Explain to us Libs, what is a living wage?

[JRK]

How many able bodied, adult Americans are intentionally not working and having their livlihood furnished by taxpayer dollars? Does anyone have a number?

This is not about people who do not work
it is about those who work as hard as you and I do who make 15-20,000 a year

 

[JRK]

Census Bureau reports new spike in poverty - Sep. 16, 2010
43 million in poverty

 

[kwc57]

move on .org
thats the biggest

avoiding

bern
you have 150 billion dollars per year
you give it to obama
or
you raise the minimum wage 4.25 in a 3 year period

thats all there is to this idea bern, all that there has ever been bern

i have no morality because i choose those who work hard everyday to get that money and not obama bern?
N.d
me
degrees in engineering

has nothing to do with this thread

what do you choose bern

you choose neither. They are both government meddling in the affairs of others.

there all ready doing it, your choice is not an option
why are you people in such a level of denial?

Every event i offer to change exists all ready. There is no option c

Yes there is. I explained it a few posts up, but once again you ignored it. I'll give you the short version. You end entitlement programs and let the free market sort out the jobs and wages.

 

[kwc57]

How many able bodied, adult Americans are intentionally not working and having their livlihood furnished by taxpayer dollars? Does anyone have a number?

This is not about people who do not work
it is about those who work as hard as you and I do who make 15-20,000 a year

You've been in your line of work for 30 year and you are estimating billion dollar deals and day trading and you make $15,000 to $20,000 per year? Really? Why didn't you move locations and/or educate yourself for a job in a higher paying industry during all that time. Life is about choices.

 

[JRK]

Yes moron, we've all given you our conservative solutions multiple times, you just choose to ignore them and refuse to learn from them. No conservative has an issue with cutting taxes or entitlements. Conservatives do have an issue with the government mandating wages. At this point, you should have that figured out......but you don't.

So your solution to lowering the number of people on entitlement programs is to do away with the minimum wage?
thats it?
Leave taxes where they are?
how do you suggest we pay for the 1.4 trillion dollars we are short on a balanced budget that is a direct result of people on entitlement programs?

You can call me names all you want, the problem will never change and it makes you and Bern look more like a chold every-time you do this

I have called you a moron because you are acting like a moron. Show me in the post you responded to or any other post in this thread where I EVER said do away with the minimum wage. You'll come up empty handed. That is part of the issue here JRK, you interpret clear and plain posts to mean something you totally pull out of your ass. You keep putting words in our mouths that we never said.

My solution to lowering the number of people on entitlement programs is to close the programs. They have become slaves to the programs and willnever leave them on theor own to get an education and a job. Why should they when they can continue succking on the government teat like mom, grandma and great-grandma did. If you end entitlement programs, you don't have to fund them. If you don't have to fund them, your spending goes down and you get much closer to balancing the budget. If the budget is balanced and the government is only spending based on what the constitutional responsibilities are, you need to collect less taxes.

It is not the government's job to provide for people. It is each person's responsibility to provide for themself and their family.

I am acting like a moron?
You present what exactly is wrong with this great nation. You have 0 ability to discuss any-thing without losing your mind
Ending entitlement programs is option C. Option C does not exist.
I might be a moron in your world, but I do not pretend these problems do not exist

By the way in 2007, we where with-in 163 billion of a balanced budget. Its funny that you seen to think we cannot get there
Where do you work? who paid for your education? do not answer me these questions. Ask your self how you got to where you are, I bet somewhere along the way you got help

 

[JRK]

How many able bodied, adult Americans are intentionally not working and having their livlihood furnished by taxpayer dollars? Does anyone have a number?

This is not about people who do not work
it is about those who work as hard as you and I do who make 15-20,000 a year

You've been in your line of work for 30 year and you are estimating billion dollar deals and day trading and you make $15,000 to $20,000 per year? Really? Why didn't you move locations and/or educate yourself for a job in a higher paying industry during all that time. Life is about choices.

where did you read I make 15-20k a year?
Why are you making up this bull shit?
if this was not such a joke, people could sue your fucking ass off for that comment.
Dont fuck with grown men and there reputations in the real world like you just did with mine

Learn from that mistake, go away, and never again make a claim as that about anybody you know nothing about again
Thats some damn good free advice

 

[JRK]

This thread is out of control and has found a place in which stupid left the dock and what has replaced it I havce no idea
EVERYBODY CHILL OUT
This thread is not about me, making it about me makes folls of you, I am just a hard working conservative who knows that we have some real problems in this country need real solutions
You dont like mine going to the level of stupid that has showed up here is found its end with me

you want to discuss the thread, I am all in
The next dumb SOB that lies is going in ignore for ever. If you think I care? I can assure you talking to stupid has went way past where it should be

I stated that there are paid liberal spammers and operatives on this board, you people still doubt me?

How do you shut some-one up? look whats going on here

 

[Foxfyre]

Census Bureau reports new spike in poverty - Sep. 16, 2010
43 million in poverty

Yup. Mr. Foxfyre and I are now among that 43 million because of our voluntary limited income. Could we qualify for foodstamps etc? Probably if we were careful how we filled out the paperwork. But we certainly don't need them.

My granddaughter is also now emancipated from her parents' tax umbrella and will be filing on her own. She also is definitely among the nation's 'poor' and qualifies for all kinds of assistance which she also isn't applying for as she doesn't need it. She is a full time college student.

I was visiting with a gentleman who just recently rented a room in a home down the street--the folks had sort of 'servants' quarters' that they weren't using. He takes the bus over to Lowe's where he works about 20 hours a week at or near minimum wage which is all he needs. The rest of the time he spends doing his hobbies and writing and, though financially of very limited means, he is happy as a clam and is 'poor' purely by choice. His philosophy is just to enjoy the moment and, as he has no children or others who depend on him, he has no need for more money. But he is among that 43%.

It's all relative. All those deemed 'poor' are not 'poor' at all.

And if you really are accepting minimum wage to budget billion dollar projects, the problem isn't with minimum wage. It is with you.

 

[Bern80]

In the net effect on the economy it does not matter whether you funnel the 150 billion through the government or force employers to pay it. It has the same chilling effect either way and is actually MORE damaging when you presume to tell an employer how much he HAS to pay his employees. Such a policy will cause more people to need government assistance than already do.

Labor is worth only as much as labor is worth. Force an employer to pay more than the labor is worth, and the employer won't hire at all or will lay off workers he otherwise would keep on.

What continues to confuse me is where the employer has any place in this event as it relates to cost
he gets dollar for dallor tax break on a W-2 backed event as I have described, he pays no taxes any way
His/Her bottom line does not change
In fact the employer if anything will get a better employee, thats it

The consumer pages all wages and all taxes

The biggest problem here is every-one who is debating this with me has no understanding as to how this works

Companies base there price on everything including tax cost
That cost goes down, labor cost goes up the exact same amount, it is a wash

1) do you let Obama spend it?
2) do you let John Doe spend it?
3) do you increase the GDP or allow it to keep it where it is?
4) do you lower entitlement or do you allow it to remain running away?

This is the debate

You really want to reduce entitlements? Fine. Let's get rid of welfare. Problem solved. Doesn't even require raising min wage. If that's your goal why isn't that solution good enough for you?

And the employer gets a better employee? How do you figure that? What is the incentive for a person to do better if they will get more for nothing?

 

[Bern80]

How many able bodied, adult Americans are intentionally not working and having their livlihood furnished by taxpayer dollars? Does anyone have a number?

This is not about people who do not work
it is about those who work as hard as you and I do who make 15-20,000 a year

You still don't get even the basics JRK. You don't get the rules of the game. You think they're one thing when they're another and you get upset and demand idiotic solutions like a living wage when the rest of society won't play by your rules. TOUGH SHIT. The rules have are and have been in place for a long time. You think the rule is if you work hard you should automatically make enough to live on. You think people deserve enough to live on no matter what they do. NEWSFLASH! Those aren't the rules a free labor market operates under. You are paid based on your value and demand for your skills. PERIOD!

Those are the rules. You have zero right to act all indignant about someone not making enough to live on to take out the trash. I don't care if you do it well. I don't care if you do it for 60 hours a week. If it's something every other human being, primate, and/or a few dogs can easily be trained to do, you aren't going to make much money, probably not enough to live on.

The above rule has been in place in every free labor market since the beginning of time. And while you see it as only one part of your solution, fundamentally changing the basis on which an employer compensates an employee has serious ramifications for society. It makes it weaker, not stronger. It creates, not eliminates an entitlement mentality. It disincentivizes self improvement. It immorally burdens one for what another ought to be responsible for providing themselves in a free society. I would LOVE to hear you spew some bullshit now about how me wanting to hold people accountable for their own outcomes is somehow a liberal idea.

 

[kwc57]

So your solution to lowering the number of people on entitlement programs is to do away with the minimum wage?
thats it?
Leave taxes where they are?
how do you suggest we pay for the 1.4 trillion dollars we are short on a balanced budget that is a direct result of people on entitlement programs?

You can call me names all you want, the problem will never change and it makes you and Bern look more like a chold every-time you do this

I have called you a moron because you are acting like a moron. Show me in the post you responded to or any other post in this thread where I EVER said do away with the minimum wage. You'll come up empty handed. That is part of the issue here JRK, you interpret clear and plain posts to mean something you totally pull out of your ass. You keep putting words in our mouths that we never said.

My solution to lowering the number of people on entitlement programs is to close the programs. They have become slaves to the programs and willnever leave them on theor own to get an education and a job. Why should they when they can continue succking on the government teat like mom, grandma and great-grandma did. If you end entitlement programs, you don't have to fund them. If you don't have to fund them, your spending goes down and you get much closer to balancing the budget. If the budget is balanced and the government is only spending based on what the constitutional responsibilities are, you need to collect less taxes.

It is not the government's job to provide for people. It is each person's responsibility to provide for themself and their family.

I am acting like a moron?
You present what exactly is wrong with this great nation. You have 0 ability to discuss any-thing without losing your mind
Ending entitlement programs is option C. Option C does not exist.
I might be a moron in your world, but I do not pretend these problems do not exist

By the way in 2007, we where with-in 163 billion of a balanced budget. Its funny that you seen to think we cannot get there
Where do you work? who paid for your education? do not answer me these questions. Ask your self how you got to where you are, I bet somewhere along the way you got help

See! This is precisely why I call you a moron. You say I have 0 ability to discuss anything, when in fact, I've been discussing it for weeks now. You just can't get anyone to agree with your liberal idea and it pisses you off. Again, show me where I ever said we couldn't get to a balalnced budget. You can't because again, you are pulling shit out of your ass and putting words in other peoples mouths. BTW, this thread is about a living wage, not balancing the budget. I've worked in bank data processing for the past 30 years. My parents paid for my college education. My dad worked in a meat packing plant and my mom was a secretary. They raised four children in a 3 bedroom, wood frame house where my mom still lives. My "help" was my family. There were no loans and no scholarships. My son is a freshman in college this year. Like my parents, we are putting him thru college which runs around $17k per year for tuition, room, board and books. He was a good enough student in high school that he received $1500 in a merit scholarship. That is a scholarship he "earned" thru merit.

Now, I'm sure you think we are "lucky". We are not. You make your own luck in life. My dad was born on a farm with no electricity or running water in western Oklahoma in 1925. He lived thru the depression and plowed the family farm with a team of mules. When he graduated high school, he enlisted in the Marines and served during WWII. After he married my mom, he moved from the country to the city to find a better job. A better job was a blue collar job at a company where he worked for 32 years. He managed to put a roof over a family of 6's heads, clothes on our back and food on the table. We didn't have everything we wanted, but we always had what we needed. We took vacations and eventually mom and dad were able to by a small cabin at a lake. When they retired, they pulled a travel trailer across the country. We weren't rich. We weren't jetsetters. We were an average family. My parents wanted for us kids a better life than they had, just like I want my son to have a better life than me and my wife.....which is pretty darn comfortable. But my parents and my wife and I made our own luck. We had a plan and we worked our plan. It has taken many long hours and decades to get where we are. We never expected anyone to hand us anything. We never expected a company to pay us what we needed. Instead, we did what was necessary to educate ourselves, work hard enough to stand out in a crowd and go find a job that would pay us what we wanted.

That's how it works. Life is about choices. You make your own luck. In the final analysis, the only person you can depend on for help is YOU.

 

[kwc57]

This is not about people who do not work
it is about those who work as hard as you and I do who make 15-20,000 a year

You've been in your line of work for 30 year and you are estimating billion dollar deals and day trading and you make $15,000 to $20,000 per year? Really? Why didn't you move locations and/or educate yourself for a job in a higher paying industry during all that time. Life is about choices.

where did you read I make 15-20k a year?
Why are you making up this bull shit?
if this was not such a joke, people could sue your fucking ass off for that comment.
Dont fuck with grown men and there reputations in the real world like you just did with mine

Learn from that mistake, go away, and never again make a claim as that about anybody you know nothing about again
Thats some damn good free advice

You know, if you'd learn to use grammar, puncuation and correct sentence and paragraph structure, you might be able to string together a coherent enough sentence for people to understand what you want to communicate. Sadly you don't. Look at what you said in post #1223.

 

[Foxfyre]

In the net effect on the economy it does not matter whether you funnel the 150 billion through the government or force employers to pay it. It has the same chilling effect either way and is actually MORE damaging when you presume to tell an employer how much he HAS to pay his employees. Such a policy will cause more people to need government assistance than already do.

Labor is worth only as much as labor is worth. Force an employer to pay more than the labor is worth, and the employer won't hire at all or will lay off workers he otherwise would keep on.

What continues to confuse me is where the employer has any place in this event as it relates to cost
he gets dollar for dallor tax break on a W-2 backed event as I have described, he pays no taxes any way

His/Her bottom line does not change
In fact the employer if anything will get a better employee, thats it

The consumer pages all wages and all taxes

The biggest problem here is every-one who is debating this with me has no understanding as to how this works

Companies base there price on everything including tax cost
That cost goes down, labor cost goes up the exact same amount, it is a wash

1) do you let Obama spend it?
2) do you let John Doe spend it?
3) do you increase the GDP or allow it to keep it where it is?
4) do you lower entitlement or do you allow it to remain running away?

This is the debate

No that is NOT the debate. The debate is your flawed notion that raising the minimum wage would somehow end welfare. And I am running out of illustrations, ideas, and concepts to explain to you why that notion is flawed.

And you again said you helped budget for billion dollar projects and you have no better understanding of how profits and taxes work than is illustrated in your words that I highlighted in red? You must have been budgeting for one of those 'too big to fail' things that we all had to bail out if you had no better judgment on budgeting than that.

Nobody is taxed at 100%. So yes, paying the people at a higher wage will increase the cost of doing business and will decrease the business profits which will decrease the taxes owed on the profit, but it is NOT a dollar for dollar exchange. If the business is paying near the highest corporate tax rate or 35% he will pay 35% of his profits.

So do the math:

If he pays the employee $300/week and makes a $500 profit on that employee's labor, he will pay 35% of $500 or $175 in taxes leaving him with $325 for his own use or to reinvest in the business.

If he pays the same employee $400/week he now only makes a $400 profit of which he will pay 35% or $140 leaving him with $260 for his own use or to reinvest in the business.

And that doesn't even figure his increased costs for FICA, medicare, liability insurance, unemployment insurance, and work comp insurance.

Okay, you say, the businessman should just raise his prices so he is making the same profit. That is well and good but that raises everybody's prices so inflation steadily erodes the buying power of the employee's new $400 wage. And thus the government raises the poverty threshhold and we're no better off than before but just everybody has to pay a lot more for what they buy.

Okay we go back to your original plan that the government reduces the businessman's taxes so he is making the same profit because the employee won't need the government subsidies with the higher wage. So let's do the math on that:

The employee is raised to $400 and the busines profit is $400 but the taxes are lowered to 25%. Now the businessman pays $100 in taxes leaving him with $300 for his own use or to reinvest in the business which is still less than he made before. Less money to expand and grow the business. Less money to use to bid on new contracts that will require hiring more employees.

Meanwhile he has fired the low skilled worker who was worth only the $300 and hires a more highly skilled worker for the $400. And so the guy who was making low wages before now needs total assistance.

HOWEVER......if you get the government out of it altogether, drastically reduce or eliminate business taxes altogether, you would free up so much venture capital and so stimulate the economy that probably everybody who wants a job would have a job that would support him/her and that would eliminate the need for a whole lot of welfare.

Of course then the politicians couldn't control and manipulate the system and enrich themselves. What a pity that would be, huh.

 

[Bern80]

Here's another interesting article. It highlights just how much the choices you make effect your financial standing.

First Person: My $50,000 Salary Felt Like Minimum Wage | Work + Money - Yahoo! Shine

She is going to have a hard time getting any sympathizers. If anything this article shows how much the choices you make effect your financial position.

Commute costs to much? Move or buy a more fuel efficeint car.

Childcare costs? How much you need to support your family I would think would be more of a priority.

Using worn out as an excuse to constantly rely on take out? Go to the grocery store and start planning your meals better.

Spending more on clothes? I promise your boss doesn't care how many different outfits you have as long as you get the job done in them. And office parties? Again no sympathy here.

Expensive vacations? Find cheaper ways to manage your stress.

Articles like thes are infuriating to me. You're high paying job does NOT equal min. wage. YOUR life style choices equaled min. wage.

 

[Euro]

If it takes 15.00 an hour to have a "living" wage, well I really dont have an issue with that except that really all your doing is raising the cost to build a widget, or grow a widget to a point in which the 8.00 an hour becomes 15.00 an hour it seems to me
What is a living wage?

For immigrants it’s low, without or a low immigration you wouldn’t need a minimum wage then the market would regulate itself. But with large immigration of cheap labour it’s nessesccary to regulate with a minimum wage, but it’s not a good choiche.

So you have to choose between regulating the immigration or the minimum wage.

 

[kwc57]

Here's another interesting article. It highlights just how much the choices you make effect your financial standing.

First Person: My $50,000 Salary Felt Like Minimum Wage | Work + Money - Yahoo! Shine

She is going to have a hard time getting any sympathizers. If anything this article shows how much the choices you make effect your financial position.

Commute costs to much? Move or buy a more fuel efficeint car.

Childcare costs? How much you need to support your family I would think would be more of a priority.

Using worn out as an excuse to constantly rely on take out? Go to the grocery store and start planning your meals better.

Spending more on clothes? I promise your boss doesn't care how many different outfits you have as long as you get the job done in them. And office parties? Again no sympathy here.

Expensive vacations? Find cheaper ways to manage your stress.

Articles like thes are infuriating to me. You're high paying job does NOT equal min. wage. YOUR life style choices equaled min. wage.

Not very bright is she.

 

[Foxfyre]

If it takes 15.00 an hour to have a "living" wage, well I really dont have an issue with that except that really all your doing is raising the cost to build a widget, or grow a widget to a point in which the 8.00 an hour becomes 15.00 an hour it seems to me
What is a living wage?

For immigrants it’s low, without or a low immigration you wouldn’t need a minimum wage then the market would regulate itself. But with large immigration of cheap labour it’s nessesccary to regulate with a minimum wage, but it’s not a good choiche.

So you have to choose between regulating the immigration or the minimum wage.

The small contractors get around that on the theory the Wage & Hour people or the IRS won't bother to audit them and they pay their illegals (and a few desperate legals) a flat piece rate--so much money for putting up sheetrock in a room or so much to hot tar a roof or lay block on a retaining wall. The ambitious, skilled workers can actually make a living wage by getting the job done quickly. Many, however, make below minimum wage on this system because they just stretch out the work to fill the time they have.

Meanwhile, the honest contractors who require their workers to be legal and who pay their workers a decent hourly wage plus some benefits and make every effort to get their employees a full week's work cannot compete when they bid against the unscrupulous contractors.

Get the illegals out of the equation, however, and you shrink the work force. The unscrupulous contractors will have a tougher time finding people willing to work for sub par wages because they don't have to and, when they have to pay more, everybody has a much fairer shot at bidding for jobs.

The free market is a wonderful thing, but it is distorted and sidetracked when you have millions of illegal workers crowding the job market.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Here's another interesting article. It highlights just how much the choices you make effect your financial standing.

First Person: My $50,000 Salary Felt Like Minimum Wage | Work + Money - Yahoo! Shine

She is going to have a hard time getting any sympathizers. If anything this article shows how much the choices you make effect your financial position.

Commute costs to much? Move or buy a more fuel efficeint car.

Childcare costs? How much you need to support your family I would think would be more of a priority.

Using worn out as an excuse to constantly rely on take out? Go to the grocery store and start planning your meals better.

Spending more on clothes? I promise your boss doesn't care how many different outfits you have as long as you get the job done in them. And office parties? Again no sympathy here.

Expensive vacations? Find cheaper ways to manage your stress.

Articles like thes are infuriating to me. You're high paying job does NOT equal min. wage. YOUR life style choices equaled min. wage.

I really despise whiners. And that bitch is a pro.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Here's another interesting article. It highlights just how much the choices you make effect your financial standing.

First Person: My $50,000 Salary Felt Like Minimum Wage | Work + Money - Yahoo! Shine

She is going to have a hard time getting any sympathizers. If anything this article shows how much the choices you make effect your financial position.

Commute costs to much? Move or buy a more fuel efficeint car.

Childcare costs? How much you need to support your family I would think would be more of a priority.

Using worn out as an excuse to constantly rely on take out? Go to the grocery store and start planning your meals better.

Spending more on clothes? I promise your boss doesn't care how many different outfits you have as long as you get the job done in them. And office parties? Again no sympathy here.

Expensive vacations? Find cheaper ways to manage your stress.

Articles like thes are infuriating to me. You're high paying job does NOT equal min. wage. YOUR life style choices equaled min. wage.

Not very bright is she.

About as sharp as a bowling ball

 

[dnsmith35]

I agree with the poster who suggests there is no specific living wage and needs vary according to areas where people life. I am a retired soldier. We bought our home prior to retirement and rented it when we moved around such that it is fully paid for. Our utilities, insurance, taxes, food, fuel and automobile costs run less than $2000 a month. We have enough money to live on, help our kids when they need it and do virtually every thing we want. I have a daughter who makes $70,000 a year whose husband makes at least $50,000, who live about 2 miles from us, who can hardly get by every month on what they make.

In my opinion, a living wage is in the eyes of the beholder, but no one is owed the right to live in the manner in which they would like, but only enough to survive with dignity.

I don't like minimum wages because every time there is an increase in minimum wage most union contracts require a proportional wage increase and no one gets ahead a nickles worth.

In my opinion if someone lives in a high cost area and want to live better, they should move to a lower cost area. I know some retired soldiers who live in California who constantly whine and cry that their retirement would allow them to live better on what they have.

I also object to the exorbitant wage packages of many Unions, (like UAW whose wage package is on average $73 an hour includes all benefits). They are only 12% of the work force and non-union laborers and retired people can't afford goods made by union workers. (88% can't always afford what the 12% make)

Then there are teachers who make (here in AL) make $35K to $39K for 9 months work (180 days work spread over 9 months) which if extrapolated = $45- $50 a year. Over paid based on the results they are getting now.