vast majority of business owners feel otherwise IMO based on experience.
I am glad that you posted the bold. Like posted earlier, in certain cases a minimum wage can be good policy if it's set sensibly. The problem is that policymakers don't tend to be sensible on this type of topic.
To some people, government implementing minimum wage policy means the following:
"Now, nobody is allowed to pay me $0 - $14.99 / hour because it is illegal, but I need a job asap, I am desperate. what can I do" see the problem?
Personally, I cannot support a law that blocks people from working. If two adults have made a mutual agreement, government should stay out of it.
The only thing that is good for our economy in a free market system is incentive and merit. Employers do not mind paying for talent, it is the simple concept of supply and demand.
A Minimum wage is not all bad. Don't get me wrong. But, The employer/employee relationship is inherently imbalanced. There is a purely competitive market for unskilled labor, but a restricted market for unskilled jobs. Excessively low wages cause problems, and the free market has proved incapable of getting the entry level wages set at a point that its even worth working to get them.
In real life situation, the employer would not "just work harder" like somebody suggested (work harder, what does it even mean?) The most likely real life scenario is, employer would let go more unskilled minimum wage earners because they could be easily replaced. So the ones are hurting will not be the employers.
I, just like most people, don't think this country needs more working poor. If people work two jobs and are still not able to provide for their families, there is something wrong. Having said that, I think Minimum wage law and all the punishments associates with it must go in my opinion. This living wage problem is also regionally dependent, and having government involved in this process would likely do more harm than good, and at much greater management cost.
Do you actually know anyone who's attempting to "live" on minimum wage?
I don't.
I don't know anyone who worked for minimum wage more than a few months.
Raises hand. I'm in chain retail, I know lots of people attempting to make it on minimum wage for a few years at least. The hardest hit 'stuck' at MW are typically single moms, usually divorced. Where and how do you people live that you seem so utterly unaware of others lives?
Dear heavens this isn't 1946 anymore.
Not everyone lives in a city with lots of options.
And it does not take being a business owner to understand the concept, truly it doesn't. That seems to be your biggest obstacle, you just think everyone else is too stupid to "get it", lol.
You're debating with those who are probably just one wrung above those minimum wagers but who are adept at maintaining their pride and egos by looking down upon them with the old "if I can live on what I make selling shoes or whatever job that let's me wear a tie, they can (and dang well should be forced to) live on what they make flipping burgers."
A well known phenomena of making yourself feel good by disparaging those only slightly beneath your station in life. Of course these types don't want those others to rise up. That would make them equals.
Nope, Minimum wage people can take public transportation. They’re not automatically entitled to a car.
And I went over the food, insurance, etc., in the original budget. Again, if you have no real job skills, your choice is to:
1) Get some career training, via taxpayer-provided training, to increase your market value, or
2) Live very modestly, joining forces with others similarly situated
The problem with liberals is that see things from only one side: what they think people are entitled to. They never consider the cost of providing that to them. In this case, increasing the MW to $15 would drive half the businesses to close shop. You all can say, “fine.....they didn’t deserve to have a business,” but the fact is that there would be tens of millions of fewer jobs available.
What public transportation?
Do you honestly believe that every locale has public transportation?
Nope.
What do you have to say about employers like Walmart and McDonald's who don't provide 40 hours per week for their employees' schedules? What do you have to say about them depriving them of full-time status in order to avoid providing benefits?
Where I live, the MW is $7.25 an hour and many of the parents of my students earn no more than that for working in hospitals, hotels, restaurants, retail and other labor-intensive jobs. For a couple earning minimum wage, that would be around $30,000 if they worked 40 hours each. That's significantly less than the wage that you quoted.
Most of my students live in multigenerational households where often three generations are working minimum wage jobs. People do what they need to.
I'm not an economist, but I do try to look at as many facets of a situation as I can. Part of the equation should be what is provided to a minimum-wage earner. Contrary to what many have said, including you, the minimum wage was instituted to ensure a living wage for even unskilled workers. Part of the equation is what business owners can reasonably demand of their employees for the wage that they are offered. The balance sheet determines the viability of any individual business. What it sounds like in the scenario we are discussing is that prospective employees are not taking employers up on the wages they are offered for the jobs they are to do.
In any case, when there is a significant population of older unskilled employees who have limited ability to acquire new skills and who already have children or grandchildren that they have to support, pragmatism must win out over idealism. It would be great if everyone had the ability and motivation to learn a valuable skill, but that is simply not the case. We need to ensure that young people get the support that they need to make good decisions that will enable them to take advantages of all that the United States has to offer. It doesn't help them to hobble their parents who are only doing the best they know how.
What gets lost in these discussions is that many do have valuable skills.
They are skilled at dealing with dementia patients or giving vaccines and nail trims to aggressive pets or answering/routing multiple phone calls or any of the myriad other tasks that have to be done every hour of every day.
I challenge any of these people who talk about unskilled labor to try to do just one of these tasks, forget all of the others that these “unskilled” workers do every damn day.
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