"The Pitchforks are coming for us Plutocrats"

So, once again, to reiterate: not only are we not going to offer any help or reasonable hope to the 'working poor,' we want to remind them that it's their own fucking fault.

 

Like newspaper reporting.

Seriously, if a fry cook commands $15 per hour, what is that going to do to wages for other professions?

Bottom line, unemployment is going to skyrocket because few people can afford to pay those kind of wages.

 

One newspaper reporter with 15 years of experience makes the same salary as his colleague with two years of experience. Does the older guy feel jaded? Of course. Been there, done that. But that's just the way it is.

I remember an older colleague telling me how back in the day everyone on the staff got annual raises, so the longer you hung around the more you made. Seems like those days are long gone.

 

In theory, yes. In practice, there are a lot of factors that come into play. Do you have 6 kids to feed? What sort of house do you live in? What other expenses do you have?

I learned long, long ago that it was far more economical for me to live as a single person with no kids than to try to support several other people on the same income. I do see a LOT of people having kids who don't have any realistic way to support them.

 

Close ...

You can't expect the company to pay you any more than the value of that which you produce.

Consider A and B again. Let's assume that the company adopts the "nobody working 40 hours should be on food stamps" philosophy. Let's further assume that another $5 per hour will get B's family off food stamps,* so B gets the raise.

1) Is A also entitled to the $5 per hour raise?

2) if your answer to the above is yes, does A also get a raise if B's wife has another child that makes his family again eligible for food stamps?



*Note to any/all literalist dullards around here: I know these are unrealistic numbers. That they are doesn't change the moral of this story one iota.

 

How do you know they can't? Maybe they can, and just don't want to.

It's like the NCAA crying that they can't afford to give their athletes a stipend. Meanwhile, there are football coaches making $7 million and the volleyball coaches making $200,000.

 

The bigger question is how to address personal responsibility. You are branded as heartless for bringing it up, but if you don't, others think you are enabling moochers.

As for raising the minimum wage, I think there are plenty of small business owners that would run into problems affording it. Not every business owner has a mansion, a yacht, and sports cars to maintain.

 

Exactly.

There is one Eastern European grocery store in our area. There used to be 5. We pray that it stays in business, but honestly, every time we go there it seems like we are the only customers in a store full of merchandise sent (expensively) from Eastern Europe..

Obviously the four out-of-business stores couldn't afford to pay their employees more --- couldn't even afford to pay them what they were getting. A lot of businesses survive on much smaller margins than you think.

Richer companies have a different quandary: Sure, the Waltons can "afford" to pay their Walmart employees more. But it's a publicly traded company with shareholders who demand the highest possible profits and maximum value for their shares. And Baron doesn't like to believe this, but "shareholders" does not always mean "rich people." It means all kinds of people with 401(k)s that depend on the growth of companies like Walmart to help fund their retirement.

 

Certainly there are a lot of factors in play. I'm not saying one minimum wage salary should be able to support six kids and two adults. But it should be able to support one adult.

Have you read much of Ron Unz's writing on the topic? It's interesting.

http://www.ronunz.org/tag/minimum-wage/

 

Why? It's a starting wage. Kids start working in restaurants and retail at 16, or even younger.

We should pay them a wage that allows them to support themselves?

And, I'm not sure why or when 40 hours became the maximum number of hours people expected to have to work in order to support themselves and/or a family. What's wrong with picking up some shifts as a waiter or bartender if you're not making ends meet, or carrying a bag at the golf course on the weekends?

These are low skill jobs.

If an adult hasn't acquired the skills and work history to allow himself to earn more than the minimum wage -- more than a 16-year-old -- then there are fundamental problems, that will likely not be solved by providing this person with more money per hour.

 

The folks I know making minimum wage at their main jobs do exactly that. One told me in February that he'd not had a day off in more than one year. He was working seven days per week, 65 hours per week at two jobs.

 

OK. How's he doing?

At some point, he should be learning the skills to better his situation. He should be able to save some money at some point.

Also, can we really avoid discussing the role immigration has played in keeping wages down?

We're bringing in more low skill workers into an economy that already has too many of them.