Many states pay foodservers less than minimum wage too.  They figure "hey, you get tips, so uh... fuck you, you're getting half or a third of minimum wage, and you better hope you make the difference in tips, and if you have a bad day where you don't get too many tips, well, fuck off and die."  Luckily I'm in California where that's illegal.

How's the Californian economy coming along?

How's the Californian economy coming along?

You aren't blaming the laws on waiters and waitresses for California's economy are you?

1st paragraph: Actually, they don't. The median income for a household in the US is just under $50,000. Per the 2010 tax tables, a married couple doesn't pay more than 15% on any money earned until passing $75,750, and won't hit over 30% until passing $217,000. So they're not getting 30% of their money back, which leads to...

Then why was I taxed at 25% while making $30,000/yr? Yes, people do get taxes back to make the effective rate 15%, but you give the government an interest free loan until you get your tax return.

That's actually your fault for setting your withholdings as you do, or your employer's fault for holding too much. The government doesn't say that X must be set aside regardless of earnings.

2nd paragraph: So, in exchange for giving them 15% back (well, less, taxes on $50,000 is $4900, less than 10%), they're expected to cover all the costs for the things they are getting from the government? If the states pick up the tab, state taxes are going to go up, making this moot. But if they have to pay for all those services themselves, can they get them all for $4900/year? No, thus putting them in a worse position than they were in before this "tax cut." Sure, there are inefficiencies in the system. But just throwing the whole system out isn't going to fix it. They need to step back and look where money can be trimmed- that's the course of action that is needed, not just cutting taxes to cut out all the services.

I never said the state would pick up the tabs for 100% of the programs, did I? Some programs would and should be phased out entirely like Social Security, because it is horribly inefficient. If the state did pick up the tab, they would likely do it in a way which would save taxpayers significant amounts of money, thereby  resulting in net savings. Again, my example has been compound interest rates - if you earned 7% on your pension instead of Social Security's 2.32%, you would be need only spend half the amount of money to get the same amount of retirement.

I never said they would, either. Note how that was one sentence I had, starting with the word 'if'. It needs to be fixed at the federal level. But it can't be done by cutting out the floor from underneath those currently depending on it.

General topic: Getting rid of the minimum wage would be stupid; as things stand, people can't afford to have a place to live in some areas of the US on the current minimum.

You assume that places that have minimum wages in high cost-of-living areas pay minimum wage. From my understanding, a fast food worker in Beverly Hills makes about $20/hr. Wages sometimes have a way of changing based on income in the area.

Well, I can tell you that around here, there's plenty of places that pay minimum wage, just because they can. And the DC Metro area is not a place where that can sustain someone. But they get away with paying that little because that's all they need to pay by law. Hell, one of the places I used to work would help you get money from the government because they were too cheap to pay a livable wage. And this was a national company...

Paying people even less would just make them even more dependant on the government for assistance, and isn't what people want to do, is get people off needing the government's help for everything?

Not quite. The argument for a lower minimum wage means that employers are able to hire more workers due to more flexible costs of employees. This would allow more people to go to employment, thereby resulting in a net reduction in government services, as some people that are currently under government assistance could then have a job.

I expected that argument. Sure, more people could get a job, but people would need 2 jobs to be able to make a living, thus either putting more burden on the government, or making a requirement to double the number of jobs, neither of which is a good thing. Like I said, there are places that already pay below a living wage; encouraging more people to work for what is not said wage will only increase government dependance.

If that $7.25/hr job ($15,080 per year, at 40 hours/week and 52 weeks/year- or less than the poverty line for a family of 3.) suddenly drops to paying $5/hr, where does that extra money go? Not to the people who need it; it stays in the pockets of the rich owners, helping to further the divide between rich and poor. Nay, I would propose slowly raising the minimum wage toward $10/hr, letting people earn a livable wage. Not a good life with fanciness, but to work toward getting a home and supporting a family.

Do you realize that when we raise the minimum wage, we're going to have more unemployment and a higher cost of goods for basic needs that those on minimum/low wages rely on? Why not raise minimum wage to $50/hr? I mean, $50 is a more livable wage than $10, right?

When did I say this needed to happen now? You also cherry-picked out parts of it- I mentioned a 'livable' wage, not an extravegent lifestyle, like a $50/hr minimum would assume. One can live (albeit not easily) almost anywhere on $10/hr, hence why I went with that number. And by doing it slowly, which I did also prior mention, that's how to keep inflation in check. We saw a slight problem with it a few years ago, but that's because it was going up in 70 cent increments yearly. I'm more proposing 25-50 cents- a smaller, more managable number. And by ensuring that more people are slowly earning enough to actually live on, we can wean them off of government support. Inflation will make prices go up anyway, by slowly bringing up minimum wage, we can help people fight off this while still getting more independant.