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What are your thoughts on minimum wage in the US, and the purpose of minimum wage in general?

I've thought about it a lot, and I don't know. I believe we need a minimum wage to prevent poor people from being exploited, but it should be low. High enough so its not exploration, but not too high. I feel that in the US, min wage could maybe be raised $1 or $2, but anything more than $10 min wage is excessive.

Minimum wage jobs are just jobs worked by people who aren't currently looking for a career, such as school students or stay at home parent looking for extra cash, older people, etc. Or by people who have no skills. Minimum effort jobs should be expected to give minimum wages.

Eh, I just feel that if you don't like your minimum wage job, then just get a better job.

But that's the mindset tho, people with minimum effort jobs that get paid a minimum wage don't want to go to college or get a better job, they want more money for what they're already doing. "I shouldn't have to do anything but be born in order to make a living wage. I should be able to exit high school, or not have even finished high school, and immediately be handed a job that pays me enough to comfortably live in a nice apartment on my own while maintaining a vibrant adult social life. I have invested absolutely nothing into myself or my future, but it's my human right to be paid enough to save for my lavishly planned early retirement."

^wow what a negative perspective.

I think it is great beacause it gives people that are fucked another chance. If you want to start somewhere let it be a min wage job. The way the career path goes is that even with a degree, it still needs to be relevant to positions in need.

I think it is a second wind for others who had some mishaps along their way.

Dont fuck up lisa or all the smug will escape. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ( ͡° ͜ʖ ( ͡° ͜ʖ ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ͜ʖ ͡°)ʖ ͡°)ʖ ͡°)

{ If you want to start somewhere let it be a min wage job. }

You're talking about people who want to start at $8 an hour and work their way up the corporate ladder until they reach a job which pays them an acceptable living wage, aka how shit is supposed to work. I'm talking about people who want $15 to scan groceries.

If $15 is the minimum wage that a cashier gets, what happens to the store management who were the people making $15 originally? Now they're going to want a higher wage too because a bunch of high school dropouts think they deserve a real salary. Then upper management will complain because store-level management is making their salary now, and they didn't work in a store for 10 years only to be promoted and still making exactly what lower management now makes.

Where does the money for all of these wage increases come from? Do employers pay this out of their profits for the good of humanity? Of course not. They raise the cost of their services and products. Cinemark was charging $10 a ticket, but now they have to pay cashiers an extra $5, lower management an extra $5, and upper management an extra $5. Your movie ticket now costs $25 to make up for the difference.

I haven't been paid a minimum wage since sophomore year of high school, you don't have to worry about me Alexis.

I can't help but think if minimum wage was raised it would do more harm than good.

I imagine employers would hire a lot less people – if not fire a bunch outright – so they wouldn't actually have to pay more than they were paying. On top of that they would probably expect a lot more out of each of their employees if they were being paid $15 an hour or something.

While I don't think minimum wage should be $7.25-$8.00 an hour, I don't think making if $15.00 will work either. Prices for everything will go up, and we're already seeing it in some metropolitan cities.

I am not gonna talk out of my ass and say "$x minimum wage is too much/low/just right/etc" but I am in favor of increasing the minimum wage to match inflation. Inflation happens every year and ideally, so should the average income.

I don't get this idea that you have to reach a certain level in your career before you "deserve" to make enough money to stay alive? "Oh, you didn't further your education beyond high school, I guess you just don't deserve to live" What the fuck kind of a mindset is that? Did we forget that people actually have value beyond their level of education? That high school drop out probably dropped out because the public education system failed them miserably, and now they're stuck with the label that they're worthless?

I'd also like to pose the question of how one expects a person to further their education by paying the ridiculous fees for college… by working a minimum wage job when minimum wage isn't even high enough to reasonably live off of? Not everyone can have their parents pay for their college education or have their tuition paid off by scholarships and certainly not everyone wants student loan bills that cost more than a mortgage for a house. I see my fellow classmates dropping out of college left and right because they/their family just can not support the hefty cost. Oh, but I guess they just didn't care enough so they no longer deserve to have a livable wage.

I'd also argue that most minimum wage jobs are most certainly not minimum effort. They do not require a specialized skill, but they still require a lot of effort. Even when your job is just "scanning groceries", you have to stand all day, you have to deal with people with shitty attitudes and try to fix their problems (do any of you guys realize just how outright abusive customers are?), and depending on the job you will only be given 15 minutes for a lunch break. That is not a minimum effort job. Don't even get me started on how much energy employees have to spend on food service jobs. You ever watch the show "Undercover Boss"? CEOs for huge companies go undercover doing the minimum wage jobs at the bottom of their company. Without fail every episode the undercover worker will complain about how exhausted they are by the end of the day working on the front lines. That says a lot for the amount of physical effort put into these jobs

"If you want a higher wage, just get a better job"
You do realize the state of the economy, right? A lot of people, even people who managed to get a college education, struggle to to find any jobs that offer above minimum wage. I would love to find a job with a better wage to help me a little more while I'm putting myself through college, but I'm not likely to get that no matter how many applications I send to companies

I don't know how high minimum wage should be, and I don't think raising it will fix every problem I listed, but the wage definitely should not be fucking 7.25/hr. The one good argument for the $15 minimum wage is that minimum wage is supposed to rise with inflation and it hasn't for literally decades. And the whole point of making a mandatory minimum wage is so that a person working 40 hours a week on minimum wage can reasonably support themselves. I don't know why we have this idea that this isn't a necessary component of minimum wage anymore, or how we somehow reached the mindset that the kind of people who work minimum wage "don't deserve" a livable wage, but it completely defeats the purpose of a minimum wage to begin with.

{ That high school drop out probably dropped out because the public education system failed them miserably, and now they’re stuck with the label that they’re worthless? }

They're not worthless, they're simply not worth doubling the minimum wage and fucking everything up for the rest of us. They don't even have to go to school, why can't they simply start at eight bucks in a mailroom and work their way up like hundreds of thousands of other people have managed to do? Too much effort? No instant gratification? They could go on welfare (instant gratification! no effort!) and be less damaging overall than demanding double the minimum wage.

{ certainly not everyone wants student loan bills that cost more than a mortgage for a house }

I sure didn't but I took out loans anyway because they're an investment in my future. I can pay them back because of the high-paying jobs I'm now qualified to work. I don't have to beg the government to make employers pay me $15, I made good choices, I planned properly for my future. You don't get to kick and scream and say THIS IS ALL TOO HARD AND COSTLY JUST GIVE ME WHAT I'M DEMANDING ALREADY! If you want a decent job in your early 20s, take out a student loan just like everybody else in this country and go to college. Discussion over.

Now here's the thing about a living wage. Federal minimum wage comes to $15k annually, that's a bit more than $1k per month. You can most certainly live on $1k a month. You can't go out drinking every Saturday or buy yourself new clothes every month or get a cable package that includes HBO, but you can sure as fuck house, clothe, and feed yourself. You have to live within your means, which people seem to struggle with dramatically.

Minimum wage should vary between state to state and it should be set to what is survivable, as in what is the amount one could make say on a part time work schedule, let's say 35 hours a week, that allows them to be able to continue to work and not starve? Maybe afford a bit more with a full time job schedule or like, I don't know, 50 hours a week?

Let me give an example of what I'm talking about. In hawaii, the minimum wage has not increased for a long time. It's set at 7.50 an hour. Nothing else has stayed at that level however. Gas cost 4.17 a gallon during this current massive drop in price, it was 6 dollars an hour during the really bad times. To use another example, Milk at its very cheapest is 4.99, stuff like bread is 4.22.

This sort of minimum wage balance doesn't work. Buying food to survive decimates your salary, and thus creates a scenario in which you have to depend on government subsidies in order to actually buy both food and pay bills.

So, you get behind on payments, which causes economic disasters to occur as people don't keep up with paying off the cost private businesses expend in providing the services to the people who aren't paying them. OR, you malnourished yourself and potentially your family or you buy incredibly unhealthy food because it's what is in your means, creating health problems for yourself and your family down the line which cost the nation more money in providing medical coverage to you.

The entire thing in my opinion should just be balanced so that one can pay their basic utilities and afford food for their families. Now, whether they spend that money to do so, that'll be on them and their responsibility. But the money should be made available, so that those who would, do, and stop being lumped into the same category as those who refuse to have personal responsibility.

{ The entire thing in my opinion should just be balanced so that one can pay their basic utilities and afford food for their families. }

If I can drop out of high school and somebody still HAS to pay me enough to live comfortably in my state, why would I go to high school in the first place? Especially if I'm from a poor family and it would be more worth my while to work for $15 bucks an hour than go to school? That's exactly the reason we established public school in the first place, so kids could get an education instead of working on their family farm/being forced by their parents to work and fund their bad habits. All of these fanciful ideas sound lovely on paper but have extremely negative real-world consequences.

If I can drop out of high school and somebody still HAS to pay me enough to live comfortably in my state, why would I go to high school in the first place?

Implying you don't deserve to live in a scenario where you aren't malnourished if you drop out.

Especially if I’m from a poor family and it would be more worth my while to work for $15 bucks an hour than go to school?

Making it worse for you by providing a good example of why someone might not pass high-school.

That’s exactly the reason we established public school in the first place, so kids could get an education

Because getting a high-school diploma guarantees a job that isn't minimum wage, being a top-notch education system, right?

instead of working on their family farm/being forced by their parents to work and fund their bad habits.

You yourself already provided an example of a scenario in which a high-school dropout might be so for a good reason, and that example applies to both current minimum wages and future given that the supplementary money would be very helpful to very poor families.

All of these fanciful ideas sound lovely on paper but have extremely negative real-world consequences.

Emphasis on "consequences". You've only provided one consequence according to my skimming – then again, I suck at skimming. Maybe you want to explain?

"I sure didn’t but I took out loans anyway because they’re an investment in my future. I can pay them back because of the high-paying jobs I’m now qualified to work"

Ahaha AHAHA AHAHAHAHAHAHA Yeah sure, let me pull out a loan for 80-100K that can't be bankrupted against so I can get a degree that will guarantee that I still struggle to find minimum wage jobs because the economy is that bad and having a degree can actually hurt you when finding job because you are "over qualified" and won't be hired and you can't find a job in your field because they are all shipped over seas. Right now, Degrees are practically worthless, and certainly not worth putting yourself in debt that will take you decades to escape from.

Working your way up a corporate ladder is a thing of the past too now, my sister, with a degree, who is, as told by her bosses, the most talented person at that company, who have been working their for seven years, get's paid $9.00 an hour and rents someones basement and can't quit her job because that $9 is more than anyone else is paying. She had to have our father pay the rest of her student loans off because if not, she couldn't even afford to rent the basement anymore. That's how fucked the economy is

And please stop with this "minimum effort minimum pay" horseshit. Let me list a few minimum wage jobs in my area and friends of mine works.
$8.00/h Working at a scrapyard regularly lifting 50 pound pieces of metal outside in any weather (including -10F)
$9.00/h My uncle works at a factory floor 10 hours a day 6 days a week no breaks except for lunch that puts so much strain on him that all he ever does when he comes home from work is sit on the couch in pain, unable to move
$8.00 /h Stocker, regularly lifts 50-100 pounds off a truck in the middle of the night at 50 items an hour.
$18.00 /h Sit around and tell people where to go in a comfortable office, do some paperwork sometimes but is regularly seen talking about her day to people around the building doing nothing.
Pay = Effort is the biggest pile of bullshit I have ever seen. The hardest, more physically and mentally intensive jobs are usually the ones that pay $8 and hour.

If people need to take out loans for 80-100k just for their degrees, then maybe the issue isn't minimum wage, but the absurd idea spreading around that you need to spend $$$ to go to institution X so its name will be on your certificate. $80-100k for school is crazy. There are European countries where there is no tuition. In Canada my tuition is like $40,000/4 = $10,000 a year. And just for keeping a modest GPA in the high 80's you get $20,000/ 4 years = $5,000 a year. And in Ontario you get bursaries for low-middle income families like $800-1,000 that you don't have to pay back. So it costs like $4,000 if you get good grades and you can pay that off in a couple of summers depending how much you work.

I think that the minimum wage should be increased, but at an incremental rate. The way that my state (Oregon) is doing it is that every year the minimum wage will be increased by a small amount, up until we get to a minimum wage of 14.50 by 2022.

{ In Canada my tuition is like $40,000/4 = $10,000 a year }

It's even less than that here if you go to an in-state community college, which makes absolutely no difference to your future employer. We also have something called the Pell Grant ($5,000) which is easy to qualify for, which you don't have to pay back. Once I completed the requirements to be a Nevada resident, my full time state university tuition (so, not a community college) was about $7k per year.

Pay=/=Effort. I had to get a 4 year degree/some kind of license/certificate/whatever to qualify for X job, so I'm not going to do X job for less than $18.00 an hour. I don't have to qualify for anything to unload a truck, so I don't have to get as much to do it. Also see below about immigration.

{ eah sure, let me pull out a loan for 80-100K that can’t be bankrupted against }

Student loan forgiveness exists. You can also restructure your loan depending on what you make, so the minimum payment isn't all $300 you make per week.

{ who is, as told by her bosses, the most talented person at that company, who have been working their for seven years }

Has she renegotiated her salary with her bosses recently? The most talented person at the company would be difficult to replace, even if they could retrain someone, which costs them additional time and money. She has leverage, does she use it? Or does she sit around like 99% of the population and wait for a raise to be offered to her? I renegotiate my salary every single year at my hire date, that's what you're supposed to do.

The economy being fucked is an entirely different issue than a federal minimum wage. The economy is fucked because we have tens of thousands of regulations, and Democrats keep on adding more, which discourage manufacturing and business in general in America. That's why we're going downhill while China and India rise, that's where all the manufacturing went.

& your manual labor example has nothing to do with a minimum wage either. That's a product of immigration, especially illegal immigration. Employers don't have to pay taxes on legal immigrants, reason #1 to employ them over you. Illegal immigrants aren't held to taxes and work for far less than the minimum wage. If you want real money for labor, you'd better plan on voting for Trump and enforcing our immigration policies. Did you know almost 40% of our illegal immigrants are legal immigrants who overstayed their work visa and continue to work illegally in the USA? That's why there aren't any jobs opening up for you and all the other new grads.

If you didn't have to compete against immigrants, you wouldn't have employers who don't care that they lose you. Why should they care when they can replace you, standing there at the register or moving bricks around a yard, with a Mexican who will do it for $50 a day? Or even better, a robot that does it for absolutely nothing?

Please remember that nobody on this planet has any obligation to employ you at all.

{ You yourself already provided an example of a scenario in which a high-school dropout might be so for a good reason, and that example applies to both current minimum wages and future given that the supplementary money would be very helpful to very poor families. }

It's illegal to not be in school unless you're 16. You're considered truant. Your guardians will be thrown in jail. "Not going to school because you need to work" was not an example of a good reason, it was an example of what used to happen before we had the truancy law.

{ Because getting a high-school diploma guarantees a job that isn’t minimum wage, being a top-notch education system, right? }

Not having one means nobody will ever pay you more than minimum wage, pointing at your lack of diploma as the reason. Getting a diploma gives you leverage, something everyone in this thread seems to be taking for granted. I wouldn't be surprised to learn all of you fill out applications and then let the hiring manager tell you what you'll be getting paid without so much as a peep.

{ You’ve only provided one consequence according to my skimming }

I've responded to three different people now with the consequences of their proposed actions. Reread.

Well I'm sorry lisa, that the United States decided that people being maimed by machinery, putting children to work 75 hours a week, and providing no health care, weren't things a civilized nation should do.

Maybe we should just appeal all those laws. Then we could definitely compete with "Actual-Slavery" India and "Suicide-Net" China.

The idea behind raising the minimum wage is so that people can be guaranteed a "livable" pay in return for a full time job. Raising it means less people will get employed, while some people will get paid more. I think the most important debate should be about whether the current minimum wage is livable or not.

Or even better, a robot that does it for absolutely nothing?

Robots require a huge upfront investment. Robots are inflexible and can't handle as many situations as a human can. Robots are very expensive to repair. Robots have a much shorter shelf life. Stop jumping on "Le robot revolution" train cause it ain't happening anytime soon.

I've been under the assumption that "community-college" in the states is what we call "college" in Canada in that case my tuition should be compared to the "higher up" colleges in the states those that offer i.e sciences engineering etc. I don't know what you call them there. Like there are no biochemistry or mechanical engineering programs in our colleges, instead they have things like "engineering technicians" and trades etc.

Edit: Oh and if you have the required grades you can do something like a masters in engineering and the school pays all of your tuition :)

Edit: Oh and the numbers I posted are in CAN so me paying $4,000 in one year is apparently like $2,900 USD according to google. :)

{ people being maimed by machinery, putting children to work 75 hours a week, and providing no health care, weren’t things a civilized nation should do. }

That's a lovely baseless statement you've pulled out of your ass there, but I'm talking about business taxes… we have the highest corporate income tax in the world, and absolutely nobody left to pay it. 40% of 0 is always going to be 0. The EU's average is 22%. Asia's is 20%. :| It ain't rocket science.

{ Stop jumping on “Le robot revolution” train cause it ain’t happening anytime soon. }

Robots are predicted to cut 16% of total labor in the USA by 2025 (you're not going to be able to read it without a subscription) and 25% of all job-based tasks by 2019. NPR recently put together a guide which gives the chance of your industry being completely taken over by a machine within 20 years. You're not gonna get very far you're not someone who works with automation for a living, programming it or building it or repairing it, and even then, there wont be enough positions for the population to sustain itself financially. It's already struggling.

{ Robots require a huge upfront investment. Robots are inflexible and can’t handle as many situations as a human can. Robots are very expensive to repair. Robots have a much shorter shelf life. }

Every single thing you've listed is being improved by the day.

{ in that case my tuition should be compared to the “higher up” colleges in the states those that offer i.e sciences engineering etc. I don’t know what you call them there. }

I don't understand. Most of our colleges offer sciences and engineering and stuff like that, community or public or private. Some smaller schools might not and bigger schools/schools specifically dedicated to science fields definitely have better programs (like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology), but even the community college back in my IL town had an engineering program. We have trade schools, like Everest and Kaplan, but I think those are even cheaper.

If you go about it wrong and don't research your options, college in the USA is definitely dramatically more expensive in comparison, but 80k-100k for 4 years is a very big stretch unless you're at a REALLY good school.

Robots are predicted to cut 16% of total labor in the USA by 2025 (you’re not going to be able to read it without a subscription) and 25% of all job-based tasks by 2019. NPR recently put together a guide which gives the chance of your industry being completely taken over by a machine within 20 years.

>"market research company"
>NPR

Well now I'm convinced!

Every single thing you’ve listed is being improved by the day.

Robots have been improved by the day since their inception. They still fucking blow. Go look at the most recent android thing Japan's put out and ask yourself if it's going to be taking anyone's job in the near future.

Good job completely ignoring the first link to Forrester, aka one of the largest market industry research firms globally which specifically advises on the potential impact of technology…

The first color television set was sold hardly more than 50 years ago, now we're in an era of large-scale robot manufacturing and discussing them taking over smaller industries like customer service. Yes, I am concerned about job security in the near future.

That's my point though. Comparing the "REALLY" good schools. McGill is consistently among the top 3 schools in Canada and is known around the world. Check out the tuition for a semester Bachelor of Science at McGIl Why should it costs 80-100K to go to a "good" school in the states. Unless good=flashy name like Harvard etc.

Good job completely ignoring the first link to Forrester, aka one of the largest market industry research firms globally which specifically advises on the potential impact of technology…

Not paying for a subscription, so the best I could do was look up the company name. Then I wasn't sold on anything a market research firm was going to say, given how complex the market is. Long term market predicting is a crapshoot, unless you're going for vague (i.e. useless) outcomes.

The first color television set was sold hardly more than 50 years ago, now we’re in an era of large-scale robot manufacturing and discussing them taking over smaller industries like customer service.

Telescopes were invented 400 years ago, and now we're discussing finding aliens with them. Does that mean anything?

{ Does that mean anything? }

Yeah, that technology improves really fuckin' fast. 200 years ago we had 3x magnification, now we can look at galaxies 13 billion lightyears away. It took longer for cavemen to figure out fire than for us to see 13 billion lightyears away.

That's what I'm talking about, Ivy Leagues. I think they're all around 40k a year, but they also offer financial assistance for families that make under 180k. It really does guarantee you an amazing job on graduation though, you're paying for the connections that come with that school along with the education.

State universities, which is where your average high school student would go (and some of them have pretty high admission standards too), average ~10k/year before assistance. California State LA was named in the top 100 schools in the country and it's like $5k a year.

I wrote a paper about this subject months ago and statistically, the Minimum wage really needs to be raised to $21 an hour to get working families actual good wages. I just can't see how companies can put people in 40 hours per week positions and pay them basic wages that barely gets them through. Plus highschoolers aren't the main demographics of Minimum wage salaries either(Now middle aged women starting families). Even a majority of Republicans support a minimum wage increase.

Plus if your angered over a minimum wage increase, the don't get angry over people using government benefits calling them "lazy freeloaders".

@Crimson Locks
I don't have a college education, and I have a livable wage. I'm living in a nice one bedroom apartment right now. Manual labor jobs pay well, don't require college, and starting your own business is easy.

With how easy or hard it is to get a living wage will just be anecdotal evidence. I say it is easy because I was able to do it, and you say it isn't because maybe you or someone you know wasn't able to.

Eh, if I can start a business and get a well-paying job at age 20 with literally no experience or education, then I honestly can't see what other people's excuse is.

I've always hated the idea that someone has to have a job to be considered a worthwhile human being and not some piece of shit that can just be left behind, but I'll just say that the whole raising the minimum wage thing does come with it's own set of problems, most prominently, as people have said, the price of goods going up. But to be honest, I think that should be an afterthought considering how people usually have to choose between eating and paying bills, normally doing the latter and then starving themselves so the bill don't pile up. I think giving people a goddamn right and means to live at all is more of a concern than "oh no the big mac is more expensive now. fucking whiny minimum wagers did this i bet"

My idea for a minimum wage is that instead of a dollar amount, it's an equation that factors in the local minimum cost of living and inflation, to create a flexible minimum wage that changes from place to place. Therefore, the minimum wage in New York City, which is the most expensive place in the US to live, would be much higher than it would be in my town here in Wisconsin, where it'd be much lower.

Barring that, I'd allow for a $12 minimum wage indexed to inflation, but $15 is a bit high (for now).

But to be honest, I think that should be an afterthought considering how people usually have to choose between eating and paying bills, normally doing the latter and then starving themselves so the bill don’t pile up. I think giving people a goddamn right and means to live at all is more of a concern than “oh no the big mac is more expensive now. fucking whiny minimum wagers did this i bet”

Consider that the same people benefiting from a higher minimum wage would also be suffering from the price increases you mentioned.

You can’t support a family on minimum wage, but you aren’t supposed to. Minimum wage jobs are meant for teenagers and young adults who need work experience and elderly people trying to supplement their Social Security checks. It is a starting point. Nothing more.

The implicit statement here is that the economic pie has enough well paid jobs so that everyone who has a family can also have a job that allows them to support them.

Is that true? I don't think it is.

edit: don't delete your posts on me you fucknugget

I've always been under the impression that minimum wage jobs were meant to be a starting point for teenagers and young adults who need work experience or a way for the elderly to supplement their Social Security checks. You can't support a family on minimum wage, but you aren't supposed to. I guess it's a balancing act: minimum wage should be carefully raised every so often so it doesn't become worthless, but it can't be raised hectically without causing inflation, layoffs, and complacency. Eh, raise it a couple dollars, I guess. Just don't double it.

{don’t delete your posts on me you fucknugget}
I thought the original post sounded a little harsh, so I blunted the language a bit. Keep it classy, sweetheart.

{The implicit statement here is that the economic pie has enough well paid jobs so that everyone who has a family can also have a job that allows them to support them.}
The only thing I implied is that starting a family is a costly affair. I've known plenty of people who have held off on marriage/having children until one or both of them have advanced beyond the bottom wrung of their career.

I apologise, I should have elaborated that I am completely against the idea of the minimum wage being jacked up really high suddenly. I agree that it should be increased incrementally as opposed to suddenly, to give time for goods and services to adjust as well.

If you want a decent job in your early 20s, take out a student loan just like everybody else in this country and go to college. Discussion over.

itt: there is no difference between smarts. Literally every human has the brain to complete college and do rocket science. If you don't, consider euthanasia and help the gene pool.

Incomes increase as inflation does, and so should minimum wage.

{ Literally every human has the brain to complete college and do rocket science. }

You don't have to get a PhD. The entire first world is centered around the idea that liberal education is a human right, every single person should be going to college not just to learn skills but to become a complete person with a healthy worldview. That's the idea, anyway.

There are all sorts of schools out there, from intellectual majors to trade schools, and tens of thousands of different ways to pay/stay there. You don't have to do rocket science, but you do need a piece of paper that says you completed whatever course you chose to take. People don't take the opportunity that is practically forced upon them and then bitch that they don't make enough money to live? You're competing with 100 million other working age people in this country, you can't just exist and expect everything to work out.

I think pretty much all of us will agree that we shouldn't just jack the minimum wage up to $15 tomorrow, it has to be something done incrementally over time.

So a lot of people are pointing out that bringing up minimum wage would bring up the price of goods and services, but nobody seems to consider the possibility that this has less to do with big companies not being able to cover the expense of paying their employees more and more about CEOs not wanting to cut into their six figure salary too help out their employees. In America the wage gap between minimum wage workers and CEOs is ridiculous and yet we're calling the minimum wage workers greedy and entitled for wanting to make enough money so they don't have to work 60+ hours a week to freaking survive. Not to mention the prices for goods and services are going up regularly without the minimum wage going up anyway. Companies like Toms are willing to make two pairs of shoes for the price or one pair so they can send one pair off to Africa in a valiant showcase of charity every time they sell a pair of shoes, and yet if you ask them to give better wages to their workers the company suddenly doesn't have the funds to cover that cost? Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

@Crimson Locks
"more about CEOs not wanting to cut into their six figure salary too help out their employees."
That isn't very true when it comes to large chains such as Walmart or Mcdonalds.

For example, the CEO of Walmart doesn't make very much money per store.
When you divide the CEO's salary with the number worldwide walmarts… he only makes $2,000 a year per store. That doesn't sound greedy to me.

Over 2 million people work for walmart. The CEO's salary isn't some huge cut.
It isn't as if there are 10 employees making $20k each, and the CEO making $100million.
When you have as many stores and employees, a CEO's $25million salary isn't going to affect other person's salary very much.

My point is, large chain store CEOs make a large salary not because they are greedy or w/e, but because of the number of stores they have, even taking a tiny, tiny percent of profit of each store ends up being a huge amount.

Personally I believe a maximum wage is the best response to a heightened minimum wage of Bernie's desired 15 dollars, which is a REAL living wage.

My idea is that if you have a high enough minimum wage, people quickly become greedy and jealous (and to a degree, rightfully so) because people with mediocre skills are making a livable, 15 dollar wage. If you have a maximum wage, then this can be capped off so that there is a point where people cannot become greedier than 'x' wage.

Then the economy would need to balance out all wages across a gradient line from a 15 dollar minimum wage to for example a 60 dollar minimum wage, with the poorest people of all at 15 dollars, the richest people of all at 60 dollars, and everyone else gradually distributed in between.

If there were people bothered by a cap at 60 dollars then they can just invest in stocks and do trading, making money through those means as many already do.

Not sure what economic philosophy espouses this idea, but that's what I believe would work based on my present knowledge.

CEOs aren't paid a straight up salary, it's a compensation package that's practically all stocks. Only like 20% of their compensation is actual salary. If the company is doing well under their leadership, the stocks go up and they're worth more. Walmart's CEO's base salary for 2015 was 885k. What part of that would make any difference at all to the 2 million Walmart employees?

Once you get into the 10s of millions, currency is completely fake. It all hinges on the stocks, that's why big money traders are always throwing themselves off the top of buildings when the market dips.

& still we're ignoring the immediate job losses. Every single group that has analyzed the cost of raising the minimum wage has seen a dramatic decrease in jobs, ranging from 500,000 jobs lost at $10.10 an hour to 6.6 million jobs lost at $15 an hour. Is it helpful to raise the minimum wage when it's minimum wage jobs that immediately get cut as a consequence? Our problem isn't the wage, our problem is that we have no manufacturing and the native labor force is dropping like flies to immigrant workers that have been made much more enticing to hire than American workers.

I feel you missed the point of… your own argument.

You jumped from blatant examples of CEOs having so much money it's 'completely fake' and… by that logic I would be led to believe policies that restrict how much of that you can get away with would be necessary.

Instead you jumped to the conclusion that we have 'no manufacturing' and 'the native labor force is dropping like flies to immigrant workers' and though those might to a degree be true, I feel that is an overstatement of an issue that might be secondary to say, limiting how much money CEOs can milk. If there is a point where the money starts practically being fake, perhaps it would be beneficial that a restriction be put in place at a point before it starts feeling fake, that way CEOs would feel like they're getting a decent amount of money for what they're doing, and the bottom 20% of people in the United States aren't forced into suffering and for the lowest percentages, death.

Or maybe I'm just a radical democratic socialist like Bernie Sanders that wants impossible policies like an increased minimum wage at the cost of everyone becoming poverty-stricken Marxist Communists.

{ You jumped from blatant examples of CEOs having so much money it’s ‘completely fake’ }

Not what I said. CEO's don't have that much money, CEOs don't get paid tens of millions of dollars, they typically get paid less than $1 million. The rest is all in the stocks, you can't go buy stuff with it, you can't divide it up among your employees to make up for a wage gap, and if you sell your major shareholder portion take the cash you devalue everybody else's stock, including the worker-shareholders who actually benefit from selling off a small number of shares.

{ and though those might to a degree be true, I feel that is an overstatement of an issue that might be secondary }

Of the 6 million new net jobs created in America since 2000, all of them have gone to immigrants with the exception of job gains by those 65 and older. For fifteen years, not a single job created has gone to a native American citizen under the age of 65. Don't worry about it tho, obvs this is a secondary issue, the real problem is those greedy rich white men!!

^ I don't understand what "not a single job created has gone to a native American citizen under the age of 65" means. Obviously you don't literally mean that no jobs have been created that Americans under 65 have taken.

You mean like, 6 million jobs have been created, and 6 million more immigrants have jobs in the US?

A maximum wage would absolutely destroy this economy. Just… no.

Do I think minimum wage should be raised? Yes. I think you should be able to live on your wages without needing to get supplementary income from the government. Do I think it should be $15/hr? No, because I live quite comfortably on much less, and that is way too much of a change too quickly.

Where I live, you need to earn about $10/hr in order to live on your own in an apartment with insurance/all that if you don't want to be in inner city Detroit. Now Lisa, I know you would try to argue that they should live there, but I'd like you to take a tour down there and take a second consideration. It's not just an on-and-off question.

I think the minimum wage should be based on the average low end living conditions in each state. But this would be probably kind of difficult to implement, because of the need for updating it every year.

I honestly don't know the best solution but I do support a gradual raise in minimum wage.

bonus lisa action

"Of the 6 million new net jobs created in America since 2000, all of them have gone to immigrants with the exception of job gains by those 65 and older. For fifteen years, not a single job created has gone to a native American citizen under the age of 65. Don’t worry about it tho, obvs this is a secondary issue, the real problem is those greedy rich white men!!"

did you even fucking read the article

"Rick Santorum touted a shocking statistic to Iowa voters: Of the “6 million net new jobs created in America” since 2000, “all of them” are held by immigrants. That’s not accurate. Santorum ignores the 2.6 million job gains by native-born Americans over the age of 65 in the same time period."

"The report he’s citing says from 2010 to 2014, 43 percent of net job growth went to the foreign-born, among those age 16 to 65. From the first quarter in 2010 to the first quarter in 2014, the native-born gained 3 million jobs and immigrants gained 2.3 million, among the 16-to-65 age group, according to CIS’ data chart. If we look at all workers age 16 and up, native-born workers saw a net gain of 4.4 million jobs, while the foreign-born saw a gain of 2.5 million during that time."

literally the first paragraph says you're wrong, unless you're being really, really badly sarcastic

{ literally the first paragraph says you’re wrong, unless you’re being really badly sarcastic }

lmfao, can you read? It says exactly what I said.

“Rick Santorum touted a shocking statistic to Iowa voters: Of the “6 million net new jobs created in America” since 2000, “all of them” are held by immigrants. That’s not accurate. Santorum ignores the 2.6 million job gains by native-born Americans over the age of 65 in the same time period.” }

Of the 6 million net new jobs, all of them went to immigrants except gains made by those over 65 years old.

Apparently you don't appreciate the fine liberal spin factcheck put on their article. It's nicely worded, isn't it? You couldn't even comprehend what you read even after having me point it out for you.

{ Obviously you don’t literally mean that no jobs have been created that Americans under 65 have taken. }

That's exactly what it means. New jobs are positions that have never been filled, eg if a restaurant had 10 waitresses and 1 quit, but they hired 2 new waitresses, 1 net new job was added. Every month the feds release net new job numbers, lately it's something around 150,000 jobs (and that's really low).

It's no surprise when companies like Disney (the best most recent example which caused waves through Congress who screamed that this was blatant H1 visa abuse, but obviously none of them ever did anything about it, just got visually mad to appease the peasants) fire hundreds of workers specifically acknowledging they'll be replaced with cheaper H1 visa immigrant workers. If they're replacing US workers in established positions, they're certainly not hiring US workers for new jobs.

No employer-paid taxes, willing to work at bare minimum wages (the illegals are willing to work for less), still able to get the job done. Why would they want a US citizen when all these perks come with immigrants?

You just mean the rate that they get hired is the same rate that they get fired/quit, right?

Just pointing to a new McDonalds restaurant proves that new jobs are being created and being filled by young Americans.

I think part of the problem is that certain places are just straight up more expensive to live in than others. Part of the reason why I moved to Texas from California is that rent is like half as much here, and gas is around 1.50 compared to the 2.50 average in CA.

I agree that minimum wage jobs are hard (trust me, I worked at McDonalds for 2 years) but I don't think that raising the wage so drastically is going to help.

I actually was working in McDonald's when the minimum wage was raised to $9 in 2015. The prices of almost all of our products went up, to the point that they removed stuff off the Dollar menu and instead made a "value menu." I noticed that my hours were getting cut and the shifts would have less people, so I quit the job as soon as I could.

At least imo people who want to raise the minimum wage like that by several dollars at once are thinking ideally and not practically.

No, the rate of being fired has nothing to do with this.

Let's say I'm an accounting company. I don't have anybody doing IT for me. I create a new position for an IT rep. I hire an immigrant on an H1 visa instead of an American because I don't want to pay my half of the taxes that get taken out of every citizen's paycheck (social security and medicare). Immigrants can't use SS or Medicare, so they don't have to pay into it, thus their employer has nothing to match.

McDonald's abuses guest workers and illegal immigrant workers possibly more than any other corporation in this country. I mean, they're even under federal investigation for favoring foreign workers over citizens in CANADA.

But it's net jobs. Even if a few thousand young American workers find a starter job flipping patties, the amount of native positions cut zeroes the gain out. That's why only the elderly can find work, positions are being made specifically for the aging Americans that are taking retirement much later than they had in the past. The retirement age is another factor that contributes to the overall problem.

{ The total number of working-age (16 to 65) immigrants (legal and illegal) holding a job increased 5.7 million from the first quarter of 2000 to the first quarter of 2014, while declining 127,000 for natives. }

{ The participation rate of foreign-born men was 78.7 percent in 2014, higher than the rate of 67.4 percent for native-born men. }

Here's a copy-paste from a government site courtesy of the department of labor.

Minimum Wage Mythbusters
Myth: Raising the minimum wage will only benefit teens.

Not true: The typical minimum wage worker is not a high school student earning weekend pocket money. In fact, 89 percent of those who would benefit from a federal minimum wage increase to $12 per hour are age 20 or older, and 56 percent are women.

Myth: Increasing the minimum wage will cause people to lose their jobs.

Not true: In a letter to President Obama and congressional leaders urging a minimum wage increase, more than 600 economists, including 7 Nobel Prize winners wrote, "In recent years there have been important developments in the academic literature on the effect of increases in the minimum wage on employment, with the weight of evidence now showing that increases in the minimum wage have had little or no negative effect on the employment of minimum-wage workers, even during times of weakness in the labor market. Research suggests that a minimum-wage increase could have a small stimulative effect on the economy as low-wage workers spend their additional earnings, raising demand and job growth, and providing some help on the jobs front."

Myth: Small business owners can't afford to pay their workers more, and therefore don't support an increase in the minimum wage.

Not true: A July 2015 survey found that 3 out of 5 small business owners with employees support a gradual increase in the minimum wage to $12. The survey reports that small business owners say an increase "would immediately put more money in the pocket of low-wage workers who will then spend the money on things like housing, food, and gas. This boost in demand for goods and services will help stimulate the economy and help create opportunities."

Myth: Raising the federal minimum wage won't benefit workers in states where the hourly minimum rate is already higher than the federal minimum.

Not true: While 29 states and the District of Columbia currently have a minimum wage higher than the federal minimum, increasing the federal minimum wage will boost the earnings for nearly 38 million low-wage workers nationwide. That includes workers in those states already earning above the current federal minimum. Raising the federal minimum wage is an important part of strengthening the economy. A raise for minimum wage earners will put more money in more families' pockets, which will be spent on goods and services, stimulating economic growth locally and nationally.

Myth: Younger workers don't have to be paid the minimum wage.

Not true: While there are some exceptions, employers are generally required to pay at least the federal minimum wage. Exceptions allowed include a minimum wage of $4.25 per hour for young workers under the age of 20, but only during their first 90 consecutive calendar days of employment with an employer, and as long as their work does not displace other workers. After 90 consecutive days of employment or the employee reaches 20 years of age, whichever comes first, the employee must receive the current federal minimum wage or the state minimum wage, whichever is higher. There are programs requiring federal certification that allow for payment of less than the full federal minimum wage, but those programs are not limited to the employment of young workers.

For more go to http://www.dol.gov/featured/minimum-wage/mythbuster

All the rhetoric in the world cannot conquer basic evidence that the minimum wage should be raised across the board.

I haven't ever actually had a job yet so I guess this fun is something to look forward to.