Raising the Minimum Wage

[CHANEYLAKEGIRL]

It should not be raised significantly.  We all will be paying more for everything we buy. Stores will pass along the increased labor costs to consumers.  It won't accomplish what many think it will.

[honeyflower93]

I'm not sure if it's been mentioned already but the math has been done on this. You forget that these company heads are making BILLIONS in profit. They absolutely CAN raise the minimum wage without raising the price for many things and only need to raise it slightly for others. If the minimum wage is raised to $15.00 and everything doubles, it's because of greed and nothing more.

[countrygirl12]

I'm not sure if it's been mentioned already but the math has been done on this. You forget that these company heads are making BILLIONS in profit. They absolutely CAN raise the minimum wage without raising the price for many things and only need to raise it slightly for others. If the minimum wage is raised to $15.00 and everything doubles, it's because of greed and nothing more.

It doesn't matter if the CEO's are making billions or not.  They are not going to give their profits away to dead beats who are too lazy to work.  A person working at McDonald's flipping burgers does not deserve to make $15 an hour.  That's more in line with what a nurse starts out at.  And she has an education.  If you raise min wage then the wages of everyone else will need to go up.  And when all the wages go up the price of goods will go up.  It's just how it is.  Yes, the billionaires who have worked hard and made it big could pay the peons under them a lot more and share the wealth but why should they?  It's like Walmart and Lowe's.  Both companies the manager of the store makes in excess of $100,000 a year.  Your peon workers were making min wage until recently when WM raised the starting wage to $9 an hour.  But if hours are cut you still aren't making any more money.  People aren't smart enough to figure that out.  When min wage was around $5 an hour you could get a gallon of milk for a couple of dollars.  Now it is $7.25 an hour and a gallon of milk is around $6.  So yes, raising MW did effect the prices.

[monnee]

Do you think raising the minimum wage genuinely helps the working poor or just, in the long run, drives prices up for everyone and ends up being negligible? 

I'll help the working poor, but businesses are going to increase prices on their products and services to cover the wage increase.

[alice44]

I'm for raising the minimum wage.  I think it will all work itself out in the end.  People need to be given the opportunity to be self sufficient.

[countrygirl12]

I'm for raising the minimum wage.  I think it will all work itself out in the end.  People need to be given the opportunity to be self sufficient.

Work itself out in the end?  It has not worked itself out yet and min wage has been raised several times.  People are given the opportunity to be self sufficient.  It's called going to school, getting an education, working hard to advance, etc.  Not expecting to be paid $15 an hour to say "ya want fries with that".  People also want to live above their means.  You do not have to have internet, cable tv, and other luxuries.  If you can't afford it then you don't have it.  And no you don't deserve it  People seem to be confused on the difference in a need and a want.  I get irritated with the fact that we have way too many employees at my work place.  But we have to have extras, which cuts everyone's hours, because you have the handful of dead beats that may or may not show up for work. 

[vickysue]

This is telling on my age, but when I started working min. wage was $3.75 an hour. But my taxes were zilch. gas was .85 a gallon, milk was .80 cents a gallon, I was working almost all 40 hour a week jobs, had insurance, the company matched what I paid in, had a week vacation and I was making it ok. But life was cheaper. Now they are making $7-9.00 and hour and look how much everything is. The cost of living has greatly exceeded the  hourly wage increase and they also pay a lot more in taxes  compared to what I paid. Yes I managed to work my way into management by going to school part time as I worked 2 jobs. And when I left I was making $15.75 an hour. But it took me about 10 years to do it. Also I can guarantee I knew every aspect of the business in that store.  And could handle any problem. If I had not quit to get married and moved to where I could not drive  back and forth to work every day I would have been making close to $25.00 an hour. But hubby did not want me driving at night in snow or after moving wind storms.  But again school and hard work pays off. I did not stand around talking and expect good money for it.

[hawkeye3210]

I'm not sure if it's been mentioned already but the math has been done on this. You forget that these company heads are making BILLIONS in profit. They absolutely CAN raise the minimum wage without raising the price for many things and only need to raise it slightly for others. If the minimum wage is raised to $15.00 and everything doubles, it's because of greed and nothing more.

A few companies, but most aren't making that much. Most minimum wage jobs aren't for companies making billions, and cannot afford $15.00/hr.

[paints]

Opinion from a paramedic in NY:

"Fast food workers in NY just won a $15/hr wage.

I'm a paramedic. My job requires a broad set of skills: interpersonal, medical, and technical skills, as well as the crucial skill of performing under pressure. I often make decisions on my own, in seconds, under chaotic circumstances, that impact people's health and lives. I make $15/hr.

And these burger flippers think they deserve as much as me?

Good for them.

Look, if any job is going to take up someone's life, it deserves a living wage. If a job exists and you have to hire someone to do it, they deserve a living wage. End of story. There's a lot of talk going around my workplace along the lines of, "These guys with no education and no skills think they deserve as much as us? *bleep* those guys." And elsewhere on FB: "I'm a licensed electrician, I make $13/hr, *bleep* these burger flippers."

And that's exactly what the bosses want! They want us fighting over who has the bigger pile of crumbs so we don't realize they made off with almost the whole damn cake. Why are you angry about fast food workers making two bucks more an hour when your CEO makes four hundred TIMES what you do? It's in the bosses' interests to keep your anger directed downward, at the poor people who are just trying to get by, like you, rather than at the rich assholes who consume almost everything we produce and give next to nothing for it.

My company, as they're so fond of telling us in boosterist emails, cleared 1.3 billion dollars last year. They expect guys supporting families on 26-27k/year to applaud that. And that's to say nothing of the techs and janitors and cashiers and bed pushers who make even less than us, but are as absolutely crucial to making a hospital work as the *bleep* CEO or the neurosurgeons. Can they pay us more? Absolutely. But why would they? No one's making them.

The workers in NY made them. They fought for and won a living wage. So how incredibly petty and counterproductive is it to fuss that their pile of crumbs is bigger than ours? Put that energy elsewhere. Organize. Fight. Win."