What if that was the only work your employer had available that week? What if your kids are of the age that they would need childcare while you're at work, which would be more expensive than your minimum wage you're earning? What if you or your kid had an illness and you spent much of the last week in the hospital, limiting your time to work? What if you had a second job and were splitting hours and just recently lost the other one? There are all sorts of reasons he might have worked 15 hours the week before this article - you seem to have dismissed them based on your own prejudices based on no facts at all. Your type seems to be the ignorant person who thinks he has all the answers based on a simplistic view of the world and has a limited concept of reality.
"McDonald's is too expensive. Let's go to In and Out instead!" Yeah, for some reason, I don't think your plan is going to work. Oh, so now the high minimum wages mandated by the Europeans aren't actually part of their welfare state? Don't play ****ing word games with me, we both know that raising minimum wage is part of government intervention into the market to create a more fair and equitable result, just like welfare or food stamps or whatever. That doesn't mean intervention is bad like libertarians like to proclaim it is, but minimum wage is the wrong way to do it.
Wow, why didn't I think of that. Maybe that's why the government raising the wage is the best idea. Maybe someday we'll have restaurants with cool, hip billion dollar ad campaigns featuring healthy food instead of frozen, processed crap. In fact with that in mind let's add a tax to fast food to dissuade the entire industry from serving crap, unhealthy products that most certainly contribute enormously to poor health in America. We can call it the ****** tax and the tax collected will go straight into Obamacare. That way when you choose to eat fast food five and six times a week you're paying up front for your obesity, heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and cancer. Lets see how that plan works. Now a minimum wage is welfare? Corporate food subsidy? Welfare. Corporate tax breaks? Welfare. Child labor laws? Welfare. That's fun.
I love how topics like this always end up in the same place. Poor middle class playing the well get a better job or don't have so many kids if you can't afford them line against those on the cusp of poverty. These people are trying, they are working. There used to be a living wage for these folks doing blue collar work in warehouses and assembly lines but many of those jobs have been automated or shipped overseas. Now the former blue collar workers have become fast food and retail workers. In the meantime wealth disparity is the worst since the Gilded Age and corporate profits and cash reserves sit idle because there's no need to invest and create jobs when the demand that necessitates the investment comes from those that actually go out and spend their money. And without the better paying jobs there's no middle class discretionary income. A viscous downward cycle evident to us all. But in the meantime let us middle class folks who are one pink slip or health issue away from financial oblivion continue to feel content with our crumb of the pie as long as others have even smaller crumbs.
You forgot one important thing. Most of those making the argument against raising the minimum wage were at one time minimum wage workers but instead of complaining about their wages DID something about it. Like myself for instance. Probably like you too.
Yeah minimum wage workers when you were 16. Back when your parents paid most of your bills. So "hey, I worked a minimum way job before, why can't everyone else???" Give me a break.
The major fallacy of this argument is this: if they are so replaceable, why are companies so against them unionizing? Face it, that these jobs are going to be the major source of new job growth. As automation increases, there's less need for blue collar jobs and service jobs will become the norm.
Wow. I should lean over and wake up my significant other, tell her that she wasted her time getting those 2 degrees in sociology, and ask her how in the hell she's making 6 figures with such worthless pieces of paper.
Exactly. I wasn't stupid enough to think a fast food job was a career. How bout you? Did you learn that lesson?
What does that matter? Most of us probably only worked minimum wage as young people because we had opportunities, support, and the infrastructure in our communities to have safe neighborhoods and a quality education through high school. And? Last I checked though, unionizing and striking is doing something about it. It's what workers did before there were workplace safety laws and work week laws. Laws that everyone benefits from today.
You're just stupid enough to think people always choose careers rather than gravitate to what's accessible to them.
Why does it matter? Simple. Its proof that the VAST majority of folks who have held these types of jobs that suck and don't pay much were able to figure out how to fix their problem all by themselves without any "help" from the government.
If someone is in their late 20's or later in a fast food job, most likely they are too stupid/lazy to find educational opportunities to improve themselves. Otherwise, they wouldn't be there. Just like you and I aren't. (I'm making assumptions about you...hopefully you aren't a 20 something still working at Taco Bell.)
Oh is that right? You figured things out all by yourself? How did that work? You self taught yourself through high school? You policed your neighborhood to make it safe? You paid for all your teachers and textbooks through high school? You built your own prison for the area criminals. Then you paid for all your college with your part time job. Tell how you did it all yourself.
Yes. I figured it out all by myself. I had the job. The pay sucked. I didn't like it. I quit. I got another job inside of a week. Strawman. Try again.
Actually, many of the people I met and worked with in my youth were some of the hardest working most dedicated people I ever met. Usually the people were 16-19 or 35-50. The older employees often worked two and three jobs because they had to sustain a family. The jobs they worked were often the ones in walking distance to their apartment complex. That you'd assume they were lazy or stupid is incredibly insulting. I've met far more lazy and stupid people working in the corporate world than there. It's ridiculous to me that financially successful people attribute their success to their hard work and attribute a minimum wage worker's plight to their lack of hard work when many other factors out of your control played just as much a role in where you are today.
Any good documentary movies about the fast food industry and its workers? Don't really want to work a week at McDonalds or anything, but kind interested seeing what they do daily behind the registers.
You said you did it all yourself without government help. Yep, you said it right here. I'm pretty sure school districts, the police dept, and the dept of corrections are governmental. Correct me if I'm wrong. Did you build the streets and electric grid in your neighborhood too? Those are probably relevant too. And if you went to college, how did you pay for that? If you got a student loan those are gubment backed loans so you probably didn't get one.
