$15 an hour isn’t enough: U.S. workers need a living wage

Robert59

Robert59

Well-known Member
Location
Now I live in Tennesee. Did live in Michigan.
As we mark Labor Day, an occasion that celebrates workers, the country is in the throes of what some consider a labor shortage. After widespread recognition of the risks frontline workers undertake and the protections they need, companies in traditionally low-wage industries are struggling to hire, and workers are leaving jobs at record rates.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/15-hour-isn-t-enough-130000722.html
 

I know people should try to live within their means, but I think it's so incredibly sad that someone works hard for 50 years and makes a decent living, retires, and find themselves living on the poverty level. Suddenly a broken refrigerator or car is a major problem, or they can't even afford a vacation after working all their lives. Not everyone is able to provide themselves with a huge retirement nest egg or 401K. And even if they do have a decent amount in savings, one operation or illness can wipe it out. I have no solutions, just a great deal of sympathy for what a lot of seniors are going through financially.
(I apologize...I just realized this post is entirely off topic!)
 
Sliverfox said:
Perhaps hard work, planning ahead has become a thing of the past?

Live for the present because we are all going to die..just don't know when?
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True. I know people both the man & woman works 2 jobs. They can't afford kids. They live in an average house nothing extra, drive two old 2005 vehicles. The problem is their mortgage & house & medical insurance, plus car insurance, gas & utilities, So they can not save anything for retirement.
 
I suppose it all depends upon the job. Take "fast food" restaurants for one example. Originally, they were designed to employ teenagers who usually lived at home. Minimum wage, in those cases worked out just fine. However, over the years, something changed, and older folks began to seek employment at "fast food" restaurants. Obviously, older persons, unlike teenagers, had a need to completely support themselves.
Clearly, the higher the wages, the higher the prices of what the business is selling. It just keeps spiraling out of control.
IMO, the "problem" is not so much that $15/hour is too low. The problem is that the population is expanding at an outstanding rate. The more people, the greater the demand for housing. The greater the demand, the greater the cost of housing. Once, not too long ago, rent for a 1 bedroom apt was $390/month. Now, at least here in southern California, a 1 bedroom apt is going for $1,200 month. I for see a time in the not too distant future when $ 25/hour will be considered as "poverty level".
 
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Robert59 said:
As we mark Labor Day, an occasion that celebrates workers, the country is in the throes of what some consider a labor shortage. After widespread recognition of the risks frontline workers undertake and the protections they need, companies in traditionally low-wage industries are struggling to hire, and workers are leaving jobs at record rates.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/15-hour-isn-t-enough-130000722.html
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This is an absolutely absurd proposal. If a store is supposed to pay a grocery bagger a "living wage" of $35,000 per year, then it will respond logically by eliminating grocery baggers. It will either make cashiers help with bagging (slowing down service) or push shoppers to check out and bag their own groceries. The same process will happen in industry after industry. We won't have to worry about labor shortages as unemployment will soar and there will be fierce competition for any "living wage" job. That will hurt poorer and less well-educated people, but folks who come up with idiotic ideas like this don't think that far ahead.[/QUOTE]
 
So I looked up the Living Wage Calculator mentioned in the article. It says that a family of four (one working spouse, two children) should get a "living wage" of about $68,000 for the wage earner if they live in the Newport News/Norfolk Virginia area (down the road from me).
 
This area of PA has a history of hard work.
I suggest IF you can find this book, STONY BATTER by Zoda Elizabeth Anderson read it.

I know there are plenty of books about the discovering crude oil in this area.

Just suggesting reading up on where we have lived all our lives,,,, might help you to understand what / why I type on here.
 
When I started working as an office clerk in 1974 the hourly rate was $3.60. That was not enough to live on but I didn’t have much to offer.

Over the years I took part time jobs, attended night school, and gained some experience. Eventually as I had more to offer my employer my income increased to a comfortable level.

A company paying a living wage is only one half of the bargain. The other half of the bargain is a workforce with something of value to offer.

IMO a young unskilled worker can lift themselves out of poverty with a good attitude, education, experience and thrift.

If our government could end poverty by guaranteeing a minimum or living wage it would have been done years ago when the minimum wage was first introduced.

IMO it’s better to let the market determine a fair wage and cost of living.
 
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It is evident that the harder the labor the less equity a worker receives for their efforts.

Average fast food worker is paid $7.25 /hr., gets scheduled less than 30 hours a week, so employer escapes providing sick time, hoilday/vacation time.
Works like crazy to keep burgers and fries coming; is on their feet all day.

Average CEO(in L.A.) makes over $200,000 per year, plus stock options. Has an army of subordinates to take care of virtually every aspect of running a corporation. Any physical labor generally entails getting in/out of golf carts, being seated in meetings etc.
 
Nathan said:
It is evident that the harder the labor the less equity a worker receives for their efforts.

Average fast food worker is paid $7.25 /hr., gets scheduled less than 30 hours a week, so employer escapes providing sick time, hoilday/vacation time.
Works like crazy to keep burgers and fries coming; is on their feet all day.

Average CEO(in L.A.) makes over $200,000 per year, plus stock options. Has an army of subordinates to take care of virtually every aspect of running a corporation. Any physical labor generally entails getting in/out of golf carts, being seated in meetings etc.
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One accepts what is there. One works to qualify themselves for greater pay.
 
Nathan said:
It is evident that the harder the labor the less equity a worker receives for their efforts.

Average fast food worker is paid $7.25 /hr., gets scheduled less than 30 hours a week, so employer escapes providing sick time, hoilday/vacation time.
Works like crazy to keep burgers and fries coming; is on their feet all day.

Average CEO(in L.A.) makes over $200,000 per year, plus stock options. Has an army of subordinates to take care of virtually every aspect of running a corporation. Any physical labor generally entails getting in/out of golf carts, being seated in meetings etc.
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The average fast food worker is paid about $12 per hour and has no skills to speak of. The CEOs I've worked with make much more than $200,000 a year. They work 80 plus hours a week and travel all the time. If they create value for their shareholders, they can make hundreds of millions of dollars. Is that fair? Equitable? Probably not, but that's the way it is right now.
 
Sliverfox said:
Sorry , but learn to live with in your needs.

Higher wages mean higher prices all around.
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That's easy to say but when you're the only bread winner and you're not getting enough to cover the bills, the rent, the groceries and your meds plus keeping up with ins pmts and car repairs and trying to keep clothes on your back it's impossible at $9 an hr. You're then left to decide what you can live without. When you have to decide between food and health ins. there's a problem. At $15 I can manage but if something serious happens I'm done for. So no it's not enough in some cases anymore. Things are no longer a nickel. When you're paying $5 for a package of cheese there's choices that hafta be made. There's no financial aid to help out.
 
JimBob1952 said:
The average fast food worker is paid about $12 per hour and has no skills to speak of. The CEOs I've worked with make much more than $200,000 a year. They work 80 plus hours a week and travel all the time. If they create value for their shareholders, they can make hundreds of millions of dollars. Is that fair? Equitable? Probably not, but that's the way it is right now.
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Let's not forget, that sometimes CEO's dilute shareholder value. When the company isn't performing, or worse, and the CEO's are still being rewarded with absurd bonuses well above their stated salaries.
 
Nathan said:
It is evident that the harder the labor the less equity a worker receives for their efforts.

Average fast food worker is paid $7.25 /hr., gets scheduled less than 30 hours a week, so employer escapes providing sick time, hoilday/vacation time.
Works like crazy to keep burgers and fries coming; is on their feet all day.

Average CEO(in L.A.) makes over $200,000 per year, plus stock options. Has an army of subordinates to take care of virtually every aspect of running a corporation. Any physical labor generally entails getting in/out of golf carts, being seated in meetings etc.
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I don't want to be deliberately pedantic... but 30 hours a week..they're not on their feet all day@5 hours a day... they can certainly have time to work another job. Should they have to ?.. that's another question, but if someone is willing to work part-time, for a minimum wage , and they have to provide for themselves or others they should be at least willing to work another part-time job to make up a full time wage.
 
Oris Borloff said:
Let's not forget, that sometimes CEO's dilute shareholder value. When the company isn't performing, or worse, and the CEO's are still being rewarded with absurd bonuses well above their stated salaries.
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Of course. Many CEOs are overpaid buffoons -- look at the career of Marissa Mayer at Yahoo or of Jeff Imhoff at GE. The good ones are worth a lot, though.

It's also true that CEO pay has also become bloated. One of my first jobs was at a big New York bank. The CEO made about $350,000 a year (this was in the late 70s). Now the CEO of a big New York bank makes $20 million a year or more. Compensation is way out of whack, but I don't have a workable solution to that problem.

I'm all in favor of measures to help people at the bottom of the wage scale and take more from the people at the top. Maybe we could learn something from Germany, which has both low unemployment and a strong social safety net.
 
hollydolly said:
I don't want to be deliberately pedantic... but 30 hours a week..they're not on their feet all day@5 hours a day... they can certainly have time to work another job. Should they have to ?.. that's another question, but if someone is willing to work part-time, for a minimum wage , and they have to provide for themselves or others they should be at least willing to work another part-time job to make up a full time wage.
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I have a first-person insight into this. My daughter has learning disabilities and she's very limited in terms of the types of jobs she can do. She works at a grocery store about 35 hours a week for $11 per hour. She picks up some extra money walking dogs. She gets a tiny disability check (maybe 175 per month) so altogether she receives about $2000 per month. She lives with a friend and is very independent. We help her out from time to time, but not that much.

If the government told her employer (a family-run store) that they had to pay her a "living wage", then the employer would almost certainly let her go. Who would that help, exactly?
 
JimBob1952 said:
Of course. Many CEOs are overpaid buffoons -- look at the career of Marissa Mayer at Yahoo or of Jeff Imhoff at GE. The good ones are worth a lot, though.

It's also true that CEO pay has also become bloated. One of my first jobs was at a big New York bank. The CEO made about $350,000 a year (this was in the late 70s). Now the CEO of a big New York bank makes $20 million a year or more. Compensation is way out of whack, but I don't have a workable solution to that problem.

I'm all in favor of measures to help people at the bottom of the wage scale and take more from the people at the top. Maybe we could learn something from Germany, which has both low unemployment and a strong social safety net.
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I didn't mean to direct that toward you, if you took it that way. Sorry. I wasn't challenging anything you said I was quoting your post to save typing a set up to what I wanted to say. I should have just quoted "create shareholder value" part. I don't consider myself a particularly effective communicator when I write.
 
CEO's, in many cases, Are grossly overpaid. However, if you research the highest paying jobs in the U.S., virtually Every source that tracks this data shows that members of our "for profit" health care system rank consistently in the top 10, with Anesthesiologists being the highest paid profession in the nation. CEO's, depending upon which report, rank somewhere between the 8th to 12th highest average wage.

https://www.investopedia.com/personal-finance/top-highest-paying-jobs/

We, in the U.S. pay twice as much for medical care as most other nations....yet, rank way down the list in terms of quality/value of care. Most reports put the U.S. at, or around the 37th best system in the world....with most of the Better nations having some form of "socialized" care.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/best-healthcare-in-the-world

So long as we have medical and political systems that consider the "almighty dollar" as their highest priority, things will only continue to slide downhill, until half our people are living at substandard levels.
 


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