| 1/4 of USA make $8.70 an hour or less according to Oprah |
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LottomagicZ4941
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| 1/4 of USA make $8.70 an hour or less according to Oprah |
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30 million workers working full time are in poverty.
77% of the lowest paid workers don't have paid sick leave.
I had an employer once that didn't pay for the first day you were out sick. People would come in sick tossing thier cookies because they didn't want to lose a day's pay.
Another stat from Opera's guest. Didn't catch his name but he is the guy who does things for 30 days in a row. Anyway he lived on minimum wage for 30 days.
Anyway, he stated that the divorce rate is twice as high for people making 25K as it is for people making 50K.
If the minimum wage were indexed for inflation what would it be now?
I've even heard of people starting out at Wal*Mart at $12.
quote:
Originally posted by TeenInvestor
Surely you mean Oprah?
Thanks TeenInvestor guess I was a tad rushed posting. I knew her name ended in ah.
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Last edited by LottomagicZ4941 on Mon Jul 31, 2006 9:32 am; edited 1 time in total |
Fri Jul 28, 2006 10:30 pm |
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coaster
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Yeah, you can't live on the minimum wage these days.
~Tim~
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Last edited by coaster on Sat Jul 29, 2006 12:11 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Fri Jul 28, 2006 10:32 pm |
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TeenInvestor
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Surely you mean Oprah?
As to the post, it is very true.
It explains a lot of crime in the U.S as well, I grew up with a lot of friends on the poverty side of society and they see no way out aside from crime.
How do you convince a kid that he should struggle to survive on minimum wage when his friends are selling drugs or robbing houses and driving Cadillacs and wearing expensive clothes/jewelry?
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Fri Jul 28, 2006 11:44 pm |
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Rolo
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quote:
Originally posted by TeenInvestor
It explains a lot of crime in the U.S as well,
Then why wasn't there a crime-wave during the Great Depression?
"Expect me when you see me."
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Sun Jul 30, 2006 4:16 am |
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Rolo
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quote:
Originally posted by coaster
Yeah, you can't live on the minimum wage these days.
You aren't supposed to...those jobs are stepping-stones.
If you increase the minimum wage with inflation, then inflation increases even more; then you have to increase wages, which will increase inflation...ad infinitum.
"Expect me when you see me."
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Sun Jul 30, 2006 4:18 am |
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TeenInvestor
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quote:
Originally posted by Rolo
quote:
Originally posted by TeenInvestor
It explains a lot of crime in the U.S as well,
Then why wasn't there a crime-wave during the Great Depression?
I thought crime did rise during that period?
If it didn't, perhaps it was because no one had any money?
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Sun Jul 30, 2006 11:59 am |
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coaster
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quote:
Originally posted by Rolo
quote:
Originally posted by coaster
Yeah, you can't live on the minimum wage these days.
You aren't supposed to...those jobs are stepping-stones.
.
I disagree with that. When the minimum wage was first put into law, wasn't it supposed to provide a minimum level that would just keep a family out of poverty? So you could call it the minimum wage you could live on? Obviously that intent got outstripped by inflation long ago. And if the minimum wage were increased to a level that would provide at least a poverty-level income, then it would be too high for those entry-level and stepping-stone jobs Rolo mentions.
So, maybe the concept of the minimum wage is outdated? Maybe the government should get out of the wage-setting business?
~Tim~
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Sun Jul 30, 2006 12:51 pm |
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thebeave
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Here is an example of what happens when you raise minimum wage. I live in Michigan where the minimum wage will soon go from 5.15 an hour to 6.95 an hour in October, a drastic increase. Govenor Grandholm's line of thinking is that it will put more money in people's pockets before the prices of goods go up so the people will spend more and the prices will stay low because compaines will be making more money. She couldn't be more wrong.
I am a manager at a small family run pizza place which is like most businesses around my town and surrounding towns. We are raising the prices within the next few weeks to make up for the increase comming in October. This in turn puts less money in people's pockets before the wage increase which makes it even harder for them to make it and makes them pinch pennies even more. We aren't the only ones raising prices already either, most businesses are already doing it. It is also a double edges sword. What of the people already making 7.00+ an hour? They won't get an increase so they will be paying more for goods therefore having less money or just buying less goods hurting businesses which turns around into businesses hiring less people which starts a terrible downward spiral.
Minimum wage is no longer what you need to survive on. It is a stepping stone as Rolo said. It may have been started with that idea but it is no longer and never again will be what it was started to be. We cannot ever try to make it enough to live on because as I explained it will start a vicious cycle with very bad results. As for so many people living on so little, yes there are many who try and try and connot find better work but I would be willing to bet that more than half of that statistic just lacks the motivation to move on to something better and a whopper flopper.
Don't worry, I'm done now.
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Mon Jul 31, 2006 6:40 am |
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LottomagicZ4941
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As for Rolo's steping stone theory I'm cool if certain jobs are permitted to be sub minimum.
Wal*Mart use to pay minimum and it is only after much public out cry that they have started to treat their people better.
Companies who can afford to pay more should have a higher minimum wage. Perhpas a higher minimum wage for stock companies?
I know when the minimum wage in Colorado went up my employer used it as a excuse not to give us old timers increases in wages because all the high schoolers had to be paid more.
When a company as massive as Wal*Mart wants to pay min wage it is greedy and discusting.
If the minimum wage had been tied to inflation? Then we wouldn't have to wait for things to get bad and have to bump it as a shock to the system.
quote:
Originally posted by thebeave
Here is an example of what happens when you raise minimum wage. I live in Michigan where the minimum wage will soon go from 5.15 an hour to 6.95 an hour in October, a drastic increase.
I think CEO pay should be linked or limited to an index of say 10 times what the minimum paid worker gets. If he wants to make 10 million then then the underlings should get 1 mill. Okay how about 100 to 1 ratio. CEO wants 10 mill then 100K for the underlings.
I'm all for busisness making a profit and I've often wondered how some restraunts stay in busisness when they don't seem to have that much busisness. It is strange how some restraunts with great food and low prices often have minimal trafic while restraunts with iffy food and mid to high prices have plenty of trafic.
Back in the Great Depression many sold Watkins because they wouldn't take a blatent hand out. But they would trade some spices for a little extra cash. I've heard that during the depression 1/3 of the population sold Watkins. Though the 1/3rd is probably an exgageration.
So what would minimum wage be if it had been indexed for inflation?
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Mon Jul 31, 2006 9:42 am |
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TeenInvestor
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quote:
Originally posted by LottomagicZ4941
As for Rolo's steping stone theory I'm cool if certain jobs are permitted to be sub minimum.
Wal*Mart use to pay minimum and it is only after much public out cry that they have started to treat their people better.
Companies who can afford to pay more should have a higher minimum wage. Perhpas a higher minimum wage for stock companies?
I disagree, I think that having two standards for minimum wage would be disasterous.
When a company as massive as Wal*Mart wants to pay min wage it is greedy and discusting.
I disagree with this as well. I have no problem with Walmart paying minimum wage, after all their repsonsibility is to their shareholders not to anyone else. I see it as business, cutting costs while boosting income....
If the minimum wage had been tied to inflation? Then we wouldn't have to wait for things to get bad and have to bump it as a shock to the system.
quote:
Originally posted by thebeave
Here is an example of what happens when you raise minimum wage. I live in Michigan where the minimum wage will soon go from 5.15 an hour to 6.95 an hour in October, a drastic increase.
I think CEO pay should be linked or limited to an index of say 10 times what the minimum paid worker gets. If he wants to make 10 million then then the underlings should get 1 mill. Okay how about 100 to 1 ratio. CEO wants 10 mill then 100K for the underlings.
This horrifies me, a company should be able to pay it's employees whatever they wish. CEO's included.
The shareholders should be able to decide to pay their CEO any amount of money they wish, from $1 to a trillion
I'm all for busisness making a profit and I've often wondered how some restraunts stay in busisness when they don't seem to have that much busisness. It is strange how some restraunts with great food and low prices often have minimal trafic while restraunts with iffy food and mid to high prices have plenty of trafic.
Back in the Great Depression many sold Watkins because they wouldn't take a blatent hand out. But they would trade some spices for a little extra cash. I've heard that during the depression 1/3 of the population sold Watkins. Though the 1/3rd is probably an exgageration.
So what would minimum wage be if it had been indexed for inflation?
I do think minimum wage needs to be addressed, I would personally have the economists decide this.
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Mon Jul 31, 2006 11:40 am |
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coaster
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While one original purpose of the minimum wage was to define a minimum living wage (which it never did -- imagine providing for a family of four on the official poverty wage), another purpose was to prevent "worker exploitation." This it never accomplished either. In fact, for the very first job I had, a part-time after high-school job, I was hired solely because I was underage and they didn't have to pay me the minimum wage for that work. And how about the jobs illegal aliens take nowadays?
I don't know. If something isn't doing what it's supposed to, why not just get rid of it? Market forces have already driven the effective entry-level wage way above the official minimum wage. And those employers that can't pay the minimum wage because it doesn't make economic sense are going to find their workers anyway, and pay them what the traffic will bear.
Heaven forbid we let economists decide anything. There's many jokes and sayings about economists; here's a couple: "Economics is the only field in which two people can get a Nobel Prize for saying the opposite thing" (Alazar) "If you put two economists in a room, you get two opinions, unless one of them is Lord Keynes, in which case you get three opinions. " (Churchill)
~Tim~
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Mon Jul 31, 2006 1:46 pm |
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thebeave
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I just can't understand how the people who run my state can't see that this wage increase will have drastic effects on small towns like the one I live in. It will not hurt the places that are already paying higher than minimum wage but as a manager even I am only making $7.00 an hour so you can imagine how many employers around here aren't paying anywhere near $6.95 an hour which is what they will be forced to pay in October.
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Mon Jul 31, 2006 7:17 pm |
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No-Brainer
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| Sorry if you don't agree . . . |
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What happened to the concept of taking responsibility for yourself?
If minimum wage is not enough for you, go out and learn something that's worth more.
There's nothing forcing anyone to work for less than they think they deserve, the problem is too many don't even deserve that much.
If the employers can't get people to accept what they offer, they will either raise the offer of go out of business. That's just basic economics.
So I say shrink the government and put the money into jobs. Let the government workers go out and try finding a job with no useful skills.
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Mon Jul 31, 2006 7:51 pm |
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thebeave
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quote:
If minimum wage is not enough for you, go out and learn something that's worth more.
I completely agree. I am in college and fully intend to be something more than the manager of a pizza place in the future. The other manager there is 23, never went to college, never plans to go, and I think he is perfectly comfortable with managing a pizza place his whole life. That is an example of lacking the drive to better your situation and that is the type of people that I think make up a large amount of that statistic that is mentioned at the beginning of the thread.
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Tue Aug 01, 2006 5:18 am |
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No-Brainer
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[quote="thebeave] I am in college and fully intend to be something more than the manager of a pizza place in the future. [/quote]
You GO Beave!!!
Remember, there's only two things you can get paid for in this world;
What you do
What you know
If you are going to depend on what you do to make your way, you will need to keep your nose to the grindstone far past the point when most people retire. If you don't believe me, look around the Golden Arches next time you get by one.
I much prefer to learn something that is of value to others and let them pay me for what I know over and over and over, they can't wear it out like my body will.
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Tue Aug 01, 2006 6:08 am |
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