Can a person live on the minimum wage?

No words of wisdom here... Too old to initiate change, and too cynical to believe that anything will happen in the near future to alter the inequality.

Back in the 1950's, my dad , who was a textile loomfixer, was optimistic about the way science would change the way people lived. He saw the introduction of some early robotics into the textile trade, which would reduce the number of workers needed to produce the product. What he saw, was a work week that would go from 40 hours, to 20 hours... and promised that when that happened, we'd have more time to have fun together.

Now we look at a similar situation, same, but different. Now, when the fast food business is stressed by labor costs, instead of reducing the profit margins, the industry will replace the person at the counter with a touch screen, the cooks with pre-prepared food, and the cleanup to be done by the customer.

It's not what we'd like, but it is what it is... The Occupy Wall Streeters, and the Progressive parties look for and dream about change. Cnange coming from the power of the people, at the voting booth, and others by revolution... neither of which seems to be working. Even the idea for a French Revolution style overhaul looks to be chancy, evidence the Syria "Spring".

As we look at the low paying jobs and minimum wage at any level... the question eventually arises... What will the low paying jobs be? The natural thought would be field labor... and yet that is rapidly being replaced with automated fruit and vegetable "pickers", and the farm jobs that took took 15 people to accomplish are now being done by one person.

If you thought that the future might lie in tech jobs... well, maybe for a few years... but if you're watching the Google "Hour of Code", you can see the labor pipeline being filled by a work force that will exceed the future needs. (A subject for another post).

So, negative? yeah, I suppose. While my bride and I are relatively "poor" by most wealth standards, its a bit like... "I got mine!" We're safe, and very happy... looking forward to the final 5 to 10 years... The fondest hope is that younger people will become more involved in the world that is shaping their future, and not rely on politicians and corporations for a fair shake.
 

Tom Young
So, negative? yeah, I suppose. While my bride and I are relatively "poor" by most wealth standards, its a bit like... "I got mine!" We're safe, and very happy... looking forward to the final 5 to 10 years... The fondest hope is that younger people will become more involved in the world that is shaping their future, and not rely on politicians and corporations for a fair shake.
Click to expand...

My sentiments exactly. I hope that happens, but don't see much hope for it.
 
Posted just for the heck of it and now running away.

:eek:nthego: :badgirl:



On a more serious note, what of the saying "a fair day's pay for a fair day's work" or if we want to dip into the scriptures

For the Scripture says, "You must not muzzle an ox to keep it from eating as it treads out the grain." And in another place, "Those who work deserve their pay!" 1 Timothy 5:18
Click to expand...

Exploitation is an ugly word and an even uglier practice, whether we are talking socialism, capitalism, bonded servitude or slavery.
 

Tom Young said:
No words of wisdom here... Too old to initiate change, and too cynical to believe that anything will happen in the near future to alter the inequality.

Back in the 1950's, my dad , who was a textile loomfixer, was optimistic about the way science would change the way people lived. He saw the introduction of some early robotics into the textile trade, which would reduce the number of workers needed to produce the product. What he saw, was a work week that would go from 40 hours, to 20 hours... and promised that when that happened, we'd have more time to have fun together.

Now we look at a similar situation, same, but different. Now, when the fast food business is stressed by labor costs, instead of reducing the profit margins, the industry will replace the person at the counter with a touch screen, the cooks with pre-prepared food, and the cleanup to be done by the customer.

It's not what we'd like, but it is what it is... The Occupy Wall Streeters, and the Progressive parties look for and dream about change. Cnange coming from the power of the people, at the voting booth, and others by revolution... neither of which seems to be working. Even the idea for a French Revolution style overhaul looks to be chancy, evidence the Syria "Spring".

As we look at the low paying jobs and minimum wage at any level... the question eventually arises... What will the low paying jobs be? The natural thought would be field labor... and yet that is rapidly being replaced with automated fruit and vegetable "pickers", and the farm jobs that took took 15 people to accomplish are now being done by one person.

If you thought that the future might lie in tech jobs... well, maybe for a few years... but if you're watching the Google "Hour of Code", you can see the labor pipeline being filled by a work force that will exceed the future needs. (A subject for another post).

So, negative? yeah, I suppose. While my bride and I are relatively "poor" by most wealth standards, its a bit like... "I got mine!" We're safe, and very happy... looking forward to the final 5 to 10 years... The fondest hope is that younger people will become more involved in the world that is shaping their future, and not rely on politicians and corporations for a fair shake.
Click to expand...


I guess I'm one of those Progressives that hoping for change in the voting booth....

My hope is that young people and all people will become more aware of the political party that pushes for the advance of Corporate America and the wealthiest one percent, the party that pushes for trumped up wars and a huge military....this is the party that has fueled this obscene economic inequality that we now have....this is the party that wants to cut Social Security....this is the party that wants to cut medicare, cut medicaid, do away with ACA...The party that says NO, don't give poor people a $2 increase in wages....but YES, give the rich one percent another tax break.

This one percent now has one half of the wealth in this country.


The social programs in this country are but a drop in the ocean compared to what the government gives corporations and the rich in tax breaks, subsidies and deregulations.



The Republican philosophy of 'trickle down economics' ......to give the rich all the advantages so they'll become even richer and create all the jobs for us poor people, has been proven NOT TO WORK.


Forty percent of Americans now make less than 1968 minimum wage earners.

Thats FORTY PERCENT of Americans!

I guess its a matter of opinion as to who is irresponsible.


http://www.nationofchange.org/40-percent-americans-now-make-less-1968-minimum-wage-1361362370
 
When I started my last job which lasted over 30 years in 1976, my starting wage was $4.76 per hour
..........
Click to expand...
In 1961 my starting wage was 8quid for a 40hour week.
I paid nominal 'board' to Mum, clothed myself and still had something to bank out of that back then so times have changed. I wouldn't however have been able to rent my own accommodation and pay the accompanying utilities bills out of that so staying at home and covering food costs was the normal expectation of job starters back then. The pay rates (and 'board') increased with age from 15 to 21.

The best I can do with limited math skills and different currency is that my starting wage was roughly the equivalent of $3.85US per hour in 2013.
It was a 'closed shop, union member only' workplace and not everyone on the outside did even that well.

Those figures are rubbery due to different currency and very different values. My dad always referred to 5 shillings as a 'dollar' because that was what it was worth on the currency exchange rates, one US buck. Now our currencies are roughly level so if the US dollar back then was worth around 50c here.... (getting confused here) that kind of doubles the equivalent worth of that $3.85 doesn't it? Gurus go for it, I give up.

There are some great, well thought out posts here. We seem to have a good idea of what's wrong, and also that there seems little we can do about it.

It will all slip back into the default mode of human society eventually, Feudalism. siiiiigh. We'll have cyberlords instead of warlords wielding the power but little else will be different. A minority elite being fed by the majority poorer classes. Then comes revolution and so it goes..and goes...and goes. We never get it right, we just change the costumes and technology never the underlying behaviours.

Whenever the population rises to a tipping point of a surplus of people to fill the necessary niches of employment we will get this same 'class' problem.
'Robotic' technology is compounding the problem of finding work for the ditch diggers but the technology does nothing to stop the increasing number of diggers being produced. All the PC phraseology won't make a tad of difference to that. Things are as they are, fancy names don't change them. Having the rights to breed ourselves out of a job doesn't seem to have been such a great plan to me either.
There is only a finite amount of the pie to be sliced, merely reducing the size of the piece the elite get won't solve it if we continue to produce more and more people demanding a share of it, eventually there'll only be a crumb for anyone to get. siiiigh.

Doomed, history to repeat we are.
yoda_star_wars-666.jpg



...well that's a cheerful way to start the day.
 
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are
underlings."
Julius Caesar (I, ii, 140-141)
Click to expand...

Just thought I'd throw some of The Bard for good luck.


On a related topic, hospitality businesses are demanding higher and higher qualifications for entry level staff. One of my granddaughters has just completed three and a half years of tertiary education- two years of TAFE to get an Advanced Diploma and one and a half years of university to convert it to a Bachelor Degree in Hotel Management and is still working as a casual with a large hotel chain.

Her duties ? - setting up and working in the breakfast room, serving at functions and when otherwise not busy, checking the minibars. I've no idea what she earns but I doubt that it is all that much. For this she now has a student loan to pay off (called HECS in Oz). It makes no sense to me but this is not a girl who is lazy. She has always been a hard worker whether at school, in her fruit shop job, as an Avon rep or waiting tables at the local Italian restaurant. She has also learned Japanese. She is wasted where she is.

Reflecting on the Shakespearean quote I hope she hands in her notice and takes off overseas but she's just become engaged so her wings have been rather clipped now.
 
Forty percent of Americans now make less than 1968 minimum wage earners.

Thats FORTY PERCENT of Americans!

I guess its a matter of opinion as to who is irresponsible.
Click to expand...

That's a sobering figure Jackie.
I'm totally oblivious of the tax rates in the States but remember some notable 'gaff' one of your politicians made about the number of people who never actually pay tax, it was a sobering figure too.

There may be more up to date sites but this one will do for my basic understanding and things seem to have gotten even worse since then.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_people_pay_taxes_each_year_in_the_US
There were 131,113,969 returns filed in 2004. Of those who filed, 42,545,501 (32.4%) had zero tax liability. This is estimated to increase to in excess of 40% in 2009
A filer can represent an individual, a household or in some instances a small business in the form of a proprietorship. Contrary to a quip previously posted that only the poor pay taxes, the top 1% in terms of adjusted gross income (AGI) account for 39.9% of income tax collected in 2006. The top 25% (AGI > $64,702) account for 86.27% while the bottom 50% of filers by income don't even add up to 3% of collections. - BB From the Tax Foundation:
In 2004, a record 42.5 million tax returns - one-third of all returns filed - had no income tax liability because of the available credits and deductions in the tax code. This is a 42 percent increase in the number of zero-tax filers in just four years. In addition to these zero-tax filers are the 15 million individuals or households who do not earn enough to file a tax return. Overall, nearly 58 million taxable households are outside of the income tax system. These findings raise serious questions about the future of the U.S. income tax system. Are any future tax cuts, or even tax reforms, possible when the lion's share of the tax burden is increasingly borne by a shrinking pool of taxpayers who - at least on paper - appear to be "upper-income"? And will the expanding pool of non-payers demand even higher income taxes?

http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/542.html

.
Click to expand...

Is it sheer coincidence that the percentage on the lowest wages is roughly the same percentage of those who never pay tax at all?
Maybe the deterioration in the health and welfare structure is following that percentage too? No free lunches. Somebody has to pay for the goodies we've come to expect. Making 1% pay more tax isn't going to be as beneficial as everybody paying their fair share.

When a machine or a nation is getting top heavy and starting to wobble it seems time to look closely at the foundations and design of the structure. Tax systems everywhere are a disgraceful hodge-podge of disparities and straight out lerks and could all do with a close looking at. We here, rightly or wrongly, see the US citizens as getting all the breaks when it comes to income tax. e.g. The heavily subsidized price of gas there is ludicrous in comparison to world prices. Any suggestion of hiking tax on anything is met with howls from the populace who seem to think they're entitled to live cheaply and be paid expansively. Errrr, things don't quite operate that way.

We get taxed on all levels of just about everything with some called levees and some things being taxed twice but it has kept our heads a little higher above water through the GFC than many. Sure some of us don't qualify as having taxable income, but the taxes we pay on goods and services and levees on petrol etc still ensure that the revenue is rolling in to keep the national debt down to manageable level.
Things are starting to wobble here too but not by as much, yet.

The expectation of good things happening with no input from the recipients can't end well.

There are no politics or 'isms' necessary to explain things.
There is no difference at all in the attitude of the 1% at the top and the 50% or so at the 'bottom'.
They are both greedy to get as much as they can for as little effort as they can get it for and are willing to ignore the 'rights' of others in their quest to get it. They are essentially the same people and the only separation is luck of the 'talent' draw.

Changing taxes and the system of how things are done would rip society as we know it apart, but it's heading that way anyhow.

I keep having these hallucinations of a world that runs on 'Ethical Capitalism'.... AZIF! ... but it'd be nice wouldn't it?


...is there any medication I can take for that? It's a really frustrating condition.
 
Warrigal said:
........
On a related topic, hospitality businesses are demanding higher and higher qualifications for entry level staff. One of my granddaughters has just completed three and a half years of tertiary education- two years of TAFE to get an Advanced Diploma and one and a half years of university to convert it to a Bachelor Degree in Hotel Management and is still working as a casual with a large hotel chain.

Her duties ? - setting up and working in the breakfast room, serving at functions and when otherwise not busy, checking the minibars. I've no idea what she earns but I doubt that it is all that much. For this she now has a student loan to pay off (called HECS in Oz). It makes no sense to me but this is not a girl who is lazy. She has always been a hard worker whether at school, in her fruit shop job, as an Avon rep or waiting tables at the local Italian restaurant. She has also learned Japanese. She is wasted where she is. ..............
Click to expand...

That is a very good example of how we've come to view education as currency.
But as in life, there is little point in waving a $100 bill, or a PhD diploma around if there is nothing to buy with it.
They're just bits of paper. Like those vitally important pieces of paper we saw floating in the breeze on 9/11. If that view of their ultimate value didn't give us the hint that there is more to life than diplomas and bottom lines I doubt anything ever will.

There was a glut of 'marine biologists' on the job market a decade or three ago, they were wrapping their lunches in their diplomas to take to their jobs driving trucks.
I think it was after Jaws was released and they all felt the career calling to make a living out of being Richard Dreyfuss or something. These days they all wanna be Bill Gates. For every IT billionaire there are thousands getting by at call centres with their diplomas safely in a frame on a wall in a rented bed-sit. They wasted years of earning time getting edjakated to the same level of job that the drop-out dill down the road is now foreman of because he started sooner. Gee, that's a great improvement to human societal development innit??

Equal opportunity to be educated to the level we are capable of is the best that society should need to offer us. If we prove incapable of reaching the highest levels then options for more practical, and cheaper, education should be provided.

Bring back the IQ tests, and more importantly, the Aptitude tests. Mine taken at age 11 still holds true to this day, I never changed so education in anything else would have been totally wasted.

The current fad of preferencing exam passing talent over sheer common sense ability in the type of work on offer is approaching ridiculous.
The last person I'd hire to dig a ditch would be a puffed up diploma waving academic. I want those hands on the shovel, not waving about to stress their importance to the world's well being. I don't care if they can add their grocery bill I'd just want that ditch dug neatly and quickly, and I'd pay 'em extra for a good quick neat job. What bout you?
 
My point is that she could have entered this profession straight from school and trained on the job but the employers insist that they jump though all these educational hoops at their own and government expense, only to ignore them further down the track.
 
Warrigal said:
My point is that she could have entered this profession straight from school and trained on the job but the employers insist that they jump though all these educational hoops at their own and government expense, only to ignore them further down the track.
Click to expand...

Oh geeze, I keep getting myself in agreement with people lately, I must be doin' sumthin' wrong.
 
Diwundrin said:
There was a glut of 'marine biologists' on the job market a decade or three ago, they were wrapping their lunches in their diplomas to take to their jobs driving trucks.

I think it was after Jaws was released and they all felt the career calling to make a living out of being Richard Dreyfuss or something. These days they all wanna be Bill Gates. For every IT billionaire there are thousands getting by at call centres with their diplomas safely in a frame on a wall in a rented bed-sit. They wasted years of earning time getting edjakated to the same level of job that the drop-out dill down the road is now foreman of because he started sooner. Gee, that's a great improvement to human societal development innit??
Click to expand...

Amen to that!

1976, I went to Florida Institute of Technology with a partial scholarship for Marine Biology. In my first semester I saw PhD holders working at the local burger places. The Institute was so over-enrolled that they took to giving us bogus tests so that they could fail us and kick us out. It had been a dream of mine to be a marine biologist since I was in grade school, so to see the actuality of the situation really hurt.
 
Ozarkgal said:
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.
Click to expand...

I agree that economic development has gone backward in the US, instead of moving forward. Maybe that's why folks like Romney wanted to be president of the United States, but wanted the benefit of keeping all his financial assets and interests elsewhere. It's no wonder he didn't make it in the race.

I'm sure that minimum wage was never meant to be a living wage years ago, when people could move up to better jobs to support themselves and their families. But now, so the fat cats can get even fatter, they've moved a lot of businesses that should be thriving here, overseas. The hell with the American people in the process...at least that's the way I see it. Their profits come first, way before their loyalty to the United States of America...http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/15545869-why-us-businesses-are-moving-jobs-overseas
 
It's not wise to apply 'loyalty' to business SB, that's reserved for friends family and warfare.

The same thing is happening here, business are relocating to Asia in their droves. It's not about loyalty it's about business acumen. We simply can't compete with Asia's lower wages and lifestyle expectations. They are catching up but it will be decades before their workforce becomes equally expensive as ours and it will be far too late for us to get back to 'the good ole days' levels we've enjoyed perhaps a tad too long.
 
Well yeah, but you would think if someone wants to be the president, they would have their priorities in order and put the country they want votes from first. The average citizen can't be called lazy and blamed for the situation the country is in, if there's no decent jobs to be had, what are they to do?
 
That 'wanting to be President' should have had more input into the reasoning that's for sure.

Of course not everyone's lazy, or anything else, there's a range of characters and motives beyond listing among any population. We have to generalise a lot just to be readable.
There are so many interwoven problems with how the world ticks now that it's impossible to single any issue out as being 'the magic bullet' to solve anything. The more we try to fix things the more parts we find that don't fit the theory.

If we started really getting down into the intricacies it wouldn't fit a forum, it would rival War and Peace, per post!

We may have evolved technologically but boy we sure haven't simplified things for ourselves. We've built a very high tech house of cards and we know how hard that is to keep standing when the cards begin to wobble. I doesn't matter which particular card we steady there is always another one we didn't notice that will bring the whole thing down.

Too many bright ideas looked good on paper only to provide us with hidden catches that we didn't see coming. We've continuously patched them up with more brilliant ideas that in turn needed patching and we're running out of options and the last thing we need is more complicated bright ideas and theories. All that'll fix it now is an axe.

That's why I prefer to play Devil's Advocate on all the 'fix it' theories. It's sooooo easy to find some little thing that will throw any obvious solution off track. Call me lazy.
 
Diwundrin said:
That's a sobering figure Jackie.
I'm totally oblivious of the tax rates in the States but remember some notable 'gaff' one of your politicians made about the number of people who never actually pay tax, it was a sobering figure too.

There may be more up to date sites but this one will do for my basic understanding and things seem to have gotten even worse since then.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_people_pay_taxes_each_year_in_the_US


Is it sheer coincidence that the percentage on the lowest wages is roughly the same percentage of those who never pay tax at all?
Maybe the deterioration in the health and welfare structure is following that percentage too? No free lunches. Somebody has to pay for the goodies we've come to expect. Making 1% pay more tax isn't going to be as beneficial as everybody paying their fair share.

When a machine or a nation is getting top heavy and starting to wobble it seems time to look closely at the foundations and design of the structure. Tax systems everywhere are a disgraceful hodge-podge of disparities and straight out lerks and could all do with a close looking at. We here, rightly or wrongly, see the US citizens as getting all the breaks when it comes to income tax. e.g. The heavily subsidized price of gas there is ludicrous in comparison to world prices. Any suggestion of hiking tax on anything is met with howls from the populace who seem to think they're entitled to live cheaply and be paid expansively. Errrr, things don't quite operate that way.

We get taxed on all levels of just about everything with some called levees and some things being taxed twice but it has kept our heads a little higher above water through the GFC than many. Sure some of us don't qualify as having taxable income, but the taxes we pay on goods and services and levees on petrol etc still ensure that the revenue is rolling in to keep the national debt down to manageable level.
Things are starting to wobble here too but not by as much, yet.

The expectation of good things happening with no input from the recipients can't end well.

There are no politics or 'isms' necessary to explain things.
There is no difference at all in the attitude of the 1% at the top and the 50% or so at the 'bottom'.
They are both greedy to get as much as they can for as little effort as they can get it for and are willing to ignore the 'rights' of others in their quest to get it. They are essentially the same people and the only separation is luck of the 'talent' draw.

Changing taxes and the system of how things are done would rip society as we know it apart, but it's heading that way anyhow.

I keep having these hallucinations of a world that runs on 'Ethical Capitalism'.... AZIF! ... but it'd be nice wouldn't it?


...is there any medication I can take for that? It's a really frustrating condition.
Click to expand...

Oh, yes, I've heard all the 'notable gaffs' arguments...how the rich are victims of the moochers....as for the one about the poor not paying any taxes...maybe the 'job creators' should pay a living wage if they want them to pay taxes...also 'getting blood out of a turnip' comes to mind.

Oh...and good luck with that 'ethical capitalism'.
 
Profit & Greed; we all end up paying for - Profit & Greed! A vicious circle that's never ending.
 
I'm sure that minimum wage was never meant to be a living wage years ago, when people could move up to better jobs to support themselves and their families. But now, so the fat cats can get even fatter, they've moved a lot of businesses that should be thriving here, overseas. The hell with the American people in the process...at least that's the way I see it. Their profits come first, way before their loyalty to the United States of America...http://www.allvoices.com/contributed...-jobs-overseas
Click to expand...

I totally agree about the businesses moving jobs overseas, SeaBreeze, but that's another story.

By raising the minimum wage it will make it even harder for businesses that stayed in this country to compete with those that moved out of the country for lower wages. If wages here are too high to keep jobs here how is raising them supposed to help? Seems to me you are wanting to punish businesses for staying here.That is a good way to send more jobs overseas.

Instead of punishing those businesses that stayed here why not punish those that left by taxing products they try to import into this country. This will help businesses that are here better compete and may force those that left to bring jobs back.

Looking at the whole picture, raising the minimum wage seems to be about the worse thing we can do.
 
rkunsaw said:
I totally agree about the businesses moving jobs overseas, SeaBreeze, but that's another story.
Instead of punishing those businesses that stayed here why not punish those that left by taxing products they try to import into this country. This will help businesses that are here better compete and may force those that left to bring jobs back.
Click to expand...

That is a good suggestion, punishing those who left and taxing products they try to import. But is the government willing to do that, or is it in bed with these large corporations and profiting along with them, regardless of what country they operate in? Somebody needs to step in and help those in America, both businesses and citizens, or this country will end up in the toilet...and that's a crying shame. :mad: With all our money, knowledge and power, we should be moving forward and flourishing, instead of backsliding like losers. :rolleyes:
 
rkunsaw said:
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.
Click to expand...

:thumbsup: Exactly!
 
Diwundrin said:
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.
Click to expand...

I stand by what I said. And, what does Facebook have to do with the topic at hand?:blah:
 
Katybug, sorry about your friend. It's a shame she wouldn't apply for UE because it's NOT welfare, and pride has nothing to do with it. It's funded by insurance paid for by the employer, and the employer's rate only increases if there are claims on it. What she really did was a big favor for her former employer.

Anyway, I know what you mean about the brutal work! And yes, it is lucrative if you can stand it. I'm 73 and working as a cleaning lady, but I only work 15-18 hours most weeks, not because there's no work--there's more than I could do even if I worked 40 hours--but because I just plain don't want to work any more than that.

I feel sorry for the women who work for the cleaning services because they only get minimum wage. If they can stand it and hold out for a couple of years, they might--big might--get an increase of 25 or 50 cents/hour. Heck, even the supervisors for cleaning crews only make about $10/hour if they're lucky, and they only get to be supervisors if they've stuck it out with the same cleaning service for years.

I'm "lucky" in that I work so little that combined with my social security and pension my income still comes in just a bit below what's required to pay taxes on.

I heard on the news a few days ago that if McD's and other fast food places raised the minimum wage to $15/hour, they'd have to increase their prices by 20% to continue making the profits that they make now. 20%? Something from the dollar menu would go up to $1.20. Not a big deal to people who frequent the drive-thru!

For those who complain about the high cost to taxpayers of public assistance, well...better to pay more in wages than to COST more in taxes. JMHO!

When I started my working life, the minimum wage was $.75/hr unless you were under age 18 (I was paid $.25/hour), gas was $.09/gallon. Every time there's been a campaign to raise the minimum wage, there's been a great hue and cry that small businesses would go bankrupt, the sky would fall and we'd all go to hell in a hand basket. It didn't happen then and won't now. A rising tide floats all boats.
 
RedRibbons said:
I stand by what I said. And, what does Facebook have to do with the topic at hand?:blah:
Click to expand...

Go stand by anything you please Red, up to you. I was just drawing the inference that Facebook is the more normal place to find posters who resort to 'blah blah' as a substitute for reasoned argument that's all. No big deal.
 

You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top