Reply to Minimum Wage = Living Wage?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
Societal obligations are not met by compelling businesses to pay at a level that enables those obligations to be satisfied.[/quote]

Of course they are. [b]We do this all the time. Including about pay.[/b]

Now, is that the best way to do things? Not necessarily. For example, I think that tying health insurance to employment is ridiculous. But the fact is, we do do it that way.[/quote]

Not the PP but clearly we don't do it all the time which is why there is this discussion about whether the minimum wage should equate to a living wage.[/quote]

It is absurd to say that there is no problem with a minimum wage, whose purpose is to create a minimum standard of living to protect the health and well-being of employees (look up the Fair Labor Standards Act), but there is a problem with a living wage -- which would create a minimum standard of living to protect the health and well-being of employees. The minimum wage is supposed to be a living wage. If Congress were raising the minimum wage to keep up with inflation, as Congress had done in the past, or if the minimum wage were simply indexed to inflation, the minimum wage would be a living wage.

Or, as the PP said, "Pay people so they can fucking eat."[/quote]

I disagree that the miminum wage is or was intended to be a living wage, in no small part because if you START employees performing low (or no) skill work at $15/hour, where do you go from there?  How much do you have to pay the mediocre sandwich wrapper/receptionist/whatever who has managed to keep a job by the skin of his teeth for 15 years?  And, as others have said, what would you require employers to do about low skill workers with big expenses (lots of kids, etc) or who want a "good" living?  What is the incentive to improve and get into other, better jobs if we set every requirement for how employers manage their businesses?  And I can't even imagine how many posters advocating for a living wage would feel about paid maternity leave, paid sick leave, paid nursing breaks, etc.  Where does it end?[/quote]

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