Can a person live on the minimum wage?

Warrigal

Warrigal

SF VIP
Location
Sydney, Australia
I just came across this article on retailers opening on Thanksgiving and the campaign for an increase to the minimum wage.

I note that California has just raised the minimum wage to a measly $10 an hour. How many hours per week would you have to work to support yourself and raise a family at that rate?

I don't suppose people asked to work on Thanksgiving get any sort of loading such as being paid time and a half?

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opin...rotest-20131107,0,5995823.story#axzz2kBS56d9X
 

A lot of people where I work life in apartments within walking distance. They talk about 6-7 hundred dollars a month for rent. That does include water and sewer,does not include electrical. Then you figure mandated insurance at around 4 hundred a month. That shoots about a thousand dollars out of sixteen hundred IF you work a forty hour week. They don't have a car so no upkeep there. That is based on what they tell me they are paying.
When I started out Minnimum wage was around 3 dollar an hour. Good clean housing could be found for 1 hundred a month. Gasoline was around thirty cents a gallon. Everybody offered at least forty hours a week with plenty of chance for overtime.
I might add i did not see many min wage jobs. They all paid fifty cents an hour or more to start
 
At todays rate of exchange 10US$ =GBP £ 6.28............minimum adult hourly rate from October in the UK rose to GBH£6.31.

So how much is Australias minimum wage????
 

Those workers should be thankful that they even have a job. What do they expect will happen if they do get their raise? The cost of living will go up yet again.
 
The minimum wage has not been raised in the US since 2009 at the national level...and we wonder why people are struggling. I think the economy would improve greatly if the minimum wage was raised, minimum wage earners spend every cent they make, it would all be put back into the economy.

Here is Bill Maher's take on minimum wage......the dude is right on....

Bill Maher Takes Minimum Wage Employers to Task in 'New Rules' Segement


MAHER: Now, when it comes to raising the minimum wage, conservatives always say it's a non-starter because it cuts into profits. Well, yeah. Of course. Paying workers is one of those unfortunate expenses of running a business... you know, like taxes, or making a product.

If you want to get rich with a tax-free enterprise that sells nothing, start a church.

You might think that paying people enough to live is so self-evident that even crazy people could understand it, but you would be wrong.

Michele Bachmann is not only against raising the minimum wage, she's against having one at all. She once said "if we took away the minimum wage... we could virtually wipe out unemployment because we would be able to offer jobs at whatever level."

Put that in your brain and smoke it. You could hire everyone if you didn't have to pay them. And naturally, Ted Cruz agrees.Ted Cruz thinks it's a good thing that when his Cuban father came to America he was paid $.50 an hour to work as a dishwasher, before becoming Charo.

When did the American dream become this pathway to indentured servitude? This economic death spiral where workers get paid next to nothing, so they can only afford to buy next to nothing, so businesses are forced to sell cheaper and cheaper sh*t?

Walmart employees can only afford to shop at Walmart. McDonalds workers can only afford to eat at McDonalds. And Hooters waitresses have to wear shirts they grew out of years ago.

Even if you're not moved by the "don't be such a heartless pri*k" argument, consider the fact that most fast food workers, whose average age by the way now is 29, we're not talking about kids, are on some form of public assistance. Which is not surprising. When even working people can't make enough to live, they take money from the government in the form of food stamps, school lunches, housing assistance, day care. This is the welfare that conservatives hate.

But they never stop to think, if we raised the minimum wage and forced McDonalds and Walmart to pay their employees enough to eat, we the taxpayers wouldn't have to pick up the slack.

This is the question the right has to answer. Do you want smaller government with less handouts, or do you want a low minimum wage? Because you cannot have both.

If Col. Sanders isn't going to pay the lady behind the counter enough to live on, then Uncle Sam has to, and I for one am getting a little tired of helping highly profitable companies pay their workers.
 
I usually like and enjoy Bill Maher but I think he's off-base on this.

First, take a company like Wal-Mart. Do you honestly believe that the execs are willing to take a cut in their profits in order to pay a higher minimum? No way. So how to make up the difference?

I know - we'll squeeze our suppliers and get even cheaper merchandise while simultaneously raising the prices that we charge for it.

So the employees will get their raise and we'll keep our profits, while both the employees and the general public will be sheared with the higher costs.

What some of these talking heads overlook in their appeals to emotion is that the money has to come from someplace - it doesn't just magically appear through force of will. They don't acknowledge that the Butterfly Effect is in operation and that every dollar an employee's pay is raised is going to create wide ripples throughout the country.

And since the majority of these workers are limited to part-time they should perhaps devote their spare time to attempting to create an alternate income system through self-employment instead of watching trash TV and scheming how to feed off the government teat.
 
Minimum wage existence as is = impossible. Totally agree w/Jackie on more than tired of helping highly profitable companies pay their workers, as I'm sure everyone else does. And I'm especially tired of feeling guilty if I don't tip 20% because the darned restaurant owners pay one level above nothing, but that is never going to change!

This wouldn't work for everyone, but my friend in her late 50's lost her job as an Estee Lauder rep. I'm SURE it had nothing to do with her age, but she had been with them for 25 yrs....aarrgghh!!!! She hated staying home (which she had to sell) and almost immediately began cleaning houses in her development with neighbors she knew, and now has her daughter/3rd yr college helping her when she can. (Her dad is paying all her expenses, so her help is out of love.) They are clearing $20/hr and don't have even a half day that isn't filled, including Saturdays. It's beyond exhaustive, back breaking work and worth every penny, and where else are you going to earn that kind of $$$? Not legal, and there may be complaints on this, but she's not claiming it on taxes. She knows it's risky and she'll be penalized re Social Security benefits, so she's stashing what she can and living as meagerly as possible. She never claimed a penny from unemployment. She was too proud to even apply for it...sold everything she had of any value, traded down cars, and used her severance pay & savings 'til she put some customers together. Word of mouth did the rest. Problem is she's getting too old to keep up this pace. She doesn't want to take an early retirement, so we do what we have to do when we know there are dire straits coming quickly and certainly no jobs for 62 year olds.

We're talking merely one job that pays very well if you are able to literally work your arse off, and were in the right place at the right time to have the opportunity. God help the multitudes of families who are earning peanuts and no way to get beyond it. It's heartbreaking!
 
The national minimum wage in about August 2013, the latest information I could find for Australia was $A16.37 per hour - about $650 per month - it may have gone up just a bit since then. That was for an adult. Someone under 16 years of age - the minimum was about $A6.37 per hour. A house, two or three bedroom, here to rent in a national capital city is usually about anywhere between $400- $500 per week. My niece, who is on the aged pension rents a "granny flat" - that's a converted one car garage, with a small bedroom, a bathroom/ laundry/toilet and small living area, for $1,000 per month in the western suburbs of Sydney.
 
PHIL:
What some of these talking heads overlook in their appeals to emotion is that the money has to comefrom someplace - it doesn't just magically appear through force of will. They don't acknowledge that the Butterfly Effect is in operation and that every dollar an employee's pay is raised is going to create wide ripples throughout the country.
Click to expand...


This is the point I was going to make, which Phil so eloquently beat me to. Raising minimum wage creates a never ending circle of raising wages, then raising the price of goods and services to pay for the increased wages, ending right back where it started with minimum wage employees still not being able to afford anymore than they could before the raise. This also serves to curtail spending from higher wage middle class earners that also have a spending limit.
Because as we know, the kamillion dollar a year execs are never going to take a pay cut or put any company profits back into wages without increasing the price of goods.


Minimum wage was never meant to be a living wage when it started out. Most people who earned minimum wage were students, or people just starting out in the workforce, looking forward to climbing the ladder with acquired skills or education.

Having said that, I am sickened by the greedy grab of the retailers these days. Would they truly go out of business by giving their workers Thanksgiving day off. If people are so desperate to buy their mostly cheap Chinese made crap, I'm sure that 24 hours would not make a difference.

I, for one will never support this greedy effort on the part of the retailers by shopping on any holiday. I cannot understand the mindset of consumers who who support this by que up for hours or days on end to buy this junk.

Hell, what am I saying, I don't shop at all for Christmas anyway....they hate people like me already.

Perhaps if the public didn't have such a greedy consumer gotta have mentality, and stopped buying billions of dollars worth of crap from China that they don't need, we could actually rely less on retailers for the economy, and get back to some real manufacturing and craftsman skills in this country. That in turn would create jobs and put people to work at jobs that pay decent wages.

Instead of paying higher minimum wages for going no where retail and fast food jobs, that creates a false impression of an improved economy for a while, we need to focus on bringing manufacturing and skilled labor jobs back and lessen our love affair for unnecessary imported retail goods.

I think the auto workers are a prime example of greed for more and more money and benefits in the work place. With the help of the unions they eventually priced themselves out of the market and a job, when consumers finally told them their cheap made vehicles were overpriced and stopped buying them.

You can keep raising wages, but the price of goods are going to rise right along with it, leaving you right back where you started, or worse.




 
OZ basic minimum wage is around $16 per hour. At todays exchange rate that's $15.0096 USD ... but of course it's not that simple, it depends on age, casual or permanent employment etc so if you're obsessed ... http://mywage.org.au/main/salary/minimum-wage ... gives the full table.

We have holiday, shift allowances and 'penalty' rates for weekend work etc added to that so it's not clear cut.
Other factors that come into it when making comparisons are:

Our workers in do NOT expect or usually receive tips to bolster wages. It's simply never been done here as a rule although is in some instances.
Our living costs are higher, petrol, rents etc.

Balancing that is reduced costs of 'utilities', especially heating costs as our winters aren't as harsh as in much of the US.
And, most importantly, employers are compelled to pay higher rates for shifts that go past 9-5 normal working time. Overtime is paid at a higher rate. Different pay levels apply to different public holidays (or did when I was working) Example Christmas was paid at a higher rate than a normal weekend. It was a graded rate.

It's far too complicated for me to sort out but suffice to say I wouldn't want to try and pay off a house and raise a family on our basic wage either. I can live on it, (I don't, but easily could) because I own my house, don't go out much, and have only the dog and myself to feed. It would be no life for a younger person.

I worked my entire career at the basic minimum wage salary. But the penalty rates, loadings, overtime rates, and working shifts no one else wanted, and never working the lower paid '9 to 5' shifts, meant I effectively doubled my salary most years.

That seems to be the major problem in the US, lower paid workers have little option to improve their income.

Jackie, that article showing the attitude of employers is scary. There's quite a bit of that here too but the greedier are held at bay a little easier by legislation here. Theirs is a self defeating tactic as eventually no one will work for them and their business will crumble when they not only can't produce, but have no customers who can afford to buy their product.

I'm more right wing than many OZ members but even I have a very poor view of that rip 'em orf attitude in employers.
I like a nice balance in my World. Pay for what you get, and be paid for what you're worth.

I'm an atheist yet base my view of keeping balance between employers and workers on 2 biblical tracts. (Even stopped clocks are right twice a day. )

"Render under Caesar, that which is Caesars" ... that one is for the Socialists who think the employer owes them more than they're worth.

.. and "Muzzle not the Ox which grinds the corn" which is for the employer who wants to enslave his workforce on a pittance.

What is it in human nature that prevents us ever settling for 'enough'?? What makes us want it all?
Why do we continually risk losing it all by reaching further for that one extra buck?
 
PHIL:
And since the majority of these workers are limited to part-time they should perhaps devote their spare time to attempting to create an alternate income system through self-employment instead of watching trash TV and scheming how to feed off the government teat.
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Oh yeah, and that too!

images
 
Some great responses here.

At first I was truly impressed by Oz's minimum wage, but then seeing what the rental costs, etc. are I understood that it's the phenomenon of the vicious circle made flesh all over again - higher wages = higher prices.

I wish that I could live the same quality of life that I did when I was in my 20's and 30's: fancy apartments and houses, fine cars, plenty of food and drink, money to burn. But now I'm sharing an apartment with a kind-hearted lady so that my rent and utilities are cut in half, I exist on bland, basic food and don't really "visit my custom" upon any retail stores. I buy cheap, live cheap and don't expect that to change anytime soon.

It just Is. :rolleyes:
 
Di: Our workers in do NOT expect or usually receive tips to bolster wages. It's simply never been done here as a rule although is in some instances.


When my 15 yr online friend from Sydney told me yrs ago Aussies rarely tip, I was amazed, then heard the whole story. As we all know, it's just not that way here. Wait staff couldn't live w/o tips.

And my friend in Manhattan who worked in the same position I did here in the South, but made quadruple my earnings, had quadruple living expenses.
 
Katybug said:
Di: Our workers in do NOT expect or usually receive tips to bolster wages. It's simply never been done here as a rule although is in some instances.


When my 15 yr online friend from Sydney told me yrs ago Aussies rarely tip, I was amazed, then heard the whole story. As we all know, it's just not that way here. Wait staff couldn't live w/o tips.

And my friend in Manhattan who worked in the same position I did here in the South, but made quadruple my earnings, had quadruple living expenses.
Click to expand...

I know how vital tipping is to service industry workers there, it was just never part of our 'culture'. It comes as a shock to the system for we travellers to be confronted by a sea of palms every time something is done that is taken for granted as part of a job here, but we got used to it.

Aussies have a really bad name over there as lousy tippers, but it's primarily because it's so alien to us and we're not sure how to handle it rather than being mean, we're not. Haggling and tipping didn't form any part of business dealings, but that's sure changing and I'm learning to haggle as fast as I can.

WE only failed to tip one waiter in the States, he was a rude pig who treated us with contempt and plonked our plates down like dog dishes. Then he had the hide to write the amount of tip he wanted in big block letters on the check so we stupid Australians would get the message. I'm afraid the 'message' we got cost him dearly.

When you think about it the tipping thing is what is letting employers off the hook of paying a decent wage isn't it? The public are paying their staff for them. ... then again, there's probably a far more complex set of reasons beneath that too... there usually is more to a story than first appears. I'm still trying figure our system out, I'll leave you to ponder yours.
 
The biggest takers in our country are the rich, not the poor. Corporate profits have quadrupled in the last 15 or so years, while the percentage of taxes they pay has been lowered by half. This has happened because of legislation that has been bought and paid for by the same corporations.

I think that when the priorities of the country are for more and larger profits for the rich over the well being of the poor, we're in big trouble, minimum wage should increase.
 
Here is one effect of raising the minimum wags.

A company has 100 experienced employees earning $15 [er hour. This company also hires each year 100 young people with no experience to give them a chance to gain work experience. They are paid $7.50 per hour.

The company has a very good year and has enough money to give good pay raises to it's employees. The company decides it can afford to give a $2 an hour raise to it's experienced employees and $.50 an hour to the young workers. A good raise for all.

But our wise and wonderful government says we're raising the minimum wage from $7.50 to $10 per hour. Unlike the government this company can't print money so they have no choice. The inexperienced workers get a $2.50 per hour raise and the experienced workers get nothing.

Of course this is just one effect. Other companies may just quit hiring young workers, raise their prices or some combination.

If a company relies heavily on young workers they may not be able to stay in business.

While raising the minimum wage may sound good, it may not have a positive outcome.


I just read Jackie's post and I do agree that corporate executive pay is disgraceful, but raising the minimum wage won't change that. There should be a limit but I don't have an answer for that.
 
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A raise in minimum wage results in the worker paying more income tax. Who really benifits.

Lets get rid of the jealousy toward those who make more than "we" do for a minute, and see how many of them cleaned toilets or mucked out barns or washed dishes to get a start. Compare that number to the number of people who refuse to do those jobs.

If more government control is the answer, why have things kept declining in spite of all the regulations?
I have seen the minimum wage raised several times. I have yet to see a noticable improvement because of it.
 
We can raise the minimum wage and have people be able to afford their weekly groceries, or we can keep it low and pay for their food stamps...I say raise the minimum wage. The fat cats in the large corporations can afford to pay a decent wage, as Rkunsaw said, the CEO salaries are disgraceful. :dollar:
 
In the past I had to work for minimum wage. I am reading reports that fast food chain workers want 15 dollars an hour. You have to be kidding me. 15 dollars an hour for someone who has no college education, and who works making burgers and fries? If this happened, the cost of fast food would go over the roof, and those chains would soon go out of business. If people want to make 15 dollars an hour, then they need to further their education and get a job that pays that much. I am not trying to be heartless, just being a realist. As I said, I used to work for minimum wage myself, then I got an education and experience in order to make more money.
 

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