Fayceless said:
-CraZed- said:
Mr Khan said:
Fayceless said:
Stop treating this issue as an issue of individual merit.
One person can get a degree. That person can lean a skill, earn a promotion, or find some other way to become successful.
Millions of people cannot simultaneously pull themselves out of low-wage jobs, because there is a limited number of better jobs available. The job market, as it stands today, favors low-paying work. Fast food is the fastest growing industry in the country. While, if you look at each worker individually, they can often get out of minimum wage, we as a nation are stuck with a lot of low-wage workers for the foreseeable future.
Raising minimum wage won't solve the underlying problems with our economy, but it must be addressed. |
This is also important to realize. Everyone can't have the better jobs (and if everyone *could* have the better jobs, the demand would push wages down anyway until the point is moot). The key is to make sure that the floor, at least, is comfortable to live on. Perfect equality doesn't need to enter the equation at all, just as long as the guys on level 1 are happy with their lot in life, who cares how the guys on level 99 are living?
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This is such a simplistic naive argument. One that I would expect my 7 year old could foil.
No not everyone can have the "better" jobs but everyone can excercise good judgment on living within ther means, saving, focusing energies on improving ones situation etc. And I find it completely disingenuous how people so overstate the problem of those living on minimum wages. A majority of working people (which is at an all time low atm in the US) make higher than the minimum wage. Most people who have a basic work ethic stay on minimum for less than a year.
Perfect equality doesn't need to enter the equation because its a myth and pipe dream. And so what if the guys on level one are happy or not.. At what point did they become obligated for other peoples happiness? Do you allow other people to dictate your happiness or contentment with life? If so I'd say that is one sad exsistance, hombre. Life is full of level 99 guys who made it to level 1. And so what if many other people don't make it to level 1 what about levels 98 through 2?
I lived on minimum wage. While I was single, had no kids and didn't have any bills. I also worked four jobs simultaneously. I worked fast food joints, delivered newspapers out of my 20 year old Honda Civic, and voluntered for the fire department. Other people can do that too. But when minimum wages go up those extra jobs start to go away until everything goes back to homeostasis within the economy and by that time the new minimum wage is now the old not high enough minimum wage.
Guys the only way to get out of poverty is through self regulation, hard work, perseverence and saving your own damned money. Think abut this everytime you spend your money on stuff, you are enriching someone else. You are enriching those evil greedy corporations owned by those peeps on level 1 that you all hate so much and who don't care enough to pay all of their workers $100/hr.
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You were single, had no kids, and no bills? Congratulations, you must know all about the struggles people in poverty deal with every day.
Sorry to be so dismissive, but to be fair, so were you. ("a 7 year old could foil" that argument?)
The fact is, minimum wage must rise. Not to 15/hr. That's ridiculous. But it must go up because prices go up and the cost of living goes up. People fight so hard against raising minimum wage while supporting policies that intentionally create inflation. If you're going to force inflation, we MUST tie minimum wage to inflation. It's not fair otherwise.
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I do know about the struggles of poverty. I am the product of tow drug abusing parents, one of which abandoned us leaving the other to draw welfare, food stamps, WIC and live in shelters from time to time. I know I have related this story befoe here but while I was in Jr. high I had to catch the school bus less than a block from the Salvation Army shelter we were living in. I would walk a mile in the OPPOSITE direction so no one would see me comingfrom the shelter. So yeah I think I know a little about poverty. And thanks for the congrats. I worked hard to get where I was economically viable.
The fact is when the minimum wages rise so will prices and those businesses seeking to offset that sudden and arbitrary uptick in wages will either freeze hiring or layoff workers in order to afford it. Mandating a minimum wage is an exercise in futility and tomfoolery by those who just don't undertsand how our economy works.
Instead of raising minum wages we should be raising awareness and education on how to become economically viable through earning, saving and investing. We don't even teach check writing or budgeting in schools anymore.
