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I don't look down my nose at anyone. However, I don't expect my employer to pay people more than what their labor is worth, regardless of what their inherent personal worth might be. My employer gets no benefit from an employee's "inherent personal worth." They can't get customers to pay more for their product regardless of how much "inherent personal worth" is on the payroll. The competitors would eat them alive and ultimately they would go out of business.

This would spell the end to not only my job, but the jobs from management (of which I am not) right on down to assembler, lawn maintenance, or cafeteria worker.

I am one of those mid-$20/hour laborers whom you apparently look down your nose at. I didn't start off earning what I earn now. When I was 17, I fathered a daughter--something that could have locked me into a life of making below $8/hour, had I let it.

Instead, I joined the Navy partly because I believed in America and our defense; but mostly because I wanted to make sure I could put food in my daughter's mouth. Originally, I was ordered to pay $200/month for child support. After that and $100/month for GI Bill my checks were very small.

So you know what I did? I took advantage of every educational opportunity that came my way. I worked my regular Navy job which sometimes totalled nearly 80 hours in a week. And when I wasn't working I was either studying for my advancement in the Navy or studying for credit.

Five years after joining, I left the Navy. Struggling to find a job in electronics (what I had done in the military), I did odd jobs as a temp averaging $5.50/hour--when I could find work at all. Somehow, I still managed to pay my support payments, eat, and live. Yes, I had to move back in with my father for about a year. It wasn't the end of the world.

About a year after getting out of the Navy, I found a permanent job as a taper for a printing press manufacturer--a job for which I was highly overqualified. You see, my job was to mask off the parts of the assembled equipment so that they could be painted. When I wasn't taping, I worked with assemblers and made it a point to learn everything I could about the machine assembly process. After I had been a taper for about 6 months, the electrical assembler quit and I was given that job--no, I had earned that job. All of my hard work and studying was starting to pay off, yet even then I only earned about $8/hour.

About one and a half years later, I earned the job of Field Service Technician with that same company--which came with an annual salary of $30K. By the time I left that company I was up to $39K.

Today, and several companies later, I am earning above $55K from my primary employer. None of these companies have "given" me any of this, and none of these wages have been because I have any "inherent personal worth," or am a "human being who deserves it." It is all because I provide a service coupled with skills, knowledge, and training and I trade that service for money and other benefits.

I worked just as hard as you did, and I never earned close to what you earned. But if it makes you feel better, pat yourself on the head on the way to the bank.

You forked over child support, score 1 for you if you are telling the truth, but you didn't have to find babysitters, cook, clean, stay home from work when your kids were sick, you had a definite advantage in the labor market.

I don't look down my nose at you, but I resented people like you for years. I had to pay your kind $20 an hour to fix my car so I could get to work and earn my $8+ per hour.

I'm not impressed with your accomplishments. You didn't have one hand tied behind your back and probably didn't have to take anti-depressant/anti-anxiety medication to keep going so you wouldn't lose your kids.