Living-wage movement takes root across nation

USA Today ^ | July 23, 2002 | Stephanie Armour

[Sweet_Sunflower29]

Life used to be very hard for Marlene Mendoza. The single mother worked as a waitress at Los Angeles International Airport. At $5.50 an hour, she says she had no choice but to put in 80 hours a week.

Today, life is still hard. But under a 1997 city law that provided wage increases for certain employees, Mendoza now works 50 to 60 hours a week. She is paid more than $7 an hour, allowing her to cut back and spend time helping her son, Frankie, 10, and daughter, Valerie, 8, with their homework.

[Sweet_Sunflower29]

Leftists must love articles like this one. There's such a sense of entitlement on the part of some of the workers they interview in here. "Well, I can't live on this wage, so it's the government's job to make it better."

Call me crazy, but in the world I was raised in, it's MY job to make responsible life decisions and to develop marketable job skills so I can maintain a decent lifestyle. Nobody taught me that it's the government's job to bail me out.

[ClearCase_guy]

This so-called journalist really has her cheerleader uniform on, doesn't she? Gee, it's-just-so-hard-to-tell-if-she's-in-favor-of-this. Glad there's no liberal bias at USA Today.

[Thane_Banquo]

Price floors always cause surplus's, and in the case of labor, a surplus means unemployment: More people are willing to supply their labor at the artificially high wage than firms demand.

[Brush_Your_Teeth]

Why exactly should we cry for large companies that get millions sometimes billions in local dollars? They took the easy money from the taxpayers now the marker is getting cashed in and they whine about it? This is another example of what happens when government spends money and companies take it without thinking twice. This is something for those who believe that spending billions on voucher programs thinking that the government will stay out of those private schools.

[Maceman]

Everybody's income is somebody else's cost. Drive up wages artificially, and you drive up costs the same way. Living age is a paycut for most Americans, since it means their taxes will go up to pay for the artificially inflated cost of government-contracted work.

[AdA$tra]

....50 to 60 hours a week. She is paid more than $7 an hour...

That is why a cheeseburget there costs twenty dollars now and the number of wait staff has been cut in half due to loss of business.

[Protagoras]

If two people cannot privately agree on the price of the labor which is to be performed. Then neither can be said to be free.

[Orangedog]

The single mother worked as a waitress at Los Angeles International Airport. At $5.50 an hour, she says she had no choice but to put in 80 hours a week.

Maybe she might want to consider moving to a state where a run-down two bedroom apartment in the hood doesn't cost $900/month. Is there anything that doesn't cost more in California? People need to take a hard look at why they don't earn as much as they would like. Oh, and I used to work for tips, like this woman does. She is probably making a good deal more than $5.50/hour.

[T. P. Pole]

Williams wants better wages, and she thinks it's up to the city to make sure workers get it.

...Instead of working eight hours and getting exhausted, I work 4 1/2 hours a day,"

I can't believe these quotes. That a "normal" news source would use these astounds me. At least they used to pretend. Now they just let the "gimme"s have their say.

These are the types of quotes I would use to mock the idea. Not to support it.

[A_perfect_lady]

When I was an undergraduate I lived on probably $9,000 a year. It's quite do-able, you don't need phone, TV, cable, a car... these are all things that people have grown to feel entitled to. I was incredibly poor by American standards, and yet I look back on those days and realize that I was also quite happy. I was proud of being independent and not in debt, I enjoyed making meals from scratch for pennies, I used public transportation or walked everywhere, bought my clothes at the local thrift store... and still had enough money to make sure my cats had their inoculations and were spayed! But nobody has any pride anymore, it seems like. The hand is always out.

[Austin Willard Wright]

Good point. Wouldn't such laws apply to schools which vouchers?

[Pining_4_TX]

Oh, you beat me to it! If the government can wave a magic wand and give everyone the lifestyle they want, why stop at high wages? All these people who have trouble making it through college, just ask them what degree they want and give it to them! Want to be a doctor? Here's your diploma from med school! Then we won't have to worry any more about discrimination and self-esteem problems. Besides, this would solve the doctor shortage, right?

Really, I should be put in charge of the Department of Magic. I'd be very popular until reality hit the fan.

[Darkshadow]

��5{��������llin, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts, found a living wage does cause some lower-wage workers to be displaced from jobs.

"That is a legitimate concern," says Pollin, co-author of The Living Wage: Building a Fair Economy. "But the overall effects of higher wages and benefits overcome that."

Tell that to the guy who lost his job

[dpa5923]

"The living wage means I can do this job that I love. Instead of working eight hours and getting exhausted, I work 41/2 hours a day," says Guindon, 34.

Incredible!

[talleyman]

"I have a job for you."
"How much does it pay?"
"I'll pay you what you're worth."
"I can't live on that!!!"

[GodBlessRonaldReagan]

Wow, the looters are really out in full force these days - brazen, too.

Instead of working eight hours and getting exhausted, I work 4 1/2 hours a day

Some people just need to be beaten with a stick. Poor baby, exhausted after 8 hours!

[dasein64]

If $18,000 is considered the living standard for a family of four at this point in time, will it not be raised as the living wage forces business to raise their prices to cover the additional costs? Then the spiral starts all over. The elastic living wage, with little or no ties to job value, ratchets up again. After the gold laying goose is crushed, what then? Full blown SOCIALISM. We are pretty much there already.

[Redcloak]

There is an initiative petition circulating in CA to raise the minimum wage to $10.29/hr.

Happy, happy. Joy, joy.

[Sweet_Sunflower29]

This is something for those who believe that spending billions on voucher programs thinking that the government will stay out of those private schools.

Excellent example!!