Minimum Wage Reform Needs To Happen
I didn't think to much about this sort of stuff back when I was working in retail. I was making over minimum wage and I only needed the money to spend on going out to movies, concerts, and sometimes gas, not for mortgage, utility, and other bills. For the rest I had my parents to provide food, shelter, insurance, etc.
30 Days is a show where people, including the creator of the show Morgan Spurlock, live "new" lives, living in someone else's shoes, for 30 days. I saw clips of the episode where Spurlock and his girlfriend both work minimum wage [$5.15/hr] blue collar jobs with no health insurance and support a family of 4. The labor was backbreaking and neither one of them could miss a single day of work or it would mean one less paycheck which could result in . A day at the movies also seemed to set them back. When they both ran into health problems, the hospital bill put them in debt. By the end of the 30 days, Spurlock was around approx. $1200 in debt. [side note: this doesn't include gas or car payments or car insurance. public transportation was used]
If someone is working 40 hrs per week at $5.15/hr, then they only make a scant $10712 before taxes. Even if 2 people work, there is no way in hell that they can support a family. These people work hard and deserve better, especially as the cost of living seems to only be going up. I find it disturbing that Congress can veto a bill to increase minimum wage and yet pass a bill that gives their greedy asses a juicy raise [this has happened in the past few months]. They already make 6 figures, do they really need more? Hell no. Reform needs to be happen.
posted by Anonymous at 9:47 PM
6 Comments:
oh drummaster - minimum wage was made to keep people where they are - needy. a family with two people making minimum wage still qualifies for so many state and federal programs.
people who want to get ahead will strive for a living wage and will not settle.
morning to you.
8/03/2006 7:41 AM
Did Spurlock apply for foodstamps?
I also question the validity of this excercise because if someone Spurlock's age can't make over minimum, then they're not looking too hard for a job (a raw zero experience electrician's helper will command close to $10/hr)
Even in FL, a low wage state, all the fast food joints are paying over minimum and they're all looking for workers.
8/11/2006 8:45 PM
purple avenger:
from the parts i saw, spurlock did not apply for foodstamps [i only saw clips]. spurlock was also not looking for $10/hr work-- he was trying to show if a family [in this case with both parents working] could survive on minimum wage income.
the real problem from what i saw appears to be healthcare. both their jobs offered none to employees. the reason they were in debt after the 30 days was that both of them had to go to the hospital for some serious medical problems. they first tried to go to a free health clinic, but they only took the first 20 people. the room was filled and spurlock was not part of the 20. they ended up paying for 2 round trip bus rides with no results. medication also set them back.
8/12/2006 6:33 PM
DM the minimum wage is a leftist political tool. The Dems use it as a guage for the Union contracts. Look it up.
I AM an employer and have made the mistake of hiring people who weren't worth HALF the minimum wage! I would have kept the damn fools on just to teach them HOW to be productive if I was allowed to pay them $2hr. But thanks to beloved Big Brother telling me how much I have to pay some young pin-headed losers, many will never their foot in the door.
When genuinly free markets dominate, everyone wins DM.
Health care is too expensive. Wanna know why? It's so cluttered with politics and lawsuits. Give doctors more protection from vulturous lawyers and eliminate congress from any and all interference in the medical business and WATCH WHAT HAPPENS!
Free market forces will drive the price of medical care and drugs right down! It's a fact and it works EVERY time. Thanks for your time DM.
Morgan
10/01/2006 2:33 PM
right on the mark morgan...as soon as the minimum wage goes up the unions want to renegotiate their contracts because if you just raised the non-skilled workforce to an arbitrary number then you have to raise the skilled force wage
then it increase inflation, lowers the values of homes....
and anytime a commodity such as labor goes up the demand goes down.
What would be a "living wage"? $20 an hour?
according to the dept. of labor 67% of those making minimum wage live in a home where the average income is 64k or better and only 2% are minimum wage couples
it's pandering politics
12/15/2006 5:45 PM
It seems to me that if you work 40 hours a week, you deserve more than 11,536 a year. Some states have increased minimum wage without waiting for the federal government to do so. The sample was small so the results may not be completely accurate.
# Among groups sensitive to fluctuation in the minimum wage, there was little effect on either employment or labor supply in states with a higher minimum wage, including teenagers and those employed in the restaurant industry.
# Minimum wage increases have a positive effect on wages.
# Raising the minimum wage increased wages without reducing employment or discouraging labor supply for teenagers (16-19).
# There is also evidence that minimum wage increases lead to higher wages without reducing employment or discouraging labor supply for young adults (20-24) and adults with no college education.
4/17/2007 12:26 PM
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