Reich Is Wrong on the Minimum Wage

[Madvillain]

There's nothing inherently wrong/evil with the top 1% holding as much wealth as it does.

With how they got that wealth, there is.

 

[ghostwriterx]

With how they got that wealth, there is.

Yeah, that's often the case.

 

[ghostwriterx]

And therein lies the problem. I refuse to debate this subject with someone who has such a mindset.

You obviously feel there's nothing wrong with things the way they are so let's not change anything and keep heading in the same direction theat we are and see where it gets us as a society.

I just offered a solution and you seem hell bent on poking as many holes in it as you can avoiding the obvious of the current state of affairs in this country. I don't have time for this kinda bullshytin.

So because I don't agree with your idea I'm for the status quo?
Discussing the actual ramifications of your proposal means I'm hellbent on poking holes and avoiding the obvious?

You got me confused breh.

 

[Pesci]

Cato

 

[Pesci]

There's nothing inherently wrong/evil with the top 1% holding as much wealth as it does.

 

[Spin]

This whole minimum wage argument is addressing such a small segment of society. Much like the top 1% of earners that earn the most money, only about 1% of the workforce have jobs paying minimum wage. This is taking the 144 million employed workforce in the US and the 1.6 million of those that are receiving minimum wage at their jobs.

No one should aspire to have a minimum wage job for the long term. Young people and others that need some extra income dough should be the intended target of these jobs. I wish people and politicians would spend more time coming up with ideas and solutions for the majority of people who are not on either extreme of those 1% at the top or bottom.

We need more skilled based training in this country. Book knowledge is only going to take a person so far in life. People are going to have to accept the fact that some are born with better access to funds that give them a head start in life. There is nothing you can do to change that because people naturally act in their self interest first. What can be done, even for a person in their 30's or 40's , is to learn a trade that is in demand to increase their financial situation. The ambitious ones can learn a skill and then start their own business and hire others to do the work. That type of thinking needs to be drilled into the mindset of a community from a early age.

 

[badhat]

This whole minimum wage argument is addressing such a small segment of society. Much like the top 1% of earners that earn the most money, only about 1% of the workforce have jobs paying minimum wage. This is taking the 144 million employed workforce in the US and the 1.6 million of those that are receiving minimum wage at their jobs.

The BLS says 1.7 million workers at the federal minimum wage.

This doesn't include the 2 million under the federal minimum wage, mostly due to working the service industry, and it's only counting the federal minimum wage, when over half the states have a different minimum wage. Arkansas, for example, probably has near enough to no people working the federally mandated $7.25/hr, cause anyone that would be at that mark is at the state level of $7.50.

 

[badhat]

Pew, using census data, estimates 30% of all hourly, non-self employed people are "near minimum wage", which is a debatable metric, but it definitely tells a different story.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...han-minimum-wage-but-less-than-10-10-an-hour/

 

[Black smoke and cac jokes]

No graphs or other visual examples to prove his point? I'd love to see these Supply/Demand and elasticity predictions with some calculations.

 

[Spin]

The BLS says 1.7 million workers at the federal minimum wage.

This doesn't include the 2 million under the federal minimum wage, mostly due to working the service industry, and it's only counting the federal minimum wage, when over half the states have a different minimum wage. Arkansas, for example, probably has near enough to no people working the federally mandated $7.25/hr, cause anyone that would be at that mark is at the state level of $7.50.

1.6 or 1.7 no real difference. The main point I'm making is it isn't a huge part of the population. As for the 2 million under federal minimum wage, what % of them are working as bartenders, waiters, etc? I'm sure they're making out fine considering tips and the fact the tips usually come in cash. Of this whole population, how many are under the age of 25? I'm not really asking but I would assume many of them are. If we take the young workers out of the question we're left with an even smaller number of "career" minimum wage works. Again, no one should aspire to be a career minimum wage worker.

I understand some people have mental disorders, physical disabilities, and other issues but again the focus is on the average worker. Politicians on both sides of the aisle use the minimum wage debate to get people emotionally engaged to vote how they want. Every 10 years or so the same topic will come up again and the wages will be slightly increased, but the living standards will be the same. I would rather have a conversation about providing opportunity for people to advance their skills if they wish. There is going to be a certain % of the population that doesn't have the work ethic to improve themselves. I'm not concerned with that crowd. However, I do support providing programs that offer opportunities for people who are willing to take the time to learn a craft. In places like Germany and even in the past here is the states, it has proved to be a positive model.

I have worked in call centers before barely making over minimum wage. It was one of the worst experiences for me both physically and mentally. I just felt I wasn't gaining any real life experience and forced myself to move on. Some people aren't like that, but who am I to judge what they do. In this life, you will always be paid what you negotiate and not what you're worth.

 

[Brown_Pride]

Won't someone please think of the profits of the bosses

This is basically the ONLY argument for not raising minimum wage and it's a piss poor argument at best. Business aren't hurting, particularly big businesses like walmart, mcdonalds, etc, etc.
It's not that businesses wont make money had over fist, it's that they wont make money hand over fist over fist like they are now. If the cost of goods goes up (e.g. increase minimum wage) one of two things needs to happen. 1. The price of goods needs to go up. 2. Profits need to come down.

2 is traditionally seen as bad but really outside of the "small business" model profits could take a hit and instead of buying 2 boats this year a CEO might only get 1 boat.

 

[storyteller]

This whole minimum wage argument is addressing such a small segment of society. Much like the top 1% of earners that earn the most money, only about 1% of the workforce have jobs paying minimum wage. This is taking the 144 million employed workforce in the US and the 1.6 million of those that are receiving minimum wage at their jobs.

No one should aspire to have a minimum wage job for the long term. Young people and others that need some extra income dough should be the intended target of these jobs. I wish people and politicians would spend more time coming up with ideas and solutions for the majority of people who are not on either extreme of those 1% at the top or bottom.

We need more skilled based training in this country. Book knowledge is only going to take a person so far in life. People are going to have to accept the fact that some are born with better access to funds that give them a head start in life. There is nothing you can do to change that because people naturally act in their self interest first. What can be done, even for a person in their 30's or 40's , is to learn a trade that is in demand to increase their financial situation. The ambitious ones can learn a skill and then start their own business and hire others to do the work. That type of thinking needs to be drilled into the mindset of a community from a early age.

What percentage of the workforce makes below 15$ an hour though. I don't know the figure, but I would expect that to be a much higher figure.

As for ideas and solutions for the majority, I think education is the key personally...but there are a lot of ideas and no definitive answers.

 

[Spin]

What percentage of the workforce makes below 15$ an hour though. I don't know the figure, but I would expect that to be a much higher figure.

As for ideas and solutions for the majority, I think education is the key personally...but there are a lot of ideas and no definitive answers.

Education is half the battle. The other half is opportunity to use your education/skills. This world is no joke. Here is a example of what goes on everyday across the country in the upper class to stay ahead:

http://nypost.com/2015/05/24/inside-the-bizarre-life-of-an-upper-east-side-housewife/

Inside the bizarre life of an Upper East Side housewife

In her 26 years in New York, Wednesday Martin has lived in nearly every neighborhood, from Long Island City to Soho to the West Village. Nothing, she says, prepared her for the Upper East Side.

“It’s the most fascinating and alienating and completely separate world I’ve ever encountered,” Martin says. “This is a separate tribe in New York City.”

Her new book, “Primates of Park Avenue” (Simon & Schuster), is a chronicle of her time as a wife and mother on the Upper East Side and the culture shock that ensued. Martin, who will say only that she’s in her 40s, used her background in anthropology to understand the behavior on display: the segregation of men and women, the abuse of alcohol and drugs, the wild displays of competition, the conspicuous consumption and, above all, the deification of children.

“There is nowhere, to me, where intensive parenting is more acutely felt than the Upper East Side,” Martin says. “You’re supposed to be enriching your child on every measure you could think of: emotionally, socially, artistically, academically. It’s your job — and it falls on the women, because this tribe is very gender-scripted. The mommy culture there is a world within a world within a world.”

Families up here had many children, not the average 2.5. “Having a lot of children is the new conspicuous consumption,” Martin says. “It’s how the Masters of the Universe show their wealth: provisioning their children the right way and getting them into the right classes.”

Martin’s oldest was a toddler at the time, and the pressure to enroll her child in the best nursery school was acute. On the Upper East Side, the right nursery school opens the track to the Ivy League. The average tuition for a toddler in 2004 ranged from $25,000 to $35,000 a year.

Martin’s little boy, she soon learned, was way behind. As she writes, “before nursery school, your toddler was supposed to take classes at Diller-Quaile School of Music,” which accepts 3-month-olds. “Before Diller-Quaile, you were supposed to do a certain baby group. Everything, it seemed, fed into everything else.”

Martin was further panicked to learn her child had been born in the wrong month; many women on the Upper East Side time their pregnancies and IVF treatments to school enrollment, so their child will begin school at the oldest age possible — a practice known as redshirting.

“You go to the Upper East Side, and everyone will be heavily pregnant in the same month, because the time to have a baby is October or November,” Martin says. “Those are the good birthdays.”

Still, Martin learned there were things she could do for her toddler. Since the way children play with others factors into nursery-school admission, many Upper East Side mommies hire play-date tutors. Aristotle Circle, for example, offered group play-date tutorials last year for $400 an hour, complete with a write-up of your child’s social deficits. They currently offer one-on-one sessions between toddler and therapist for $150 to $300.

“The headmasters or the administrators of the school watch while the children have a play date with other children from the applicant pool — sometimes up to eight of them,” Martin says. “It’s an audition. So the play-date tutors are for kids who don’t have enough experience with spontaneous play, because they’re so overscheduled.”

Martin’s child was accepted to their school of choice, but her relief was short-lived. She soon learned much else was expected of the Upper East Side mommy.

“Intensive mothering says that if you have all these resources and all this money, you can’t just say to your kid, ‘Go play in the back yard,’ ” Martin explains. “You have to find the best occupational therapist” — whether or not your child has disabilities.

“Especially if he’s a boy,” Martin says. “It’s to give him a leg up on his grapple motor skills and help him with his ‘sillies’ so he can sit still in school and do better on tests. Some people really need the occupational therapists. I’m not putting anybody down.”

Martin says she knows of mommies who hire food coaches for picky little eaters. “You need to hire somebody to teach your kid to ride a bike the safe, right way. Taking your kid to school is not enough. Helping with homework is not enough. There are homework tutorials for parents — we’re supposed to literally go to classes so you can learn how your child is learning math, so that you can be in a better mind-meld with your child.”

And then there are the extra-curricular play dates, as crucial for the mommies as the children. “Parents try to raise their status and build relationships through their children,” Martin says.

“There’s a lot of social jockeying through play dates.”

 

[Broke Wave]

I literally rolled my eyes when I read the same weak ass tired argument " why then, not raise the minimum wage to 150hr?"

how many times can we explain the same
thing over and over again!

 

[Broke Wave]

@Spin is posting articles about how hard it is for people in the upper east side to get ahead.... Your juvenile anecdotes are boring... "education is key" " i once worked minimum wage" eat a gigantic dikk