Economy Rashida Tlaib: The federal minimum wage 'should be $20 an hour'

[spamking]

Probably should have thought of that before Bush and Reagan designed NAFTA with the chamber of commerce, and changed this country from a manufacturing economy to a service economy.

Dumbest thing in the world to argue the largest employment sector in your economy should pay shit, because that is the job teenagers had in the 1970's.

What's even dumber is expecting a job teenagers held in the 80s (thank you very much, I'm not THAT old) to support a family in 2019.

 

[Rational Poster]

What's even dumber is expecting a job teenagers held in the 80s (thank you very much, I'm not THAT old) to support a family in 2019.

You could support a family of three on minimum wage for the majority of modern history. That's what made America great in the first place.

What's dumb is expecting entry level workers to be happy about working for next to nothing.

 

[Higus]

Is this the reason? I thought this was about reducing poverty?

That's part of the problem with using the minimum wage as an economic tool. It can't really be used to target properly.

I'm responding to someone criticizing that burger flipping does not deserve a decent wage.

As far as reducing poverty, I'd rather see a strong culture of collective bargaining across all industries and a better social programs, but MW seems like an easier bridge to cross in the current political environment.

 

[VivaRevolution]

What's even dumber is expecting a job teenagers held in the 80s (thank you very much, I'm not THAT old) to support a family in 2019.

Why would that be dumb when it is the largest employment sector in our economy?

I would think you would want where the most jobs are, to pay better than what you think teenagers shod make.

 

[panamaican]

Do you know many 15 year olds with the ability to think past Tuesday at 8pm on Tuesday at 9am?

I edited my prior post.

How many 15 year olds are working 20+ hours per week? Very few because most states make it illegal for kids under 16 to work more than 18 hours on a school week. And if the minimum wage pays more, there will be fewer jobs available for 16 year olds in the 1st place.

For a moment, take the relative wage conversation out of it. Stop thinking about some 16 year old making as much as you or some other adult. That's not an argument based on if the wage is fair, it's an argument about maintaining a class position, "I deserve more money than them therefore pay everyone less money so I can maintain my economic advantage, even if it means that I earn less overall as well."

Why make less money just so that you can maintain a gap in pay? Wouldn't you rather make more money, even if other people make more money too? And again, this isn't a defense of the minimum wage.

 

[panamaican]

I'm responding to someone criticizing that burger flipping does not deserve a decent wage.

As far as reducing poverty, I'd rather see a strong culture of collective bargaining across all industries and a better social programs, but MW seems like an easier bridge to cross in the current political environment.

It is collective bargaining, conducted by the government since they've basically neutered the unions.

 

[Gregolian]

I'm responding to someone criticizing that burger flipping does not deserve a decent wage.

As far as reducing poverty, I'd rather see a strong culture of collective bargaining across all industries and a better social programs, but MW seems like an easier bridge to cross in the current political environment.

I don't mind burger flippers making a decent wage, the like $6 an hour minimum wage in the south is a fucking joke as an example, but I also don't think they should make as much as what I do given what I have to fucking deal with. MOSTLY because even though I work in the public sector I DO NOT TRUST my wage increase to match a large one for minimum wage. My last public service job I got hired LOWER than the advertised wage because "you don't have the experience" and my fucking union and HR department wouldn't fight for me to get it bumped to the advertised amount after 6 months of proving I could do the job. I didn't even want an increase over the advertised I just wanted what was on the ad.

I edited my prior post.

How many 15 year olds are working 20+ hours per week? Very few because most states make it illegal for kids under 16 to work more than 18 hours on a school week. And if the minimum wage pays more, there will be fewer jobs available for 16 year olds in the 1st place.

For a moment, take the relative wage conversation out of it. Stop thinking about some 16 year old making as much as you or some other adult. That's not an argument based on if the wage is fair, it's an argument about maintaining a class position, "I deserve more money than them therefore pay everyone less money so I can maintain my economic advantage, even if it means that I earn less overall as well."

Why make less money just so that you can maintain a gap in pay? Wouldn't you rather make more money, even if other people make more money too? And again, this isn't a defense of the minimum wage.

It's in the above reply but part of it is my admittedly own mistrust of government and those that set these things to do what they are supposed to do cause I got fucked over once before.

 

[VivaRevolution]

Btw, I love how this all works.

Good job progressives, the debate has officially been shifted from whether we should raise the minimum wage, to how far we should raise.

That's some 5-D chess, chamber of commerce sock puppets.

 

[spamking]

I make more than Gregolian and I'm more educated than he is and I probably went to better schools.

That's usually how things go depending on the field a person chooses . . . unless you're a person who avoided college and went the trades route.

I wish you the best too, @spamking . I don't know what you do or what your qualifications are, but I hope you stack so much paper that your kids can do what they love and never have to work the shitty jobs you did.

Thanks, but here's the thing . . . I don't want my girls to struggle with finances or be forced to take a dead-end job either. But I don't want them to have everything handed to them. I don't want them to just expect life to be easy. I want them to appreciate everything they've been given, earned or paid for throughout their lives.

I wish this for everyone, especially my countrymen.

If you think your countrymen should suffer, I'm not sure what to tell you.

None of us want people to suffer. This is a pretty disingenuous take on what we're saying.

We want people to make better choices. We want people to become better . . . well, people. We want them to be happy.

$20/hour minimum wage is a quick fix that likely can't last. "We" need to look long-term and make college more affordable. Push people into trades that can earn them a good living. Not reward them for not improving themselves.

 

[OverCoronavirus Pressure]

I'm all for raising minimum wage -to sensible degrees at sensible times wrt inflation and such- but that's an absurd statement to make.

Talk about pie in the sky...

 

[Higus]

It is collective bargaining, conducted by the government since they've basically neutered the unions.

That's an interesting way to look at it.

 

[Leagon]

That's usually how things go depending on the field a person chooses . . . unless you're a person who avoided college and went the trades route.

Thanks, but here's the thing . . . I don't want my girls to struggle with finances or be forced to take a dead-end job either. But I don't want them to have everything handed to them. I don't want them to just expect life to be easy. I want them to appreciate everything they've been given, earned or paid for throughout their lives.



None of us want people to suffer. This is a pretty disingenuous take on what we're saying.

We want people to make better choices. We want people to become better . . . well, people. We want them to be happy.

$20/hour minimum wage is a quick fix that likely can't last. "We" need to look long-term and make college more affordable. Push people into trades that can earn them a good living. Not reward them for not improving themselves.

If $20 an hour is all it takes for anyone to not work hard and feel like they've had "everything handed to them" then that person is lazy and useless and wouldn't work hard no matter how much you gave them.

I'm assuming you're a good father. With all the values you're instilling in your daughters, you're telling me all it would take is $20 an hour for them to become lazy and soft?

 

[VivaRevolution]

I'm all for raising minimum wage -to sensible degrees at sensible times wrt inflation and such- but that's an absurd statement to make.

Talk about pie in the sky...

So what if I said it should be 30$ an hour by 2030, done in yearly incremental steps.

Sound crazy then?

 

[newerest]

Just being rich doesn't give you brains to pass the MCAT/survive med school or the talent/steady hands to be a brain surgeon. Politics or maybe the legal field you'd have an argument.

A person that has NO expenses, no rent to pay, MAYBE car insurance at most, with $800 every 2 weeks.... That seems like everything to me.

My high school job I almost begged to be hired to work berry fields. So this idea that just because I grew up in the west I got everything handed to me is fucking insulting. My first job was cleaning up a veterinarian clinic for $5 an hour and I saved every FUCKING penny of that part time job and paid off a year of school books and dorm costs with it.

I don't see why you are engaging with that guy. They are constantly throwing out petty insults and mis characterizations in nearly every thread I see them post in. I stopped responding to him completely. Not worth talking to people who argue in bad faith.

 

[Scerpi]

Of course Democrats advocate stupid levels of Min Wage...

It's a fantastic way to boost the demand for illegals to get paid under the table. And you're fucking retarded if you don't think it happens and will get worse if these policies are implemented. The farming and construction industry was turned upside due to these policies in the mid-late 1900's.

Also, enjoy being your own cashier in the near future.... Genius

Young kids looking for jobs will be the first victims of this... they'll get pushed out. It's so fucking short sighted in an attempt to buy votes. Roll on idiots.

 

[fishNjits]

I'm responding to someone criticizing that burger flipping does not deserve a decent wage.

Unintended consequence: the sudden increase in black market burger flippers....[/Partly tongue-in-cheek; partly not].

The difference between actual pay and what it would take to bring labor into the market is called economic rent. Production theory holds that in a perfectly competitive market, that economic rents are unsustainable.

 

[AnthonyCasso]

So... someone working at McDonalds should make $1.15 an hour less than I make now where to get the job I had to have a degree and certification?

They want more wage cucks

 

[OverCoronavirus Pressure]

So what if I said it should be 30$ an hour by 2030, done in yearly incremental steps.

Sound crazy then?

Yes.
There's no way to predict tese tings.

And there's a huge mental disconnect; as others have noted, it removes incentive to rise above your station in life, and it's just bad for people in the hood who need to leave it.
If your best option is working at McDonald's because going to school and earning a degree is too difficult (despite the many people who do so with the same hurdles) ...

 

[Not A Theist]

I'm not opposed to the idea of a minimum wage. In fact, I kind of like it. I don't like the idea of the minimum wage in hick town Missouri being the same as in downtown New York. Economies aren't the same everywhere and even if a minimum wage makes sense, a uniform one across a huge country like the U.S. might not. I don't get why the discussion of minimum wage is always federal, and never tailored to the locality that is being addressed.

 

[nostradumbass]

God knows if federal minimum wage for the sake of making the math easy is $10 an hour and it gets up jumped to $20 and hour I'm not getting a 44k a year fucking increase. So my job which requires a fucking suit and tie would make as much as the 15 year old in school why should I keep fucking doing what I'm doing dealing with 12 year old that were rape victims molesting their 4 year old cousin?

They really don't think beyond the first step. They just know someone's rich and someone's not. The walmart CEO made $23 million last year and they have 2.3 million employees. You could make the CEO a literal slave and just spread his earnings among the 2.3 million employees, and quick math, you just gave everyone $10/year. Fucking right you'd have to give everyone else a massive raise too. Someone with a degree who's been with the company for 20 years is probably not going to be ok making the same as the middle school dropout mopping the floors.

The people arguing for this are bums who will never start a business and are resigned to just being employees and pretend it wouldn't hike the shit out of prices for everything and give the biggest corporations an even bigger advantage by running all the competition out.

 

[spamking]

You could support a family of three on minimum wage for the majority of modern history. That's what made America great in the first place.

This is barely possible when folks are smart with their money and live within their means. My wife and I both worked our way through college and got married during our junior year. That's the only way we were able to support ourselves making minimum and in my case about double minimum wage at the time.

What's dumb is expecting entry level workers to be happy about working for next to nothing.

We all have to start somewhere dude. I'm no longer working for "next to nothing" because I made the appropriate choices to get into a position to make more.

I started out making maybe $36k/year when I got a job out of college. My wife also made about that much her first several years teaching. I stuck with it and now make significantly more than that 24+ years later.