Minimum wage shouldn't have been attached to Biden's stimulus bill

[Chew Toy McCoy]

I’d love to hear where it is that people want to earn less than $15 an hour for their work.

Want has nothing to do with it. $15 per hour is already the minimum in places like San Francisco. The cost of living is nowhere near the same in a town of 100 people in the middle of Arkansas. At $15 in SF you can barely afford to rent a room. In a small mid west town you could probably buy a house on that income.

 

[SuperMatt]

Want has nothing to do with it. $15 per hour is already the minimum in places like San Francisco. The cost of living is nowhere near the same in a town of 100 people in the middle of Arkansas. At $15 in SF you can barely afford to rent a room. In a small mid west town you could probably buy a house on that income.

Increasing the standard of living in WV is a bad thing? There are local prices but there are many things like cars that don’t change price by region.

 

[Alli]

Want has nothing to do with it. $15 per hour is already the minimum in places like San Francisco. The cost of living is nowhere near the same in a town of 100 people in the middle of Arkansas. At $15 in SF you can barely afford to rent a room. In a small mid west town you could probably buy a house on that income.

Housing is about the only thing that differs by region. Eggs and milk still cost the same. Fresh vegetables may be even more expensive in some of those low-rent podunk places because it costs more to get them to the back of beyond. And taxes...well, nuff said.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

Increasing the standard of living in WV is a bad thing? There are local prices but there are many things like cars that don’t change price by region.

Housing is about the only thing that differs by region. Eggs and milk still cost the same. Fresh vegetables may be even more expensive in some of those low-rent podunk places because it costs more to get them to the back of beyond. And taxes...well, nuff said.

Somebody who is struggling to make shared rent in a large city on minimum wage also has those same expenses. So that pretty much cancels out the outside housing expenses argument. And a lot of large cities, I'd say most, aren't like NYC where you can rely on public transit to get you around. You still need a car and all the associated expenses.

You can still raise the quality of living by raising the regional minimum wage based on percentage. That's really not that difficult.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

Also what about the people who worked their way up and are considered doing well at $15 per hour? Is the federal government going to step in and make their employer pay them more than what the new minimum wage is?

 

[SuperMatt]

Also what about the people who worked their way up and are considered doing well at $15 per hour? Is the federal government going to step in and make their employer pay them more than what the new minimum wage is?

They shouldn’t feel upset if they really think about it. There is a parable concerning day laborers in the Bible about this that I like:

Bible Gateway passage: Matthew 20:1-16 - New International Version

The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard - “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others...

www.biblegateway.com

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

They shouldn’t feel upset if they really think about it. There is a parable concerning day laborers in the Bible about this that I like:

Bible Gateway passage: Matthew 20:1-16 - New International Version

The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard - “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others...

www.biblegateway.com

If you started a job at $7.50 per hour and over the course of years of hard work and gaining skills you reached $15 per hour, you wouldn't be upset that a job that requires no experience or skills suddenly pays the same? Seriously?

I feel like some debates on here are like talking to a second amendment supporter with their singular tunnel vision and won't directly address related issues outside that tunnel.

Again, I'm not saying minimum wage shouldn't be raised. I'm saying it shouldn't be more than doubled in some areas. I also don't understand the all or nothing mentality on this issue within the government. There should be debate on viable alternatives or compromises.

 

[SuperMatt]

If you started a job at $7.50 per hour and over the course of years of hard work and gaining skills you reached $15 per hour, you wouldn't be upset that a job that requires no experience or skills suddenly pays the same? Seriously?

I feel like some debates on here are like talking to a second amendment supporter with their singular tunnel vision and won't directly address related issues outside that tunnel.

Again, I'm not saying minimum wage shouldn't be raised. I'm saying it shouldn't be more than doubled in some areas. I also don't understand the all or nothing mentality on this issue within the government. There should be debate on viable alternatives or compromises.

Well, why should they be upset? Nothing is being taken from them; they are receiving wages they agreed to. That is the point of the parable.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

Well, why should they be upset? Nothing is being taken from them; they are receiving wages they agreed to. That is the point of the parable.

Most people don't love their job but they have bills to pay and they work their way up to gain a more comfortable lifestyle. Their "choice" is to put out that effort to make more money. It's not their choice that the government decided suddenly that somebody doing comparably very little at an entry-level job is worth the same hourly wage.

Not to mention the possibility that maybe somebody went through college at great expense to get a degree that landed them a $15 per hour job that could be considered high starting pay in that city/town, but now a high school drop out is making the same money scrolling through social media on their phone at the counter at the local gas station.

 

[SuperMatt]

Most people don't love their job but they have bills to pay and they work their way up to gain a more comfortable lifestyle. Their "choice" is to put out that effort to make more money. It's not their choice that the government decided suddenly that somebody doing comparably very little at an entry-level job is worth the same hourly wage.

Not to mention the possibility that maybe somebody went through college at great expense to get a degree that landed them a $15 per hour job that could be considered high starting pay in that city/town, but now a high school drop out is making the same money scrolling through social media on their phone at the counter at the local gas station.

In such a job market, the pay of the person with higher education will almost certainly go up, as the employer wants to attract qualified people.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

In such a job market, the pay of the person with higher education will almost certainly go up, as the employer wants to attract qualified people.

In an ideal world, yes, but we don’t live in one.

Let’s use the same sledgehammer approach the federal government is trying to use here. The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. Do you honestly believe companies are going to give their non-minimum wage earners at least a $7.75 per hour pay increase to compensate for that?

I also get the impression on here that the tunnel vision is making people think every minimum wage job is owned by some mega corporation that can comfortably lower their profit margin. There are plenty of small local businesses that aren’t sitting on a vast cash horde they are selfishly keeping to themselves.

But I admit I don’t know what percentage of the country where the federal minimum is commonly used. There are plenty of cities and maybe states that already set a higher minimum wage. So I’d be curious to know how many people this will actually help and how many areas where this could be a heavy burden on non corporate owned businesses.

 

[Alli]

Salaries sometimes go up. Sometimes they stay stagnant. Nobody is guaranteed a raise, a COLA, or a Christmas bonus. Those people who have worked their way up to $15/hr will probably be given raises before new employees anyway. They won’t all continue to rise together.

Giving people a living wage is simply the right thing to do. Just because I have worked hard to get there doesn’t mean I should insist someone else starve getting there.

 

[Apple fanboy]

% wage rises always annoy me as they simply aren't fair. Say there is a nurse earning £30,000 a year. gets a 2% increase. £600 per year.
Then a doctor gets a 2% increase on his £60,000 a year. £1,200 per year.

The net result is a nurse now earns £30,600 and a doctor gets £61,200 per year. The difference in their wage just grew.

Isn't the point of an annual pay rise (excluding performance increases) to reflect the rise in the cost of living? They both pay the same for a loaf of bread and a litre of petrol (well except the nurse probably has to get the bus as she can't afford a car).