Posted on 01/05/2014 4:25:51 PM PST by SamAdams76
All this caterwauling lately by the sloppily organized "Fight for 15" movement, with the mission to force a $15 minimum wage for low-skill workers has got me to thinking: If retailers and fast food joints are going to be forced to pay $15 a hour to sling fries or ring up sales at a cash register, than why not pay that money to people like me?
Now I'm pretty happy in my high-skill daytime job, thank you very much. I make plenty enough money to pay the bills and then some. I'm doing okay, don't worry about me. However, like most people who don't have a million bucks or more sitting in the bank, I could always use extra cash. And I do have enough free time nights and weekends to work a second job. However, the current wages being paid for most of those part-time jobs just never appealed to me - not worth the aggravation. So I come home at night, have dinner, surf some Internet, read a book, maybe a little Netflix. Weekends pretty much the same, I run a few errands, do some yard work, but basically a lot of free time in which I could be earning a few extra bucks.
However, if the lazy bums who are pissing and moaning about how unappreciated they are for doing a low-skill job get their wish, and their employers are now forced to pay a minimum wage of $15/hr, consider me in the market for that second job.
If I work a second job 25 hours a week at $15 an hour, that comes to $375 a week and somewhere around $300 after taxes.
Now that's only a fraction of what I make in my full-time job but 300 extra dollars in my pocket every week is nothing to sneeze at. That's around $15,000 a year that I can spend on myself because it's "extra" money.
What will I do with that money?
I can get that new MacBook Pro I've been wanting. I can put a billiards table in the rec room without the wife getting all weird on me. I can outfit my "man cave" with a bar and new flat screen TV and the wife can't say a thing because what I make on my second job is splurge money just for me. Of course, I'll spend some of that money on her too and who knows, at $15/hr, she might want to get her own part-time "low-skill" job to get some extras for herself.
So that brings me to the point of this screed, if companies are going to be forced to pay $15/hr minimum, than not only are they going to be more choosy about who they hire but they are going to have a vastly expanded pool of candidates to choose from - so they no longer have to choose from the bottom of the barrel.
People like myself are going to run circles around the disaffected youths and the lifetime losers that previously held those jobs. I've been in the workforce more than 25 years. I show up on time, have a positive attitude, never complain and gripe, and don't take sick days. My customer relation skills are top-notch. All customers will get service with a smile and I'll keep them coming back. So who do you think these companies are going to pay $15 to? Somebody like me who will be dependable, hard-working and a net asset to their operation or some punk kid with attitude who wears a ballcap backwards? Or some 40-year-old loser with poor personal hygiene and who still lives in his parents basement? Or some shrill, needy single mom who is always bitching and looking for time off because her kid is home from school, or she needs to go to court to squeeze more money out of her ex-husband, or some other drama?
Not only that but these companies will quickly find that they need less employees because people like me can do twice the work of these slobs. So a typical McDonalds, for instance, who might staff 30 workers for the night shift might be able to make do with 15-20 as they are not getting much better quality employees.
So all this rabble who are picketing fast-food places, supermarkets and retail stores to get their $15/hr "living wage" are in for a big surprise should they ever get their wish. For they will have to now compete with people like me and millions of others who already have the skill set these employers are looking for. They will have priced themselves right out of the job market because they simply aren't worth $15/hr.
Then what will they do?
I will march across the street from the tax office and start slinging burgers.
That’s almost $29000 a year. A good military retiree with 20 years solid, honorable service could live well on that salary along with his retirement check.
They’d never be late or be caught texting at work.
This isn’t a terrible idea!
I agree with you except where you claim you will net about $300.00 a week on earnings of about $375.00 a week. You’ll get much less than that after paying taxes.
It’s been pointed out before that a $15/hr wage puts them in competition with better people for their jobs.
That is what I tink too. If they are going to pay 15 bucks and hour they are going to give it to people who are worth it. A lot of jobs would be lost but then again we wouldnt be drowned out by illegals. That would also teach a lesson to the country clubbers who are strong arming GOP congressmen to vote for amnesty and create a socialist state by design, stuidity or greed.
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Unintended consequences for sure. The people screaming that they have to have $15 an hour for minimum wage are likely to end up losing their jobs because most of them can be replaced with better employees for that kind of money.
Bring on the machines.
I would rather deal with a robot than these incompetent takers.
Probably get better food too.
You can argue against raising the minimum wage without ridiculous hyperbole. Do you realize the labor is only 25% of the total cost of a fast food meal? So do the math; doubling min wage will only increase the retail price by 25%.
I think the writer is in for a rude surprise should they get their 15 an hour..
He’ll have to take that second job just to deal with the higher prices of damn near everything due to higher costs of labor across the boards.
Why, yes...yes, I could. The retirement check covers PITI, the part-time job would take care of the rest. BRING ON THE $15/hour MINIMUM WAGE!!!
Yes, indeed the workforce will be more competetive but the costs will also be passed on to consumers. Kiss the Mickey D’s dollar menu goodbye. The libs will also use this wage increase to demand an increase of the bennies for their lazy voting base. So in the end we will all work more, pay more in taxes on the higher wages, so that some hoodlum can continue to call his baby momma on his Obamaphone, and tell her to pick him up a pack of Kools and a dime bag of weed by cashing in some Foodstamps, on her way back to her Obamahome from the salon where she just got her hair did, and paid for it with her EBT card. On her way back to her Obamahome she will trade some milk and cereal from the WIC she gets for her kids for a couple of hits off the crack pipe, but don’t worry cause this ho got it covered if she gets an STD or has another baby she now gots Obamacare for that, ain’t life grand in Obamaland.
Sorry Sam, but you’re going up against the real organizers behind these “protests”... the tax-exempt foundations of the new world order, with the investment income from hundreds of billions in capital to fund these activities.
The global elites promote these campaigns.
From the “Economic Policy Institute”...
http://www.epi.org/publication/issuebriefs_ib138/
At the end of the article, EPI gives some thanks...
“The Economic Policy Institute is grateful to The Annie E. Casey Foundation, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, and The Rockefeller Foundation for their support of this work.”
Rabble-rousing communist organizing is being backed by the global financial elites, so it won’t go away until they go away.
So, if the unskilled drones will now be making $15/hour, what will happen to the semi-skilled workers who had been making $15/hour previously? And if they get bumped up to $20, what happens to the more skilled workers who had already been making $20? And so on...
I saw screw ‘em. If the $15 thing ever proves out, then let’s take those $15/hr jobs on a part time basis. Given a proven work ethic, maturity (age), ability to communicate and intimidate we can insure our children have $15/hr hour jobs and they still get the essential experience of a first job. Kick the slackers to the curb. Screw ‘em. Don’t speak English ... you go hungry. Have dreadlocks ... you go hungry. Have piercings on your face ... you go hungry. F’n liberals with an entitlement mentality ... you go hungry.
That's why I'm not panicking like others over "factory" jobs going overseas. Even those foreign factory workers are on borrowed time. Machines (robots) will work 24/7 and won't complain - or sport tattoos.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating that the minimum wage should be raised to $15/hr. I was just trying to point out with my post the unintended consequences should it actually come to be. And yes, all the people currently making $15 or more are going to squawk if they don’t get an equivalent raise that will maintain their places in the pecking order.
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