Re: if you support obama, this thread is not for you. all others welcome
[quote=toasty;621602]In general, I agree that the market should determine what people get paid. I begrudgingly honored a strike by grocery store workers here in St. Louis a few years ago but was pretty irritated to learn that folks were making like $15 to scan my grub and were striking because they thought that was insufficient. Forced scorning of the major grocery stores introduced me to Whole Foods, though, so I'd call the experience a net gain for me. Point is, I understand what you're saying about letting the market decide, and that artificial drivers of price can be a little ridiculous at times.
On the other hand, if someone's working 40 hours a week -- or even 50-60 hours a week -- and can't make ends meet, that's not good for anyone. Society ends up picking up the slack one way or another -- in some obvious ways, and in some non-obvious ways, like increases in crime and unpaid emergency room bills (for people who have no choice but to seek treatment at the one place that can't turn them away) that drive up costs for the rest of us. We're not talking about making it so everyone can buy a Bentley, just making sure that there is some baseline, and that that baseline doesn't stay stagnant for a decade while the price of everything else goes up.
The point is, we've had a minimum wage for a long, long time, and the world has not imploded. Also, that wage has gone up periodically, and the economy has figured out a a way to adjust. Indeed, many states have minimum wages that are higher than the federal level, and they haven't shown the sort of consequences you're envisioning.
It's a balancing. If someone were to tell me that employers needed to pay everyone $20 regardless of what they are doing, I'd say they were half-crocked. There's a number in there somewhere in the middle where employers are not unnecessarily squeezed, and employees are not being taken unfair advantage of. What that number is is a different question, of course, and I don't purport to know the answer to that.[/quote]
The world may not have imploded? Tell me, what would it take to convince you that it has? And the argument that "we've had it for a long long time" does not mean it is right, nor does it mean that the minimum wage is set appropriately.
And who is to define living wage? Consider that the living wage will fluctuate with the rise and fall of the value of the dollar. And being that we've been on a steadily down-trending dollar value, the cost of 'living' correspondingly increases. And this stands [I]without[/I] factoring in the costs of items that increase so that businesses may stay operational.
Imagine, for a moment, that every morning someone sets the minimum wage according to value of the dollar so as to afford the minimum wages workers can 'live'. And, in response, every morning before the gates to the store open, the employer lays off a number of individuals to the extent that it may remain viable in the market. Thus, there will come a point where the business will seek more efficient and affordable forms of labor, or else, choose to close shop. Two problems for the demanding worker arise: find a new job, or, find a new job.
The root of this issue is that individuals are demanding money from other private individuals to subsidize thier living. Instead of the government acting as the middle man alone, it enjoins private business into the mess. But this presupposes that anyone has a right to a job. And that is a right that only exists in the minds of the delusional.
The whole of society is already picking up the slack for these persons. Why should you add yet one more burden to the middle-class? Do you really believe that strangling the last ounce of security out of an already unstable job market will result in a stable livable wage environment?
I guess if a few people refuse to become skilled or accept the value of thier productivity, everyone must suffer.