How do people survive on minimum wage?

[Cecilie1200]

He was not suggesting that there is a simple answer, nor asking for someone to offer one, so I don't know what you're talking about. It was a simple observation on the fact that minimum wage is not enough to live off of with a full work week. Deal with it.


Also, and this is addressed to the whole thread, it is so absurd to say 'get an education.' Somebody HAS to work those jobs, otherwise those business couldn't exist. Someone has to be the ditchdiggers of society. They can't all get an education, and become rich, otherwise everybody would be rich, which is impossible ... there is only so much money in the system at any given time, and those with most of it don't plan on letting go of it. At best, everyone could be middle class, which is the logically absurd extreme of republican thought when it is mentioned that someone should just get a job or an education, because if everyone did this and somehow succeeded, everyone would have the same amount of money (as a hypothetical projection in a hypothetical reality). Yet, they do not realize this. Bringing it back to personal choice and responsibility without considering the context is logically fallacious therefore as demonstrated by its logical extreme.

You're right about someone needing to work those minimum-wage jobs. Where your wrong is in your obvious assumption about who that "someone" is. Minimum-wage jobs are intended to be entry-level, foot-in-the-door positions for people just entering the job market, or re-entering after a long absence. They are not intended to be filled by older people with families to support.

And there will ALWAYS be people who are just entering the job market. You seem to have some sort of notion that it's ever going to be possible for EVERYONE in the working world to ALL have too much education and experience for entry-level, ALL AT ONCE. That's not how it works. The one certain thing in the world is change. People will get older; people will die; new people will be born.

Also, one of the primary purposes of a minimum-wage, entry-level jobs is SUPPOSED to be to teach young people how much it sucks to be poor and unskilled, so they'll be motivated to improve their lot in life.

There is no purpose for minimum wage jobs.

Ohmigod, liberals are morons. Every time I think I've finally found the bottom of the barrel of liberal idiocy, it turns out to be a false bottom, with greater depths beneath it.

There is the same purpose to MW jobs as there is to every other job on Earth, dimwit: getting the work done.

I agree they are good jobs for young people to start, and incidentally may teach them to never want to work that job again once they leave, but that is not the explicit or implicit purpose of those jobs. There is no mission statement for minimum-wage jobs stating "to kick your ass so you never want to do this again." They simply exist.

Is that actually how it works in I'm-A-Leftist-Dumbshit-Land? If it's not spelled out in a written mission statement somewhere, it doesn't exist? Common sense, societal wisdom, and life experience teach nothing and are meaningless, because they aren't in a textbook being lectured on by a liberal professor somewhere?

I'm very sorry to hear that your life works that way, but it does explain why liberals are so horrendously clueless on virtually every subject. Please understand that the rest of us know and recognize that one of the primary purposes of unpleasant life experiences is to teach and motivate us . . . even without a written mission statement.

It is very sad to hear or see someone who works a minimum-wage job who has a family, but at that point, it is too late. You are stuck.

You know what's really sad about this? The way you leftists try to fraudulently pretend that such people are the norm of MW workers, rather than the exception, and the fact that you actually believe such people are "stuck", and go around convincing THEM that they're "stuck", thereby robbing them of all hope and promise solely to feed your own selfish agendas.

And then, of course, you want to be applauded for how much you "care".

Perhaps they made a bad decision to have kids without the resources, but whats done is done. Someone with a family and with no GED, even if it is free, makes getting a GED out of the question because the opportunity cost for the time needed to go to class is too expensive given what could be made working instead.

Oh, horseshit. This is nothing but crippling excuses, masquerading as "compassion". Every word you drivel out, patting yourself on the back for how "kind" and "understanding" you are, only serves to prove how little you actually know or understand about the people you purport to want to "help" (and it's competely obscene to call guaranteeing that someone will be forever powerless and dependent "helping" them). Have you ever gotten a GED? Looked into the various ways and means by which one can acquire one? I highly doubt it, given your spew, and your blithe assumption that it "must" be too difficult and time-consuming to be done, despite the fact that people exactly like the ones you would see eternally dependent on the government as their only hope do it every day.

it becomes a desperate scramble to work as many jobs as possible. That's a miserable existence.

And you would condemn them to it forever, by virtue of telling them that it's impossible to ever do anything to change it, every solution is out-of-reach for them, better to just take the government pittance and endure.

If we are talking about minorities, Compound that with institutional racism, sexism, and other societal barriers to upward mobility, and you have one painful, stressful existence, day after day, and the feeling that you are truly at the bottom of the rung.

Really? Well, since I'm SURE you're not talking about the only organized racism I'm aware of - liberal Democrats who assume that minorities are incapable of being anything but victimized wards of the state - I would very much like to see some proof of this "institutional racism and sexism", please. It may shock you to know that you can't actually throw out assumptions like this and simply have them accepted as "everyone knows", because, in fact, your hate-filled, bullshit view of the world is not actually universal, luckily for all of us.

That is depressing and I imagine, completely hopeless.

Oh, you "imagine" it's hopeless, do you? Yes, I can see that you spend a lot of time "imagining" what other people's lives are like, and how you and your leftist comrades, morally superior and "compassionate" creatures who "understand" how "hopeless" their existences are, are their only hope.

Too bad for you that your self-serving "imaginings" have fuck-all to do with reality.

Let me ask: are you poor? I won't ask if you WERE poor, since that would imply that you somehow got out of poverty, and you just told us how impossible and hopeless such a thing is. Do you personally associate with any poor people? Or do you just listen to and read what the intellectual elites of the left tell you about what poor people are like, and how you can feel warm and fuzzy about yourself by helping lesser beings?

Yeah, that's what I thought.

Then you have the republican narrative simply telling you its your fault... who cares? Whats the difference at that point?

Understand the difference between "fault" and "responsibility". Whether or not one's circumstances are one's fault - and if said person had children he or she was incapable of caring for, as in your example, then they ARE, indeed, his or her fault - does not change the fact that improving those circumstances is primarily and almost wholly one's responsibility. Socirety can help - and does - but the poor person himself still has to do the actual work.

 

[Cecilie1200]

I agree with the premise of this post but I don't think it's so easy.

In New York, for example, I'm not sure how anyone lives on minimum wage.

I'm not sure why anyone lives in New York, but one assumes they do it the same way poor people everywhere do it: by getting a lot of annoying roommates and doing without everything they can possibly live without.

It doesn't really work that way....

It doesn't, huh? Everywhere, or just in New York? And perhaps you can tell me, then, how it DOES work. Are there no people in New York who make minimum wage? Or do they all live on the street? "It doesn't really work that way" is not a response, Chuckles. It's a desperate scream for continued denial. Pony up a counter-argument, or stop wasting space with your drivel. If you don't want to hear things that challenge your worldview, just stop reading message boards.

 

[skookerasbil]

---(They don't they just exist after 3 years they become zombies)----

Article> One of my clients recently reported getting a job at a fast-food restaurant. Since she's been unemployed and desperately looking for work for nearly a year, I was thrilled for her. She was very excited that she'll be making $7.50 an hour -– a whole quarter more than minimum wage.



After she left my office, I got out a calculator. I've never worked for minimum wage, so I didn't know exactly how much -- or how little -- money that is.



Assuming 80 hours per pay period, my client will be bringing home around $462 every two weeks. That's with no health insurance or retirement contributions.



If I brought home $924 a month, would I even be able to survive? I decided to find out.

read more How do people survive on minimum wage?- MSN Money

The answer is..........they dont you dolt.

Work hard and move up...........if you cant cut it, go someplace else to work and try again. Only the left wants to always lower the bar all the fucking time..........as if its a zero sum game. "Raise the minimum wage $2.00/hour..........its a no-brainer!!"....................as if there are no negative tradeoffs.


The mental cases, in their efforts to be compassionate to some, accordingly fuck over others they can then conveniently ignore.


Small business provides 70% of our jobs.........and the left wants to stick them with regulations up the ying yang, higher taxes and then at the same time want a higher minimum wage for the employees...........which ends up putting Joe Blow on the unemployment line where the taxpayer foots the bill for unemployment.


These people missed too many meetings.

 

[Foxfyre]

There are always exceptions, but you cannot base national policy on the exceptions without screwing over everybody else. And the person whose labor/experience/expertise/skill level etc. is worth more than minimum wage, but he or she stays at minimum wage, is definitely an exception. Or, he/she doen't want to put in the effort to earn more.

The minimum wage was originally intended not to provide a living wage of any kind, but to ensure that employers would not be able to utilize 'slave labor' on the pretense that they were giving opportunity to apprentices or trainees to learn the job. If the employers had to paid new hires something, they would most likely be offering a real job. And if they had to pay at least minimum wage, there would be incentive to teach and encourage the new hire to be more productive to offset the costs that are so often involved in training a new hire.

A minimum wage job should always be considered a fairly short term entry level wage while the employee develops a work ethic, experience, obtains marketable skills, and acquires good references that qualifies him/her for much better pay. Or, as has been the case for me when I have had to start over numerous times, it is the starting wage until I show the employer what I already can do.

I've worked internships for nothing but gas money. That's how they do it in professions that can take you places. Usually, minimum wage jobs (had plenty of those too) offer employment that you would generally not think of sticking with unless you had no other choice. With our economy being in such great shape, lots of people have no other choice.

Exactly. Rather than sit around with my skills rusting, I would far rather take a minimum wage job with the potential to move up, or just as a stopgap while I wait for a good job to come along. I was once between jobs and went to work in a Christian bookstore just to help out the owner, a friend, over Christmas. I agreed to accept minimum wage because I knew he absolutely could not afford to pay me any more. And because I then did have some income coming in and didn't have to take jjust any job, and because I was having a ball, I stayed for most of a year, still working for minimum wage because that was all he could pay. I left when one of my all time dream jobs came open and I went back to being a well paid professional.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Quote:
Not one liberal has rebutted the fact that only 2.2% of American workers are paid minimum wage, of which the vast majority is teenagers and food servers.


Oh the irony. And not one Rethug has proved their assertion that raising the minimum wage, oh lets say a dollar an hour, on 2.2% of the American workforce, is going to force the employers to raise their prices on everyone.

What buying power 8 bucks an hour has eh? Who would have thought that minimum wage workers had such power in the economy. All 2.2% of them.

Steph if minimum wage went to 8 dollars an hour on 2.2% of the work force, would employers be forced to raise their prices on goods and services? If so, why?

Just curious.


And the idea of "personal responsibiltiy" is so cool for poor people. When do the rich have to practice it?
You know, like the rich guys in the banking industry that tanked the economy. Where was their "personal responsibiltiy"?

Don't be such a dumbass, please. While MW workers are a tiny percentage of the workforce - and they are - the companies that employ them tend to employ quite a lot of them. And whether YOU consider them to be "forced" to pass the increased cost of labor on to customers or not, they WILL do so regardless.

Gee, perhaps if YOU leftist dipshits quit whining about "too big to fail" and "we need bailouts to save jobs!", that personal responsibility for bad business decisions would come back. But no, you want to pretend that it's US who want to shield the rich from the consequences of their actions. Nice try. We're not the ones who think it's the government's job to intervene in the natural flow of the economy every time someone thinks it might be unpleasant.

 

[LoneLaugher]

Europe vs. America by Tony Judt | The New York Review of Books

 

[LoneLaugher]

Man! There are so many impressive conservatives here! I can hardly stand it. Every one of them has pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps! What American heroes!

 

[Cecilie1200]

Never saw an institution of higher learning that didn't have a financial aid office. Work it out, and stop making excuses for why you have to be a loser/victim forever.

Neither have I. But I've also never seen sufficient financial aid that would do much for people who are making minimum wage, to allow them a good balance between school and work that offers a meaningful chance at academic success.

Then you need to look harder. Maybe you could divert some of the energy you're spending looking for reasons why it's impossible for poor people to ever improve their lives, and should instead just content themselves with the government dole handed to them by benevolent leftists.,

Tell me, oh nabob of negativity: if there's no "meaningful chance" at success, why is it that so many poor people manage to get educations and better themselves? Or are you now going to tell us that such things never happen, and people never move out of the lowest quintile of the economy?

 

[Foxfyre]

Quote:
Not one liberal has rebutted the fact that only 2.2% of American workers are paid minimum wage, of which the vast majority is teenagers and food servers.


Oh the irony. And not one Rethug has proved their assertion that raising the minimum wage, oh lets say a dollar an hour, on 2.2% of the American workforce, is going to force the employers to raise their prices on everyone.

What buying power 8 bucks an hour has eh? Who would have thought that minimum wage workers had such power in the economy. All 2.2% of them.

Steph if minimum wage went to 8 dollars an hour on 2.2% of the work force, would employers be forced to raise their prices on goods and services? If so, why?

Just curious.


And the idea of "personal responsibiltiy" is so cool for poor people. When do the rich have to practice it?
You know, like the rich guys in the banking industry that tanked the economy. Where was their "personal responsibiltiy"?

Don't be such a dumbass, please. While MW workers are a tiny percentage of the workforce - and they are - the companies that employ them tend to employ quite a lot of them. And whether YOU consider them to be "forced" to pass the increased cost of labor on to customers or not, they WILL do so regardless.

Gee, perhaps if YOU leftist dipshits quit whining about "too big to fail" and "we need bailouts to save jobs!", that personal responsibility for bad business decisions would come back. But no, you want to pretend that it's US who want to shield the rich from the consequences of their actions. Nice try. We're not the ones who think it's the government's job to intervene in the natural flow of the economy every time someone thinks it might be unpleasant.

Companies who employ minimum wage workers also do not really expect their low end people to stay in those positions long term. They either are promoted and their pay increased proportionately based on their increasing value to the business or they are given opportunity to develop a work ethic and references and most likely some marketable skills to prepare themselves for better jobs as those become available. The person who is working in however humble conditions is generally going to be much more attractive to potential employers than is the person who has been unemployed for long periods.

 

[Cecilie1200]

30 millon Mexicans swim a river and hike through a dessert to find a job.

Yes, that's exactly what this country needs. Force American citizens to compete with douche bag illegal aliens for underpaid cash jobs. Here's a better idea: Secure the border, kick the illegals out, and let the market reverse the wage deflation and sub-standard conditions that our poorest citizens have to deal with because of the damn illegals. Of much greater value to the working poor than legislatively raising the minimum wage would be to rid the labor market of the parasite that is illegal labor.

You are absolutely correct. Americans do NOT need to be competing and dealing with illegal immigrants.

Why don't you try pulling your nose out of Obama's colon and telling HIM that? Or, for that matter, any other leftist political leader, none of whom seems to think controlling our borders is important? God knows, those of us on the right are doing OUR dead-level best to communicate this sentiment to OUR idiot politicians. Howsabout you lefties pony up and join us in the struggle to get through their rock heads?

 

[Cecilie1200]

What is "personal responsibility" to a low wage earner? The decision to pay the electric bill rather than buy food or pay the car insurance?

No, it would be making the sacrifice and exercising the self discipline required to improve their position. There's no magic involved. It's just not that complicated.

A low wage is not a death sentence. It is a temporary condition that most of us have experienced. We just chose to do something about it, rather than waiting for someone else to do it FOR us.

.

Again. Arrogance and bullshit.

A low wage USED to be temporary. Things have changed.

Prove it.

 

[JoeNormal]

Quote:
Not one liberal has rebutted the fact that only 2.2% of American workers are paid minimum wage, of which the vast majority is teenagers and food servers.


Oh the irony. And not one Rethug has proved their assertion that raising the minimum wage, oh lets say a dollar an hour, on 2.2% of the American workforce, is going to force the employers to raise their prices on everyone.

What buying power 8 bucks an hour has eh? Who would have thought that minimum wage workers had such power in the economy. All 2.2% of them.

Steph if minimum wage went to 8 dollars an hour on 2.2% of the work force, would employers be forced to raise their prices on goods and services? If so, why?

Just curious.


And the idea of "personal responsibiltiy" is so cool for poor people. When do the rich have to practice it?
You know, like the rich guys in the banking industry that tanked the economy. Where was their "personal responsibiltiy"?

Don't be such a dumbass, please. While MW workers are a tiny percentage of the workforce - and they are - the companies that employ them tend to employ quite a lot of them. And whether YOU consider them to be "forced" to pass the increased cost of labor on to customers or not, they WILL do so regardless.

Gee, perhaps if YOU leftist dipshits quit whining about "too big to fail" and "we need bailouts to save jobs!", that personal responsibility for bad business decisions would come back. But no, you want to pretend that it's US who want to shield the rich from the consequences of their actions. Nice try. We're not the ones who think it's the government's job to intervene in the natural flow of the economy every time someone thinks it might be unpleasant.

You guys are apparently too stupid to realize that once an economy crashes, it can be YEARS if ever before it comes back. And since your idea of capitalism is just letting everyone do whatever benefits only them over the extreme short term, it becomes virtually certain that the crash WILL come.

 

[thanatos144]

Europe vs. America by Tony Judt | The New York Review of Books

What a anti american piece of trash.

 

[LoneLaugher]

That would be "an" anti-American, dummy.

And you didn't read it, so how would you know?

 

[Cecilie1200]

Again. Arrogance and bullshit.

A low wage USED to be temporary. Things have changed.

I think it's possible that you truly, sincerely believe that.

You make my point, vividly.


.

No I don't. Wages have not increased at pace with the cost of living in this country. Low wages are systemic.

You fail.

Wrong.

Do you understand the difference between "wages haven't increased" and "people haven't increased their incomes"? No, of course you don't, because you think all income is something that someone just gives you, randomly and on a whim, unconnected to anything you do.

It is probably quite true that I could get a job at a fast food restaurant today, and in a year, the starting pay for that job would be exactly the same, because "wages haven't increased". But I would not be making the same amount, because I would have increased my income, either by getting a raise, moving up to a better job (shift leader, possibly), or taking my year of experience and moving to another restaurant that pays better, perhaps one where the customers routinely leave tips.

If you want to insist that "things have changed" and low wages are no longer temporary, THAT is what you are going to have to argue with, not "wages haven't increased".

 

[thanatos144]

That would be "an" anti-American, dummy.

And you didn't read it, so how would you know?

I did read it and it is a piece of trash and I can type anti american any fucking way I please you dont like it dont read it. If Europe is so fucking great and its future is looking so much better then ours how came they are sinking faster than us asshole?

 

[LoneLaugher]

I think it's possible that you truly, sincerely believe that.

You make my point, vividly.


.

No I don't. Wages have not increased at pace with the cost of living in this country. Low wages are systemic.

You fail.

Wrong.

Do you understand the difference between "wages haven't increased" and "people haven't increased their incomes"? No, of course you don't, because you think all income is something that someone just gives you, randomly and on a whim, unconnected to anything you do.

It is probably quite true that I could get a job at a fast food restaurant today, and in a year, the starting pay for that job would be exactly the same, because "wages haven't increased". But I would not be making the same amount, because I would have increased my income, either by getting a raise, moving up to a better job (shift leader, possibly), or taking my year of experience and moving to another restaurant that pays better, perhaps one where the customers routinely leave tips.

If you want to insist that "things have changed" and low wages are no longer temporary, THAT is what you are going to have to argue with, not "wages haven't increased".

This is an interesting accusation. Care to tell me how you came to that conclusion?

 

[Too Tall]

---(They don't they just exist after 3 years they become zombies)----

Article> One of my clients recently reported getting a job at a fast-food restaurant. Since she's been unemployed and desperately looking for work for nearly a year, I was thrilled for her. She was very excited that she'll be making $7.50 an hour -– a whole quarter more than minimum wage.



After she left my office, I got out a calculator. I've never worked for minimum wage, so I didn't know exactly how much -- or how little -- money that is.



Assuming 80 hours per pay period, my client will be bringing home around $462 every two weeks. That's with no health insurance or retirement contributions.



If I brought home $924 a month, would I even be able to survive? I decided to find out.

read more How do people survive on minimum wage?- MSN Money

How well did she do for the year she was unemployed? My computer says $7.50 an hour for 80 hours is $600.00 Are you saying that Soc Sec, Medicare, Fed and State income taxes are$138.00? I call BS!

 

[Cecilie1200]

What you've described here is known as a positive feedback loop in science and engineering. However, given that only a small percentage of our economy revolves around minimum wage, the effects on price would be minimal.

OK. I'll try asking you. What should minimum wage be?

Mike

It's been almost 30 years since I made minimum wage so I have only a vague idea. I suspect it would take about $10/hr to keep a human in anything above squalor.

And when did the primary purpose of the minimum wage become "keeping people above squalor"? Why is that anyone's responsibility to worry about OTHER than the worker himself?

Could have sworn the minimum wage started to keep companies from colluding in underpricing labor and cheating workers. Now, apparently, it's to mandate an arbitrary standard of living, irregardless of the actual value of the labor being performed.

 

[Cecilie1200]

What should minimum wage be then? What is your solution to the perceived problem?

Mike

My solution would require a time machine or me being declared Emperor. We are already screwed out of thirty years of gains in real wealth creation by the working class, how do you fill a hole that big?

Well you have confirmed conservative thought of liberals wanting a dictator. gratz!!!!!!!

I was just thinking how sad it is that liberals really don't see any possible solutions to problems OTHER than for them to be given absolute power and authority over everyone else.