Low78wagon said: When I first started working at a small chain called chicken express right after high school while going to college I started at $5.25 an hour. Within a few months because I moved to cook/everything else I was at $5.75. Within 6 months I was offered shift management at $13 an hour and was promised lead management within two years. To me that was a bunch back in 05 but thankfully I thought hard and eventually quit on fairly good terms. He wasn't too happy that I was leaving. I chose another career that had a much larger income with room for advancement. My whole point on this post is that minimum wage is an entry point and not really made to raise a family. If you work hard enough you can raise up, even in places like fast food. The only understandable reason I can see anyone staying at the bottom is if they have a mental disability and if so I imagine you could get some kind of government help. If you have been working at minimum wage for years you either need to change jobs or you are a really lazy person. I hire people through a temp service all the time and I go through ten to find one outstanding individual. Some people just don't think they need to work or use their brains to get somewhere in life. |
I don't think a single person has argued that minimum wage isn't entry level. What we are arguing are that we need entry level jobs to begin with - for kids in high school, for disabled people, for undereducated folks trying to survive, we still need them and the point of this debate is that these jobs are/will be the first to go which will not only put more people than ever before on the streets, but drag the rest of the economy down with it.
"Oh but wait education". Lol. Please. Our educational system is getting worse, not better. My state dropped standardized state testing the year after I graduated, drop out rates are going up, overall test scores are going down. The reform we need is a second thought to the reform we've gotten - real education these days starts with college and the cost of that is also going up in strides each year to the point where you can either
A) try to work your way from the ground up toward a decent wage (yikes what's happening to those entry level jobs?!)
or
B) Essentially enslave yourself to pay your way through college or university for what is ultimately still a gamble on job security after potentially wasting 2-8 years of your life.
I grew up from a poor ass background. I am self made. Most of my friends were handed cars, were given their first jobs through friends and family and many had parents that could afford a higher education. Some people genuinely do not understand the struggle that poor people are born into but I sympathize greatly for these people and feel their pain (I make $20/hr now and feel absolutely blessed to have made it even this far at a young age, but I still think that we need to care more for each other, I still think that minimum wage is much too low and this is not the proper response you should expect from what needs to be a responsible company).
Machines and technology bring progression. When those machines and technology outright replace an entire group of people with nowhere else for them to go, purely for financial gain very few will see, that's not fucking progression. That's called opression
Lastly, this post is within the context of the discussion, in no way am I implying anything about your character or who you are as a person.