$15 minimum wage in MoCo

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Idiots.

Next time you go into Giant or Home Depot and you notice that half of the checkout lanes have been replaced with self-serve stations, you will see what a $15 minimum wage looks like in action.

Next time you walk into McDonalds or Starbucks and place your order on an ipad, you will see what a $15 minimum wage looks like in action.

Are people really this stupid?

Yes. They are.

They see absolutely zero correlation between cost or employment and prices, or automation and job losses. They see the entire world through the filter of feelings and pity. The people who are the proponents of this are killing the jobs of the people they see themselves as the benefactors and protectors of. So yes, they are that stupid.

Can you tell me your proposed alternative solution, then? Because any solution to the issue of people trying to live on minimum-wage jobs - and there are many of them, not just teenagers - will cost money, whether in direct salary costs or less tangible costs. Telling them they simply "should have gone to college" is useless.

Unless you feel they should simply suffer for being born poor, which is the underlying mood of all these threads.

I can't force you to understand this, if you lack the capacity to. But it suffices to say that no one ever intended a minimum wage job to be what someone "lives" on. It's a minimum. A wage for someone just starting, with absolutely zero skill or prior experience. It's what someone starting the most basic job conceivable make on their very first day, with no experience. That's what minimum wage is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's odd that people feel personally insulted by an increased minimum wage. Like, they want low-wage workers to suffer in order to buttress their sense of self-worth.

Or, basic economics. But I know stuff like that is hard to understand.

No, if it was basic economics you wouldn't take it so personally. You clearly need to feel that there are people below you. It makes you feel better, in some sad little way.

Yes. You're right - I do feel better when there are people who make less than me. I also feel better by the fact there are people who make more than me. We do not live in a communist society where everyone is economically equal, nor should we.

I suspect it twists your gut, actually, that some people make more than you.

Otherwise you wouldn't be so profoundly invested in punching downward.

NP. Please stop. You're making yourself sound foolish. Stop making your decisions based on emotions alone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Idiots.

Next time you go into Giant or Home Depot and you notice that half of the checkout lanes have been replaced with self-serve stations, you will see what a $15 minimum wage looks like in action.

Next time you walk into McDonalds or Starbucks and place your order on an ipad, you will see what a $15 minimum wage looks like in action.

Are people really this stupid?

Yes. They are.

They see absolutely zero correlation between cost or employment and prices, or automation and job losses. They see the entire world through the filter of feelings and pity. The people who are the proponents of this are killing the jobs of the people they see themselves as the benefactors and protectors of. So yes, they are that stupid.

Can you tell me your proposed alternative solution, then? Because any solution to the issue of people trying to live on minimum-wage jobs - and there are many of them, not just teenagers - will cost money, whether in direct salary costs or less tangible costs. Telling them they simply "should have gone to college" is useless.

Unless you feel they should simply suffer for being born poor, which is the underlying mood of all these threads.

I can't force you to understand this, if you lack the capacity to. But it suffices to say that no one ever intended a minimum wage job to be what someone "lives" on. It's a minimum. A wage for someone just starting, with absolutely zero skill or prior experience. It's what someone starting the most basic job conceivable make on their very first day, with no experience. That's what minimum wage is.

I completely grasp this (basic) concept.

Can you in turn grasp the fact that these jobs are increasingly often held by adults who are trying to support themselves, and possibly children, on insufficient wages, and that that leads to significant costs to society beyond the employer's (or, more likely, stockholders') pocketbook?

That is the problem that an increased minimum wage is attempting to solve. Are there other possible solutions? No doubt. But retraining, schooling, etc., all cost money. Where does that money come from?

It seems that most people who scorn increased minimum wages also scorn any government support that would enable poor people to train for better skills. Instead it's a constant stream of "Well, the poor shouldn't have children. The poor shouldn't buy cars, even in rural areas where there is no public transport. The poor are lazy. The poor are bad." (The poor are going to have children, unless you're proposing whole-scale eugenics.)

I'd like to hear an alternative solution.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's odd that people feel personally insulted by an increased minimum wage. Like, they want low-wage workers to suffer in order to buttress their sense of self-worth.

Or, basic economics. But I know stuff like that is hard to understand.

No, if it was basic economics you wouldn't take it so personally. You clearly need to feel that there are people below you. It makes you feel better, in some sad little way.

Yes. You're right - I do feel better when there are people who make less than me. I also feel better by the fact there are people who make more than me. We do not live in a communist society where everyone is economically equal, nor should we.

I suspect it twists your gut, actually, that some people make more than you.

Otherwise you wouldn't be so profoundly invested in punching downward.

NP. Please stop. You're making yourself sound foolish. Stop making your decisions based on emotions alone.

Nah, I think I'm on target here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's odd that people feel personally insulted by an increased minimum wage. Like, they want low-wage workers to suffer in order to buttress their sense of self-worth.

So naturally you'll be getting a proportional increase in your own pay, right? In fact, everyone will, right?

Because otherwise, YOUR work and YOUR skillset (and all the education, and trouble you went through to acquire it) are now devalued proportionally. Because people with NO skill are now closer to your wage, while yours did not rise in keeping.

So you're worth less. Despite the fact that you've worked very hard to acquire skills far beyond the minimum.

You know, that doesn't bother me in the slightest. Probably because poor people work far harder, overall, than most professionals.

Unlike you, I've done "poor people" work. And while it may (or not, but mine was) be more physically taxing than my current profession, it is far, FAR easier in terms of stress, time consumed, and overall pressure.

When I was finished after 8 hours of running an Ingersol jackhammer, I was done and went home. Or went for a beer with friends. Or went fishing. I had free weekends and evenings, and no responsibilities at work other than doing what I was told for 40 hours each week. Physically demands aside, it's easy.

Now? I put in a minimum of 50 hours most weeks, sometimes more, and unlike when I did poor work, I don't get overtime. If we have a project due, I'm working 16 hours a day, sometimes even weekends. I have a team of people I need to manage, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, and I have to keep tabs on all of them. And forget about leaving work at work. I answer emails at 2am, and I'm constantly focused on work every waking hour.

Yes, I make far more now than I did running a jackhammer. And I work far harder now.

But you imagine otherwise, because you've never worked low end jobs, so you have no frame of reference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Idiots.

Next time you go into Giant or Home Depot and you notice that half of the checkout lanes have been replaced with self-serve stations, you will see what a $15 minimum wage looks like in action.

Next time you walk into McDonalds or Starbucks and place your order on an ipad, you will see what a $15 minimum wage looks like in action.

Are people really this stupid?

Yes. They are.

They see absolutely zero correlation between cost or employment and prices, or automation and job losses. They see the entire world through the filter of feelings and pity. The people who are the proponents of this are killing the jobs of the people they see themselves as the benefactors and protectors of. So yes, they are that stupid.

Can you tell me your proposed alternative solution, then? Because any solution to the issue of people trying to live on minimum-wage jobs - and there are many of them, not just teenagers - will cost money, whether in direct salary costs or less tangible costs. Telling them they simply "should have gone to college" is useless.

Unless you feel they should simply suffer for being born poor, which is the underlying mood of all these threads.

I can't force you to understand this, if you lack the capacity to. But it suffices to say that no one ever intended a minimum wage job to be what someone "lives" on. It's a minimum. A wage for someone just starting, with absolutely zero skill or prior experience. It's what someone starting the most basic job conceivable make on their very first day, with no experience. That's what minimum wage is.

NP. And we can't force you to understand that, regardless of your intentions, adults are often unable to progress beyond minimum wage jobs, and not just because they were too lazy to go to college, or too incompetent to be promoted. The minimum wage is what people are living on, and not just because of their "poor choices." So the minimum wage needs to be livable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's odd that people feel personally insulted by an increased minimum wage. Like, they want low-wage workers to suffer in order to buttress their sense of self-worth.

So naturally you'll be getting a proportional increase in your own pay, right? In fact, everyone will, right?

Because otherwise, YOUR work and YOUR skillset (and all the education, and trouble you went through to acquire it) are now devalued proportionally. Because people with NO skill are now closer to your wage, while yours did not rise in keeping.

So you're worth less. Despite the fact that you've worked very hard to acquire skills far beyond the minimum.

You know, that doesn't bother me in the slightest. Probably because poor people work far harder, overall, than most professionals.

Unlike you, I've done "poor people" work. And while it may (or not, but mine was) be more physically taxing than my current profession, it is far, FAR easier in terms of stress, time consumed, and overall pressure.

When I was finished after 8 hours of running an Ingersol jackhammer, I was done and went home. Or went for a beer with friends. Or went fishing. I had free weekends and evenings, and no responsibilities at work other than doing what I was told for 40 hours each week. Physically demands aside, it's easy.

Now? I put in a minimum of 50 hours most weeks, sometimes more, and unlike when I did poor work, I don't get overtime. If we have a project due, I'm working 16 hours a day, sometimes even weekends. I have a team of people I need to manage, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, and I have to keep tabs on all of them. And forget about leaving work at work. I answer emails at 2am, and I'm constantly focused on work every waking hour.

Yes, I make far more now than I did running a jackhammer. And I work far harder now.

But you imagine otherwise, because you've never worked low end jobs, so you have no frame of reference.

Four years as a waiter, two years as a stock clerk, and off and on road crews and construction to pay for grad school.

It's a workable frame of reference, and was far harder than what I do now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's odd that people feel personally insulted by an increased minimum wage. Like, they want low-wage workers to suffer in order to buttress their sense of self-worth.

So naturally you'll be getting a proportional increase in your own pay, right? In fact, everyone will, right?

Because otherwise, YOUR work and YOUR skillset (and all the education, and trouble you went through to acquire it) are now devalued proportionally. Because people with NO skill are now closer to your wage, while yours did not rise in keeping.

So you're worth less. Despite the fact that you've worked very hard to acquire skills far beyond the minimum.

You know, that doesn't bother me in the slightest. Probably because poor people work far harder, overall, than most professionals.

Unlike you, I've done "poor people" work. And while it may (or not, but mine was) be more physically taxing than my current profession, it is far, FAR easier in terms of stress, time consumed, and overall pressure.

When I was finished after 8 hours of running an Ingersol jackhammer, I was done and went home. Or went for a beer with friends. Or went fishing. I had free weekends and evenings, and no responsibilities at work other than doing what I was told for 40 hours each week. Physically demands aside, it's easy.

Now? I put in a minimum of 50 hours most weeks, sometimes more, and unlike when I did poor work, I don't get overtime. If we have a project due, I'm working 16 hours a day, sometimes even weekends. I have a team of people I need to manage, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, and I have to keep tabs on all of them. And forget about leaving work at work. I answer emails at 2am, and I'm constantly focused on work every waking hour.

Yes, I make far more now than I did running a jackhammer. And I work far harder now.

But you imagine otherwise, because you've never worked low end jobs, so you have no frame of reference.

YMMV, but I've worked fast food jobs, and I'm currently an attorney. Fast food job was much more draining, taxing and was overall much harder.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's odd that people feel personally insulted by an increased minimum wage. Like, they want low-wage workers to suffer in order to buttress their sense of self-worth.

So naturally you'll be getting a proportional increase in your own pay, right? In fact, everyone will, right?

Because otherwise, YOUR work and YOUR skillset (and all the education, and trouble you went through to acquire it) are now devalued proportionally. Because people with NO skill are now closer to your wage, while yours did not rise in keeping.

So you're worth less. Despite the fact that you've worked very hard to acquire skills far beyond the minimum.

You know, that doesn't bother me in the slightest. Probably because poor people work far harder, overall, than most professionals.

Unlike you, I've done "poor people" work. And while it may (or not, but mine was) be more physically taxing than my current profession, it is far, FAR easier in terms of stress, time consumed, and overall pressure.

When I was finished after 8 hours of running an Ingersol jackhammer, I was done and went home. Or went for a beer with friends. Or went fishing. I had free weekends and evenings, and no responsibilities at work other than doing what I was told for 40 hours each week. Physically demands aside, it's easy.

Now? I put in a minimum of 50 hours most weeks, sometimes more, and unlike when I did poor work, I don't get overtime. If we have a project due, I'm working 16 hours a day, sometimes even weekends. I have a team of people I need to manage, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, and I have to keep tabs on all of them. And forget about leaving work at work. I answer emails at 2am, and I'm constantly focused on work every waking hour.

Yes, I make far more now than I did running a jackhammer. And I work far harder now.

But you imagine otherwise, because you've never worked low end jobs, so you have no frame of reference.

YMMV, but I've worked fast food jobs, and I'm currently an attorney. Fast food job was much more draining, taxing and was overall much harder.

Fast food, as in, a minimum wage fast food worker? And that was harder than being an attorney?

[Anonymous]

Would you want anyone representing you who felt it was harder to flip burgers and punch keys on a cash register than go to law school, sit for the Bar, and get into a practice?

You're telling me you think THAT is easier than putting patties on buns and sweeping floors?


No one believes you. No one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Idiots.

Next time you go into Giant or Home Depot and you notice that half of the checkout lanes have been replaced with self-serve stations, you will see what a $15 minimum wage looks like in action.

Next time you walk into McDonalds or Starbucks and place your order on an ipad, you will see what a $15 minimum wage looks like in action.

Are people really this stupid?

Yes. They are.

They see absolutely zero correlation between cost or employment and prices, or automation and job losses. They see the entire world through the filter of feelings and pity. The people who are the proponents of this are killing the jobs of the people they see themselves as the benefactors and protectors of. So yes, they are that stupid.

Not a business owner in the bunch, that's for sure.

Plus, something else they don't get is the snowball effect. People who are currently making $15 will want a raise, too, since they have more skills or experience than the entry-level $15 worker. So they get a raise to $20. Then the people making $20 need a raise, and so in and so on. Increasing the minimum to $15 could have the effect of increasing compensation costs by 30% across the board! and businesses will either automate - or close their doors. Either way, unemployment will jump bigtime.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Idiots.

Next time you go into Giant or Home Depot and you notice that half of the checkout lanes have been replaced with self-serve stations, you will see what a $15 minimum wage looks like in action.

Next time you walk into McDonalds or Starbucks and place your order on an ipad, you will see what a $15 minimum wage looks like in action.

Are people really this stupid?

Yes. They are.

They see absolutely zero correlation between cost or employment and prices, or automation and job losses. They see the entire world through the filter of feelings and pity. The people who are the proponents of this are killing the jobs of the people they see themselves as the benefactors and protectors of. So yes, they are that stupid.

Can you tell me your proposed alternative solution, then? Because any solution to the issue of people trying to live on minimum-wage jobs - and there are many of them, not just teenagers - will cost money, whether in direct salary costs or less tangible costs. Telling them they simply "should have gone to college" is useless.

Unless you feel they should simply suffer for being born poor, which is the underlying mood of all these threads.

I can't force you to understand this, if you lack the capacity to. But it suffices to say that no one ever intended a minimum wage job to be what someone "lives" on. It's a minimum. A wage for someone just starting, with absolutely zero skill or prior experience. It's what someone starting the most basic job conceivable make on their very first day, with no experience. That's what minimum wage is.

I completely grasp this (basic) concept.

Can you in turn grasp the fact that these jobs are increasingly often held by adults who are trying to support themselves, and possibly children, on insufficient wages, and that that leads to significant costs to society beyond the employer's (or, more likely, stockholders') pocketbook?

That is the problem that an increased minimum wage is attempting to solve. Are there other possible solutions? No doubt. But retraining, schooling, etc., all cost money. Where does that money come from?

It seems that most people who scorn increased minimum wages also scorn any government support that would enable poor people to train for better skills. Instead it's a constant stream of "Well, the poor shouldn't have children. The poor shouldn't buy cars, even in rural areas where there is no public transport. The poor are lazy. The poor are bad." (The poor are going to have children, unless you're proposing whole-scale eugenics.)

I'd like to hear an alternative solution.

NP. I fully support spending more money on educating adults to get better jobs -- I think they should be fluent in English (reading, writing, and speaking), financially literate, know a trade or vacation, have marketable skills). Then adults might be better able to make good choices (wait to have kids, etc), hold decent jobs, get themselves out of poverty. But making business owners shoulder the burden of these society issues seems unfair to me. Especially because it sin't just the $15 -- it all goes up from there. You have to pay good workers more than the minimum wage, and you have to pay the longer-tenured people more, and then yes, even the jerks want more money because the entry level, no-skill workers are getting more. Where does it end?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Idiots.

Next time you go into Giant or Home Depot and you notice that half of the checkout lanes have been replaced with self-serve stations, you will see what a $15 minimum wage looks like in action.

Next time you walk into McDonalds or Starbucks and place your order on an ipad, you will see what a $15 minimum wage looks like in action.

Are people really this stupid?

Yes. They are.

They see absolutely zero correlation between cost or employment and prices, or automation and job losses. They see the entire world through the filter of feelings and pity. The people who are the proponents of this are killing the jobs of the people they see themselves as the benefactors and protectors of. So yes, they are that stupid.

+1000

NP.

Basic economics, people. None of you high minimum wage promoters have ever taken an economics class, I wager. Money doesn't fall from the sky just because Uncle Sam mandates it.

When you artificially raise prices, you'll going to create inefficiencies in the market where people who want the service but can't afford the higher price will not be able to get their service, and the producers who would have otherwise had a job providing that service instead have no job.

Same thing goes for wages - if the gvt artificially raises the cost of hiring the employee, but the employer cannot afford that higher price, you're going to have people who would have been willing to work for less, without that job, and an employer who would have otherwise had additional help, without that employee.

You know what you do have? MORE PEOPLE ON WELFARE!

Hooray!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Idiots.

Next time you go into Giant or Home Depot and you notice that half of the checkout lanes have been replaced with self-serve stations, you will see what a $15 minimum wage looks like in action.

Next time you walk into McDonalds or Starbucks and place your order on an ipad, you will see what a $15 minimum wage looks like in action.

Are people really this stupid?

Yes. They are.

They see absolutely zero correlation between cost or employment and prices, or automation and job losses. They see the entire world through the filter of feelings and pity. The people who are the proponents of this are killing the jobs of the people they see themselves as the benefactors and protectors of. So yes, they are that stupid.

Can you tell me your proposed alternative solution, then? Because any solution to the issue of people trying to live on minimum-wage jobs - and there are many of them, not just teenagers - will cost money, whether in direct salary costs or less tangible costs. Telling them they simply "should have gone to college" is useless.

Unless you feel they should simply suffer for being born poor, which is the underlying mood of all these threads.

I have the solution -- raise the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). It's already in place in MD, so just raise it for MoCo residents.

It looks at household size and total household earnings, so it goes to those who actually are trying to live on such jobs, not to teenagers earning pocket money.