I am not responding to your poll because you didn't provide neither as an option. Poll Question: Liberals, do you support: Facism Communism
It is always the best policy to eliminate any type of minimum wage which will result in maximum employment and then allow the social safety net to provide assistance per the requirements of the program. This allows the maximum number of people entry into the job force and a path to economic success.
For the ones supporting gutting welfare or treating disabled and poor adults as children, what if they either vote en mass for a party that will not be one you would like or retaliate in other ways perhaps destructively even I can fight if I have to in government where either option is common enough in history to be a concern. I know I favor voting and well right now most of the poor don't vote in their best interest what if say the communist party gets enough votes to take significant inroads in local, state and Federal elected offices. If say they take a third of Congress over if they voted in their best interests and enough people could influence them that platform looks good if the alternative is rich people and the elite stepping on them. I'll admit its unlikely but could you rule some such move happening in some form?
Your poll sucks, since it doesn't include other options, like "Neither." No, there is no requirement to be funded, which is a serious flaw in your argument. Living wages are subjective, not objective. Living wages are based on the false assumption that people are entitled to a certain Life-Style or Standard of living, and they are not. Welfare assistance can be ended outright or limited to a maximum of 5 years. That is truly disgusting. Living wages do not lower taxes.
Of course there are alternatives. First of all, minimum wage is not supposed to be a "living wage", it's a wage for young, entry level workers. That we have heads of households working minimum wage jobs is part of the problem. The problem is that people don't have skills that will make them attractive to companies that want to hire them. This topic has already come up in the Trump administration, with regards to apprenticeship jobs that teach those skills.
I mentioned people and their life choices which obviously does not include those with issues beyond their control. Do you speak just to hear yourself?
Everything in bold blue is a welfare program and, in fact, it's a huge welfare program far greater and much more costly than what exists today. Just one real question. Does this mean that the local waitress that's a single mother raising a child, or maybe even two, but that's receiving SNAP benefits and perhaps housing and energy assistance will be required to quit her job and move into town to the proposed "designated area" to be supported as a ward of the state? The reason I ask is because we're not talking about a small group of workers that can't support their household because of under-compensation for labor. We're talking about tens of millions of households that are receiving welfare to subsidize the under-compensation by their employers. So do they keep their jobs, in which case there might be serious transportation issues and other issues with "The Project" (as it will soon be called) and if they're working they really won't have much time for the training proposed and the government's going to have a hard time finding enough qualified people to provide the job training. The proposal obviously includes the government supporting the entire household because welfare is for the household. Finally while "The Project" might be a very nice welfare program it's not going to create the jobs that pay a living wage so we're still stuck with the tens of millions of jobs that don't pay a living wage that will constantly be feeding the "Project" creating a never-ending welfare state. I read an interesting statistic a few years ago. The US had 40 million college graduates at the time but only 30 million jobs requiring a college degree. Many of the excess 10 million college graduates that found employment were not earning a living wage and that highlights a point. It isn't a lack of qualifications to earn a living wage, it's a lack of jobs that pay a living wage, that's driving the necessity for welfare assistance.
We're not addressing the "welfare queen" that's collecting welfare and that represents an insignificant percentage of welfare recipients. We're addressing the 75% of welfare recipients that are members of working households that are currently receiving limited welfare benefits SNAP benefits averaging a couple hundred dollars a month, and maybe even limited rent assistance, that they need because their jobs don't provide a living wage. The problem is the "market" that works very well when addressing prices for goods/services provided for by enterprise because the market cannot drive the prices paid for the goods/services below the cost of the enterprise to provide the goods/services. An enterprise can't provide goods/services below cost because it would go bankrupt. That market constraint does not exist for labor and the market has driven the price for labor below the cost of the worker to provide the labor. The workers minimum costs are the necessary expenditures to support their household that MIT quantified. There's a fundamental rule of capitalism that the market is violating when it comes to labor. The "price" of goods/services cannot be below the "cost" of providing the goods/services. If the "price" drops below the "cost" then capitalism will ultimately fail. Welfare assistance provides a subsidy when the "price of labor is below the cost to provide the labor" and it's a mandatory necessity in the United States because if the subsidy is not provided for then capitalism ultimately fails.
No. She would not be required to quit her job. No, my proposal is not designed to create jobs. No more than giving people welfare checks is designed to create jobs. My proposal is simply a better alternative than handing people money carte blanche.
In fact Ford basically doubled the hourly wage, reduced the hours in the work day, and was able to reduce the price of the cars he was producing by about 50%. A properly phased implementation plan for the significant increase required for a living wage would take several years to implement allowing changes to the business plan for affected enterprises (not all enterprises are affected) that prevent or highly limit any pricing increases. If a "living wage" is properly implemented there's no significant increase in the "cost of living" because: 1) the number of goods/services affected is limited; 2) labor compensation only averages about 25% of the gross revenue for the typical enterprise affected; 3) increasing prices to address an increased cost is the least favorable and last option by enterprise; 4) the phased implementation is spread out over enough years so that it's highly diluted and insignificant because it gets lost in the "inflation" caused by the expansion of the money supply,
Let's say the living wage is $18/hr. Let's say that there is a job opening, and there are two applicants. One applicant has worked for several years and has skills appropriate to the job. The other applicant is inexperienced but is willing to work cheap and learn on the job. Which of these two applicants will get the job?
That's good to know but what about having the relocate to the "Project" and becoming involved in the huge welfare program that's going on there? She, and millions like her, are only receiving a small welfare benefit to supplement the under compensation for her labor. SNAP benefits that's often the only welfare assistance a working household receives only averaged $287, or $4.30 per person per day, in 2011 and 75% of all SNAP recipients are members of working households. SNAP is funding about $80 billion in welfare benefits and about 40 million households are collecting benefits as I recall. No one addressed by a "living wage" proposal is simply being "handed money" because they're all are hard working Americans. As for those that are simply being "handed money" that the proposal does address wouldn't it make sense that once they have job skills and go out to find employment that they'd be able to support their household as opposed to continuing to collect welfare assistance, albeit much less than when they were just being handed money, once they get a job? Something I learned during my 45 years predominately in aerospace manufacturing. The "average person" already has the skills required to earn more than a living wage because I trained inexperienced new employees for most of my career. All they needed was company driven job specific training and that applied to everyone regardless of prior knowledge and/or experience. In fact some of the hardest to train were those that had experience with other companies because how the other company did the work wasn't the same so I had to first "un-teach" them to end unacceptable processes/procedures and then "re-teach" them the way our company did things. That was generally much harder than training someone without prior experience on how to do it "our" way from the beginning. All of them had the skills and only company driven requirements, that the company is responsible for, needed to be addressed. This may surprise some but when I was earning over $100,000/yr in aerospace the only skills I actually needed was the ability to read English and follow written instructions. The training I gave to new employees was basically to follow the written instructions and all of them could read English (they had the required skill). The only reason I earned over $100,000/yr was because I'd read the written instructions so many times that I'd actually memorized them but even I had to review them periodically because of changes.
I just addressed this in part and I've personally experienced this situation during my career so I believe I can provide the answer to the question. Because I'd have to train both of them to "do it the company way" it's often easier to train the person without prior experience because you don't have to "un-train" the worker with experience first. Of course how much "company driven" requirements are involved is important but all companies have unique requirements. This isn't always determining factor but it is a consideration because sometimes the new hire without prior experience is actually superior to the person with experience. The real determining factor is the job and the compensation for it. Assuming the $18/hr compensation is based upon the worker without experience then the other applicant is "over-qualified" for the position. I'd have to be able to offer the experienced applicant more than $18/hr to keep compensation equal for all employees with the same qualifications filling a higher level job role. So do I have the option of offering more compensation and does the specific job opening require the additional qualifications? If I'm locked in by the budget then I'm going to hire the inexperienced worker because the position (job role) being funded is for the inexperienced worker. If, on the other hand, there's a range in job roles that allows a range in compensation relative to experience I'd be more inclined to hire the experienced worker because then they're not "over-qualified" for the position but instead are just at the high end of the experience/compensation level for the job role to be filled. You don't just hire a more experienced worker and pay them less because they'll accept the lower compensation. The job role and it's related compensation are the driving criteria. A highly qualified person will often under-perform if the compensation is not commensurate with their experience (especially true if they know co-workers with less knowledge/experience and lower performance are earning more) when compared to an inexperienced person that's receiving appropriate compensation and working to advance as they gain experience. I hope that adequately answered the question. Basically if I'm locked into $18/hr that's based upon an inexperienced worker then I'm going to hire the inexperienced applicant because that's what the job role and compensation establish as the hiring criteria. If I have management "wiggle room" on the compensation and job role then I'd probably go with the more experienced applicant with the additional cost of a higher wage.
If a person is incapable of providing for themselves and it's necessary for the state to intervene, then rather than simply give that person money the state should give them a custodian. Since they are, in essence, a child who needs to be taken care of, the state should appoint someone to help them educate themselves so they can become a productive member of society.
Not my job to make someone productive. It is their job. The consequences of not doing so are their consequences not ours.
There is also the fact that the over qualified candidate who is being overpaid will be looking around for a better paying position and take the first one that comes along leaving you with the need to start all over again.
Your lack of empathy for those less fortunate than yourself is glaringly obvious. If an adult only has the comprehension of a child then they do need a guardian. To leave them to fend for themselves would be inhumane.
Unless otherwise provided for in the employment contract (e.g. a company car and credit card for gas) the employer expects the worker to provide their own transportation for the employment. It's an implied condition of the employment contract and the employer has an obligation to fund the employee's related reasonable transportation expenditures. The choice between a new car and a used car from a "cost" perspective can be argued although AAA basically estimates the costs to be roughly equal.
It's the owner's/manager's responsibility to make the employee productive because it's the owner/manager that assigns the tasks that the employee is to perform and to provides the training, if necessary, for the employee to perform the tasks. The employee's responsibility is to perform the tasks assigned to the best of their ability and the employees overwhelmingly do exactly that. I'm reminded of a true story. There's was a time when the Oakland Raiders dominated in the NFL and Dave Casper was a pro-bowl tight end for the Raiders. Casper happened to catch the game-winning touchdown pass in a game and was interviewed after the game. When asked about the reception Casper was quite blunt in his response. As Casper put it, "I did my assignments well today and that mattered. The final score doesn't have anything to do with me, that's the coaches responsibility, all I'm responsible for is my assignments." The worker is responsible for their assignments. Whether those assignments result in revenue to the enterprise and how much revenue is being generated is the responsibility of the owner/management that makes the assignments. If the enterprise can't afford to pay a living wage then that's because of the management and not the worker.
While it's always specific to the business plan I can provide information based upon the business plan my partner and I created awhile back for our small manufacturing company. We shared the belief that the employee should treat the business like they were the owner(s) and the owner(s) should treat the employee like they were the employee. Both of us agreed that as employees we'd expect a living wage/compensation package if we worked for the company. We came up with the following criteria for a "new hire without prior experience": Starting minimum wage: $20/hr Compensation package: 1) Company provided group health insurance including health, vision, dental with the company funding 80% of the premium. 2) 401K retirement accounts with 100% matching by the company up to 10% of wages. 3) Employee profit sharing - 10% of profits to be shared between the employees. Wages above the starting $20/hr were commensurate with the increased revenue generated by the tasks assigned because of the additional job specific skills required (e.g. a certified welder starting wage was $25/hr). When the above was included into the business plan and the tasks assignments defined as a part of the business plan to achieve the projected gross revenue the target was 25% of gross revenue to fund the labor compensation (including the payroll tax). This was reviewed monthly at our business meeting and we actually came in slightly under with labor costs running between 22% and 23% of gross revenue. If they'd run above 27% of gross revenue then we would have revised the manufacturing plan to either increase the value of the tasks (or by eliminating non-value-added tasks), or revised the business plan in some other manner (e.g tweaked the marketing plan or advertising) to increase the gross revenue to bring the labor costs back to the targeted 25% of gross revenue. This isn't "rocket science" but the management must know how to write a business plan, follow the business plan, routinely monitor the metrics of the business plan, and to modify the business plan as required. Unfortunately most owners/managers of business often lack this knowledge and discipline which is why so many start-up companies fail (four out of five new enterprises fail according to the BBB). The owners/management often know the technical side of the business (how to provide a product/service) but don't know the business side of the business (how to make money doing it).
An employer does not have an "an obligation to fund the employee's related reasonable transportation expenditures" except when those expenses are for the convenience of the employer as part of the employee's job. The owner doesn't even get to deduct their own mileage back and forth to work in the ordinary course of business.
