[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.

[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!

[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.

[parsifal]

"My objection is the issue of fairness," says Tim Dubois, CEO of the Edward Thomas Companies, which owns hotels in the Santa Monica tourist zone. "

BS. His objection is that he might have to lower his own, probably extravagant salary. parsy the seer of truth in things.

[parsifal]

But it is the gov'ts job, and has been for millenia, to set minimum wages beyond which an employer can not cheat the employee. Minwages are a legitimate function of gov't. parsy.

[reedmelnick]

No one who earns $5.50 an hour is qualified to be a parent. Why should I pay for someone elses kids?

[Red Jones]

it may come as a surprise to you, but the last 30 years the government has regulated portions of the economy directly into the ground and thus destroyed many high paying jobs, the government has entangled our country into trade arrangements which we knew when we made those agreements would result in a lower standard of living for many americans, then we have lots of restrictions on land use that we didn't have, then we have increased immigration that we didn't have. The government is the #1 factor in creating a situation where the real incomes of most americans over the last 30 years have been going down, not up. When you measure wealth according to how much of a 'basket of goods' can be purchased with the salaries people actually make, then the majority of americans are worse off, not better. Under these conditions it is entirely proper for people to look to government and blame them.

[Lizavetta]

The minimum wage has lost 10% of its buying power since it was last raised, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

Duh, I wonder why...could it be that the cost of everything has risen by an equal amount to pay for this and many other government-enacted costs of doing business? Or could it be because the value of everyone's dollar has shrunk due to the government's debasement of our money by the endless printing of more Monopoly money?

[bert]

American women have swallowed the "I can have it all" lure hook line and sinker. I have several young female aquaintances who are absolutely failing at life. To maintain the image they must hold two jobs, one with the degree and the other as a waitress or at Walmart, to keep the rent paid, the car bought and insured.

They have no time to live and if there is time they are too tired.

I don't argue or rag them, I just observe. Thirty and spinsterhood will come.