View Poll Results: Should the Federal Minimum Wage be Raised?
No, those jobs are for teenagers and 2nd incomes.
64
62.75%
Yes, to about $10/Hr.
18
17.65%
Yes, to about $15/Hr.
16
15.69%
Yes, to $_____/Hr.
4
3.92%
Voters: 102. You may not vote on this poll
Minimum Wage - Should It Be Raised? How Far?
#61
Only Georgia, Arkansas and Wyoming are below with us.
#62
http://www.dol.gov/whd/minwage/america.htm#Minnesota
Only Georgia, Arkansas and Wyoming are below with us.
Only Georgia, Arkansas and Wyoming are below with us.
EDIT: BTW just did the math on your friend. Assuming she is working 3 jobs so that none of her hours are paid overtime, she would be pulling in $44,200/yr even at $8.50/hour. So either you are exaggerating (likely) about her situation or she is living far above her means if she is also taking out student loans for school as you stated.
Last edited by Ryan_G; 05-21-2014 at 06:30 PM.
#63
It's irrelevant to what I'm trying to say. The point is that people like us are playing by the rules and paying our taxes. The hyper wealthy and big firms are dodging tons of taxes they owe. Complaining about money wasted on people exploiting welfare is silly when there are the other huge problems.
#64
Minimum wage in the state of Minnesota is 7.25, prior to that (less than 2 months ago) it was 5.25 unless your employer made more than 650? thousand a year. Then it was 6.15. That was unchanged since the early 2000s, too.
My friend works over 100 hours a week to pay for her apartment, food and schooling and is STILL in the hole (not counting student loans) and she makes a glorious 8.50. -_-
My friend works over 100 hours a week to pay for her apartment, food and schooling and is STILL in the hole (not counting student loans) and she makes a glorious 8.50. -_-
After she maxes out her roth, makes the loan payment on her 5-series and mini, pays half of the mortgage and utilities, buys new shoes every week, pays for health insurance, pays for disability insurance, pays for life insurance, and pays her student loan payment, my girl still can't figure out where her other 5-700/month goes. Damned health insurance.
Her 3 sisters are all scraping a living trying to make rent with their husbands. All raised in the same household with the same privileges, all fully competent, mentally and physically.
It's all about choices.
#65
how many rooms does the apartment have? how many roommates does she have? where does she buy her clothes?
After she maxes out her roth, makes the loan payment on her 5-series and mini, pays half of the mortgage and utilities, buys new shoes every week, pays for health insurance, pays for disability insurance, pays for life insurance, and pays her student loan payment, my girl still can't figure out where her other 5-700/month goes. Damned health insurance.
Her 3 sisters are all scraping a living trying to make rent with their husbands. All raised in the same household with the same privileges, all fully competent, mentally and physically.
It's all about choices.
After she maxes out her roth, makes the loan payment on her 5-series and mini, pays half of the mortgage and utilities, buys new shoes every week, pays for health insurance, pays for disability insurance, pays for life insurance, and pays her student loan payment, my girl still can't figure out where her other 5-700/month goes. Damned health insurance.
Her 3 sisters are all scraping a living trying to make rent with their husbands. All raised in the same household with the same privileges, all fully competent, mentally and physically.
It's all about choices.
#67
That's very dependent on who you work for. I have consistently been hired, seen my boss get fired, taken on many aspects of their roles and received no additional compensation and in one case ended up with a pay cut, though that was early-on in recession time so it sort of hit the fan.
Links to a list of donors does not a rebuttal make. Of course a conservative think tank is publishing a study that supports their position; that has no bearing on the truth of the information in and of itself. If you think it's suspect, then demonstrate why.
#68
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I honestly could not have appreciated this before I became "the boss," but it's actually really damned hard to find workers who take basic concepts like showing up on time (or at all) and not being a lazy sack of **** who doesn't give a damn about the quality of their work seriously.
I've come to realize that the vast majority of those who actually want to work hard and take their job seriously already have a job. And regardless of whatever bullshit entry-level wage they started at, their employers are very rapidly increasing their pay in order to retain them, once they've figured out that they're worth keeping.
#69
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The rules allow them to move money around to minimize taxes and develop bizarre financial products that make money out of thin air, but that doesn't mean it's right. It's also doesn't mean that it's even in their best interests. It may mean making some money now but what if it damages society and the environment a century from now?
Economies tend to grow and there is constant technological innovation. These things build wealth. Unfortunately the way it is now this wealth goes to making a few people and organizations wealthier and everybody else stays were they are or is even worse off.
It ties right back into the minimum wage debate. The distance between the average workers salary and the average CEO salary is growing. This gap is massive compared to where it was just a couple decades ago.
They like to say how higher minimum wage will cause them to have to lay people off and raise prices on their products but they never say that they will cut the salary of the organizations strategic apex.
#70
Minimum wage workers are extremely easy to replace. That's kind of the point -- companies pay minimum wage workers the legal minimum because their work isn't very valuable and can be easily replaced by another not-very-valuable worker.
Executive positions, on the other hand, are much harder to fill. It's easy to look at some 60 year old schlub in a suit and tie and think, "Heck, I could do that," but realistically, there are not that many people in the world who have the skill set to avoid running a billion dollar company into the ground within a year or two, much less make the decisions that lead to healthy profits year after year. As such, their services are in high demand. You pay for a good CEO or you watch him walk to your competitor.
#73
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All else being equal, the average CEO works longer hours, is more highly educated, bears greater work-related stress, and contributes more to a company's bottom line than, say, the person sweeping the floor or performing a mid-skill, repetitive task on an assembly line.
It is not wrong, therefore, that a CEO should be more highly compensated.
"But," you might say, "The compensation of CEOs is massively disproportionate to that of minimum-wage workers!"
So? The MSRP of a Koenigsegg CCXR Trevita (US$4.8m) is disproportionately high as compared to the performance increase that it yields over a Corvette ZR1 (US$0.1m). The cost of foie gras is disproportionately high as compared to store-brand hot dogs. The cost of Kopi Luwak is disproportionately high as compared to Folgers instant coffee.
At the extreme upper-end of the spectrum, the very best things are always disproportionately expensive.
#74
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In 2008, earnings dropped 19% to $18.1b, coincident with the financial crisis. Immelt voluntarily forewent all bonuses, and his total compensation dropped to $5.7m.
So, far from your claim that "they never say that they will cut the salary of the organizations strategic apex," the CEO of GE took a voluntary 60% pay cut the year that GE's earnings fell 19%.
Therefore, how do I put this delicately... You're wrong, you obviously don't know what you're talking about, and you're apparently fabricating lies out of thin air with no substantiation whatsoever.
Here's the difference between facts and bullshit:
Sources:
GE 2007 annual report: http://www.ge.com/ar2007/pdf/ge_ar2007_full_book.pdf
GE 2008 annual report: http://www.ge.com/ar2008/pdf/ge_ar_2008.pdf
#75
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#78
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Now joe, you didn't really interpret that statement as me saying that no CEO has ever seen a paycut, did you?
This is a forum. There is a lot of flowery, hyperbolic language in here. I'm not posting like I'm writing a thesis, but if you guys want to put everything under a microscope then I guess I will have to get serious.
I do know what I'm talking about and I could actually argue the counter points well. There was a time when I would have agreed with you guys and I could have told you all about Ludwig von mises and we could have had a great big free market orgasm together.
This is a forum. There is a lot of flowery, hyperbolic language in here. I'm not posting like I'm writing a thesis, but if you guys want to put everything under a microscope then I guess I will have to get serious.
I do know what I'm talking about and I could actually argue the counter points well. There was a time when I would have agreed with you guys and I could have told you all about Ludwig von mises and we could have had a great big free market orgasm together.
#80
Now joe, you didn't really interpret that statement as me saying that no CEO has ever seen a paycut, did you?
This is a forum. There is a lot of flowery, hyperbolic language in here. I'm not posting like I'm writing a thesis, but if you guys want to put everything under a microscope then I guess I will have to get serious.
I do know what I'm talking about and I could actually argue the counter points well. There was a time when I would have agreed with you guys and I could have told you all about Ludwig von mises and we could have had a great big free market orgasm together.
This is a forum. There is a lot of flowery, hyperbolic language in here. I'm not posting like I'm writing a thesis, but if you guys want to put everything under a microscope then I guess I will have to get serious.
I do know what I'm talking about and I could actually argue the counter points well. There was a time when I would have agreed with you guys and I could have told you all about Ludwig von mises and we could have had a great big free market orgasm together.
We seem to give corporate america a pass on what they actually do. "They make more than 250K a year, they gotta be important". Next time your septic tank backs up, and you literally have **** for a back yard, ask the CEO for some help. I'm sure his secretary will know a good plumber.
Yeah, I know, commie bullshit. Sue me.