Can a person live on the minimum wage?
- Thread starter Warrigal
- Start date
RedRibbons
Sweet and Sassy
- Location
- South, USA
That is not the point. Why does someone who makes burgers and fries believe they warrant making 15 dollars an hour? If that is logical, than someone who works in an office just typing on a computer should make at least 25 dollars an hour, and on and on. If one chooses to work at an unskilled job, then their wage should be minimal. I once did it, and I got payed what I deserved.
Diwundrin
Well-known Member
- Location
- Nth Coast NSW Australia
That's a point about whether a typist sitting on their bum all day is worth more than someone raising a sweat and multitasking as they do in fast food shops. I know which I'd prefer.
I was always on basic wage scale but made more through shift and overtime penalties which are far more generous here than in the States and I sometimes doubled my yearly salary that way.
Sometimes though I had to wonder why I was making more p.a. sitting on my bum or juggling paper ticker-tape than my male relatives who were working 7-4 M-F shifts on their feet in railway machine and repair shops. One was an accredited tradesman but still only got basic wage. We all worked for the same Railway.
Maybe wages should be paid on effort rather than education only? (I would now be writing this from a cardboard box in a park shelter.)
I was always on basic wage scale but made more through shift and overtime penalties which are far more generous here than in the States and I sometimes doubled my yearly salary that way.
Sometimes though I had to wonder why I was making more p.a. sitting on my bum or juggling paper ticker-tape than my male relatives who were working 7-4 M-F shifts on their feet in railway machine and repair shops. One was an accredited tradesman but still only got basic wage. We all worked for the same Railway.
Maybe wages should be paid on effort rather than education only? (I would now be writing this from a cardboard box in a park shelter.)
I worked on the tills in a supermarket and was paid very slightly over the minimum wage, as far as I am concerned with what I had to put up with moaning miserable customers I definitely deserved more than what I was paid, there were some shifts where I had to bite my tongue that much it was too sore to eat when I got home.
It is not everyone that is in a position to have a decent education.
It is not everyone that is in a position to have a decent education.
Warrigal
SF VIP
- Location
- Sydney, Australia
I think we are missing the point that if any worker is so poorly paid by their employer that they cannot provide for themselves then the state has to take up the slack. Otherwise people who are not lazy, and who are actually making money for their employers, must starve on the job. That is an intolerable situation IMO.
That Guy
Homegrown Unknown
- Location
- Monterey Bay
RedRibbons
Sweet and Sassy
- Location
- South, USA
That's a point about whether a typist sitting on their bum all day is worth more than someone raising a sweat and multitasking as they do in fast food shops. I know which I'd prefer.
I was always on basic wage scale but made more through shift and overtime penalties which are far more generous here than in the States and I sometimes doubled my yearly salary that way.
Sometimes though I had to wonder why I was making more p.a. sitting on my bum or juggling paper ticker-tape than my male relatives who were working 7-4 M-F shifts on their feet in railway machine and repair shops. One was an accredited tradesman but still only got basic wage. We all worked for the same Railway.
Maybe wages should be paid on effort rather than education only? (I would now be writing this from a cardboard box in a park shelter.)
Sitting on your bum all day? WTF is that supposed to mean? I am a college graduate and I have worked hard all of my life to obtain what I have, and I resent your implication that I am was just sitting on my ass all day. If you are saying that someone who fries burgers for a living should be paid the same as an educated person, then oh well, I have nothing else to add.
Diwundrin
Well-known Member
- Location
- Nth Coast NSW Australia
Red, methinks you'd perhaps best read my post again, it had absolutely nothing to do with you.
I was referring to my own career and I'm not ashamed to say that yes other than a few years standing and running between tickertape machines I did spend most of it on my bum whenever I could find a chair to sit on.
I left school at barely 15 with nothing more than a piece of paper that made it legal for me to do so, so education had little to do with it.
All I had to know was how to type and read. Which is about all a lot of jumped up office wallahs do to earn more than those who don't have the right connections and have to do manual work to get by.
You take things how you like and I don't mind a bit anyone disagreeing with me as long as they're disagreeing about the point of the argument and not going off half cocked about some imagined slight. I don't indulge in snide or barbed posts on forums except in jest with other members I've known a long time and who understand that mode of humour. Had that post been 'personal' believe me I'd have made it a whole lot plainer than that.
So do you wanna start again and argue that someone who can fix a busted sewerage main is worth less per hour than some college grad who knows little more than how to add up the bill for the repairs? Suit yourself but don't go looking for trouble where there isn't any, this isn't Facebook.
I was referring to my own career and I'm not ashamed to say that yes other than a few years standing and running between tickertape machines I did spend most of it on my bum whenever I could find a chair to sit on.
I left school at barely 15 with nothing more than a piece of paper that made it legal for me to do so, so education had little to do with it.
All I had to know was how to type and read. Which is about all a lot of jumped up office wallahs do to earn more than those who don't have the right connections and have to do manual work to get by.
You take things how you like and I don't mind a bit anyone disagreeing with me as long as they're disagreeing about the point of the argument and not going off half cocked about some imagined slight. I don't indulge in snide or barbed posts on forums except in jest with other members I've known a long time and who understand that mode of humour. Had that post been 'personal' believe me I'd have made it a whole lot plainer than that.
So do you wanna start again and argue that someone who can fix a busted sewerage main is worth less per hour than some college grad who knows little more than how to add up the bill for the repairs? Suit yourself but don't go looking for trouble where there isn't any, this isn't Facebook.
Di in the years I have known you it has been very rare that we agree but on this occassion I do agree with you.
Like you I left school at barely 15 with no education qualifications, I started work the following day at a shipping and forwarding agency, all I had to know was how to add figures up.
I started as the office junior runabout clerk and by the time I left 9 years later I was the office manageress and still with no education qualifications just that ability to add figures............................Oh! and by the way I couldn't type, everything was handwritten
Like you I left school at barely 15 with no education qualifications, I started work the following day at a shipping and forwarding agency, all I had to know was how to add figures up.
I started as the office junior runabout clerk and by the time I left 9 years later I was the office manageress and still with no education qualifications just that ability to add figures............................Oh! and by the way I couldn't type, everything was handwritten
Diwundrin
Well-known Member
- Location
- Nth Coast NSW Australia
Wonders will never cease eh Bee? 
Nice that we have something in common at least even if it's having made it through life without a college education.
No idea how things were in the UK but leaving school at 15 and finding a job was the norm here, very few went on the extra 2 years to qualify for University. Well, very few that I went to school with anyway.
Nice that we have something in common at least even if it's having made it through life without a college education.
No idea how things were in the UK but leaving school at 15 and finding a job was the norm here, very few went on the extra 2 years to qualify for University. Well, very few that I went to school with anyway.
Wonders will never cease eh Bee?
Nice that we have something in common at least even if it's having made it through life without a college education.
No idea how things were in the UK but leaving school at 15 and finding a job was the norm here, very few went on the extra 2 years to qualify for University. Well, very few that I went to school with anyway.
First time for everything Di.
Di it was the same in the U.K. as in Australia, very few I went to school with stayed on for further education at either college or university and those that left at 15, leaving school and getting a job was the important thing.
We have both proved we could get on without a college education and there are many more like us.
SifuPhil
R.I.P. With Us In Spirit Only
- Location
- Pennsylvania, USA
The way I see it, a high wage comes with two things: the ability to perform a difficult task and the demand for that ability.
A brain surgeon is paid well, even though essentially all they do is stand around in a clean, comfortable environment and hold tiny little knives. A ditch-digger, on the other hand, works in a filthy, dangerous environment and is bone-tired at the end of the day from physical exertion.
Why the disparity?
Almost anyone can learn to be a clerk or a ditch-digger. Few can stick with it long enough to receive their surgeon's ticket.
The only other ways to achieve a large income are to either join a (vanishing) union and stay on the job your entire life (also vanishing), or become self-employed without that salary ceiling and bust your butt making the business work.
I have no problem with burger-people making $15/hr, as long as mechanics make $100/hr. But you aren't achieving anything with that kind of thinking. It's just increasing the vicious cycle. The problem isn't in the wages; it's in the falling worth of the dollar.
Fix THAT and your problems will be solved.
A brain surgeon is paid well, even though essentially all they do is stand around in a clean, comfortable environment and hold tiny little knives. A ditch-digger, on the other hand, works in a filthy, dangerous environment and is bone-tired at the end of the day from physical exertion.
Why the disparity?
- Because it's a lot harder to learn how to be a surgeon than a ditch-digger. You're paying for their education.
- Because far fewer people are capable of being a surgeon. You're paying for their exclusivity.
- Because you're paying for something that can save your life with the surgeon. Ditch-diggers don't carry that importance.
Almost anyone can learn to be a clerk or a ditch-digger. Few can stick with it long enough to receive their surgeon's ticket.
The only other ways to achieve a large income are to either join a (vanishing) union and stay on the job your entire life (also vanishing), or become self-employed without that salary ceiling and bust your butt making the business work.
I have no problem with burger-people making $15/hr, as long as mechanics make $100/hr. But you aren't achieving anything with that kind of thinking. It's just increasing the vicious cycle. The problem isn't in the wages; it's in the falling worth of the dollar.
Fix THAT and your problems will be solved.
Jackie22
Well-known Member
- Location
- Northeast Texas
rkunsaw
Well-known Member
- Location
- Clarksville, Arkansas,USA
The minimum wage was never meant to be a living wage. It is a starting wage. A chance to earn some money will learning and getting experience.It is also an opportunity for one to prove they deserve a better position. Some people don't take advantage of the opportunity and stay at or near minimum wage levels. These are the people who cry the loudest to raise the minimum wage.
Comparatively, Social Security was never meant to be the only source of income for retired people. People had the opportunity during their working years to put away savings or work for a pension to have a secure living in their retirement. Some people do not take advantage of this opportunity and suffer because of it.
Raising the minimum wage will hurt more people than it helps. It will especially hurt those who rely on a fixed income such as social security because they don't get a raise but have to pay the higher prices.
Comparatively, Social Security was never meant to be the only source of income for retired people. People had the opportunity during their working years to put away savings or work for a pension to have a secure living in their retirement. Some people do not take advantage of this opportunity and suffer because of it.
Raising the minimum wage will hurt more people than it helps. It will especially hurt those who rely on a fixed income such as social security because they don't get a raise but have to pay the higher prices.
Jackie22
Well-known Member
- Location
- Northeast Texas
Past research on how business costs rise with minimum wage hikes indicates that a 10-percent minimum wage hike can be expected to produce a cost increase for the average business of less than one-tenth of one percent of their sales revenue. This cost figure includes three components. First, mandated raises: the raises employers must give their workers to meet the new wage floor. Second, “ripple-effect” raises: the raises employers give some workers to put their pay rates a bit above the new minimum in order to preserve the same wage hierarchy before and after minimum wage hike. And third, the higher payroll taxes employers must pay on their now-larger wage bill. If the average businesses wanted to completely cover the cost increase from a 10-percent minimum wage hike through higher prices, they would need to raise their prices by less than 0.1 percent.[1]A price increase of this size amounts to marking up a $100 price tag to $100.10.
http://truth-out.org/news/item/14050
......I think most Americans would be willing to pay an extra 2 cents for their burgers in order for workers to make a living wage.
http://truth-out.org/news/item/14050
......I think most Americans would be willing to pay an extra 2 cents for their burgers in order for workers to make a living wage.
Diwundrin
Well-known Member
- Location
- Nth Coast NSW Australia
It's certainly a can of worms and we shouldn't be comparing ditch diggers with brain surgeons because there is a lot more than education separating them. Education alone won't enable a person without the inate penchant for medicine, plus the skill and mental/emotional stability to endure and excel in that high stress occupation to brain surgeon level. There's more involved than education alone.
Those big wheel corporate high rollers with the multi$$$ bonus perks didn't get there by education alone either. There was fang and claw determination and something strange to do with lack of conscience awareness involved in most of them.
But education did play a part, firstly for their networking contacts and a degree in business management never goes astray.
But let's ask ourselves this: How exactly has their education credentials benefited the overall Nation? (everybody's nation, same everywhere.)
They don't pay enough tax and other than a very few they don't even produce anything tangible.
How many college grads are in IT and banking? Neither grows a bean. They're all busy as hell but they don't have a thing to show for it at the end of the day, not even dirty hands. Just numbers on a screen which a spectacularly good solar flare or hacker, or a 'cyber war' could make vanish in a blink.
Who ya gonna call if the internet goes kablooey? "Hey I'm hungry let's pay a banker or nerd with degrees protruding from their earholes to deliver some numbers to crunch on."
Guess who's gonna be making the big dollars then? Ditch diggers would come in right handy when it comes to planting time and crop pickers would be the new high $$p.hour workers.
Sure it comes down to market and demand of the times, but more than that it comes down to talent.
So too is talent involved at almost all levels of work. A good burger flipper will make more for his employer than a sloppy lazy one and deserves to be paid a tad more accordingly.
That's where the problem occurs. It's just too damned hard to legislate pay rates at the ratio of how much each worker contributes to the profit margin of their employer. Too hard for me anyway, I'm out of that side of the argument. Still have ammo for the education aspect though.
Maybe the education is too focused in one direction? It seems that IT based jobs are the must haves and anyone not geared to that is being left behind and alienated as useless.
I remember when schools here were divided up into specialised learning focus'. Who would believe that the high school I attended was officially named "Burwood Girls Domestic High School."?? Boy didn't that get changed in the 60s. .
The higher exam passers in primary school were sent to the posher Strathfield Girl's High School, which churned out the Uni types. The also rans like me, who were doomed to be housewives, or typists or shopgirls while they awaited that 'happy' event, went to Burwood.
The first year curriculum consisted of the normal basics of the 3Rs plus time spent in the specially built teaching laundry and kitchen. We were put through cooking classes and taught how to make soap. We even had a room full of treadle sewing machines that we were put to work on to learn how to sew. We were taught how to draft patterns and about fabrics etc because that's what good potential housewives had to know back in the 50s.
What a waste of time that was, and thankfully gone, but those type of courses, better thought out and geared to today's needs, for the less academically inclined wouldn't go astray. At least it gives the opportunity to get some education in something that potential ditch diggers can comprehend and use instead of dropping out and lining up for the dole as first resort. They don't need to taught the finer points of the stock market, they just need to be taught how to budget their lives around what they have, not what they think they might have been entitled to if the world wasn't so bloody unfair.
I was taught touch typing at school. I hated it, it was repetitive and boring beyond belief, but it got me a job in an office instead of sweeping the platforms. It was all the extra 'education' I needed as I wasn't going to Uni so didn't need to know calculus. .
Touch typists were considered skilled back then. I had been taught something useful that kept me off the dole, out of a factory and off the marriage registry. What skills are potential drop-outs being taught these days? Higher education is becoming more and more elitist and more and more resented by those not qualified. People who were once respected for their ability to attain higher learning are now seen as the enemy of those less luckily talented.
The frenzy to make everyone appear equal has done more to split society than the old the system did. It makes failure more devastating than it ever was and no education in how to handle not being talented enough is available. The shortcomings we took for granted as part of what life hands us is now seen as a devastating shock to the 'self esteem' of many. They react by dropping education entirely and waging war, both passive and aggressive, on those who have it.
Long bow sure, but hopefully you get the gist. It's past 2am and I'm outa gas so be kind.
I'm all for private enterprise, don't get me wrong here, but seems to me that the latest round of financial misery sprang from these highly educated corporate clowns stuffing up royally. Who the hell is educating them that lending more money than something is worth to people who can't pay it back is a sound plan?
Who was running the business courses they graduated from that taught them that gaining a short term commission on selling a loan was worth dragging the world's economy down as long as they got their own stash to the Caymans in time? Gordon Gekko??
The all time biggest idiot I ever encountered in management wasn't one who had clawed his way up the ranks, it was a highly credentialed 'civil engineer', recruited from the the top percentile of Uni grads, who couldn't tie his bloody shoelaces and didn't know a freight wagon from a Volkswagen!
I think we need to define the values and types of education we are striving to inflict on everyone.
...aaaannnd I'm off to bed.fftobed:
.
Those big wheel corporate high rollers with the multi$$$ bonus perks didn't get there by education alone either. There was fang and claw determination and something strange to do with lack of conscience awareness involved in most of them.
But education did play a part, firstly for their networking contacts and a degree in business management never goes astray.
But let's ask ourselves this: How exactly has their education credentials benefited the overall Nation? (everybody's nation, same everywhere.)
They don't pay enough tax and other than a very few they don't even produce anything tangible.
How many college grads are in IT and banking? Neither grows a bean. They're all busy as hell but they don't have a thing to show for it at the end of the day, not even dirty hands. Just numbers on a screen which a spectacularly good solar flare or hacker, or a 'cyber war' could make vanish in a blink.
Who ya gonna call if the internet goes kablooey? "Hey I'm hungry let's pay a banker or nerd with degrees protruding from their earholes to deliver some numbers to crunch on."
Guess who's gonna be making the big dollars then? Ditch diggers would come in right handy when it comes to planting time and crop pickers would be the new high $$p.hour workers.
Sure it comes down to market and demand of the times, but more than that it comes down to talent.
So too is talent involved at almost all levels of work. A good burger flipper will make more for his employer than a sloppy lazy one and deserves to be paid a tad more accordingly.
That's where the problem occurs. It's just too damned hard to legislate pay rates at the ratio of how much each worker contributes to the profit margin of their employer. Too hard for me anyway, I'm out of that side of the argument. Still have ammo for the education aspect though.
Maybe the education is too focused in one direction? It seems that IT based jobs are the must haves and anyone not geared to that is being left behind and alienated as useless.
I remember when schools here were divided up into specialised learning focus'. Who would believe that the high school I attended was officially named "Burwood Girls Domestic High School."?? Boy didn't that get changed in the 60s. .
The higher exam passers in primary school were sent to the posher Strathfield Girl's High School, which churned out the Uni types. The also rans like me, who were doomed to be housewives, or typists or shopgirls while they awaited that 'happy' event, went to Burwood.
The first year curriculum consisted of the normal basics of the 3Rs plus time spent in the specially built teaching laundry and kitchen. We were put through cooking classes and taught how to make soap. We even had a room full of treadle sewing machines that we were put to work on to learn how to sew. We were taught how to draft patterns and about fabrics etc because that's what good potential housewives had to know back in the 50s.
What a waste of time that was, and thankfully gone, but those type of courses, better thought out and geared to today's needs, for the less academically inclined wouldn't go astray. At least it gives the opportunity to get some education in something that potential ditch diggers can comprehend and use instead of dropping out and lining up for the dole as first resort. They don't need to taught the finer points of the stock market, they just need to be taught how to budget their lives around what they have, not what they think they might have been entitled to if the world wasn't so bloody unfair.
I was taught touch typing at school. I hated it, it was repetitive and boring beyond belief, but it got me a job in an office instead of sweeping the platforms. It was all the extra 'education' I needed as I wasn't going to Uni so didn't need to know calculus. .
Touch typists were considered skilled back then. I had been taught something useful that kept me off the dole, out of a factory and off the marriage registry. What skills are potential drop-outs being taught these days? Higher education is becoming more and more elitist and more and more resented by those not qualified. People who were once respected for their ability to attain higher learning are now seen as the enemy of those less luckily talented.
The frenzy to make everyone appear equal has done more to split society than the old the system did. It makes failure more devastating than it ever was and no education in how to handle not being talented enough is available. The shortcomings we took for granted as part of what life hands us is now seen as a devastating shock to the 'self esteem' of many. They react by dropping education entirely and waging war, both passive and aggressive, on those who have it.
Long bow sure, but hopefully you get the gist. It's past 2am and I'm outa gas so be kind.
I'm all for private enterprise, don't get me wrong here, but seems to me that the latest round of financial misery sprang from these highly educated corporate clowns stuffing up royally. Who the hell is educating them that lending more money than something is worth to people who can't pay it back is a sound plan?
Who was running the business courses they graduated from that taught them that gaining a short term commission on selling a loan was worth dragging the world's economy down as long as they got their own stash to the Caymans in time? Gordon Gekko??
The all time biggest idiot I ever encountered in management wasn't one who had clawed his way up the ranks, it was a highly credentialed 'civil engineer', recruited from the the top percentile of Uni grads, who couldn't tie his bloody shoelaces and didn't know a freight wagon from a Volkswagen!
I think we need to define the values and types of education we are striving to inflict on everyone.
...aaaannnd I'm off to bed.
fftobed:.
Davey Jones
Well-known Member
- Location
- Florida
Bill Maher
"If you want to get rich with a tax-free enterprise that sells nothing, start a church. "
I just LOVE that statement and its so true today.
How to Get Licensed & Certified to Preach the Gospel and if you call today we will include a gold plated frame,WAIT there is more for just $5 more we'll included the 2014 updated Bible.
"If you want to get rich with a tax-free enterprise that sells nothing, start a church. "
I just LOVE that statement and its so true today.
How to Get Licensed & Certified to Preach the Gospel and if you call today we will include a gold plated frame,WAIT there is more for just $5 more we'll included the 2014 updated Bible.
rkunsaw
Well-known Member
- Location
- Clarksville, Arkansas,USA
:rofl: I like it.
That's a point about whether a typist sitting on their bum all day is worth more than someone raising a sweat and multitasking as they do in fast food shops. I know which I'd prefer.
I was always on basic wage scale but made more through shift and overtime penalties which are far more generous here than in the States and I sometimes doubled my yearly salary that way.
Sometimes though I had to wonder why I was making more p.a. sitting on my bum or juggling paper ticker-tape than my male relatives who were working 7-4 M-F shifts on their feet in railway machine and repair shops. One was an accredited tradesman but still only got basic wage. We all worked for the same Railway.
Maybe wages should be paid on effort rather than education only? (I would now be writing this from a cardboard box in a park shelter.)
Well said Di, I agree! When I started my last job which lasted over 30 years in 1976, my starting wage was $4.76 per hour. I was happy to get the job, and worked as much overtime that I could to bring home more money.
My job was blue collar, lots of physical work, heavy lifting, large machine operation, lab work, forklift, etc. If there was overtime painting the walls and ceilings of the warehouse, cleaning toilets, scrubbing floors, etc., my name was on the list for the extra work. And yes, I did work holidays when possible, and many of my coworkers looked forward to the opportunity to make a few extra bucks for their family needs. These people were responsible Americans, who took care of their own, and wasn't after government handouts. I EARNED my wage and would have like to have been paid a lot more, but you can wish in one hand...you know the saying.
Unless my math is incorrect, my $4.76 per hour wage in 1976, would have equivalent buying power of $19.70 per hour in 2013. So, let's not turn our nose up at the blue collar worker doing all the $hit jobs, and see that they get a wage they can survive on, without going on welfare. Secretaries in the office were certainly no more intelligent than I was, nor did they have a better work ethic. They would often complain about others not pulling their workload, and polishing their nails and taking long breaks on company time. http://www.dollartimes.com/calculators/inflation.htm
Good reality check here TG, thanks. :applause2:
rkunsaw
Well-known Member
- Location
- Clarksville, Arkansas,USA
The Federal minimum wage in1976 was $2.30 so you started out making more than twice the minimum wage. I think most jobs start above the minimum wage. Mostly it's the jobs that employ a lot of young workers with no experience who pay minimum wage.
Thanks for pointing that out Rkunsaw, so if it was $2.30, that would translate to $9.52 per hour in 2013. I did have a union job, Teamsters. But we have to also account for the highly inflated prices of everything in 2013, from basic food and goods, to utilities and services.
I don't know how it works in the U.S. rkunsaw but in the U.K. we have three tiers of minimum wage as of October this year the rates are..........................Adult rate (aged 21 and over): £6.31
18-20 year old rate: £5.03
16-17 year old rate: £3.72
When I worked on the tills I thought it quite disgusting that a 16-17 year old could work on the tills and do the same job as myself, have the same responsibilities and yet be paid almost half to what I was paid, in my opinion they should have been paid the same for doing the same job.
In the U.K. a youngster is classed as an adult in everything except the minimum wage, again I find this quite disgusting, the government shouldn't be allowed to have it both ways.
In my opinion no matter what a persons age is they should be paid the same for doing the same job.
I also agree with Di and SeaBreeze.
rkunsaw
Well-known Member
- Location
- Clarksville, Arkansas,USA
If we had that system in the US the 16 and 17 year olds would have jobs and those 18 or over would be unemployed.
Ozarkgal
Senior Member
- Location
- Deep in the Ozark woods
I guess what I keep coming back to is that minimum wage was never meant to be a "living" wage. It was for kids with summer or after school jobs, a starting wage for people to advance from, and a part time job to supplement incomes. How we arrived at flipping burgers as a life long career and expecting to support a family on it speaks for a real breakdown of economic development, as well as people failing to take responsibility for their own lives.
The other day on the news they were reporting on the demonstrations that were taking place to up the burger flippers wage to $15.00 an hour. One young single woman that was interviewed, probably about 19 YOA had a small child under about 2 and was pregnant with another. She was lamenting on how hard it was to make it on minimum wage....personal responsibility came to mind.
I think we have become a nation of lazy, non motivated people who think the world owes them a living without investing any energy into improving their own lives. There are so many things wrong on so many levels that have caused these people to arrive at this mindset, but one major element I blame is the education system.
It was unthinkable when I was in school that you would advance to another grade without learning the basic requirement of each grade. No one graduated without learning to read and write and do basic math. Now learning these elementary skills seems to be the exception, and not the rule.
Also, we need to change the school curriculum to focus on learning basic skills and understand that not all kids are college material and offer some classes that relates to life in the real world, such as trade, secretarial and accounting skills. Skilled trades, such as electricians, plumbers, mechanics are at an all time shortage. Why not get kids on the road to filling these jobs while they are in school.
Instead college material kids are focused on, and the rest are shoveled to the way side to flounder around wondering what they want to be when they grow up. In the meantime, they're 40 years old working a minimum wage at a fast food restaurant, or 19, and expecting their second kid.
Two major elements in turning this thing around is,people starting to accept personal responsibility and revamping the education system to relate to the working world. It's not really about how much money that can be rung out of the minimum wage system.
:soap2:
The other day on the news they were reporting on the demonstrations that were taking place to up the burger flippers wage to $15.00 an hour. One young single woman that was interviewed, probably about 19 YOA had a small child under about 2 and was pregnant with another. She was lamenting on how hard it was to make it on minimum wage....personal responsibility came to mind.
I think we have become a nation of lazy, non motivated people who think the world owes them a living without investing any energy into improving their own lives. There are so many things wrong on so many levels that have caused these people to arrive at this mindset, but one major element I blame is the education system.
It was unthinkable when I was in school that you would advance to another grade without learning the basic requirement of each grade. No one graduated without learning to read and write and do basic math. Now learning these elementary skills seems to be the exception, and not the rule.
Also, we need to change the school curriculum to focus on learning basic skills and understand that not all kids are college material and offer some classes that relates to life in the real world, such as trade, secretarial and accounting skills. Skilled trades, such as electricians, plumbers, mechanics are at an all time shortage. Why not get kids on the road to filling these jobs while they are in school.
Instead college material kids are focused on, and the rest are shoveled to the way side to flounder around wondering what they want to be when they grow up. In the meantime, they're 40 years old working a minimum wage at a fast food restaurant, or 19, and expecting their second kid.
Two major elements in turning this thing around is,people starting to accept personal responsibility and revamping the education system to relate to the working world. It's not really about how much money that can be rung out of the minimum wage system.
:soap2: