Do you believe in a living wage?

Discussion in 'Political Opinions & Beliefs' started by WAN, Feb 12, 2017.

  1. WAN

    WAN Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Hello. Some people have pointed out that in the United States, some people work full-time hours (40-hour a week) yet still do not make enough money to support themselves. They often turn to social assistance like food-stamps and a whole host of other benefits. The thing to note is that all of these things are ultimately paid for by the tax-payers. Some people believe that this is unfair to the tax-payers and they advocate that we either raise the minimum wage or otherwise compel businesses to pay their full-time employees enough money so that they will not require social assistance. These proponents believe that tax-payers should not have to make up for the "short-fall" and that businesses should not get away with paying full-time employees unreasonably low, un-livable wages.

    I personally agree with this. I realize that this is mostly a "liberal" stance, however I believe this is one of the very few instances where the liberals got it right. Deep down I am still a conservative though but I try to look at issues on their argumentative merit and I don't reject an idea outright just because it is being put forth by a group (in this case, liberals) that I don't consider myself to be a part of.

    Your thoughts?
     
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  2. logical1

    logical1 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I believe in a living wage is you are willing to work hard enough to earn it.
     
  3. navigator2

    navigator2 Banned

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    Mandating a minimum wage that will allegedly be above the poverty line just isn't a good idea. What's a living wage? Depends on who you ask. People who currently work for minimum wage shouldn't expect to be able to live on it. It is all unskilled labor, if it were skilled, the market forces would pay what it's worth. Most working for the minimum are young people without trade skills, going to school working part time, something to subsidize them for a little extra pocket money. All that I've seen happen with an artificial wage floor is price employers out of hiring them, heaping work on the other workers or sparking further automation and eliminating potential jobs. Automation already has taken it's toll on traditional jobs, I can't see this doing anything but hastening that process.
     
  4. Seth Bullock

    Seth Bullock Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I, too, am conservative, but there is a certain amount of logic to your argument, and I have made similar statements here in the past. What if a full-time worker could afford ...

    - a small apartment
    - a used economy car
    - health insurance
    - unprepared food
    - child care

    We could virtually eliminate welfare for millions of people.
     
  5. Oxymoron

    Oxymoron Well-Known Member

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    I believe in the free market, everything else is arbitrary and will fail.
     
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  6. vman12

    vman12 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I think that people who want to participate and do work should be able to afford housing, food, transportation, child care, and other expenses.

    I also believe we should have a program that is built around the system we use to train our military. You join the military, you sign a contract, you take some tests to determine your aptitudes, then you are trained in skills that give you experience and a foundation to build a career on. As part of that agreement, one would have to be drug free, crime free, and apply themselves to society.

    Such a program could even be tried to help reduce recidivism rate for those who have committed crimes but dedicate themselves to turning it around.

    If we had a government program like that it would be so much more better.

    That said, I have no sympathy for those who do not wish to work, or want to be career criminals and drug users/sellers.

    We have a vested interest as a society to help prevent people from turning to crime just to pay their rent.

    I have sympathy towards those good people out there that just can't get by, but again zero sympathy for those abusing the system.
     
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  7. APACHERAT

    APACHERAT Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Entry level jobs like cleaning toilets or flipping burgers were never intended to be permanent career jobs to raise a family on.

    No country should be forced to except another country's losers who are uneducated and unskilled or might go jihad.

    Any native born American who didn't take going to school seriously and finds him or herself being uneducated and a unskilled loser should think of becoming an illegal alien by sneaking across the Canadian border and let them become the Canucks problem to deal with.
     
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  8. bois darc chunk

    bois darc chunk Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    We've got a problem and we don't have a good solution.

    I just really wanted to make this one point about your post…
    You said most minimum wage workers are young people without skills, and that isn't true anymore.

     
  9. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    I'm 100% against the concept.

    If you can possibly think about people and work for a moment without any consideration of wage you will see that people have varying levels of skills, education, performance, self-esteem, etc. Typically how much we earn is a direct result of these attributes. So if the minimum wage was bumped to $20/hour for example, over a short period of time like one year or less, all other wages will also be forced to adjust upward. When the dust settles those with minimum attributes will again be functioning on the bottom rung of the economy...meaning they gain nothing by forcing a 'fictional' minimum wage.

    And, since NOTHING is free, forcing this very unnatural event into the economy will create inflation and all of the collateral issues of inflation...
     
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  10. bois darc chunk

    bois darc chunk Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Well said and an interesting theory.
     
  11. Deckel

    Deckel Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    There is this robin hood belief that raising the minimum wage will take from the rich who have unfairly earned it and give to the poor. In reality it just gives the rich more money. That money will just be worth less, and that decline in purchasing power disproportionately hurts the poor. "Living Wage" only conceptually makes sense if you believe in trickle down economics and that is largely a failed concept in a global e-commerce environment.
     
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  12. TomFitz

    TomFitz Well-Known Member

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    Yes, it comes in handy. Especially when one wants to eat or have a place to live.....
     
  13. Penrod

    Penrod Well-Known Member

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    This is a case where you got it wrong. Minimum wage jobs are for beginners with no experience . You are not supposed to be able to support yourself on it. its for those who live at home or share a home with others. I started working at 16 for $1.15 an hour. I was still in HS and didnt expect to move out and support myself.
     
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  14. toddwv

    toddwv Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I think it's inevitable rather you agree with it or not.

    [​IMG]

    Higher productivity without automation is simply not possible and since robots don't currently buy goods, the current rate of job loss to automation just isn't sustainable.
     
  15. Conviction

    Conviction Well-Known Member

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    In this society you need to rely on good will of friends and family. If you have a me verse the world mentality working a minimum wage job you're likely need to get where you want. Unless you really kick ass and smart (you need both nowadays) you can get away with I suppose. But such is reality of life.
     
  16. Conviction

    Conviction Well-Known Member

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    Fair and free markets.
    No system is perfect and just because a select few can't cope is just reality and you deal with those externalities without jeopardizing the system . It just so happens emphasizing individual choice is the most empowering element you can endow in an individual.
     
  17. Soupnazi

    Soupnazi Well-Known Member

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    Those who do not make enough to support themselves after working 40 hours a week are in fact making a living wage.'

    Overwhelmingly the reasons they cannot support themselves is bad choices and attempting to live beyond their means. When you have the latest android phone. multiple flat screens, netflix and cable and gold chains it is your fault that you cannot support your kids on minimum wage.

    If you cannot support your self change your life style and your money will go farther.
     
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  18. vman12

    vman12 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    People fail in life because they don't have skills, or can't acquire them.

    I grew up quite poor. If it hadn't been for joining the Marines I would have never been able to achieve my potential.

    We help people by giveng them expectations, skills, and structure in their lives.

    Raising the minimum wage will have nothing but negative consequences.

    Handing out money to single parents does nothing and only encourages more single parents.

    - - - Updated - - -

    For a lot of them this is true, but not all.

    Being irresponsible with money crosses all income levels.
     
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  19. Soupnazi

    Soupnazi Well-Known Member

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    Yes it does cross all income levels.
    Mandating a wage of any sort does not solve the problem.
     
  20. sawyer

    sawyer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    My thought is that if we didn't have all these welfare programs like food stamps etc, employers would have to pay a living wage
     
  21. vman12

    vman12 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Other than I can't believe I said "more better" :(
     
  22. bois darc chunk

    bois darc chunk Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I can see how the novice, journeyman, master craftworker path to a career could help people get to a living wage. However, that takes a community willing to take on learners and eventually competitors. The military teaches skills that are important to the military, but aren't always applicable in civilian life. The pride in workmanship and doing a good job, meeting deadlines, etc. are personal skills that do translate though.

    I have mixed emotions about this topic. I grew up during a time when a single breadwinner could support a family by working at a low skilled job. Then it took two breadwinners to support a family. Now, even two breadwinners often can't make enough to pay rent, buy groceries, and support a family without government supplements. I see that as a problem moving forward, because the children are being raised in day care, so their parents can work, but still can't make ends meet. While it's not actually neglect, children aren't getting what they need from both their parents because they are either working or exhausted from work. The situation may come back to bite the country in the long run.

    I saw something on television the other day about offering free housing to teachers, police, firefighters, etc, in low income areas to rebuild those communities. The cities didn't have lots of money for pay, but they had abandoned buildings that could be reclaimed and people that needed work. I think federal grants were involved, but I'm happier with giving people a job with federal grants to do something needed in the community than just handing it out as welfare. There's dignity in work, and a work ethic passed on to the kids by example is also a good thing.

    I think there is a solution, but it may be take different forms in different places.

    I don't think a federal minimum wage makes sense because of differing costs of living in different places. I do think we have some underpaid people in many places though. In my state, Walmart workers have been instructed how to file for state medicaid, when Walmart is hugely profitable and quite able to provide health insurance for their workers. I see no reason my state taxes need to supplement Walmart's profits. It's complex, but we have to find a solution.

    Darkbane and I have had some long, in-depth conversations about this topic. Wish he hadn't gotten himself banned. :frown:

    Heh! I meant what you knew. :wink:
     
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  23. vman12

    vman12 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I agree.

    The real problem, as you mentioned, is that both parents have to work to maintain status quo. I make a good wage, yet even then my wife has to work so that we can save enough money for retirement and to provide for disposable income. Despite how much money I make, there is no way I could afford decent medical care, mortage, two cars, child care, clothes, food, education expenses for my kids, and have enough for anything else.

    The real issue is that, imho primarily due to welfare consequences we have groups approaching 60-70% single parent households in this country. Once on welfare, it costs more money to work than to just take the welfare, so people cannot get off. Once you're in your late 20's and you still have no skills or work experience, you're basically unemployable.

    We need programs that get high school kids trained in skills, otherwise they face a market where there are even fewer jobs and more competition for those jobs because of increases to minimum wage, which kills jobs.

    One good thing is that for the next 19 years, we have 10,000 people a day retiring (baby-boomers), so that will hopefully create a positive job vacuum.

    And yeah, that's another thing I mention often regarding cost of living. Earning $50k a year in WV is a high quality of life. Earning 50k in NYC is not.
     
  24. Fisherguy

    Fisherguy Well-Known Member

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    Minimum wage in Australia is what, $16 an hour? Even at McDonald's. And the price of a burger there is only a little more than in the U.S. Some countries still remember the concept of social responsibility. But not here. In America, it's dog-eat-dog, winners and losers.
     
  25. SmallTown22

    SmallTown22 Member

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    I agree that those who put in 40 hours can probably do just fine with minimum wages. Finding 40 hour jobs is getting tougher, especially after obamacare. You always hear the stories of people working 3 part time jobs. It should not have to be that way. I also wish to second the notion that minimum wage jobs are NOT just for high school kids. It has not been that way for quite some time. There is no such thing as a bad job. Many have responded about how they started in a starter position and worked their way up, and that is great, but there are many, many people who do not have much ability to climb. There is an entire, large group of people who are not technically disabled, but who are very close to it. Unskilled labor is all they have and is where they will stay. I don't look down on anybody, and any job is a good job, but I wish people would pause before saying that only kids work at unskilled positions, and blame the people who are just one step above disabled for not climbing like you did when you were a kid.
     

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