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Old 05-02-2021, 05:51 PM
 
Location: minnesota
15,803 posts, read 6,261,660 times
Reputation: 5044

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rachel976 View Post
....or, get some vocational training after high school. Taxpayers will even fund it.
I actually went to community college full time and worked full time when I was in my early 20s. I paid for it out of wages from my lowly person job. Then I met a sexy boy and the rest is history.

 
Old 05-02-2021, 05:52 PM
 
19,387 posts, read 6,475,260 times
Reputation: 12310
Quote:
Originally Posted by No_Recess View Post
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.
So you’re assuming the minimum wage workers have the skill to repair their own cars?? If so, they should get a job as a mechanic. Problem solved.

And you don’t need an IPhone with apps to work at McDonalds.

Can’t people take any responsibility for this own situation? Weren’t they aware enough to know a minimum wage job won’t allow them to rent their own apartment and maintain a car? They should have gotten some job training. Now you want to say, “sorry that you didn’t bother to learn a marketable job skill, so here’s more money to give you the lifestyle you want.” Where’s the incentive to better oneself if we pay people more than the market determines they’re worth?
 
Old 05-02-2021, 05:53 PM
 
19,387 posts, read 6,475,260 times
Reputation: 12310
Quote:
Originally Posted by L8Gr8Apost8 View Post
I actually went to community college full time and worked full time when I was in my early 20s. I paid for it out of wages from my lowly person job. Then I met a sexy boy and the rest is history.
I’m happy for you.
 
Old 05-02-2021, 06:34 PM
 
4,362 posts, read 4,212,234 times
Reputation: 5811
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rachel976 View Post
Well first.....you shouldn’t have children if you’re still earning minimum wage. You wait until you are earning more. And just because someone is irresponsible and has a child anyway doesn’t mean they should get paid more.

And we have different ideas as what wage can allow someone to live. Where I live, the MW is $9.50, but everyone pays more - including Walmart and McDonalds. So let’s say a married couple is each earning minimum. That means together they are bringing in $40,000. It’s doable.

And it would effectively be the same for a single worker. They just double or triple up and split costs. As you say, that’s what they’re doing. My own grandparents took in a lodger to help meet costs. People do what they need to.

The point is....you’re only looking at it from one perspective: what you think should be provided to the minimum wage earner. The fact is that if you raise it too high, businesses will be forced to close shop and there will be millions fewer jobs available for the entry-level worker.

And once again, we are talking about only 2% of the population. I am all for paying for their training courses so they can learn a more valuable skill, but many don’t want to train for better. That’s their choice. (And I speak from personal experience.)
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.
 
Old 05-02-2021, 06:39 PM
Status: "117 N/A" (set 3 days ago)
 
12,920 posts, read 13,611,483 times
Reputation: 9673
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rachel976 View Post
....or, get some vocational training after high school. Taxpayers will even fund it.
You have be on welfare to get into most of those programs.
 
Old 05-02-2021, 06:40 PM
Status: "117 N/A" (set 3 days ago)
 
12,920 posts, read 13,611,483 times
Reputation: 9673
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rachel976 View Post
Because skilled, educated people who earn more get to live better than minimum wage workers.

I went to college because I didn’t want to live a low-income lifestyle. (And besides, pork isn’t kosher.)
They'er spending the company's money on a $1500.00 meal.
 
Old 05-02-2021, 07:02 PM
 
Location: MI
174 posts, read 501,831 times
Reputation: 237
IDK I'm sort of against raising it to 15 right away. It seems like a lot of fast food places around me are paying like 12 and you got to got in the low end of a factory at 15. This of course is an an area where there's high turnover (basically there's a lot of jobs but not many great jobs). I managed at a fast food place where employees were getting close to the low end of the wage scale for my area which is 10-11 (you won't get anybody at minimum wage period) and it was insane how lazy people were. There's no incentive to care. Now I work in a factory that has pretty high turnover but is generally paying new people 15-16 range.

I'd say the minimum wage is actually pointless because it leads to cost push inflation. Landlords would just raise rent in low income housing etc. Even in my area because of our job market its starting to get where you are getting awful employees even at 15 per hour so there's a push to streamline jobs and pile more onto everyone which adds turnover.

The problem is that business is quarter to quarter. I was an assistant manager in a grocery store once and my boss explained that cost of labor and cost of goods are really the only two things management has full control over. It is possible to make up for it by increasing sales or margins but that is tougher than cutting costs especially in the short term. So they are going to cut costs.

Obviously you can make up for it by working harder to make sales. I always said that they can cut my hours but if I'm on the sales floor I'll always make up for the overtime with sales. Unfortunately not everyone is like that. A lot of business managers just don't have the energy to drive hard all the time especially if they are just mid level managers in a bigger company so the first instinct is to cut costs. The whole "work harder" argument is a circular one because while left-wingers can say that the right-wingers can say the same of low wage workers. In reality life isn't that simple or binary on either side.

There's a lot of businesses that built their business model on a high volume, low cost approach. Think say fast food restaurants. So somebody can point at some hip restaurant in a progressive downtown that pays their employees $20 per hour but not every restaurant can just automatically transform into that over night. Maybe they should but in the short term it is going to cost a lot of existing jobs if you just make a certain business model untenable.

Now my best advice to those business owners or any aspiring business owner right now is to focus on margins above everything else. I see where the political winds are blowing in this country and it is clear that the left is moving away from the Clinton-era moderate viewpoint toward a more European style left position due to the rise of Millennials and GenZ. Meanwhile the right is clearly moving toward "populism" and away from Reagan era free market economics. Part of this is big business screwing up over the years cutting too many jobs and being too short term oriented. They are reaping what they have sown. However a lot of these big businesses are now suddenly increasing wages and pushing for higher minimum wages because they can just steamroll over small business. Big business is getting more sold on the whole "progressive" view. So essentially Big Box Inc. went the cheap route now they see where the wind is blowing so they are jumping on the bandwagon. Both approaches screw small business.

So basically I'd say it's going to wreck a lot of small businesses and a lot of franchises will end up just being sold back to corporations etc. and if you rely on a low labor business model its time to scale up or get out. Regardless of what anyone thinks it's clear which way the wind is blowing. We will end up more like Europe. There will be fewer higher paying jobs but more people on the dole, higher taxes and cost of living and more business will be automated.
 
Old 05-02-2021, 07:03 PM
 
163 posts, read 55,567 times
Reputation: 194
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rachel976 View Post
Because skilled, educated people who earn more get to live better than minimum wage workers.

I went to college because I didn’t want to live a low-income lifestyle. (And besides, pork isn’t kosher.)
Congratulations, you had the privilege of going to college. Everyone doesn't have the ability to go to college for a multitude of reasons. It doesn't mean they don't deserve to earn a living wage.

There are a finite number of good paying jobs in any industry in any city in any state. The system is not built to have every single person earn a degree (assuming the purpose of getting that degree is to get a good paying job).

The job market is tough as it is....imagine if every single 21 year old in the country had a college degree and expected to get a good paying job. It just couldn't/wouldnt happen.

The capitalist system the right loves to talk about doesn't work if there are no workers. We don't need more degree holders who would rightly demand higher salaries. We need to figure out how to pay everyone else a little more.
 
Old 05-02-2021, 07:08 PM
 
9,511 posts, read 5,392,058 times
Reputation: 9092
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheGoodTheBadTheUgly View Post
Close shop or ?
Close the shop. If your business model doesn't support a living wage for your workers then it is not successful.

Alternatively maybe you can modify your lifestyle. Any excesses there?
 
Old 05-02-2021, 07:20 PM
 
Location: Western North Carolina
8,012 posts, read 10,589,775 times
Reputation: 18833
Go out of business.

You're a tight wad.

If you pay decent wages, you will get good help that will stick with you.

If you pay crappy wages, you will have constant turnover and workers that don't feel invested in their jobs - or your business.

(And I am NOT a leftie. Just someone that does argue that decent wages would go a long way towards getting some people off of government social services. Let the companies pay the wages and benefits to their employees - not the taxpayers in the form of rental subsidies, food stamps, and Medicaid because wages fall short. People have to live. Yes, even people with low-level skills.).

And don't say "prices will go up". Prices are going up continually anyway.
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