February 15, 2013
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Raising Minimum Wage
President Obama believes that we should raise minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $9.00 an hour. Here is the link: Link
Should we raise minimum wage to $9.00?
President Obama believes that we should raise minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $9.00 an hour. Here is the link: Link
Comments (82)
I once made 6.25 and barely scraped by at my own apartment. 9.00 would have been AWESOME back then.
Hilarious that he thinks so. While he continues to reduce our military funding and we’re (my husband is active duty) taking pay cuts. Hilarious, since the military is exempt from the minimum wage.
While my father lived in Australia for a number of years in the 80s and early 90s, he saw minimum wage rise by a considerable amount, comparable to Obama’s idea. My father says that prices skyrocketed for everything from food to apartments, and it was worse than before the wage hike. Buying power will not be the same.
Sure, a higher minimum wage sounds fantastic, but think of the effects it will have.
Yes, and the minimum wage ought to be 12.50 not 9.00; but it can’t catch up all at once.
Unfortunately, the increase will probably cause a loss of jobs as was pointed out.
I forget which newspaper I read that said if minimum wage stayed with productivity it would be around $21.50 an hour.
@Marica0701 - This is one of the thoughts I had in mind, the possibility that with the increase of minimum wage it will also increase the price of commodities, perhaps not directly.
But we obviuosly can’t argue against having more money! Esp for those who have earned a minimum wage.
Can’t we just have free pizza Wednesdays like we did back in elementary school? I remember everyone being much happier then.
No.
Higher minimum wage will only mean that prices will go up, making everything even out.What Obama should do, is substitute Obamacare with an increased salary for working 30 or more hours. raise every workers salary by a dollar like its overtime for those that want to opt out of obama care.
I don’t know enough about the effects.
Why not just raise it to $100.00 an hour? Or $1000.00 an hour? Then we can all cash in and get rich.
@mikewb1971 - What’s going to happen to you when President Obama finds out that you are far more generous than he is?
Sounds like inflation.
@PlatotheSmurf – I’ll either get a midnight visit from some black-ops team or be offered a spot on the Council of Economic Advisors.
No, that will destroy small businesses. I would like to make $9.00 instead of $8.00, but if it will hurt my place of employment, then never mind. I’m not greedy so I’m kool with where I’m at.
All it ever does when they raise it is cause inflation, and drives the value of the dollar down. It doesn’t do a thing to help the lower class. But, given all that he does, it seems obvious that he wants to destroy the middle class entirely, along with the dollar.
Nope, with few exceptions you can’t mandate economics without making a huge mess of unintended consequences.
I’m not looking forward to it. Simple as that.
Minimum wage in Canada is set by province, not country wide.
Minimum wage where I live is $10.30, and hasn’t been $7.25 since 2005… then again, our taxes are higher.
Raise the damn minimum wage! Cost of living just keeps going up, so the pay should follow!
Edit: I don’t know anything about how your Country runs. It’s bizarre.
I’ll respond to this on my own site…
Raising the US minimum wage will by such a paltry amount is insulting. Do you really think an extra $40.00 per week after taxes is going to make a real difference in your quality of life in the bankrupt, overpriced USA? EVEN MORE INSULTING is that Obama conveniently overlooks the effect on business, big and small. Matching taxes, more employee expense, less profit = less employees. That’s right, unemployment goes up a few more points. And don’t forget, Bernanke will add a heaping helping of inflation to your load as he devalues every friggin’ dollar in your pocket with his money printing machine.
Politicians think you are stupid, people. They tell you everything you want to hear (the popular rhetoric) and leave out the important points hoping that you miss the big picture. This is what people mean when they say, ‘Step back from the trees if you want to view the (whole) forest!’
no because a lot of people will lose their benefits and they can’t afford them.
Just like everything on the liberal agenda, it’ll end up hurting the very group it’s supposed to help. Especially with unemployment so high (so there’s lots of extra labor laying around), is an employer going to hire the person who already has some skills and/or education or is he going to take a chance on the unskilled, poorly educated inner-city kid?
The only bargaining chip the unskilled person has is that he’s willing to work for cheap to learn a skill. With a minimum wage law, you remove that bargaining chip. Good job, libs!!!
Of course, we need to consider that this is just the outcome that they want. “We’ll give you other people’s money if you just keep voting for us!!”
How will that work? All low-level employees get a raise, but no one else? Raise everyone’s wages and then raise prices? We’d be back where we started before long.
Best way to get ahead is to get a better job.
No. This should not be a country-wide decision.
Yep if the minimum wadge is such a good idea it should be $25. All the arguments for it would tell us we should make it a real living wage right?
That seems all well and good, but it would result in price hikes and job cuts. I have a future business plan, but will never hire anyone till I can afford to pay a living wage. That should be the attitude of all employers.
Was it the Bush administration that classified flipping burgers as an assembly job? I think it was… theres your justification. Sure, it should be at least 15 per hour so the kids can make a career out of it.</p
@Hunt4Truth - Agree–I was thinking $15
How about we just have a minimum salary for everyone? Twenty thousand sounds good.
But, seriously. No. Increasing minimum wage is not the answer, though I’d really appreciate the extra money.
Raising the minimum wage is good and all, but people should be bettering themselves so they don’t have to get paid minimum wage.
All these talking heads are forgetting the facts. The minimum wage is and always has been $0. The higher they raise the gov’t mandated minimum pay, the more people will be relegated to the real minimum wage. I’ve made an effort in my life to stay away from jobs that pay for being present and stick with jobs that pay for productivity. In the end, even the low performers produce more at those jobs or walk away, because being inefficient takes money out of their pockets.
Minimum wage makes hiring more workers unattractive. Isn’t it better that everyone gets a little bit of the pie than to have a bigger pie but less slices?
@Texasjillcarmel - Good thing we get free healthcare. Obama really is a smart guy, and is just looking out for us.
@sarahsmurfette - First a big thanks to your family for all the sacrificing you do to serve our country. It makes me sad the way our government treats the military and their families. It’s because of you guys that we have the freedoms and security we do. The men and women who serve deserve so much more than what we give them. They are willing to put their lives on the line for at any given moment!!! In my opinion, military should be top priority. We need to get rid of some of the silly programs the government funds and give back to the men, women and their families who give so much to us.
@sarahsmurfette - Hilarious. As an ex-military wife and an Army brat, it’s so funny that military families think they don’t make enough when the government pays their rent and utilities every month. It must be so hard feeding your family when your rent and medical bills are already taken care of. Just because that money doesn’t pass through your hand, doesn’t mean you aren’t getting the benefit of it.
I’ve got a long involvement with the military having been married to a soldier and being the child of one. The culture of spending in the military is what makes military families broke. I’m going to scream the next time I see a soldier with four kids and a wife living on post (aka no rent payment, thus negating most peoples’ biggest expense) driving an SUV (brand new and financed instead of buying something they could afford outright) with full access to hospitals, playgrounds, and entertainment (for free), and all their essentials paid for complain that they’re BROKE.
Oh, I forgot all the free programs. Let’s see all the stuff we got from the military when I was married. Free vacations, an iTouch iPod, rent paid for several months even though we were getting BAH… Yeah, I struggle a lot more making $7.25/hr now than when I was married to a soldier or the child of one.
Oh, this comment is going to make me SO unpopular, but I don’t care. When I was married me and my husband were guilty of it, too. But, generally speaking, military families squander their money on living outside their lifestyle. There’s a LOT of “keeping up with the Joneses” in the military. That’s why they’re broke, if anything. There are very few military families that live within their means and really struggle to pay the bills.
I have never thought raising minimum wahe was a good idea, even when I made minimum wage. It inevitably kills hiring or cuts people’s hours, and causes prices to go up.
It is naive to think that raising minimum wage to 9 dollars will help when some companies don’t even abide by that minimum (they find ways around it.) The rate of inflation and the deterioration of living will just continue. What they need to do is stop printing money, start spending cuts all across the board (especially in the military complex), higher taxes on imports, bring manufacturing jobs back to the states so we don’t have to rely on imports from China, Pakistan, or other places, stop importing workers when we have plenty to go around, and stop outsourcing. For those that bring jobs back to America for United STates legal citizens should tax reductions (not too much because what if those corporations try to scam us?), strictly tax and audit company executives for overseas investments and savings and tax them for evading civil responsibilities, have congress take pay reductions, re-establish worker unions!
Besides, nowadays, 9 dollars an hour is hardly on par with the rising costs of living standards. I do like the idea of having my students loans be forgiven. If the government can waive all tuition expenses a nation wide thing that would be great.
The point of minimum was NEVER that it should be a living wage. You aren’t supposed to support a self, much less family+kids, on minimum wage. You are supposed to take these jobs to get some money while furthering your education or moving towards promotion.
Creating a class of chronic minimum-wage earners that still want to “have it all” is the problem… and devalues the point of education and skilled labor. Get an education or learn a trade where you make more than minimum… don’t just complain that your minimum is not enough. It isn’t intended to be enough… otherwise, why would anybody bother to put in the hard work it takes to reach higher positions, much less innovate in the way that drives the nation?
yes.
Who here is making less than minimum wage?……Well I suppose the military folks think they are. Besides those folks I supposed the retired ones are making less than minimum wage.
Basically the restaurant folks and some fast food places are being paid minimum wage and those people are not happy. There are a lot of states who have higher minimum wage than $9/hour and Obama’s call to raise minimum wage in those other states maybe violating the state’s rights law.
Basically businesses will not really be hurt by raising the minimum wage, it will be the rich people that will be hurt. Let the rich be hurt, they are usually too stingy to pay more. Changing the minimum wage will force them to pay more.
As has been pointed out .. minimum wage increasing will only mean the increase of everything we buy. So those making minimum wage will still have the same buying power because things will be far more expensive to buy. Companies work off of profit margin (which is a percentage of gross sales) not a set $$ amount that can be eaten into by an increase in wages. All that will happen is the companies will continue to make the same amount of profit and goods will be more expensive. If you don’t understand this principal you have no business voting. Unfortunately for the country anyone who can breath (and isn’t a felon) can vote and the result is idiots like Obama.
Everything else goes up, so it makes no difference.
@Endrath - I believe you are operating on the idea that “settling” for a minimum-wage job is the easy way out. Most minimum wage jobs are hard, back-breaking labor. If you think working at McDonald’s or waiting tables is easy or that people who work those jobs wouldn’t like a chance at something better, you have never worked at McDonald’s or waited tables.
Everyone cannot “move on towards promotion”. Someone has to flip burgers. Someone has to clean bathrooms. Someone has to serve your food. There is not room for everyone in the country to be CEO of their own company and it’s a little ridiculous to expect the people who must necessarily be at the bottom of the food chain (since SOMEONE has to be there) not to make a living wage.
I remember making $5.15 an hour and I survived. We don’t need to raise minimum wage. We need to invest in education and providing people with opportunities to go to college.
@Tooty_fruits - We should not raise the wage for people who are working to pay their bills and stay out of debt, but the government should forgive all the money that they loaned you to go to school?
Um…what? I’m sure everyone would like their debts to just magically disappear, but how is it fair to people like me who chose to leave school rather than put themselves in debt? Then everyone else has a degree and no debts and we are stuck with our (HA!) minimum wage jobs where everyone tells us, “Well, you should really go back to school. You don’t want to wait tables your whole life.”
What about people who worked two or three jobs to pay their way through school? It’s like laughing in the face of genuine hard work and dedication. I really would like to know why so many people (INCLUDING all those companies who got bailouts) think they should be REWARDED for their bad financial decisions? You chose to put yourself in debt to go to school. Why in the world do you feel you should get a “Get Out of Jail Free” card?
Wow. The good ole’ U S of A.
I liked Obama’s idea of permanently tying the minimum wage to inflation better (CPI). That way we can settle the minimum wage once and for all.
@Marica0701 - I couldn’t agree more! You took the words out of my mouth
anyone who thinks businesses won’t hire because of a minimum wage hike knows little about the hiring process. the small business i work for hires for one reason only: increased demand.
every time minimum wage has been raised, businesses say they’ll all fold. they don’t.
right now, working full time at minimum wage removes people from food assistance, thus the desire to work such jobs is a disincentive. right now, working minimum wage takes (after taxes) almost a full day’s work to fill an empty tank of gas. so, how far does one have to communte for said job? if it’s a single mom/dad – where does child care fit in?our latest budget allowed SS taxes to increase, so now those making minimum wage pay more, meanwhile those who earn more than something like 100K “max out” and don’t have to pay any SS on wages earned above that amount.
so yeah. raise it. and yes – i’m liberal and proud of it.
I’ve worked minimum wage jobs before (when I was in high school) and they serve a specific purpose. They are jobs that don’t require any significant talent or training and as such only pay the minimum. Minimal training, minimal talent, minimal job history means minimal money. If you want to better paying job, you you have to increase one or more of those things. If that’s all you’re capable of, good like with that whole “Life” thing.
@McScarry - Oh come on what is wrong with setting it at $25 an hr first?
Definitely. Too many people have jobs as it is.
@PPhilip - Here’s my problem with what you’re saying: when the minimum wage goes up, those who make more don’t get an increase in their pay, too. I went to college and trained hard for my degree, I have years of experience. I have earned my raises. If the minimum wage increases, those who have no training and no education get paid more and my training and education is worth less.
So now, what’s the point of getting an education and training? There’s no incentive if the playing field is constantly leveled, to the disadvantage of those who worked hard for where they are.
It’s another handout. Another way to give something more to someone who isn’t working hard to get it. I got my GED. I went to a tech school, I had federal aid and scholarships (based on grades and merit, not my color or my ethnicity). Anyone can do that, if they have the drive to do it. Take away the incentive? Who will have the drive?
It makes training and education worthless because it makes it worth less.
@emaciationxisxthexgoal - There are bad examples in every industry. I would also like to point out that your history with the military is in the past. How long ago were you attached, prior to your divorce? Because a lot has changed, just in this calendar year already. Unless your attachment to the service is current, you can’t speak for the current status – it is not the same as it was. Also, the free stuff you’re referring to? Not everyone gets that, only people who are stationed at a large installment see that kind of help. The rest of us are on our own.
It’s good that your experience with the military was that they were helpful, but it’s naive of you to think that it’s that way for everyone, especially when your experience is not current.
Where I live, minimum wage is $10, soon to be $10.25. But everything is significantly more expensive here than in the states.
no. not at this point we can’t, and you can all thank owhatshisface for that. and those who fail to understand why minimum wage cannot be raised are complete fucking morons.
Raise it. Keep it consistent with the cost of living. Nobody who works deserves any less than that. It’s sick, and borders on tyrannical, to believe otherwise.
@saturnnights - we don’t have free healthcare. When I worked I would see mom and dad both working at McDonald’s to pay their bills but have their kids covered by Chips (Texas) healthcare free for kids but when they got a raise they would have to pay for their own insurance and couldn’t afford it or daycare either that they got free.
minimum wage in nz is $12.50 an hour and to keep up with inflation shouod be $18 plus
A higher minimum will not put prices up in the shops but will rents
No, I wouldn’t be able to afford the prices hikes that would happen. Not to mention that I barely make more than that, and that’s with starting above current minimum wage and getting two substantial raises in a year and half.
Apparently everyone’s an economist.
And by economist, I mean reactionary, partisan parrot.
@emaciationxisxthexgoal - I never said that they should not raise the minimum wage, but I think it is only dealing with the economic problems by skimming the surface. The issue is that if they raise the minimum wage, they also have to deal with the issue of whether there are enough dollar bills circulating in the market. Many big company executives have foreign investments, people have cash saved in the deposit boxes, and this is like putting money under a rock, preventing it from being used purposefully. It creates a deficit of currency circulating in the market, and it may push the central banks to print more money which can potentially lead to inflation. Then what? Rinse and repeat? My thoughts are besides raising the minimum wage, they need to force hoarders with overseas bank accounts, and motivate people to circulate their money. Unfortunately I am not the expert, so I wouldn’t know how to solve that problem.
As for the student loans, that was meant to be a sarcastic remark on the wall st bailout. I did not want to offend.
No, if Congress lets him do this, it’s one more thing BHO will have done to sabotage our economy.
This will not do anyone really any good. I barely was able to afford rent and food and insurance and gas to get to my job at my current rate of 10.50$ an hour and I don’t live in a major metropolitan area. Meaning my rent was under 600 a month and I still struggled. The 9$ an hour will not help anyone. Especially now that they’ll all be part time and have no health insurance paid for by employers.
@emaciationxisxthexgoal - I also want to add one more thing, which is, just by raising minimum doesn’t guarantee that the companies (that provide myriad of services including food, electricity, etc) won’t increase their prices so they can create a large margin of profit. It’s like a race between the government and the businesses. They raise the minimum wage, the companies raise the value of their services. Hoarders keep hoarding the currency. Eventually, inflation will be so bad, we’ll most likely need to use 100 dollars to buy a roll of paper. (This is the worse case scenario.) It happened in Germany before, prior to WWII, and they became so desperate that when Hitler came along, they held onto his hopeful words. Then the prosecution of the Jews, who they deemed were responsible (but were scapegoats) to be annihilated from the planet. I think we need to think about the long term effects of government’s actions.
The minimum wage for hourly workers should be in the $20-30 range. We should also have a maximum wage to keep the greedy piece of shit CEOs and Execs from getting filthy rich off our labor.
Yes they should, or better yet they should figure out a way to bring all the factory jobs back from China. The middle class is sinking in this country today while the income gap between rich and poor is expanding. Not everyone who is making minimum wage is simply a high school student trying to earn pocket change while living with mom and dad. Rather, more and more adults who have to support themselves and their families are being forced to take low paying jobs while the cost of living is rising exponentially.
I think it’s a lousy idea. Employers could very well start laying off workers because they can’t afford to pay them that much, or at the least, they can cut their hours back. It’s going to do more harm than good in the long run.
@trunthepaige - $25 will be the new 25 cents.
The trick with tying minimum wage with inflation would be that you could, hypothetically, minimize inflation pressure from rising wages. Prices inflate when more people have more nominal money yet still have relatively the same earnings in real values (econo-speak). For instance, if my grandfather flipped burgers for $1.00 a day and now I flip burgers for $7.25, our relative real values are the same (same task) but I make nominally more than my grandfather. Do I get over 7 times the things my grandfather got? Hardly.
When tying minimum wage to inflation, growth would be driven by other expansionary activities such as innovation, asset appreciation (stock, real estate, capital, etc.), returns on assets and general profit/investment building activities.
It would be Econotopia filled with ponies, rainbows, cupcakes and ice cream with whipped cream, sprinkles and a cherry on top.
…adjusted for inflation, of course.
@Crossed_Out_Name - Rawk, I’M NOT!
*Squak*
@sarahsmurfette - Right now I have two brother-in-laws, an uncle, and two cousins that are currently active duty. One is a lower-ranking officer whose gambling trips alone cost more than double what my family brings in a month. The rest are enlisted and all but one are raising a family comfortably with savings towards emergency funds and retirement. They are all career military and enjoy it. Why do they enjoy it so much? Because even though the pay for the enlisted ones are low (though still above minimum wage) they get amazing benefits. The other girl was right. Military does complain too much and I knew that from being an army brat and because my family has a habit of discussing their financial habits too much in front of other people.
Hell, the medical benefits alone are good. People bitch and bitch about tri-care when in reality it is far better than nothing and I never see military complaining when they need to take advantage of it for an emergency.
If your husband is enlisted, by year five he is making a minimum of $44,000+/year (He could be making more than $70,000/year)
A person on minimum wage, working a 40-hour week, 52 weeks a year would make $18720/yearThe comparison isn’t fair, of course, because the military jobs are much more skilled and dangerous – and often have much longer hours in nasty places.@sarahsmurfette -
@tychecat - We don’t know anyone, anyone at all, who makes that kind of money in the military. We can at least agree that the comparison isn’t fair, you know, since, for instance, my husband works 84+ hr/wk every week. Which by the way, is (more than) equivalent to TWO full-time jobs. So even at minimum wage, two full-time jobs (to equal the working hours) equals $37,440. It’s not as lucrative anymore, now, is it?
@sarahsmurfette - Interesting that the same folks who cite raising the minimum wage will cause inflation think that people with above minimum wage will not get a raise, So which will it be? That people with above minimum wage will never get a raise in salary if the minimum wage is increase or will they also see pressure to increase their above minimum wage?
Changing the subject, lets talk about handouts. I am sure that education help is a sort of handout. It is a sort of good investment but a handout pure and simple.
Let’s give the minimum wage folks a handout because they will see temporarily the advantage of having more money.They will spend it and it will go back into the economy. Who is to say that a handout for education is 10x or even 100x better than a handout to the minimum wage folks. Oh wait if you really hate the uneducated and barely working folks it must be you are prejudiced against the poor. You must be so far removed from the poor that you would never give a sucker a break.
@sarahsmurfette – Only idiots put words into others’ mouths.
If it weren’t for minimum wage, many low-skilled workers could stop living off social security, work for a living and eventually gain more skills. But instead they are dependent on our tax money, with or without either of our consent.
The minimum wage has never changed in practice, regardless of what the State or Federal governments have decided. It’s always been 0 dollars, and raising the wages specified in minimum wage laws yet again will not address the more fundamental economic and social problems we face.
@sarahsmurfette -
Maybe discouraging higher education is the goal?
@saturnnights -
Higher education is actually overemphasized (by providing federal student loans) to the point of creating a higher education bubble that is going to pop (or it already has).
If we raise minimum wage by nearly 30%, so should we raise the salaries of the rest of America. That way, we can directly invoke a further inevitable inflation of the dollar.
I like how the government can tell business owners what they must pay their employees. It tickles me pink.
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$100 imo. At least.