Posted on 02/15/2013 8:16:42 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Kinda wish they’d raise it to $100 per hour, or perhaps to whatever-per-hour Pelosi gets. Show a little respect for the working dudes.
Too bad none of the folks voting for this have ever run a business themselves. If they would LOWER the minimum wage, the economy would be helped ... more people would be hired. Keep in mind, they talk $14,000 a year as a minimum wage, but with Food Stamps, health care, etc, it is actually nearer %65,000 a year ... thanks to our contributing tax dollar subsidy.
RE: Kinda wish they’d raise it to $100 per hour, or perhaps to whatever-per-hour Pelosi gets. Show a little respect for the working dudes.
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OK folks, here is a liberal’s defense of the minimum wage — given to me as I speak to them and as I read their arguments:
Here are just a few of them:
1) They cite Walmart, the biggest employer next to the government, which pays an average (not entry level) of $8.80 an hr for non-management jobs.
This qualifies most of their workers for government welfare, such as foodstamps and medicaid.
This means that the cheap prices at Walmart have a hidden tax, the money taxpayers pay to support the below standard wage paid by Walmart.
At new workers orientation, Walmart tells them to apply for welfare to supplement their incomes. This is corporate welfare shifting costs to the public.
So, the liberals argue based on this observation that paying substandard wages costs the taxpayer money thru the welfare programs to which workers are referred.
So the argument goes like this -— Why should the taxpayer subsidize Walmart? Why shouldn’t a fulltime worker make enough, without welfare, to live?
2) Liberals argue that studies have shown that raising the minimum wage has a tiny effect on jobs (far less than 1%) tho the myth that it will cause widespread unemployment is promoted nevertheless (This was Bill Clinton’s argument
in the 1990’s and the New York Times echoes it. Nothing has changed. I have not read such “studies”).
Workers who make more (let’s say on a par with the original minimum wage level) cost the taxpayer less and pay more taxes, a win win win.
If you want to increase revenues, reduce welfare costs, and increase consumption, which fuels economic and job growth, support raising the minimum wage to the level it once had, before inflation.
3) Most minimum wage earners are NOT teenagers.
They are adult working poor (Anybody check this at all?).
In the past 30 years, with an 85% increase in labor productivity, the 1% have nearly tripled their incomes and wealth, while the median wage has declined by over 30%. The loss of the buying power of the minimum wage is the foundation of this loss of median income, along with the destruction of the labor movement, which when it is strong is able to leverage more productivity and profits into wage gains.
If Someone is not worth $9 a hr. Don’t hire him; there are millions of able workers who can do the job. They deserve enough to live on.
Companies that pay substandard wages, like Walmart, depend on the government/taxpayers to make up the difference.
We need both a minimum wage and a strong labor movement to advance the interests and wages of all workers. Raising people out of poverty (as with the working poor that Walmart, et al employ) fuels the economy and job growth.
The minimum wage is one good way to accomplish this.
END OF LIBERAL ARGUMENT.
So, what’s your rebuttal to these?
Here’s what happens with leftists:
1) Assume that the feel good policy is a good thing with no other consequences.
2) After instituting the policy, be surprised by the consequences that you ignored.
3) Blame the consequences on anything but your policy.
4) Pass new laws to try to alleviate those consequences.
RE: Keep in mind, they talk $14,000 a year as a minimum wage, but with Food Stamps, health care, etc, it is actually nearer %65,000 a year ... thanks to our contributing tax dollar subsidy.
Well that’s PRECISELY the liberal argument FOR the minimum wage.
They cite Walmart, the biggest employer next to the government, which pays an average (not entry level) of $8.80 an hr for non-management jobs.
This qualifies most of their workers for government welfare, such as foodstamps and medicaid.
This means that the cheap prices at Walmart have a hidden tax, the money taxpayers pay to support the below standard wage paid by Walmart.
At new workers orientation, Walmart tells them to apply for welfare to supplement their incomes. This is corporate welfare shifting costs to the public.
So, the liberals argue based on this observation that paying substandard wages costs the taxpayer money thru the welfare programs to which workers are referred.
So the argument goes like this -— Why should the taxpayer subsidize Walmart? Why shouldn’t a fulltime worker make enough, without welfare, to live?
I’d first challenge them to present empirical data that increasing the minimum wage has ever reduced the welfare roles.
Well, maybe $95 dollars per hour . . .I could handle that!
It sticks in my mind that there is a relationship - as the minimum wage goes up so does “the union scale”. This raise is written into various existing contracts.
Or, is this something out of my imagination?
The minimum wage is raised, the employer shells out more money, which he collects from the customers, and passes it to the employees, which then pass a larger chunk of income tax, to the fed gov. Nothing more than raising more taxes, under the cover of being attentive to the needs of the poor.
Same thing with the forced imputed tips for waiters and waitresses.
Yes, I'm well aware of the union manipulation of this crap. I'm still trying to find out where in our Constitution it says anything about minimum wages . . . so far, I can't find anything.
Almost all union contracts include a negotiated uptick should the Minimum Wage be raised during the term of the contract. Hence the unions are always lobbying Democrats to raise it.
The latest push is to go ahead and index it to inflation so the boosts would become automatic. The Pubbies in their infinite wisdom appear to be negotiating a deal to raise it to around $10/hr. but without the automatic COLA adjustments.
“Destroying the Enemy from Within using Liberal Idiots”; a handbook for tyrants, Communists, and jihadists”
Bonus chapter - Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals Simplified
Mixing the Koolaid for maximum effectiveness
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Using celebrities to sway the masses
Making people pay for your vacations and hold clubs and more while scolding them for not sharing their wealth and more....
On the al Qaeda best sellers list for 214 weeks and running...
Wholeheartedly endorsed by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mohammed Morsi, Vladimir Putin, Hugo Chavez, and King Abdullah
“I couldn’t believe how easy it was to get the American youth on board using social media and celebrities; I mean, they really buy that stuff? Are they really THAT stupid? I couldn’t put it down” - Mahmoud
“Destroying the Enemy from Within using Liberal Idiots”; a handbook for tyrants, Communists, and jihadists” by Barrack Hussein Obama
Bonus chapter - Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals Simplified
Mixing the Koolaid for maximum effectiveness
Using the MSM to do your work for you
Using celebrities to sway the masses
Making people pay for your vacations and hold clubs and more while scolding them for not sharing their wealth and more....
On the al Qaeda best sellers list for 214 weeks and running...
Wholeheartedly endorsed by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mohammed Morsi, Vladimir Putin, Hugo Chavez, and King Abdullah
“I couldn’t believe how easy it was to get the American youth on board using social media and celebrities; I mean, they really buy that stuff? Are they really THAT stupid? I couldn’t put it down” - Mahmoud
The best bet to kill the idea of minimum wage would be to change the law to offer alternatives to it.
Probably the best thing would be to have an opt-out from FICA, so that employees could choose whether they wanted to be in the Social Security system and Medicare, or not. If they opted out, they would get the money that their employer had previously sent to the government. Effectively doubling their wage.
This would be a huge bonus for those working minimum wage but who do not intend to stay in those jobs, but work in salaried employment.
When the government raises the minimum wage to $9 an hour employers will stop hiring people who are only worth $7.25 an hour.
Walmart and other places DO pay more, sometimes much more in places where the cost of living is high and the labor pool is low. Liberal policies of high taxes and regulations are usually the culprits for high cost of living policies (CA) and in this case artifically raising wages just increases the cost of living and thereby increaes the poverty level, not accomplishing anything but inflation and increases in revenue for the gov’t. But it also happens in economic growth (a good thing), which results in the market setting wages higher than minimum wage without gov’t intervention.
I’ve hired many a employee at minimum wage.Some got a raise in less then 30 days ( one after the first day)and some have stayed at minimum wage as long as they worked for me.It’s not meant to be a living wage, just a starting point. If your stuck at minimum wage job you need to look at your self, and fix it.
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