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richard
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Raise the federal minimum wage!
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Mar 10 01:32 UTC 2006 |
Too many families are working full-time and have nothing to show for
it. They are raising their kids in poverty and living in fear that one
health crisis or pink slip will drive them over the edge. A single mom
with two kids who works full-time for the minimum wage is about $2,000
below the poverty line.
The minimum wage has been stuck at $5.15 per hour for ten years--while
costs for health care, housing, child care, transportation and
everything else have skyrocketed and executive pay has steadily
increased. Executives have figured out how to pay themselves more,
while paying their workers less. It's a disgrace--but not a surprise--
that poverty is up for the fourth year in a row.
It is time--past time--to reward work with an increase in the federal
minimum wage.
Senator Ted Kennedy is reaching out to us for help. He has sponsored a
bill to increase the minimum wage in three increments to $7.25 an
hour. And he's asking us to sign on as citizen co-sponsors of his bill
to show the broad base of support in the country for increasing the
minimum wage.
We can win this fight. Last year, we were able to get 46 Senators to
vote in favor of increasing the minimum wage, even though some
supporters were out of town at the time of the vote. We can pass
Senator Kennedy's bill this year, but only if people across the nation
show they care about the issue.
http://www.oneamericacommittee.com/minwagecosponsor
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| 176 responses total. |
richard
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response 1 of 176:
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Mar 10 01:36 UTC 2006 |
$5.15 an hour for a forty hour week is less than two hundred dollars a
week after taxes. I submit that nobody can live on that. The GOP
continuing to vote down a raise in the minimum wage only shows the
desire of the monied elite to keep the poor people, well, poor. Why
can't the congress make it the law of the land that any business in
this country has to pay their employees a liveable wage that keeps up
with inflation?
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drew
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response 2 of 176:
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Mar 10 01:52 UTC 2006 |
I agree with the sentiment. But the problem with it is that everybody just
jacks up their prices to match, and we're right back where we started only
with bigger numbers..
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rcurl
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response 3 of 176:
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Mar 10 02:37 UTC 2006 |
It can be done without additional inflation by taking additional
anti-inflation steps, such as control of the prime rate (which is what is
done all the time to control inflation from other causes).
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mcnally
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response 4 of 176:
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Mar 10 04:02 UTC 2006 |
How many adult jobs are there out there that still pay minimum wage?
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klg
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response 5 of 176:
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Mar 10 04:14 UTC 2006 |
Hard to believe some folks still think that people heading households
are the main group working @ min. wage - rather the teenagers & entry
workers who actually make up the bulk of the recipients.
And are the folks who want to raise the min wage considering how it will
affect the eligibility for benefits like food stamps, etc. You wanna
take those away?
And someone please tell Curl that the fed doesn't control the prime
rate. That rate is set by private banks. The fed controls the rates at
which banks loan money to banks.
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scholar
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response 6 of 176:
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Mar 10 04:20 UTC 2006 |
Re. 4: Adult jobs are usually based on commission. When you get a lap dance,
the stripper gets about 90% of what you pay for, and the club gets the rest.
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slynne
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response 7 of 176:
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Mar 10 04:41 UTC 2006 |
I am not opposed to raising the minimum wage although I dont think that
raising it to $7.25 will do much of anything. The current market wage is
higher than that.
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rcurl
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response 8 of 176:
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Mar 10 06:42 UTC 2006 |
Someone tell KLG that "The Federal Reserve indirectly moves the prime rate
by changing the federal funds rate, the discount rate or both." Why does he
think lending rates change when the Feds notch the rate banks pay on on
overnight loans from other banks and directly from the Federal Reserve?
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bru
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response 9 of 176:
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Mar 10 12:11 UTC 2006 |
what proof do you have of that slynne? What is the current market wage
according to you?
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slynne
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response 10 of 176:
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Mar 10 12:30 UTC 2006 |
The current market wage for unskilled labor seems to be around $8/hour.
Or at least that is the impression I got from Barbara Erinreich's book
_Nickle and Dimed_. Obviously there are a lot of different labor markets
in the country and I am not familiar with all of them. But around here,
what are usually considered "minimum wage" jobs (retail, food service,
etc) seem to pay around $8/hr.
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cyklone
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response 11 of 176:
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Mar 10 13:31 UTC 2006 |
kludgie's concern that people remain eligible for food stamps is quite
touching. Who knew he was such a caring guy?
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scholar
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response 12 of 176:
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Mar 10 13:32 UTC 2006 |
People are better off with cash than food stamps.
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slynne
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response 13 of 176:
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Mar 10 13:56 UTC 2006 |
resp:12 Indeed they are. But people in this country have a serious
moral objections to giving people something for nothing combined with a
dislike of seeing people starve. Most people dont want to give people
cash which they could spend on immoral things.
Personally, I think it would be easier for everyone if it were just
cash.
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richard
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response 14 of 176:
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Mar 10 15:41 UTC 2006 |
The fact is that the upper class feels less threatened as long as the lower
class isn't making enough money to change their circumstances. The minimum
wage needs to keep up with inflation.
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keesan
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response 15 of 176:
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Mar 10 16:36 UTC 2006 |
I talked to a cashier at a W. Virgina Walmart who said nearly everyone working
there had subsidized rent, and of course also Food Stamps and Medicaid. If
Walmart were forced to pay higher wages, it would save the government from
subsidizing their employees. Junk food places that hire illegal aliens could
continue to pay whatever they are already paying under the counter, and the
illegal aliens could continue to subsidize our Social Security system because
they use fake cards and pay into Social Security but cannot collect from it.
Teenagers might have a harder time competing with them and would end up
earning less money and maybe spending more time on schoolwork, and perhaps
a higher percentage would graduate high school.
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klg
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response 16 of 176:
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Mar 10 17:19 UTC 2006 |
Someone ask Curl why he first said "control of the prime rate" and then
changed that to "indirectly moves the prime rate," expecting me either
not to notice or to believe that they mean the same thing.
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richard
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response 17 of 176:
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Mar 10 22:18 UTC 2006 |
Actually a few states, like New York State, have state minimum wage laws which
supercede federal minimum wage laws if the state rate is higher. Here in NY,
the minimum wage since January has been $7.05/hr. California's minimum wage
is $6.75 *except* in San Francisco, where it is $8.50 an hour.
Here is a table of minimum wages:
http://www.dol.gov/esa/minwage/america.htm#NewYork
The problem is stingy states like Michigan which won't estalblish any rate
higher than the federal rate. Or Ohio, where the state rate is actually LOWER
than the federal rate.
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nharmon
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response 18 of 176:
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Mar 10 22:30 UTC 2006 |
Wal-Mart doesn't pay minimum wage, they pay a few dollars over it.
Raising the minimum wage will only affect places that employ teenagers
and ex-cons.
The problem is that millionaire senators like Kennedy just don't
friggen GET IT. There is no reason to believe that increasing the
minimum wage will improve the lives of the working poor. Instead they
need to be concentrating on paying for education and health expenses.
Those are the types of tax investments that have the greatest results.
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richard
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response 19 of 176:
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Mar 10 22:37 UTC 2006 |
no kennedy does get it. the less income a person has, the more dependent that
person is going to be on the government. nharmon if you really are a fiscal
conservative, and want a smaller government, you can't NOT be for a higher
minimum wage. You want people to get off the welfare rolls? pay'em more
money!
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mcnally
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response 20 of 176:
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Mar 10 22:52 UTC 2006 |
I have this vision of Richard ala Captain Kirk, dressed in a Star
Fleet uniform and commanding an "away team" to the surface of a planet
ruled by a giant conservative computer. In my mind he keeps trying to
overload the computer by feeding it contradictory and nonsensical "logic"
or asking it to compute the final digit of pi but the computer will
have none of it and instead of self-destructing in a big show of smoke
and flash-pots just tells him "Humanoid: your arguments are transparently
flawed and illogical."
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richard
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response 21 of 176:
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Mar 10 23:00 UTC 2006 |
re #20 no, you missed that episode. Kirk and co. take on the great
conservative computer, which is controlling all the androids by remote, and
disables it by reasoning with it. When confronted with logic, all the droids
start having smoke come out of them and go into tilt mode. Thats what we
liberals do :)
and there was no more prominent liberal in hollywood in the 60's than Gene
Roddenberry
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tod
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response 22 of 176:
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Mar 10 23:41 UTC 2006 |
I think Grex should go ask the Ypsi Wal*Mart for a donation.
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cyklone
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response 23 of 176:
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Mar 11 01:32 UTC 2006 |
I think #21 conclusively proves that Richard really is insane. And BTW, please
don't speak as if you represent liberals. As I've mentioned before, your
inability to present cogent arguments and clear thoughts harms the liberal
cause in ways that are probably beyond your limited comprehension.
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klg
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response 24 of 176:
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Mar 11 02:37 UTC 2006 |
Well, the bad news is that the MI Republican legislators are going to
pass an increase in the MI min wage. The good news is that this move
will, hopefully, keep a move to put a higher min wage in the MI
constitution off the statewide ballot.
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