the crime business is thriving now though if there was stock in crime, it would be pretty high like the S&P
Great question, I have to think we could pay a little more and maybe lose some conveniences as well as shrink profits to lift up wages.
I think giving kids 15/hr deincentivises them to study and be responsible. Probably gives them a worldview of reality being easier. Most of these min wage for lifers made bad decisions early on, no college, and likely saddled with kids. Min wage+ eitc is their way of getting by but being poor or living off the next paycheck is no way to live. Rent and natural cost of living is increasing so I don't think a bump is out of the question. Should definitely pay attention to poorer states. Texas is not relatively poor but I remember their min wage being God awful.
That's a poor reason for not supporting raising the min wages where millions work hard and still struggle. The impact on small business is the big thing for me. I want to understand that more. There are States and Cities that have passed $15+ min wages but exclude it for certain size businesses. McD don't need the exclusion.
On the topic of black and white, I certainly understand the concept of working harder and smarter, but shouldn't there be a trade-off to allow an individual to also have a quality of life? I've met individuals that worked longer hours and although they ended up doing well for themselves financially (in some cases), that also meant that they neglected their home life and their marriages and kids suffered because of it. This is just one example. Maybe, that's what working harder means, but honestly, that sucks. I don't believe $15/hr is going to make people richer, but if we can improve the quality of life of an individual, isn't that better for society as a whole? There are certainly no perfect solutions and there are obviously trade-offs, however, as a developed nation, I believe we should focus on improving the quality of life of our citizens if it's possible. I mean, just for the sake of using anecdotal evidence that I am sure applies to others, my dad worked for minimum wages. He worked two jobs. He tried to be a good dad and a good husband, but ultimately, he found himself working a lot and being away from our family. Ultimately, my mom had severe depression issues that he was not aware off which ultimately led to a mental breakdown for my mom and ultimately put him and her in prison for a stupid crime that may have been avoided had he been home more and been more aware of the situation. Maybe this is a stupid example, and that's fine, but I guess my focus is believing that a higher wage will lead to a higher quality of life since it will reduce financial burden on the individual.
For people arguing against the minimum wage increase, why have a minimum wage at all? Wouldn't getting rid of the minimum wage motivate people even more to work harder?
You're 100% right, those long hours impact your family and social life. Personally when I started spinning up businesses I put the energy and time I normally put into hobbies into those businesses instead. I didn't treat them as hobbies, but I put a lot of time into them. My wife knows I need to stay busy so she was tolerant of it. I do regret some time away from my kids but it wasn't terrible. But we're talking about making money and earning a living here, not the tradeoff. When you're young is the time to double down on working because your social life is pretty fluid. It doesn't normally work out that way but it's the best option.
Oh lord. I grew up poor. We stood in government food handout lines. We didn't have a TV and couldn't afford to run the AC in the hot-ass Houston summer. My clothes were all busted up most of the time. I won't get into specifics but I was homeless at 17 and had to find a way to live and finish high school. I'm speaking from an intimately familiar place when I talk about being poor. When you break it down, it is simple. Work hard, work smart, get better, reapply, repeat. You can ask for help. I bet if you walked around to 10 neighbors and asked them to watch your kids, you would get one of them to agree. It's just pride and preconceived notions that hold most people back. Have some faith in people. If you have nothing to lose, it's easy. Not going to throw stones, but you seem like you've never been hungry, my friend. And you can't be hungry if you're full. And that's where we're at with 'minimum wage'. Most of these people aren't desperate. They have money for booze, junk food, cigarettes, drugs. They get subsidized by welfare. They're at at least level three of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. That's why bumping up minimum wage won't matter. The economy will adjust and that $15 will be the same as the $7 was. It doesn't help. If you want something, you have to work for it. I'm not talking about punching a clock. I'm talking about busting your ass to get ahead. I’m going to bow out of this discussion now. Love you, man!
The economy will adjust because companies are moving into robotics... $15 is great for the people but our economy is built on capitalism. While I want to be optimistic...but anybody who studies history will see where this is heading. Capitalism has never just accepted higher costs for the sake of humanity. I hope our next generation with better education will prepare them for the future because flipping burgers may not be a job you can find anymore or any job that has repeated actions. robo taxis are coming...
I never understand the argument against poor people advocating for higher wages. Businesses do it. Billionaires send upwards of $40 to $60 million per year in lobbying to elected government officials to advocate for their businesses best interest. In turn they can be recipients of tax breaks that net them hundreds of millions in return. Your average everyday citizen can't do that. Otherwise I imagine middle class home owners would advocate not having to pay property taxes themselves just like a lot of big businesses do. Instead big businesses get to avoid paying property taxes that just get dumped onto middle class home owners to foot the bill. And the jobs are pretty dead end too. Like that Tesla factory in Manor. Average annual wage is $35,000 starting out. Can tout is as job creation but the jobs are relatively dead end no? And then when automation takes over in the next 10-15 years, what happens to those displaced workers? When they cut cost, that's considered clever. When a poor persona advocates for ways to hold onto more of their existing money or attain more, that's considering ridiculous. I'll never understand it. I also never understand middle class Americans or even millionaires that look down on the poor. You're closer to an income bracket of a homeless person even if you're a millionaire than a billionaire. Makes it seem like the middle class and poor are fighting over the crumbs billionaires give to avoid further igniting even more vitriol among the working class. And the truth is, these employees that get **** on, if all conducted a workers strike, would cause these companies to hemorrhage money so quickly that they'd actually be required to reform. Automation isn't a thing yet and they need these people just to make their businesses function. I think there's a misguided idea about the poor being lazy. The one's I know work long hours and multiple jobs just to scrape by. They do the work most don't want to do and again get **** on by society for what? Cleaning toilets? Cooking food? Aren't these necessary jobs that make society better? So why are we looking down on these people again? Some of ya'lls self esteem is tied to your bank accounts. It's very obvious.
Tinman your a logical person. Like you, I believe Elon Musk is changing the world. Maybe he can provide jobs on Mars
It isn’t like it was 20 years ago. Now there are people working minimum wage to support families. Consider that 45% of employed Americans make less than $15 an hour. I have plenty of concerns about it, but the old “work ethic” idea isn’t one of them. An increase to $15 will put the labor market back to how it was in 1970’s in some ways.
Yep, people are working hard. A lot of white middle class families are silently going through these pressures and for them, it's not about min wage but they're earning very close to it (50-60k is the median income for an American household). That usually means one wage earner making McD manager lvl salary while the spouse earns supplemental income. I don't know if living on 30k/year is easy, but I do know living paycheck by paycheck with nothing to add is stressful and debilitating. A lot of my friends are complaining that the private school they send their kids costs 50-120k year and I'm thinking I'd rather keep my luxury car and the thoughts of upgrading. Plenty of hard and smart working families don't have the option for their kids. Future aint so bright if they don't even have the option to choose where they live. Maybe it really is just a stopgap before inflation and CoL overtakes that 15/hr "living wage" in 5-10 years, but not doing it ignores what's going on in America right now. We've had 2 populist movements from both political spectrums (Occupy and Tea Party) and one extremist president promising blue collar jobs that everyone knows are dead end and obsolete. These movements are only symptoms from people becoming desperate and losing hope that future generations will be more prosperous than the current generation. In the last quarter century, we've struck down and neutered union jobs that had become a bedrock of middle class prosperity and wealth creation. What's its replacement? A gig economy that promises pseudo ownership without labor protections? I won't shortsell the art of the hustle, but we still gotta follow the 80/20 principle. If you haven't paid attention, our current system has created an outcome where 1% of wage earners owns almost 2/5th of all the wealth in the US. It's not even close to a normal power distribution. So if you're not pulling in 400k a year, I'm not sure if you're the hardest and smartest worker. This is beyond unfettered capitalism and more in the domain of regulatory capture. Again, I love the hustle. Investing in education and infrastructure is the best way to go, but our nation's priorities say otherwise. Just pretending by telling people if they stay in school and goto college then things will work out didn't work for many millennials. A lot of things have to change, but if you snobs don't want anymore riots, better start thinking about how to keep that heavily indebted 80% fully fed, not itching to burn everything down, and restarting the matrix.
Why is nobody asking hard questions in our government? Why does our schools cost so much? Why does college coach’s make millions? Why does healthcare cost so much? Why do company who make billions avoid tax? Why do executive and CEO continue to make 2000x? Why does it cost $5 dollars for a cup of coffee? Why does the elite 1% continue to get richer during pandemic? Why do we make people feel with $30,000 it’s not enough to live on? Endless cycle Raise wages and every single one above increase again. Raise wages again and every single one above increase again rinse and repeat. The system is broken. It needs revamped based on modern society and future prosperity for everyone. **** is broken. We don’t have a choice but to raise wages because we can’t address the issues. But hey at least our politicians don’t have to worry about minimum wage. Always have funds (aka , donations to elections, lobby, promise of books, future jobs, stock tips, etc).
There is a state minimum wage. In NY, it's $12.50. In Alabama, it's $7.25. It seems that states with higher minimum wages tend to have both less poverty and better economies. I wonder if there is a connection.
Why is it that poor people who "made it" have the least empathy? I see this with with many well off immigrants also who want to close the door behind them. I think this phenomenon has a lot to do with ego. It's like when fat person becomes lean and ripped and always makes fun of fat people afterwards. 1. The most important stage of brain development that determines whether a human will be mentally healthy stable competent hard working adults is ages 0-10 and more specifically 0-3. 2. Most who are struggling to afford basic healthcare services, child care services, rent, utilities etc are working to their maximum ability while also trying to raise kids. Punishing these people for having kids at the "wong time" does nothing but remove basic services that are absolutely necessary for a developing brain of a child which results in higher probability outcomes of more people growing up with mental health issues and inability to be competent people. The cure to the prevelance of mentally unhealthy lazy unstable people is maximizing the reach of basic essential services for children who don't have access to them and providing those services at a high quality. That partially means increasing the disposable income of the parents of the children.
I don’t think Alabama’s economy will rival New York City if they raise the minimum wage Obviously other factors like New York is a financial hub has something to do with it What’s the major industry in Alabama besides wide receivers ?
Forget America The entire human race is more important All economies and civilizations are based on resources , and the earth is limited The best way to expand which is planetary. water? Nuke the caps on mars . Everything is based on resources. Food, energy, transportation, medicine and housing Elon sees this. Equality? Think on intellectual terms instead of race. the chick who put gorilla glue on her head is not the same as the girl with a phd in molecular biology The best get the best . Supposedly people here are basketball fans Why aren’t all nba players paid the same ? people know . They just don’t like the truth
