Minimum wage is already “livable”

[rightwinger]

Fast food chains and supermarkets are finding out that burger flippers and shelf stockers are more important then they thought. They’re only replaceable if there’s workers out there willing to replace them.

That has been their big stick with low wage workers for generations

If you don’t like your wages or hours, I have three other people waiting to take your place

Now, employees are telling them to take their job and shove it. Nobody else is knocking down their doors looking for those jobs

 

[Lisa558]

The job market for teens should be good now....but even they don't seem to want to work in these jobs?

It’s more of that entitlement. When I was a kid, I started babysitting at 13. Had an after-school job at 17. My brother used to love when it snowed because he made a lot of money shoveling driveways. In the summer, he mowed lawns.

Now parents don’t encourage their kids to do any of this. In fact, some of them outright discourage it. The entire society is moving toward the place where work will be considered optional, since the government will have so many welfare schemes in place.

 

[Lisa558]

That has been their big stick with low wage workers for generations

If you don’t like your wages or hours, I have three other people waiting to take your place

Now, employees are telling them to take their job and shove it. Nobody else is knocking down their doors looking for those jobs

That’s because government is handing out money left and left. They are artificially inflating wages. No wonder these low-skilled workers can say “shove this job.” It’s because Uncle Sugar is giving me money.

 

[braalian]

You don’t know the half of it sweetheart

I stand in line behind people in the supermarket who use food stamps
They buy caviar, lobsters, filet mignon, champagne…

They look at my order and just laugh at me

My parents both worked and never were on the bridge card. It was a rare treat to get stuff like brand name pop or steak. Many stretches of cut-up hot dogs mixed with boxed Mac and Cheese.

Those people chronically on welfare never learn good old fashioned thrift. They blow their food stamps on expensive crap. Their houses are freezing in the summer and baking in the winter because they don’t have to pay for their electricity or gas. It’s ridiculous. And they teach their children to live the same way.

 

[Lisa558]

You don’t know the half of it sweetheart

I stand in line behind people in the supermarket who use food stamps
They buy caviar, lobsters, filet mignon, champagne…

They look at my order and just laugh at me

You’re denying that people on welfare waste the money we give them? Hah.

You know the stimulus checks that they gave out? Parents with low incomes and always crying about making ends meet got $10,000 if they had three kids. They blew right through it.

 

[Anomalism]

I also question the practical value of a minimum wage. But it’s here to stay. But I don’t understand how it limits the least valuable people in the market or their ability to negotiate their labor.

It limits them because they have less control over their ability to work and find work. It will be a lot more destructive if lefties are successful in bringing the minimum wage to $20 an hour like some in this thread have suggested. A minimum wage mandates that a person cannot work a job that doesn't pay a specified amount of money. By its very nature a minimum wage will result in less jobs and work opportunities. I think the ability to work and gain skills is an important element that gets mitigated for poor people when you add a minimum wage that limits their job opportunities by forcing a pay minimum that will destroy potential opportunities to gain experience.

The market is healthier and creates more growth opportunities for poor people when you don't mandate pay minimums.

 

[braalian]

We're just begging for our own version of the French Revolution.

I don't expect you to agree.

The people in Paris who started that revolution were literally starving and couldn’t even buy bread. No one in America is in a remotely similar situation.

 

[rightwinger]

That’s because government is handing out money left and left. They are artificially inflating wages. No wonder these low-skilled workers can say “shove this job.” It’s because Uncle Sugar is giving me money.

Actually, the unemployment extension ended in September and employees are still not coming back

Low end employees have been exploited for generations. They have little bargaining power. So much so, that we still have people arguing minimum wage should not be increased after being frozen for 12 years.

Now, low end employees are just telling them to shove it

 

[rightwinger]

The people in Paris who started that revolution were literally starving and couldn’t even buy bread. No one in America is in a remotely similar situation.

No, but they have had enough

 

[rightwinger]

You’re denying that people on welfare waste the money we give them? Hah.

You know the stimulus checks that they gave out? Parents with low incomes and always crying about making ends meet got $10,000 if they had three kids. They blew right through it.

I’m just helping you out with your condescending blame the victim rant.
The poor people have it too good screed

It is easy for you to look down on people and sneer that they shouldn’t have children, have any time off, should be happy with three hots and a cot, any enjoyment in life is a travesty

 

[Anomalism]

No, but they have had enough

The fact that you would even bring up the revolution in France demonstrates how disconnected you are from the reality of our comfort in the 21st century first world. Americans are way too fat and drunk to throw everything on the line like that.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

If minimum wage had kept up with inflation it would be about $24.00 an hour.

From what date?

 

[Anomalism]

I’m just helping you out with your condescending blame the victim rant.
The poor people have it too good screed

It is easy for you to look down on people and sneer that they shouldn’t have children, have any time off, should be happy with three hots and a cot, any enjoyment in life is a travesty

What is a person owed just for existing? Have people forgotten where we are and where we came from? People should be damn grateful for three hots and a cot.

 

[rightwinger]

What is a person owed just for existing? Have people forgotten where we are and where we came from? People should be damn grateful for three hots and a cot.

We are the wealthiest nation on earth

Yet we celebrate giving massive tax cuts to the wealthy while we ridicule the poor for being poor and condemn them for actually wanting a life

 

[Crepitus]

The only person that's a problem is the one who won't learn a skill or trade in which they can make a decent living. Get off the dope, get a better paying job, and quit asking the taxpayer to support your bad habits and decisions in life.

That's completely untrue for several reasons.
First there are many "underemployed" folks with far more education than their job requires be ause there aren't enough openings in their field.

Second higher education isn't open to everyone due to the costs involved.

Poor people are not poor because they are lazy, as you are implying.

 

[Anomalism]

We are the wealthiest nation on earth

Yet we celebrate giving massive tax cuts to the wealthy while we ridicule the poor for being poor and condemn them for actually wanting a life

I want to help the poor as well. I just don't support solutions that actually make it harder for them.

 

[Lisa558]

The people in Paris who started that revolution were literally starving and couldn’t even buy bread. No one in America is in a remotely similar situation.

Excellent point. It shows that liberals think if a low-skilled worker can’t afford his own apartment and a car, it’s akin to starving in the streets.

 

[DBA]

Sure. They can rent a room in a house and buy cheap groceries. They thus have enough to eat and a place to live.

Until the leftists started in with this entitlement mentality, that’s what people did for generations. What do you think my grandfather did when he first came to this country as a teen? Rented a room with a shared bathroom, and obviously no air conditioning. Same with my father, even as a new college grad - rented a room. Same with everyone just 30 years ago: you don’t earn enough, you share.

Only in Liberal Land do they expect small businesses to pay a low-level, unskilled worker doing a job a middle schooler could do enough to rent his own apartment, buy a car, and go on vacations. That’s the MIDDLE CLASS lifestyle! You get there by acquiring job skills that pay enough for that.

A little (long) personal story that seems applicable here.

My father in law came to this country with virtually nothing (had to leave everything behind in his escape) and didn’t speak the language. He had a wife and a young daughter back in his Communist home country that was coming over to meet him. He lived in what I would call a closet with his brother in law in NYC. He was a highly educated(valedictorian of his engineering class), successful engineer in his home country. He was forced to worked jobs in the US far below his skillset because of the language barrier. They moved out of the city because it was too expensive and the living conditions were horrible, even compared to their Communist home country. He moved to CT where the housing costs were a little more reasonable.

My mother in law came to the US with my wife. She worked as a live-in housekeeper and she had the same problem as my father in law. She was college educated, but didn’t speak the language. They needed a place to live and this seemed like the best option. They are Christians and joined a church where they would get some hand me down clothes for my wife, who was an elementary aged child who also didn’t speak the language. My father in law went to school at night to get a job in the medical industry, which the felt was a good career with a steady income. Once he completed his degree, his wife went back to school and got her BS here in the US, again in the medical industry.

Meanwhile, my wife, who didn’t speak a word English, with her parent’s encouragement and support, managed to excel in school from the onset, pick up the language and went on to win literary awards in high school, on to a prestigious university via scholarship(no AA necessary) and then to medical school.

My wife’s parents are now retired with a very comfortable nest egg due to hard work, persistence, being humble enough to work jobs well below their capabilities and not being extravagant when they couldn’t afford it. They could have stood with their hands out complaining about just how bad they had it. Instead, they chose to better themselves by taking the initiative to succeed and doing whatever it took. From the day they arrived, they have been staunch Republicans because they saw the Democrats promoting ideals that pave the way to the exact form of government from which they escaped. They continue to be hardcore Republicans and have absolutely no sympathy for the lazy, entitled mentality the Democrats promote.

The bottom line…there are plenty of opportunities to succeed in the US if you work for them. Democrats need to stop supporting the litany of excuses from folks who claim there aren’t.

 

[Lisa558]

No, but they have had enough

Had enough of what? Doing nothing to increase their market value to employers - go take some vocational classes! - and having to rent a room?

 

[Anomalism]

Excellent point. It shows that liberals think if a low-skilled worker can’t afford his own apartment and a car, it’s akin to starving in the streets.

It's unbelievable how far we've come.