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There's been lots of talk these last couple of years about raising the minimum wage to a "living wage." Every time this debate comes up, the people against the raise will say that it is mostly teenagers and part timers, while the people for the raise will say that it is single parents. I'm not here to argue which one is true, but anecdotaly as none of my friends or family, regardless of education, have been earning the minimum wage since they were teenagers, I am curious as to how people would remain at such a low income. Even the dumbest and laziest people I know managed to show up to work enough to get promoted or the gain the experience to get a better job. So, are you an adult currently on minimum wage or do you know someone who is? What are the reasons for staying at that pay?
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Jun 25, 2015 00:05
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MettleRamiel posted:There's been lots of talk these last couple of years about raising the minimum wage to a "living wage." Every time this debate comes up, the people against the raise will say that it is mostly teenagers and part timers, while the people for the raise will say that it is single parents. I'm not here to argue which one is true, but anecdotaly as none of my friends or family, regardless of education, have been earning the minimum wage since they were teenagers, I am curious as to how people would remain at such a low income. Even the dumbest and laziest people I know managed to show up to work enough to get promoted or the gain the experience to get a better job. I have a roommate who has his masters degree in archaeology or whatever it is when people collect artifacts for curation at a museum. His wage isn't technically minimum, but it's around $9-10/hr. The reason why he is staying at that wage is because he literally can't find any other jobs in his preferred field and instead has decided that having no financial security whatsoever is preferable to going to work as an office drone. Whether his choice is reasonable or not, more power to him choosing something he loves I suppose. He applies whenever a job opens anywhere in the country but most are internally snapped up by some volunteer who has been there for 10 years waiting his turn.
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Jun 25, 2015 00:09
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No one wants to make minimum wage. The 'reasons for staying at that pay' are lack of jobs or opportunities to make more.
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Jun 25, 2015 03:00
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Which poor urban ghetto do you live in OP?
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Jun 25, 2015 03:17
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MettleRamiel posted:Even the dumbest and laziest people I know managed to show up to work enough to get promoted or the gain the experience to get a better job. Do you interact with the plebians or does your butler do that for you? Cashiers, stockers, waiters/waitresses at mom and pop restaurants, bus boys, there are tons of people out there who work minimum or near minimum (after a 50 cent raise from minimum). A lot of times it is just bad luck or not enough education/qualification/experience to find a better job. Go to any small town in middle of nowhere America and you'll find tons of minimum wage earners who can only earn minimum because that is all that is available out there.
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Jun 25, 2015 04:24
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I live in some shithole half-dead town. Took me 2 years to find a job and it only pay 8 per hour. Unless you have some useful trade, if you don't live in a decently metropolitan area minimum wage is almost all there is. The thing about economics is that the boss or owner of a company wants to pay as little as possible to keep the money for his company.
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Jun 25, 2015 04:47
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MettleRamiel posted:There's been lots of talk these last couple of years about raising the minimum wage to a "living wage." Every time this debate comes up, the people against the raise will say that it is mostly teenagers and part timers, while the people for the raise will say that it is single parents. I'm not here to argue which one is true, but anecdotaly as none of my friends or family, regardless of education, have been earning the minimum wage since they were teenagers, I am curious as to how people would remain at such a low income. Even the dumbest and laziest people I know managed to show up to work enough to get promoted or the gain the experience to get a better job. Lack of opportunity is the basic thing. "Show up to work long enough to get a raise" doesn't work when your manager isn't interested in giving you a raise, and there's no where for your manager to go, so there's no room for internal promotion and all the other jobs in your area are also minimum wage and so on. The basic viewpoint is that if you have a bunch of people stuck at the minimum wage, that's a systemic issue, not an issue of needing to build character or whatever. Also I don't know if you're actually thinking this way or just phrased it badly, but a min. wage increase affects everyone who's making less than what the increase is to, not just those at minimum wage.
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Jun 25, 2015 05:54
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My first job out of college paid less than my college job. It wasn't minimum wage, but it was only about 50 cents more. Yes, some people are poor, OP. Yes, they might be less-well-educated than you and your friends. They may even be dumb, minorities, etc. poo poo happens.
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Jun 25, 2015 06:21
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Buried alive posted:Lack of opportunity is the basic thing. "Show up to work long enough to get a raise" doesn't work when your manager isn't interested in giving you a raise, and there's no where for your manager to go, so there's no room for internal promotion and all the other jobs in your area are also minimum wage and so on. The basic viewpoint is that if you have a bunch of people stuck at the minimum wage, that's a systemic issue, not an issue of needing to build character or whatever. I've hired for minimum wage jobs in and talked to people who've hired for minimum wage jobs. Retail and food service businesses require a lot of unskilled labor to function. In a big city, you post an unskilled position and get dozens or hundreds of qualified applicants. It's trivial to find a competent cashier or stock clerk for minimum wage, so it's unprofitable to give raises to retain great staff in low-level positions; the great, experienced cashier isn't contributing that much more to the business's profits than the fine, inexperienced cashier who will do the job for cheap. So in order to get good pay retail, you need to be able to get into a skilled position (management, buying, etc.), and there are so many people at the bottom rung trying to get up that you really need to be excellent. Someone who's good or average will stay near minimum forever. In this city, I rarely see teens in retail and fast food, and I've never considered hiring them. There's no need to hire a teenager when you can get an experienced candidate for the same pay. Raising the minimum wage is a band-aid for the real problem: the post-industrial economy here is hosed, and the factories are closing down, so everyone who doesn't have employable skills or can't find a job in their oversaturated field is clamoring to be a barista or a cashier. You'll never get a raise when there are dozens of competent people hungry for your job. Saeku fucked around with this message at 06:55 on Jun 25, 2015 |
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Jun 25, 2015 06:52
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I knew some older people when I worked retail who had been with the company for over a decade. Granted, by that time they were making more than the minimum wage, but not by much. Usually they didn't have the education or experience to get a job with a living wage/salary. Some did not have their own transportation, so needed a job close to home. They were parents who needed part time work for extra income. They were partially retired. No other place would hire them. They were let go from their previous job and grabbed at the first thing they could find in order to support their family/pay their mortgage or rent/etc. The particular company I worked for did not really promote from within. The highest you could get was basically floor supervisor, and the raise was something like fifty cents to a dollar. They also did this really nasty thing where they acted like working at a different part of the store was some kind of promotion or reward. An example would be training the cashiers to work at customer service or the photo booth. You had more responsibilities and sometimes needed to take over the supervisor's duties, but you did not receive a raise whatsoever. Yet I had a manager who went around telling everyone whoever signed up the most store cards would get to climb up to customer service. I think a lot of employees were under the illusion you could move up in the store, so that could be a partial reason why they stayed. Probably everyone eventually figured out it was bullshit, but when you have such limited job options, you would likely hang on to that hope a little more. Also, I have a lot of relatives who immigrated from China and are now working at or around minimum wage at various Asian restaurants. They are mostly older relatives (aunts, uncles), working to support their children going to college in the states. They grew up extremely poor during the Cultural Revolution, so their educational opportunities were severely limited. Many of my relatives in that generation did not receive education passed the 8th grade, so that greatly affected the choices they were able to make in life, the work experience they were able to gain. Add to that immigrating to the U.S. and speaking very little English, really the only places that were open to them were waiter/waitresses at Chinese restaurants.
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Jun 25, 2015 07:42
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MettleRamiel posted:There's been lots of talk these last couple of years about raising the minimum wage to a "living wage." Every time this debate comes up, the people against the raise will say that it is mostly teenagers and part timers, while the people for the raise will say that it is single parents. I'm not here to argue which one is true, but anecdotaly as none of my friends or family, regardless of education, have been earning the minimum wage since they were teenagers, I am curious as to how people would remain at such a low income. Even the dumbest and laziest people I know managed to show up to work enough to get promoted or the gain the experience to get a better job. Cooks, wait staff, and the rest of the so-called Service Industry (TM) don't get paid poo poo. End of story. Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 08:42 on Jun 25, 2015 |
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Jun 25, 2015 08:39
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Liquid Communism posted:Cooks, wait staff, and the rest of the so-called Service Industry (TM) don't get paid poo poo. End of story. Don't forget almost anyone who works in retail. Sure some lucky few get picked to be in management, but the percentage of that is somewhere south of 15% and the pay bump for being in low level retail management is maybe a dollar or two.
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Jun 25, 2015 11:43
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Saeku posted:
And your suggestion for expanding the economy is..? Note: If your answer doesn't include the fact that, when adjusted for inflation, the federal min. wage is basically lower now than it was 40 years ago, you might be missing something.
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Jun 25, 2015 14:10
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I think someone else mentioned it, but asking about how many people make minimum wage isn't the correct question and is a little disingenuous when talking about who will be affected by a minimum wage increase to $15 an hour. A better question to ask is "How many people currently earn less than $15 an hour?" because that entire group would be affected by a raise of the minimum wage, not just people currently at minimum wage. Of Americans that work, 42% earn less than 15 an hour. I also had to take a paycut when I graduated from college to my first professional job! I was making $10/hr as a cashier and I got an entry level job in my field for $8/hr. Alterian fucked around with this message at 16:33 on Jun 25, 2015 |
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Jun 25, 2015 16:31
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Alterian posted:I also had to take a paycut when I graduated from college to my first professional job! I was making $10/hr as a cashier and I got an entry level job in my field for $8/hr. Lesson learned: don't go to college it is a waste of money.
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Jun 25, 2015 17:17
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Buried alive posted:And your suggestion for expanding the economy is..? Note: If your answer doesn't include the fact that, when adjusted for inflation, the federal min. wage is basically lower now than it was 40 years ago, you might be missing something. I live in Ontario. Here the minimum wage (adjusted for inflation) is as high as in the 70s, but the shares of minimum-wage and low-income employees have doubled over the last 20 years. One in ten workers in Ontario is minimum wage and one in three is "low-wage," making less than 33% above minimum. I'm pro raising the minimum wage, esp. in the States, but if the question is "how do people get stuck at minimum wage" -- that's a fault of the labor market, not the minimum wage being too low.
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Jun 25, 2015 18:27
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The minimum wage is arbitrary anyway. Jobs pay for the value they create. A job that is forced to pay more ceases to be viable and is eliminated. When you raise the minimum wage, all you're really doing is setting a new arbitrary number to represent the economic base unit, which is an hour of unskilled labor. Then after much hurt and maybe some inflation, you end up right where you started, with democrats buying votes from economic illiterates by raising prices and incentivizing businesses to eliminate jobs.
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Jun 25, 2015 18:34
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ShadowMoo posted:Lesson learned: don't go to college it is a waste of money. I was much happier at my entry level job doing something I enjoyed than feeling my soul being crushed as a cashier. Now with some years under my belt I make a decent amount more and work a lot less.
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Jun 25, 2015 18:58
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High Lord Elbow posted:The minimum wage is arbitrary anyway. Jobs pay for the value they create. A job that is forced to pay more ceases to be viable and is eliminated. More goes into inflation than the minimum wage. Much, much more. Especially since the people earning minimum wage (or close enough to it that they'll see a pay increase) spend a much higher percentage of their income than the people who make more.
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Jun 25, 2015 19:28
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The cost of living outgrew the minimum wage. Are you supposed to be dirt poor while working? had to work for minimum wage from 2008 to late 2009 during the peek of the present economic crisis. I more the double my earning since then. Maybe people need to get their head out their rear end and need to start unions.
Bleusilences fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Jun 25, 2015 |
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Jun 25, 2015 20:09
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Bleusilences posted:The cost of living outgrew the minimum wage. Are you supposed to be dirt poor while working? had to work for minimum wage from 2008 to late 2009 during the peek of the present economic crisis. I more the double my earning since then. Maybe people need to get their head out their rear end and need to start unions. Most of the legal protections for union formation have been stripped away, and most of the existing unions primarily benefit those who have been in them the longest; "helping out the new guy" isn't really their thing, which is why nobody likes them, except the guys who've been in them for decades.
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Jun 25, 2015 20:31
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Thanatosian posted:Most of the legal protections for union formation have been stripped away Unions were growing just fine when corporations literally murdered striking workers.
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Jun 25, 2015 23:26
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I make ~$32 an hour (salary non-exempt) and I barely get by. I have no idea how people making $10 an hour even eat regularly.
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Jun 26, 2015 00:48
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High Lord Elbow posted:The minimum wage is arbitrary anyway. Jobs pay for the value they create. A job that is forced to pay more ceases to be viable and is eliminated. Please post some links to the academic literature supporting this position. 
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Jun 26, 2015 01:17
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SERPUS posted:I make ~$32 an hour (salary non-exempt) and I barely get by Post your budget
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Jun 26, 2015 01:17
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SERPUS posted:I make ~$32 an hour (salary non-exempt) and I barely get by. I have no idea how people making $10 an hour even eat regularly. Do you barely get by in your new house and new car and eating out every day or something? Or you probably live in San Francisco I guess.
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Jun 26, 2015 01:19
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SERPUS posted:I make ~$32 an hour (salary non-exempt) and I barely get by. I have no idea how people making $10 an hour even eat regularly. What's your definition of "get by"?
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Jun 26, 2015 01:34
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I live in rural america, make $15/hr and can't afford a apartment or a car. It sucks. It took me 8 years to get to this amount of money and it's a management position. If I was to leave this job it'd be making mimumum wage which is $7.25 a hour. Yet I see poor single parents living like that all the time. Section 8 must help a lot I guess.
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Jun 26, 2015 02:28
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SERPUS posted:I make ~$32 an hour (salary non-exempt) and I barely get by. I have no idea how people making $10 an hour even eat regularly.
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Jun 26, 2015 16:30
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KoB posted:Do you barely get by in your new house and new car and eating out every day or something? What's he supposed to do, bring his lunch in a paper bag like some sort of loser? These are necessary expenses! (If he wasn't trolling, he might as well have been)
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Jun 26, 2015 18:45
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Soviet Commubot posted:What's your definition of "get by"? Sometimes he has to skip his Starbucks latte 
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Jun 27, 2015 03:45
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He's right you know. Lets assume he makes $61,440 and lives in one of the American Metropolis-es. If he's frugal, he covers his expenses plus 10 to 15 % savings. If he's not, he lives paycheck to paycheck and uses credit to make up the difference, like poors. Also, perhaps he has one or more dependents. I currently make about $400 a week. It's pretty lovely, and I have been unable to replenish the savings I expended during my last period of unemployment. I am a teenager though so maybe I don't count to OP.
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Jun 27, 2015 04:55
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My question is not what happens to all the people who were making $8 or $10 or $12/hour who are now making $15/hr - that's a loving great deal. My question is that all the people who have spent the last ten years clawing their way up the ladder to a decent job that pays $15 an hour, about DOUBLE minimum wage, who are now making... minimum wage. What happens to them? And all the people making $15-20/hour, double, almost triple minimum wage, who are now making... one step from minimum wage? I'm concerned this will not create a middle class, just a caste system - those at minimum wage, and the upper class.
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Jun 27, 2015 05:19
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photomikey posted:My question is not what happens to all the people who were making $8 or $10 or $12/hour who are now making $15/hr - that's a loving great deal. My question is that all the people who have spent the last ten years clawing their way up the ladder to a decent job that pays $15 an hour, about DOUBLE minimum wage, who are now making... minimum wage. What happens to them? And all the people making $15-20/hour, double, almost triple minimum wage, who are now making... one step from minimum wage? i too value my salary purely on what my neighbors make Keeping Up With The Goons
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Jun 27, 2015 05:30
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Um, this talk about how once McDonalds has to double the salary of every worker, all of the menu prices are going to double... I mean, I'm not an accountant or an economist, but I do understand math, and the basics of income and outgo, and it's not just talk. So, the guy who was general manager of a moving and hauling company, pulling down $17/hour bossing around guys who make $9/hour - they'll all be making $15/hour now, and he'll be making $17 (or maybe $17.50 or $18 if the boss gives him a bump, too) but instead of taking his family out to dinner a couple of times a week because he's spent a decade working his way up, now he's living the same lifestyle as the guys who do unskilled labor. I find it unsettling.
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Jun 27, 2015 05:48
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photomikey posted:Um, this talk about how once McDonalds has to double the salary of every worker, all of the menu prices are going to double... I mean, I'm not an accountant or an economist, but I do understand math, and the basics of income and outgo, and it's not just talk. So, the guy who was general manager of a moving and hauling company, pulling down $17/hour bossing around guys who make $9/hour - they'll all be making $15/hour now, and he'll be making $17 (or maybe $17.50 or $18 if the boss gives him a bump, too) but instead of taking his family out to dinner a couple of times a week because he's spent a decade working his way up, now he's living the same lifestyle as the guys who do unskilled labor. I find it unsettling. My guess is that it causes everyone's pay to go up who is being paid anything close to the new minimum wage. The person who was making $12/hour is going to want to make $19 if the minimum wage is now $15. The person who was making $15 per hour is gonna expect to get over $20 now. I could be wrong, though. We could check to see how things are in Australia, which does have a $15 minimum wage.
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Jun 27, 2015 06:11
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Orange Sunshine posted:The person who was making $12/hour is going to want to make $19 if the minimum wage is now $15. The person who was making $15 per hour is gonna expect to get over $20 now.
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Jun 27, 2015 06:25
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photomikey posted:If getting paid more had to do with "wanting" it, wouldn't the people making $9/hr now just "want" 15 and we wouldn't have to raise the minimum? Wages are a negotiation between employees and employers. A cashier can say "I want $15 an hour" in a place where min is $9/hr, and the employer says, "No, because you're not going to earn me $6/hr more gross profit than that guy who'll work at $9/hour." Low-wage employees are in an awful position to bargain, because their competition in the labor market is large and desperate, and it's risky for them to strike a hard line because if they lose their jobs, they rarely have resources to fall back on. The theoretical supervisor in this story has a lot more room to negotiate. If he makes $20/hr, he's probably a good worker with some fairly specialized skills. So when the minimum wage goes up to $15 and he's making only 15% above the minimum, he says to his boss, "Hey, I want a raise to reflect these cost of living increases." And if his boss says no, there are competitors in need of supervisors. Since labor is more expensive now, and a supervisor generates profit by making sure staff-hours are used efficiently, raising the minimum wage makes a good supervisor worth a lot more, so competitors are going to be willing to pay higher wages to scoop the best ones. (In addition, supervisory positions are usually a fair deal harder than entry-level positions, so if employers pay supervisors too close to minimum, entry-level employees have little incentive to seek promotion to supervisory roles.)
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Jun 27, 2015 07:02
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Saeku posted:Wages are a negotiation between employees and employers. A cashier can say "I want $15 an hour" in a place where min is $9/hr, and the employer says, "No, because you're not going to earn me $6/hr more gross profit than that guy who'll work at $9/hour." Low-wage employees are in an awful position to bargain, because their competition in the labor market is large and desperate, and it's risky for them to strike a hard line because if they lose their jobs, they rarely have resources to fall back on. I'm afraid that supervisors and managers are in just as poor of a position to negotiate as their underlings. There are always people they can promote up and there are just as many people in the 'labor market that is large and desperate' that have management experience. Retail is like a revolving door for managers, coming and going, especially when the store targets a certain demographic. Go to a store like Hollister, PacSun, Tillys, Ambercrombie, Old Navy, whatever and look at how old the managers are. Walmart, Target, etc has older management sometimes sure, but how many of those jobs are available? And do you want to push negotiations when all those other retailers have pushed out their managers who are looking for work? http://retailindustry.about.com/od/USRetailStoreClosingInfoFAQs/fl/All-2015-Store-Closings-Stores-Closed-by-US-Retail-Industry-Chains_2.htm
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Jun 27, 2015 07:47
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http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3323091
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Jun 27, 2015 08:30
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