You liberals think that if you raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour you are helping people. Then you can go home and hug a tree while singing kumbyya and feel good about yourselves. Meanwhile millions of low wage McJob holders will join the unemployment line when McDonalds and others cut way back on their labor force. It might suck to work for minimum wage but a McPaycheck is better than being McBroke
Well, that is total bullshit. MacDonald's and Taco Bell and most other fast-food chains already pay more than minimum wage because nobody can work for that and expect to pay rent, food, and transportation for one, much less have a family. Everybody's wages have gone up in the last 20 years, corporate profits have skyrocketed, the economy has grown, and inflation has cut into salaries. Minimum wage must move up to too and it is long overdue. So few businesses pay minimum wage anymore that it ain't going to impact any of them. All the artificially low wage is doing is allowing a few small business to screw their employees, mostly students who live at home and illegal aliens. When the wage goes up they will pay it because they can't afford not to and stay in business. Everybody knows the wage must go up. The only question is how soon and how much. An immediate jump to $10.10 might be a jolt to a small business, but staging it in increments over 3 years won't hurt anybody.
I don't say minimum wage shouldn't go up but the proposed raise to $15 per hour almost doubles the current wage. Yes, few business pay minimum wage when you total the number of businesses but when you add up the number of people working for huge fast food companies its a different story. Joe the Plumber and Bob The Yardman are already paying a better than minimum wage to unskilled workers. Small businesses like that will be the ones that would be hurt the most. Don't you think that McDonalds couldn't just invest a few million into machines that would do most of the work now done by humans?
Just because you barely need to be able to read to work at McDonald's doesn't mean it is a job meant to support a family. The job pays what it's worth. These people can move to North Dakota where mcdonalds pays around $20. People need to understand you can't fix poor by raising the minimum wage. It is a culture problem unrelated to wages.
New York is proposing $15, but New York has a very high cost of living. Obama is proposing $10.10. How? They are already paying a rate the market bears that is above the minimum wage. How will that change? $7.35 is simply not a living wage in this country any more. Do you imagine that it can never change? Look, when I was in high school, the minimum wage was raised from $1.40 to $1.60 and companies complained that it would destroy their businesses . . . but it didn't. We hear the same complaints upon every raise since then and it has never destroyed any businesses. It won't this time either. It's a bullshit claim supported by no historical evidence whatsoever. There are damn few jobs where employees don't get a raise from time to time. Minimum wage just sets a fair bottom. I pay my student workers minimum wage when they are new freshmen, but if they work out I quickly bump them to $10 or I can't keep them. Someone making minimum wage makes about $14,500 a year, barely above the poverty line for a single person and well below it for a family of two. $1200 a month . . . and rent will take about $500 of that, bus fare will take another 100, food will be about $250, utilities will be $150, leaving $200 for clothing, laundry, medical expenses, furniture, and other necessary expenses. That doesn't leave anything for cable TV, a few beers, a used car note, a date on Saturday night or a ball game on Sunday. Everything that can be automated already has been, you can believe that. None of the fast food companies are paying minimum wage because they can't find people to work at that rate. The market has moved on, even if the conservative politicians have not.
@red55 You are aware that MINIMUM wage is just that. A minimum wage set for unskilled, non-educated jobs that are meant for TEENAGERS to get a foothold in the employment market, learn responsibility & the value of a buck... and was NEVER meant for adults to live off of and support families with.
There is not one thing mentioned any any minimum wage legislation about it being intended only for teenagers. It just ain't true. Tell me, why do you think that the minimum wage should not be raised from time to time? Average wages have gone up, top-dollar wages have gone up, corporate profits have gone up, expenses have gone up and inflation continues.
Average wages have gone up? Where? As an example my girl is a very skilled and competent lvl 1 trauma nurse. Been working in that capacity for around 10 yrs, both as a state employee and now as a private employee (in the same hospital), she hasn't seen a pay raise since before her and I started seeing each other almost 6 yrs ago. I have friends in the oil field, both on land rigs and out in the gulf. Most have seen wages dropped not rise. Minimum wage was just upped a cpl yrs ago, and most employers who pay minimum wage end up having to lay off an employee or two, or drop everyones hours when min. wage does go up in order to keep their expenses down. Say what you want but the only real shift or rise in wages are either upper management types, or elected gov't jobs. On the whole I have seen or talked to poeple that tell different stories in the avg job market.
