Question for those pushing a "living wage"

[SAYIT]

Eligibility | Food and Nutrition Service

So $958 for an individual per month? You are going to tell me that is not poor? That might be rent alone depending where you live. Rent will certainly be a huge percent of it. That doesn't leave much for health, clothing, food...

depending on where you live, that can be less than half of rent.

Z.P.'s Labor Dept guidelines call for wages which cover the "bare cost of living." We are left to guess exactly what that means. Is it a 1 bed apt? 2 bedrooms? 2 bed and 2 bath? A 5 year old Chevy? A new Caddy?

 

[alan1]

Sure just anyone has the money to start super stores. Right.

Walmart started with a single store. Sears started as a part time job for for Richard Sears. Family Dollar started as a single store. Target started as a single store. Whole Foods started as a single store.
So yeah, anyone has the money to start a super store.

And after than I'll get into fast food. Then maybe this mess with be fixed in a few generations. No I think some policy changes will work a bit faster.

Are you the President of the United States, the House Majority Leader, or the Senate Majority Leader?
If you are none of the above, I seriously doubt you can enact policy change at a federal level. But then, you are the self-proclaimed brain, so go for it.

 

[SAYIT]

In reality, the employer does or the government does. You can argue if that is right or not, but it is a fact right now so that can't be argued. Walmart employees that are paid very little are supported by the government. So walmart uses the labor to make billions while the government subsidizes that labor. My tax dollars are making the waltons richer. They should be paying the full price for this labor.

No the person either supports himself or the government does. The idea that any 40 hour a week job should be enough to support a family is a new concept pushed by people who want more control over the private sector.

Really? How many other jobs do your employees have? And don't you feel kinda bad sometimes (I know, not likely but maybe) that your full time employees make so little that they have to have a second or third job to support their families? Don't you think a person working 40 hours a week should be able to go home, rest, enjoy a meal and some family time all before coming back to your place of employment to make you a lot of money?

Instead, you want that employee to rush home, wolf some food, say hi to the kids and head out the door for another 6 or 7 hours of work. Then they can come to your place of work and do a shitty job for you because they've been working for the past 15 hours or so.

What a great idea you have? Not.

My bottom wage employees - like everyone else - have spending choices which are theirs to make. They are paid - like everyone else - based on their value to the company, not some holier-than-thou feel good sense that I must provide for their comfort. If what they sell me - their productivity - isn't worth to me what they need or want to be paid they have the freedom to find better pay elsewhere. I can tell you that many peeps - including owners and managers - work 60 hr weeks.

 

[alan1]

Answering your questions in order: Yes, yes, any level, any size, and yes.

Pay should directly reflect the need of the employee, not the stinginess of the employer. Deal with it, corporate shills.

In that scenario, a single person with no family should be paid less than a mother with two children for doing the exact same job. Guess who employers are going to hire under your foolish guidelines?
Hint: It isn't the person with children.

Yes it is, because under the government's existing guidelines, employers are forbidden from discriminating on the basis of gender or parental status. In fact, an employer would feel pressured into hiring the mothyr over the single person to get political brownie points with the government.

Your point that I highlighted in green (above) is a fantastic argument against the one I highlighted in blue (above), also made by you. You seem to hold opposing and illogical opinions.

 

[alan1]

It would work great.

Walmart, in my estimation, has figured out how much their employees get in terms of total compensation including all the government goodies. They then adjust wages downward to the point that they can keep their employees and pay the least.

That is business.

Well, if you take away the goodies, people will now be below where they need to be and will look for work elsewhere to make up the difference. If nobody works at Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart will have to pay higher wages.

Of course the same can be said for other companies.

The off-set would be that our tax burden should, in theory, be reduced. However, prices will go up to some extent.

I'd rather we let the market handle it than allow the government.

What will happen is that Lizzy Warren will raise the min wage and still allow these people to draw on government benefits all in the name of screwing the 1% (of which she is one).

Politically I don't think you'll see anyone cut welfare. And in our current environment I don't think there are other jobs to choose from.

I think it would be much more effective to give companies tax incentives to hire here, pay good wages, and give good benefits. Let the company pay 0 taxes if they are doing all those things at a high level. This would not only bring some jobs back to this country but increase wages for those that are here now. More employment and better wages will increase spending which will be good for all businesses.

For fuck's sake no. Government has no right to coerce behavior via the tax code.

Unfortunately, that is exactly what they do.

 

[SAYIT]

In another thread someone claimed that people have a right to be paid enough to support a family. I'd like to hear input from others on this.



Does a person with a paper route have the right to be paid enough to support a family?

Should a grocery bagger get paid enough to support a family?

What is the lowest level of job where you think the employers should be required to pay their employees enough to support a family? And how large of a family should this job be able to support?

If my brother quit his computer job and went to work as a Wal-Mart stocker, should he be able to expect Wal-Mart to pay him enough to support his six children?

Answering your questions in order: Yes, yes, any level, any size, and yes.

Pay should directly reflect the need of the employee, not the stinginess of the employer. Deal with it, corporate shills.

Woo ... another raging socialist. Sorry, comrade, that isn't how America operates but there must be some "worker's paradise" out their that will make you a happy pup. Don't let the door kick you in da butt.

 

[alan1]

Tax breaks for corporations yes. In return for creating jobs and good wages. Companies like GE already pay 0 taxes and it's not for incentives to create jobs or pay higher wages. I would wipe out the current corporate taxes and replace them. If GE wants to still pay 0 they better be paying good wages.

Welfare would go down because more and better paying jobs would be available. Right now people are working at Walmart and still collecting welfare. That would be eliminated if these people were paid more. In theory walmart would make up for the increase wages in tax break. Everybody wins.

The easiest way to eliminate people collecting welfare would be to eliminate welfare altogether.
Yes, it is that simple.

 

[alan1]

You must not be a Republican then. They are constantly using taxes for that purpose.

Gawd, no.

How would you fix this mess then? I grow very tired of this stagnant economy.

I'd work harder and make more money. What would you do?

That doesn't sound like a plan at all. I've been working hard for many years yet it stays stagnant.

Work smarter.

 

[SAYIT]

How many of your support staff have a family and a life outside of work and still work a part time job? Do you even know? Or care?

If none of your support staff is working part time jobs or receiving food stamps, then you have answered a most vexing question for these boards; what is the amount of a "living" wage. Skull has determined it is 15 to 18 dollars an hour for "support staff". I agree.

What is your business skull? In broad generalities of course.

His skills, he runs a business, organizes, leads a group of people to produce a product or service, has invested many years, and tons of money to make it work, he produces jobs, he works in the confines of a massive government bureaucracy that forces him to collect taxes. He probably has contracted lawyers, CPA's and others to make sure he is compliant with laws. He probably has his business on his mind 24/7 and worries what the next law will be, how can he keep his business relevant in an ever changing world of competition.

That would be a small part of what most business owners need.


Sent from my iPad using an Android.

I'll fix that for you: He sits behind a desk, points fingers, yells at a group of people to produce a product or service, has wasted many years, and tons of his unlimited supply of bourgeois scum money to make it work, he produces "jobs" for unwitting wage slaves, he works alongside a helpful government bureaucracy that doesn't force him to do anything other than keep track of who he pays what amounts. I'll skip your next few lines, as they can be summed up as thus: "Probably probably probably."

Business owners are lazy scumbags that are unable to do anything for themselves so they leech off of society by taking advantage of wage slaves desperate for some form of income they can use to support their families. Capitalists are the real welfare queens.

All it would take to end corporate welfare is to raise the minimum wage to a living wage, and to do this we need only revoke a business owner's access to the company's funds. Let him get paid as a regular, rank and file employee of his own business, and let's see how long it takes before he makes the living wage a reality.

I'm not certain which is more impressive ... your staggering ignorance ("He sits behind a desk, points fingers, yells at a group of people to produce a product or service, has wasted many years, and tons of his unlimited supply of bourgeois scum money to make it work") or your monumental arrogance ("Business owners are lazy scumbags that are unable to do anything for themselves so they leech off of society by taking advantage of wage slaves desperate for some form of income they can use to support their families. Capitalists are the real welfare queens") but then, you are the raging socialist, comrade.
Carry on.

 

[SAYIT]

How many of your support staff have a family and a life outside of work and still work a part time job? Do you even know? Or care?

If none of your support staff is working part time jobs or receiving food stamps, then you have answered a most vexing question for these boards; what is the amount of a "living" wage. Skull has determined it is 15 to 18 dollars an hour for "support staff". I agree.

What is your business skull? In broad generalities of course.

I never mention the term living wage.

I pay my people what I pay them because that is what the skill level they need is worth in the market place. The total cost of paying them is reflected in my pricing which is in general on par with the regional norms for my operation. Increasing my prices so as to pay people 40% more ( and you think people should get more of in increase I'm sure) would most likely result in a significant decrease in business and most likely the elimination of some of my employees

And FYI even my part time employees get paid the same hourly rates as many of the full timers. Those full time people who get insurance get 90% of the single premium paid all my employees full and part time get vacation and sick time and can participate in the company 401K with up to a 5% match.

But that's what I pay in a small closely held business with a small staff. I by no means think other businesses should be forced to do the same.

What difference does that make?

If you pay your support staff enough money per hour that they do not need a part time job to survive and they don't need food stamps to eat, then they are being paid a wage they can live on.

Hence a "living wage" is 15 to 18 dollars an hour. Not very hard to understand for a business man such as yourself is it?

You are talking but not listening. Most biz owners do not pay what their peeps need but rather what the market requires to attract and retain qualified staff. Workers sell their productivity to their employer at the rate which the demand for their skills will bear (just as the firm determines the price of the products and services they sell).

 

[SAYIT]

His skills, he runs a business, organizes, leads a group of people to produce a product or service, has invested many years, and tons of money to make it work, he produces jobs, he works in the confines of a massive government bureaucracy that forces him to collect taxes. He probably has contracted lawyers, CPA's and others to make sure he is compliant with laws. He probably has his business on his mind 24/7 and worries what the next law will be, how can he keep his business relevant in an ever changing world of competition.

That would be a small part of what most business owners need.


Sent from my iPad using an Android.

I'll fix that for you: He sits behind a desk, points fingers, yells at a group of people to produce a product or service, has wasted many years, and tons of his unlimited supply of bourgeois scum money to make it work, he produces "jobs" for unwitting wage slaves, he works alongside a helpful government bureaucracy that doesn't force him to do anything other than keep track of who he pays what amounts. I'll skip your next few lines, as they can be summed up as thus: "Probably probably probably."

Business owners are lazy scumbags that are unable to do anything for themselves so they leech off of society by taking advantage of wage slaves desperate for some form of income they can use to support their families. Capitalists are the real welfare queens.

All it would take to end corporate welfare is to raise the minimum wage to a living wage, and to do this we need only revoke a business owner's access to the company's funds. Let him get paid as a regular, rank and file employee of his own business, and let's see how long it takes before he makes the living wage a reality.

Yeah I risked everything I had to start this business. If it failed my wife and I would have been living in our car.

For a year we slept on an air mattress in the reception area got up and put it away every morning before we opened.

We did that because we had to gut the entire second floor of the building in order to bring it up to code for the apartment over the business that we planned to live in.

So a basic day was get up at 5 get the business ready to open work all day then at night we did all the work to bring the building up to code usually until the wee hours of the morning. We lived on PB and J and take out because we didn't have a kitchen, took showers at a friend's house or used the hose because we had no plumbing upstairs and no shower in the business.

You don't know Jack shit about what it took for us to open our business.

In the past 7 years we have reinvested 300K back into the business and increased our staff from 6 to 11 people.

After all this and living ina smll apartment for the past 7 years my wife and I are finally building a house onthe lot next to the business and people like you have the balls to say to us shit like this


" Oh gee I guess I know where all the money you charge me is going"

Or

" it must be nice to have other people pay for your new house"

But I guess just because I own a business I'm not supposed to have a home when the very people who say this shit all have houses of their own and drive newer more expensive cars than I do.

So you can go fuck yourself because I got what I got because I risked everything to get it.

Many biz owners started just like you, SP, and peeps like our board socialists neither understand what it takes nor do they care. They just want the gov't to take yours and give it to them.

 

[SAYIT]

Right so you could cut the government out and lower taxes and increase pay, but you don't support that. You also seem to support there being really rich and really poor with no middle class. And you say you're not a communist?

What a dumb ass. Is this supposed to be serious?

I think communism will give you the results you want.

I know only communism - gov't confiscation and redistribution of private wealth - will give you the results you demand.

 

[SAYIT]

No, they are not, but please explain whose wealth you would have our gov't confiscate to satisfy the min wagers.

Look, I understand opposing the minimum wage, but this is just ridiculous. Do you understand how the minimum wage works? It is a price control such that no one can buy an hour of labor for less than some specified amount.

It is applied in the opposite direction also. A person willing to work for less than minimum wage is prevented from doing so.
Just for example, suppose a mentally retarded person wanted a job washing cars at a car dealership (yes, they wash those cars regularly to keep them looking shiny and new). You or I could probably wash 5-6 cars an hour and earn our minimum wage. The mentally retarded guy, he may only be able to wash 3-4 cars an hour. That makes him worth $4 an hour as opposed to our $7.25 an hour. That means he can't get a job, even though he wants to and even though he can perform it. Minimum wage laws priced him out of employment that he is willing and able to perform.

Push the min wage to $15/hr and that dealership will switch to an automated car wash and kill the job altogether.

 

[SAYIT]

What does it matter ?

You get what the market will bear. I used to turn down lawn mowing jobs because I was in demand and had all the business I wanted at better prices than some offered.

A good friend made good money washing cars for people at their houses.

You take what's available and grow on it.

You're right, none of these stories about how well people did mowing lawns when they were kids matters in this discussion. It is all just anecdotal evidence trying to prove... what exactly I'm not sure. That some people found a good market for lawn mowing and did well when they were children?

More germane to this thread is the question:
Is anyone arguing that the minimum wage should be abolished?

What happens when the income that the market will bear is below the income level necessary for subsistence?

Given that there is a minimum wage and there is inflation, does it make sense to increase the minimum wage purely for the purpose of matching inflation?

Interesting phrase "what the market will bear"....
Does it really mean "The minimum an employer needs to pay to get a job done", while keeping the economy healthy?
Is our economy all that healthy?
Don't u need a sufficiently large number of consumers as well as producers to make it healthy?
What happens when large numbers of people are paid so little that, while they may survive to produce while subsidized by government (thru food stamps, etc.) they cannot afford to be active consumers beyond sustenance?
What happens to the ALMIGHTY MARKETS then?

If wage demands outstrip their value to companies, prices either must rise (pricing the employees out of the consumer market again) or the company must fold, thus ending all the job opportunities. Just as companies must price their products and services to the market competitively, so must workers price their product to the firm ... their labor.

 

[SAYIT]

Simple enough...

The employer either supports his employees or the taxpayer does

Any amount we taxpayers have to pay represents what is substandard

No, a person either supports himself or the taxpayers do.

Where has it ever been written that one job should be enough to support anyone?

fixed it for you

A person either supports himself or dies trying.

My only responsibility to support another person is if they are my child and under 18 years of age.
It's not my responsibility to support another person simply because the masses think I should.

I like to believe we have the resources to use local and state gov'ts to aid the less fortunate.
I have a hard time believing that all or even most of those on the federal dole are putting in the effort that the payers of federal largesse have.
60 hr work weeks were the norm for me and many others.

 

[SAYIT]

You put together a good argument against capitalism. I mean the waltons make billions, the execs make millions, and a huge number of the workers do not and should not make a living wage. And this is our countries largest employer.

I didn't say they should not make whatever they want I am saying that it is not the employer's responsibility to pay someone enough to afford their lifestyle.

If you want to support a family then make yourself more valuable to an employer than a monkey who can put shit in a bag.

Given how many people are employed in these sorts of jobs we really are in trouble. Here I thought capitalism worked for everyone, but now you make it clear it's only for a few.

You assume any economic system works for everyone. America provides only the opportunities for education, ambition and private ownership of capital assets, not a guarantee.

 

[bripat9643]

In another thread someone claimed that people have a right to be paid enough to support a family. I'd like to hear input from others on this.



Does a person with a paper route have the right to be paid enough to support a family?

Should a grocery bagger get paid enough to support a family?

What is the lowest level of job where you think the employers should be required to pay their employees enough to support a family? And how large of a family should this job be able to support?

If my brother quit his computer job and went to work as a Wal-Mart stocker, should he be able to expect Wal-Mart to pay him enough to support his six children?

Answering your questions in order: Yes, yes, any level, any size, and yes.

Pay should directly reflect the need of the employee, not the stinginess of the employer. Deal with it, corporate shills.

ROFL! Your not serious, are you? That's a prescription for bankruptcy. You just demonstrated why liberals should never be allowed to win a majority in Congress or the presidency.

 

[SAYIT]

“The Republicans believe in the minimum wage — the more the minimum, the better.” - Harry Truman

Socialists believe in the "right" of our gov't to confiscate the wealth of private firms and citizens for the purpose of satisfying the demands of those who have little or no wealth. - SAYIT

 

[Papageorgio]

How many of your support staff have a family and a life outside of work and still work a part time job? Do you even know? Or care?

If none of your support staff is working part time jobs or receiving food stamps, then you have answered a most vexing question for these boards; what is the amount of a "living" wage. Skull has determined it is 15 to 18 dollars an hour for "support staff". I agree.

What is your business skull? In broad generalities of course.

His skills, he runs a business, organizes, leads a group of people to produce a product or service, has invested many years, and tons of money to make it work, he produces jobs, he works in the confines of a massive government bureaucracy that forces him to collect taxes. He probably has contracted lawyers, CPA's and others to make sure he is compliant with laws. He probably has his business on his mind 24/7 and worries what the next law will be, how can he keep his business relevant in an ever changing world of competition.

That would be a small part of what most business owners need.


Sent from my iPad using an Android.

If you don't know what his (skulls) business actually is, why don't you let skull answer the question?

I don't have to know what his business actually is, he has a skill set of a business owner, and I'll bet I am pretty spot on.

And you reveal a lot about yourself by not knowing the answer.


Sent from my iPad using an Android.

 

[SAYIT]

Government NOT give people welfare? I don't get it, how would that work exactly?

It would work great.

Walmart, in my estimation, has figured out how much their employees get in terms of total compensation including all the government goodies. They then adjust wages downward to the point that they can keep their employees and pay the least.

That is business.

Well, if you take away the goodies, people will now be below where they need to be and will look for work elsewhere to make up the difference. If nobody works at Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart will have to pay higher wages.

Of course the same can be said for other companies.

The off-set would be that our tax burden should, in theory, be reduced. However, prices will go up to some extent.

I'd rather we let the market handle it than allow the government.

What will happen is that Lizzy Warren will raise the min wage and still allow these people to draw on government benefits all in the name of screwing the 1% (of which she is one).

Politically I don't think you'll see anyone cut welfare. And in our current environment I don't think there are other jobs to choose from.

I think it would be much more effective to give companies tax incentives to hire here, pay good wages, and give good benefits. Let the company pay 0 taxes if they are doing all those things at a high level.

At which time you and the rest of the socialist cabal would be whining about "corp welfare!"