So You Want A $15 Minimum Wage? / What About All of Us Already at $12? (alternatives, claim)
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This is true. I know a guy who started working at McDonald's when he was 15. He slowly moved up the ranks...shift leader, store manager, district manager. Now, he has some upper management job with the company. I doubt he's wealthy, but he's making a good living.
And your point is what exactly? Millions of people do exactly this. Maybe not at McDonald's but everyone who is a "upper management" of anything started somewhere. They were not senior management at 15 years of age. In 1970 a salary of $116K for a senior airline pilot was not unheard of. In 1970 a salary of 100K for a senior Air Traffic Controller was not unheard of. In 2015 senior pilots don't make a lot more than $116K and many make less. In 2015 senior Air Traffic Controllers still make around 100K and many make less. No one is really sorry for someone who makes six figures. But J.H.C those salaries must have been fantastic in 1970.
Salaries don't exist in a vacuum. Well paid professions have allowed the slow creep of inflation to erode the luster of all that attainment and it is not unheard of for airline pilots with large families to qualify for food stamps and other assistance programs. I don't care what you say. This is wrong. It is wrong to expect a senior airline pilot to go back to school to obtain an M.D. so he can "better himself". The line cook slacker is an easy target, nothing more. In 1970 he made, I don't know $3.00hr? In 2015 he only makes twice that? Is anything in 2015 only twice what it was in 1970? Anything? Most things are at least 10x higher and some things are 30x higher but nothing is only 2x what it was 50 years ago. A minimum wage that is 3x or 4x what the minimum wage was 50 years ago should NOT cause all the alarm and hysteria that it is causing.
This is exactly why I am against minimum wage increases as a way to deal with poverty. I have no sympathy for those who complain that it is unfair because they worked hard to earn more. Life is unfair, stop whining about it. We spend more time fighting against our own best interest in the interest of fairness than anything else.
Couldn't we just apply the same philosophy to those in the $15 range in response to the $12 folks getting bumped up to $15? life isn't fair?
Quote:
Originally Posted by FBJ
If the minimum wage went up to $15 an hour I don't think most woman would get the required 20 hours a week for childcare subsidy. I can't see a bunch of staff at Mcdonald's working 20 hours a week and making $1200 a month so the hours would definitely decrease for all staff.
Whatever the threshold to get benefits are, employers will just go below that. Back last decade, FT was 40+ hours/week. Many were only scheduled for 38 hours.
Now, it's 30hrs, but many of them lowered their employees' schedules to 28. Unfortunately, companies always find a loophole.
In 1970 a salary of $116K for a senior airline pilot was not unheard of. In 1970 a salary of 100K for a senior Air Traffic Controller was not unheard of.
In 1977, the salary range for an Air Traffic Controllers was $16,618 to $35,875 annually. And you are saying senior controllers could make up to $100,000 in 1970? What happened between 1970 and 1977?
Maybe there was some instance where a controller could make such a salary in 1970, but I can only imagine that being an isolated case.
Looking back at my own life I can definitely identify the points where I had help. If you don't have support you probably won't make it.
I got my first job in the career path I'm on now because my professor's old friend from college needed a 1 year temp - he made a call to his buddy, then told me to apply, I did, and the interview was pretty much a friendly conversation with a foregone conclusion.
The people I worked with there liked me, so they helped me out - I got on another year of temp which wasn't normal procedure and I had 2 years of experience instead of 1 - a big help. Then they helped me put together my portfolio to go back on the market and even did mock interviews with me that made me a lot better at it. Then when I went on the market I got more interviews than a normal person might because I had veteran's preference - some states have laws where qualified veterans have to be at least phone interviewed and I could definitely tell which states had that law and which didn't (to clarify - these laws only count for public sector jobs or firms that do business with the government). Being able to get your foot in the door is HUGE.
Without the veteran's preference and networking help I got I don't know what I'd be doing now. Granted, I worked hard too, but I have to admit my social skill has been at least as important. I know there are people out there that work a lot harder than me. I might still be working at Wal-Mart like I was during school.
Something else we have to consider is basic human decency or social justice if you want to call it that. Not everyone is cut out to be a leader or manager, etc... and so they will not move up & some of those are also not cut out for college. Some people simply don't have those skills, so what should they do? Curl up and die?
If even one of those stories is true it does NOTHING to negate the fact that it is not universally possible for every, or even most Americans to duplicate a one in one million lucky happenstance.
Luck had nothing to do with it, those people WORKED their way up the ladder.
Is your name Pretzel? It should be. Adjusted for inflation the minimum wage should be $21.16/hr. this is not my math. You can Google it for yourself. "Peak Purchasing Power"? Oh brother... the energy you people put into telling people its raining when actually what's happening is... ... of course it is illegal to aks workers to work for no pay. Did I say they do? I said they send the workers home early OR tell them to come back later. Did I say they keep them working but do not pay them? What restaurants DO is keep workers close to the premises on the chance that they might get hours. This keeps them from being able to work somewhere else. That is why this is a bad practice.
And, yes, it IS that servers fault that they are not President of The United States. They have to live with that every day. So do you. And? SOMEONE has to wait tables. SOMEONE will wait tables. We actually were never meant to be anything other than efficient hunters of food for ourselves and our immediate family. The brain power to become a Nuclear Physicist is not given to all of us or even most of us. An earlier poster nailed it: the low wages paid by the Wal-Mart's of the world have to be supplemented by tax-payers.
Is that efficient? A growing number of municipalities think it is not. Trust me, they are not being sympathetic to the bleating low wage rabble. They are responding to more objective data. You on the other hand are being purely subjective and superior. Luckily you aren't deciding the ultimate fate of the many millions affected by the unwillingness of employers to compensate modern workers for their efforts.
If the minimum wage, indexed for inflation, should be $21.16 then it follows that wages for most EVERYONE should rise. Minimum wage workers are by no means the only group who have experienced wages have been flat or falling in the last five decades.
If the minimum wage, indexed for inflation, should be $21.16 then it follows that wages for most EVERYONE should rise. Minimum wage workers are by no means the only group who have experienced wages have been flat or falling in the last five decades.
No point blaming the employers - they are only following State and Federal law.
It is not McDonald's fault that workers can not afford an apartment on their low wages because they don't set those wages they are set by the market and the government
Its not Apple's fault they don't build IPhones in CA because China is where everyone (due to cost) builds their phones.
Point the finger at local, state and federal Govt policy. If you want "reasonable" minimum wages then focus on the lobbying efforts to make it happen. Just don't expect the price of a burger and fries or a gallon of milk to do anything but rise. In Australia landscapers can make $30/hour and guess what they can afford a cheap apartment. Social welfare is also more common for the chronically poor but prices there are way higher than the US.
i think its funny all this "moving up" talk and preaching about how people should lead their work lives. sure if you're a "complainer" or "whiner" you may want to check yourself, but there are plenty of us lower wage workers that do just fine and live within our means and wouldn't complain or envy anyone in this thread who thinks they know better because they have more education, money, or ego
folks get so political, its strange. here is a news flash for all of us:
LIFE is a dead end job. and that is the truth. know it and be happy and live and let live. those on at the top of the ladder, middle and bottom
Luck had nothing to do with it, those people WORKED their way up the ladder.
Some luck exists whether it is internal luck (ability and skills) or external luck (family or friend connections.) A hard worker can fall off the ladder if their good luck runs out or becomes bad luck.
The title pretty much makes the point; for every whiny child making $7.50/hr flipping burgers and mopping floors, there are two or three people who have already worked their way halfway up the ladder. If you ever managed to schmooze a few half-literate politicians into doubling your pay, do you think the rest of us, who've already "paid our dues" are going to be content joining you and yours back on the bottom of the economic dungheap?
A proportionate raise for someone already working at $12/hr would raise their base pay to $24/hr; that works out to $960/wk, or just a little under $50K/yr -- which is a lot less than most teachers, or office workers earn. (And don't forget that those individuals often have to furnish the trappings of their careers, such as more-expensive clothing, at their own expense; and might face pressure to work more than the usual 40-hour week while limitd to a straight salary). .
Oh yeah, we know; you think your employer has a huge vault full of money -- somewhere -- from which he/she can satisfy all your fantasies without raising the prices paid by the rest of us.
It's time to grow up.
The facts are that if minimum wage went up proportionately to how it did from its inception up to the 1970's, we would have a $16 minimum wage right now.
Productivity has increased but wages have not.
Cost of living has increased but wages have not.
It's not a matter of someone being whiny or wanting something they don't deserve, it is a matter of the companies being so greedy that they refuse to give workers what they are owed.
Companies do not want to pay for added productivity.
Companies want to use contractors so they don't have to pay benefits (but still treat them as employees).
Companies will pay as little as they can get away with if you let them.
No one owes you a business. If you can't pay a decent wage, you don't deserve to be in business at all. You get what you pay for, so when you want to pay someone 5 bucks an hour, don't complain that they don't "work hard enough."
Why on earth does everyone assume it is the worker's fault and that every worker is undeserving? I have had enough of companies refusing to give raises or benefits, cutting hours, playing the system, stretching the loopholes, doing things outright illegally, and stealing wages but it's always the worker who is to blame. The worker is always the lazy, whiny bum who needs to "work harder" or "get some skills."
I know enough people in skilled, professional jobs who are making deplorable wages. Not because they're bad workers but because the company refuses to take care of the workers. One company, a social media outfit, pays its people 7.50 an hour. 10 years ago they paid 7.50 and today they pay 7.50. In the meantime I just read a post the CEO made online talking about how if you want a successful business you can't outsource with "cheap labor" overseas. He talked about "specialized skills" that his workers have. So the skills are there when he wants to puff up the company, but he doesn't put the money where his mouth is. Also the workers are contractors and have had to fill out shift reports after shifts which they're not allowed to bill for.
Please just stick it with this stuff about "working harder".
Last edited by LolaSonner; 06-06-2015 at 07:30 PM..
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