70k salary is very dependent on where you live. 70K in California/NY not going to be living very comfortably. Avg home prices in San Francisco is is now 1 million.
http://www.trulia.com/blog/trends/mi...ar-homes-2016/
this should provide some perspective.
OK, lets just say you are correct. Why should it be this hard to make a simple living? Why should people have to go without simple pleasures for decades just to be able to make it? Why shouldn't we fight for a world were everyone has an equal chance at making a decent living?
'Double' is an important word though, because for the mythic argument against a minimum wage increase to be valid - that an increase in wages causes an equal increase in living costs - labour must be 100% of the cost of all goods purchased, all goods purchased must also be produced by minimum wage earngers, and all living costs must be purchased (no growing your own carrots or whatever).
They claim that increasing the minimum wage is a wash - that the benefit will be cancelled out by the negative impacts - and that is extremely false: in the case of MacDonalds employees that Endus linked, it's false 20 times over. There is a clear and significant benefit to disposable income, and that benefit is not at all lost due to the increased cost of goods and services.
In the history of minimum wage increases, in every country and time period in all the world, that has never failed to happen - so it feels like an odd thing to worry about. If you are a manager of minimum wage employees and you are making less than them, you bring that up in your performance review and demand a better salary - and it's pretty hard for your boss to deny you it: because the same argument trickles up to him - and so forth.Personally, I don't see the huge push back to an increase. Everyone bitched when it went from 5.15 to 7.25 and as far as I'm aware, no businesses closed down. The only issue I can see is such a large increase needs to trickle up. People that make 15 an hour now need to make more to cover their increased cost of living.
Wage scales always increase across the board as a result of an increased minimum wage, increasing the minimum wage is a means to bump the entire wage scale - because that behavior is so reliable.
Correction!
*Educated people have low birth rates in modern countries*
most modern countries are in a population decline IF YOU DO NOT COUNT IMMIGRATION.
most modern countries replace their loses from poorer countries who have crazy high birth rates because well.... *hate to say it* most the people are not educated and/or very stupid......
problem is now though look at places like Europe being over run by immigrants, you are seeing a big cultural clash because people are *not assimilating in*
even happening to the US somewhat, but at least hispanics in general are compatible culturally *very similar values as US* unlike a certain Religious group in the middle east. Problem comes to education in both cases and jobs/economy and weather they can be handled without causing greater harm to everyone. *one country can only take so many people at a time without it becoming a burden and lowering wages even further, specially with the rise of robotics/automation.
But that is more of a case of the government needing to get it's shit together, not so much the people.......well i guess people to if if you look at morals from certain people who value money and power over human life.....*cough cough HILLARY Clinton and republican/democrat Establishment*
Last edited by Arthas242; 2016-08-15 at 04:54 PM.
We already have the equal CHANCE. What you are asking for is equal OUTCOME, which nobody is entitled to.
Unless we have a surge of Nikola Tesla-level geniuses who discover and invent ways to completely destroy the current world paradigm, we need hustle and grind to get to where we want to go in life, in order to make it easier for our offspring. Until the fanaticism over money is replaced by the desire to be free, things will never change. If you have a world changing invention or idea, you wont change a thing by trying to make a profit from it.
Last edited by Jinpachi; 2016-08-15 at 05:59 PM.
I'm not sure how you think someone who can't afford rent is going to magically be able to afford cross-state moving costs, into a new area where they don't know anybody and have no connections.
Calls for more equitable outcomes is not a demand for equal outcomes.
There's plenty of room for a society to have different economic classes, without the system being so unbalanced that the lowest classes suffer hardship. An economy exists to sustain and protect the people who compose it. If it's not doing that, it's not succeeding, even if its total production capacity is strong.
Otherwise, slavery would be an amazing economic system, because you can benefit from the labor of those slaves in terms of productivity, and their suffering is irrelevant. Pretty much nobody takes that argument seriously, for good reason. I don't consider it particularly more compelling when you replace "slaves" with "minimum-wage laborers whose minimum wage is set significantly below a living wage". Hell, with slavery, the "owners" at least had reason to consider the welfare and upkeep of their slaves, the same way you take care of the tools in your shed. The current system, they're not YOUR tools, and if you break 'em, there's always more, so who cares?
I agree with most of this, its certainly an interesting analogy. When you consider minimum wage for people who aren't teenagers, the government is then off-setting the cost of living that those individual(s) cannot provide themselves. Food stamps, housing, insurance, etc. All of that is paid for by taxes that come from John Q tax payer (you and me). The employer is not stuck eating those costs. The myth that if you suddenly raise wages that people will be without a job is just false. Yes employers will raise costs and pass the brunt of the increase on to the consumer but you're not going to see everything suddenly double in price. Higher wages means more money that will freely flow into the economy. My issue is that I believe this is a state by state issue and not something the federal government should impose. This also needs to be looked in from an industry perspective. Lower skill level jobs simply would not be sustainable to pay people $15/hr but I do think that $10-12 is certainly in that realm. You will see some employers/companies cut costs by automation, reducing hours, slashing benefits, increasing prices but at the end of the day that business has a responsibility to its shareholders to make a profit and it will do so by any means necessary.
The biggest issue in our society to date is the wealth disparity that exists, the middle class is being squeezed out and the fact that the top 1% control so much wealth is staggering and at some point things will boil over if the trend continues. It may not be for many many years but eventually people will be get tired of being walked over by the elite. As you look at our society today look at how people are already at the boiling point for issues regarding race, equality, policing, politics, etc. At some point its going to overflow.
Last edited by Thelin; 2016-08-15 at 06:24 PM.
I don't disagree. I think deregulating wall street was a financial pandora's box that was unleashed on the unsuspecting masses here in the US. While you will never get ahead in life without hard work, determination, and sacrifice, when the game is rigged against you it can definitely take the wind out of your sails.
Right. This is a major reason why I support a minimum living wage. The cost to maintain an employee in a baseline comfortable lifestyle (meaning not struggling for food/shelter/etc) is a living wage, pretty much by definition. If an employer isn't paying that, it leaves the worker so low on income that they qualify for government support, paid for by taxes, to offset their low income. It effectively lets the employer's payroll expenses be subsidized, at taxpayer expense.
And I'm against that. I think employers can pay non-abusive wages, or their business models are sufficiently poor that they have no reason to remain in business.
FWIW, Ontario's already at $11.25/hour, boosting to $11.40 in the fall, and there's a decent campaign going on here for a $15/hour boost (and one that would, like the current minimum wage, be indexed to inflation; that's why it's jumping $0.15 in the fall). Plus, Wynne is starting a basic income experiment, with plans for future province-wide rollout, if the experiment works out as intended.Lower skill level jobs simply would not be sustainable to pay people $15/hr but I do think that $10-12 is certainly in that realm.
Eh, I think wealth disparity is fine, the issue is the attenuation. There's far too many people making below a living wage, and far too many people making egregiously high incomes. It's those extremes that are the issue.The biggest issue in our society to date is the wealth disparity that exists, the middle class is being squeezed out and the fact that the top 1% control so much wealth is staggering and at some point things will boil over if the trend continues. It may not be for many many years but eventually people will be get tired of being walked over by the elite. As you look at our society today look at how people are already at the boiling point for issues regarding race, equality, policing, politics, etc. At some point its going to overflow.
If the baseline income for a worker was about $30k/year, and means were found to disincentivize high-income earners (I'm talking the $10 mill plus range), while increasing the upper-class and above tax rates somewhat, that'd be fine. Maybe that disincentivization is ever-increasing tax rates on higher brackets, making the next $10 mill just not worth pursuing, since you end up paying 95% of it to the government. That would encourage those top-level employers to seek out means to re-invest in their companies, either through expansion (meaning more jobs) or boosting their employee's compensation (meaning better jobs), because of the resulting long-term gains in cementing their company's position.
Not to mention, this isn't how wagescales even work.
If everyone in your costco was making $22/hr, you would still deserve a loyalty/seniority bonus on top of that: that's how incentives work.
Kelliak doesn't believe in economic incentives though because economists are clearly math-witches, who are at best social parasites, and at worst are possibly brides of the devil, who take congress with the beast.
We have equal chances huh.....
Where was my "small loan of a million dollars". Holt shit someone really got you stuck on their kool-aid didn't they.
And no I'm not asking for equal outcomes. I'm perfectly fine with people making millions. What I'm not ok with is leaving people in poverty because of stupid idea that thats how it should be
Last edited by Orange Joe; 2016-08-15 at 06:54 PM.
The first people who need to be disincentivized are politicians, considering that many of the current problems have resulted from crony capitalism caused by politicians who become extremely wealthy off of systematic bribery. Of course, we can't even get them to make insider trading illegal for congress, and do you seriously think we are going to elect people who will vote against their own personal interests?
Maybe the problem with some people making what you would consider obscene amounts of money, comes from the fact that corruption has crippled market efficiency. Giving the government the power to tax wealth into oblivion will only result in the oligarchy moving over to the government, where it would become even more dangerous.
Most people would rather die than think, and most people do. -Bertrand Russell
Before the camps, I regarded the existence of nationality as something that shouldn’t be noticed - nationality did not really exist, only humanity. But in the camps one learns: if you belong to a successful nation you are protected and you survive. If you are part of universal humanity - too bad for you -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Good for them. But how is it going too work out when a business doesn't have the publicity behind it? I really don't think such a socialist approach will work for every industry and/or business in the US.
Last edited by zEmini; 2016-08-15 at 08:08 PM.
The problem with that scenario is that most of the rich elite are storing their money in offshore accounts, they aren't paying taxes. That will only change if our governments internationally agree to try and curb tax evasion by going after the offshore accounts and businesses that are operating them. Start arresting the people involved who are doing these things and bring them as well as the wealthy before a grand jury of world leaders and hold them for tax evasion and fraud.
Where do you think mcdonalds actually pays minimum wage, and to whom do you think they pay it?
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How is doing what is legal equal to evasion or fraud?
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You think people get million dollars loans just cause they asked for them? It isnt because they have collateral, a degree, a solid business plan, experience, etc, etc...
I would love for you to show me these people who banks indiscriminately loaned money to because of reasons. Someone is drinking the koolaid alright..