shintao
Take Down ~ Tap Out
- Aug 27, 2010
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Government has NO business mandating wages. the market determines wages.$9.50 is a "living wage"? Where?
If you government really cared about mandating a "living wage" then it would be closer to $20 an hour.
Minimum wage is NOT a living wage. Living wage and minimum wage are mutually exclusive.
The min wage actually contributes to unemployment among low or unskilled labor.
Those that think of "living" wage in terms of what is required to provide for living expenses( necessities only) are spot on. Those that ignore the reality that luxuries such as pay tv, memberships to gyms, expensive haircuts, new cars, going out to eat every week, etc, are not necessities are being unrealistic.
I worked in a career that took me into people's homes. I was taken aback by the percentage of people who live far beyond their means.
One glaring example was this couple. He was a corrections officer in a county jail. That is a public sector job. The wife worked as a receptionist for a chiropractic office.
I was interested because here these people were living in a larger and more costly home than mine in the same subdivision. Two of the rooms had NO furniture in them. I instinctively thought "house poor".
I guesstimated her wage at about $10 per hour. I looked up HIS salary on the internet. For new jailers in that county the wage was $29k per year.
So here I was looking at a couple with two kids making half the money that my wife and I made and they had a larger home and newer vehicles.
Typical case of people living far beyond their means.
These are the same people the Left weeps for when they run out of money. It's always someone else's fault. It's the predatory lending or it's the bank's fault for granting credit. Or it's an "expectation" of lifestyle rather than working one's way up to a lifestyle.
The point here is opposition to the idea that wages are too low for the least skilled. They aren't. The problem is far too many people expecting things. The feeling of entitlement to a certain lifestyle.
Just about anyone can have whatever they want if they have been granted credit to buy it.
What they don't think about is the amount of income vs their expectations.
I have about $3,000 in credit card debt which I could liquidate right now. But I do not wish to use up a good amount liquid cash. I double up or even triple up payments which all but eliminates the interest. CC Interest only affects accounts where the borrower pays the minimum each month.
Now, I expect the argument that "what about the people who can't pay more than the minimum"...Too bad. Should not have gotten themselves in that position in the first place.
So, what is a living wage anyway? Is it one that pays for our necessities? Or a wage that pays for what we want?
sniff............