Minimum Wage (USA)

[lokithor]

I see no one has mentioned electric. That can run another 100 a month.

We need minimum wage though. Raising it would just make a lot of people jobless, and businesses would quit hiring because they cant afford it.

[PizzaSHARK]

I see no one has mentioned electric. That can run another 100 a month.

We need minimum wage though. Raising it would just make a lot of people jobless, and businesses would quit hiring because they cant afford it.

Depends. If your heating is gas, your electric will be lower because you're using gas to heat water and your home. $100/month is also fairly high unless you're one of those types that leaves the heating or A/C on 24/7 when simply using a desk fan or putting on a long shirt would suffice.

My electric for my fairly large 2 bedroom apartment is about $120 a month since my roommate's a pansy and can't exist without leaving the A/C or heat on 24/7, but back when I was on my own it was rarely above $50 at any time of year because I only used it when I actually needed it and just left it on a very low or high setting (62 or 84 Fahrenheit in winter or summer, respectively) the rest of the time.

[wilbbailey]

If it were a real free market system we wouldnt have a minimum wage. Seeing how it isnt I still think we shouldnt have one, people should be payed what theyre worth. When minimum wage is raised prices just raise with it. Its only a temporary relief if at all.

[PizzaSHARK]

If it were a real free market system we wouldnt have a minimum wage. Seeing how it isnt I still think we shouldnt have one, people should be payed what theyre worth.

Too open to abuse by business owners.

[lokithor]

Depends. If your heating is gas, your electric will be lower because you're using gas to heat water and your home. $100/month is also fairly high unless you're one of those types that leaves the heating or A/C on 24/7 when simply using a desk fan or putting on a long shirt would suffice.

lol My electric bill in the summer can get to 400 dollars if I run the air. And this is in a 2 bedroom apartment.

Had to go on the budget billing here because of it. a fan just doesnt cut it down here. Even in the winter time with no heat the bill still ran 85-100 a month.

[Bayuriel]

So the concensus is you can technically live off minimum wage, but you will undoubedly hate your life?

---------- Post added 2012-08-23 at 05:20 AM ----------

Too open to abuse by business owners.

Mhm, as it is a job that pays minimum wage basically says "Sorry I can't pay you less, here's your pittance, hope you don't starve to death on me."

[PizzaSHARK]

lol My electric bill in the summer can get to 400 dollars if I run the air. And this is in a 2 bedroom apartment.

Had to go on the budget billing here because of it. a fan just doesnt cut it down here. Even in the winter time with no heat the bill still ran 85-100 a month.

Jesus christ man, $400/mo? Either electric is damned expensive in AL or you just can't handle the heat

So the concensus is you can technically live off minimum wage, but you will undoubedly hate your life?

Correct. Minimum wage is essentially the bare minimum you need just to get by, but you can forget about any kind of luxuries or even basic healthcare insurance or other things like that.

Generally speaking, people earning minimum wage have to work at least two jobs to get by since most people working minimum wage are working in that income bracket for a reason.

[wilbbailey]

Try heating in the winter in the north. From dec. to feb. my heating bills top $800 a month. The nice thing is I only need AC about 2 months a year.

[Serpenth]

So the concensus is you can technically live off minimum wage, but you will undoubedly hate your life?

Pretty much. Minimum wage is not designed to support a family or really one person. If you work a minimum wage job you likely are in High School, College, or like a lot of people I work with, just retired but "want something to do" and get a little extra cash.

The American dream is to work your way up. Not to make $7.25 an hour. Your supposed to go to school and develop a career. Even if you can't and do work a minimum wage job most companies promote from within so you can work minimum wage for a year, then get promoted, then soon you'll be a manager at the store or even higher and make a decent living.

But as I mentioned working minimum wage is not the goal. If you can't afford education then you get a loan or you join the armed forces and have them pay for it. Your life schedule is not supposed to be 40 hours a week stocking shelves at target followed by video games. Your supposed to do stuff. There is opportunity for everyone in America unless your a murderer or homeless. However if your homeless you likely put yourself there via some type of addiction or were born into a super unfortunate and rare horrible situation.

[PizzaSHARK]

Try heating in the winter in the north. From dec. to feb. my heating bills top $800 a month. The nice thing is I only need AC about 2 months a year.

Try cooling in the summer when it's 110 outside with 85%+ humidity. About as bad.

My policy's always been to leave my place at a certain minimum level (62 F in the winter) and just put on more clothes or do some jumping jacks or pushups if I start getting chilly.

[Ledonn]

I can tell you from personal(current) experience, it is in fact possible to live off of less, not comfortably mind you, and still get by. I think a lot of people over look what they really need vs what they THINK they really need. Before I lost my job due to me wanting to better myself and continue college to advance in employment, I was able to afford these things. Now that I am going to school, I'm living off of financial aid for the moment and still making almost exactly what I was while working. The only state funding I am taking right now is Food Stamps:

Rent - I pay 575/month. It is in a bad part of Philadelphia, but there are worse areas.
Phone - 80. I could even drop that and lose my iPhone, but I feel the extra costs gives me a little more ease for access and mobility.
Electricity - 25. Since I am a student and unemployed, PECO has a program to reduce your monthly bills by almost 75%
Gas - 35 My Landlord is actually looking into doing away with gas heating and going pure electric. So this cost will be reduced
Internet - 50 This is my source of entertainment. Don't need TV, Don't need to go out. Internet is access to the world so I don't pay for much

These are my bills for the month, 765 total I don't need a car since SEPTA (The public transportation in Philadelphia) is every 2 seconds bus, trolley or train. It's very affordable to. If I wanted I could add a monthly pass, which I might during the cold seasons, is almost 80 bucks. I can get it 25% cheaper I think since I am a student so we will say 60. But I also have to do laundry at an off site facility and that's about 20/month and then of course my Wow subscription, 15/month.

So with the extra $90 added on, we come to a total of $855 a month I pay out of pocket. That's not adding in the food stamps I get, which is a weak $133/month. As someone said earlier, yea I'm basically living off of beans and rice. It's really just a bowl of rice, 2 eggs and 2 pieces of turkey bacon. The actual meals comes to about 1.13 each and is about 500 calories total. No, I am not a calorie counter

So all in all, I'm living under $1,000 a month. It's hard, yes but it's doable. Over the time I've lived like this, I have really thought hard about people in American vs other countries and it is very clear we live very much in excess. You can do without and it is really like your parents say. It makes the things in life, and life in general, a little bit sweeter.

[Flutterguy]

All minimum wage does is kill entry level jobs and raise expenses. It doesn't actually help anyone. It just raises the bar higher. Also, minimum wage in California is not going to get you anywhere, most definitely not on your own.

[Ledonn]

Oh and about the, increase minimum wage idea. I'm not for that. Historically raising minimum wage also means, cost of living goes up. A company doesn't offer raises unless there is higher profits. So if they increase everyones wages 10 cents, they increase milk 3 cents, eggs, 2 cents, soup 4 cents. etc. To a point where that extra AT MOST dollar an hour was a net loss to you and now your diet is even slimmer.

I've had this idea for quite some time, since they thought the stimulus package was going to boost the economy but instead people made an extra payment on their credit card. Instead of saying, "Hey America, here is free money go buy some clothes" First off.... how is anything free going to encourage you to feel good about it? I know when I work for it, I enjoy it more. But anyways, No! You don't give it to the people, that's a very short burst of money flowing around and the people aren't really deserving of it so it wont be spent ideally. Instead, you give it to the businesses that can hire that person on.

Ok, it may sound crazy. But what you do is you set up a plan for business to come up with a financial portfolio to the government. They have to prove how many potential hirees they want to take on and present to the gov't how much it will cost. Since the a business sees a financial loss, on average, in the first 90 days of employment your quote "Trial Period" the money they are hoping to get the grant for is to cover any losses the business might foresee, plus your wages for those 90 days. Meaning, the government kinda doing what they do with Colleges. They are giving you a grant in hopes that when you graduate, you will be a tax paying blue/white collar worker of America. So they are investing in your future. This is the exact same goal. The gov't is investing in YOU as the person that within 90 days, you can prove to the company that hired you on you are worth a damn.

You cut out the risk factor that keeps businesses from hiring in the first place or creating jobs; the risk of not knowing if hiring on will create more business. For those 90 days, you more or less an intern in the businesses eye, yet you are getting paid. This is a long-term fix, something that will take years possibly. But I figure the rate some companies might take this opportunity would see a tremendous boost to the economy, a constant even. Not a spurt they were hoping to see from a silly stimulus package.

[Deleted]

yeah....in my country (Portugal) the minimum wage is 485€ or 609 USD approx. That is per month ofc.

And our prices aren't much lower than the ones on the US.

Be happy

[Tauftamir]

If it were a real free market system we wouldnt have a minimum wage. Seeing how it isnt I still think we shouldnt have one, people should be payed what theyre worth. When minimum wage is raised prices just raise with it. Its only a temporary relief if at all.

This is not technically correct.
When a Government sets a minimum wage, it is generally set below the price elasticity of demand for the labour being performed.
Thus, there is no effect on prices.

I google'd an example for you to illustrate:

http://www.halfsigma.com/2007/01/elasticity_of_d.html

"What does this have to do with the minimum wage? The minimum wage worker is like the widget in the example above. About 3% of workers earn the minimum wage, and that wage is about 25% of the average wage, so minimum wage workers represent less than 1% of the economy's labor inputs. Therefore, it's unlikely that a 40% increase in the cost of a minimum wage worker would have much effect on demand for their labor. Nor would it have much effect on prices of goods either. Overall prices might increase by 0.4% as a result of the minimum wage increase, an amount much smaller than the normal annual rate of inflation, so the price increase would hardly be noticed."

There might be some very localised effect by increasing minimum wage e.g. Business A cannot compete with Business B who are using unpaid labour.
However this is usually an issue with Business B engaging in illegal and/or immoral business practices in the first place, not an issue with setting a floor to the labour price.

[Reg]

Live off minimum wage in NYC on your own? I dare you to try. Probably wouldn't even cover rent.

[Lecan]

For those of you against any sort of minimum wage, do you have any idea why it came about? I'll tell you something Ann Coulter won't: it wasn't Barack Obama trying to steal your soul. Before government got as involved in business, it was pretty terrible for the unskilled worker. As bad as some people make their lives out to be, it was a lot worse. The jobs you could get paid almost nothing and were likely to kill you before too long.

Anyone wishing for zero regulations on business clearly doesn't realize that business is the one pushing for that. They will not regulate themselves, they do not care if you die and they certainly don't want to treat you like a human being instead of a cost of business.

I don't know that raising the minimum wage is the right answer, but don't spout off about how you want a free market with no government interference. That only proves you shouldn't be talking since it gets in the way of you learning.