All sides of the minimum wage argument seem to raise nothing but controversy.What are the facts?
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This handy info-graphic outlines the arguments in the case for minimum wage. Load yourself up with some hard facts before your next discussion about minimum wage.
People who earn minimum wage know what it is like to try and survive on their earnings. Yet, for those who don’t have these financial restrictions, the minimum wage raise might seem counter-productive. Could I be so bold as to recommend we all try to align our budgets to the minimum wage for a month or two (including tax deductions) and see if that wage is liveable?
Photo: mSeattle/Flickr
Was Lillith a drive by? I haven’t seen her respond.
CW, we’ve seen it happening at a lot of stores where you have self checkout lines. Even Home Depot ….
Exactly. If they’d do it for 7.75 an hour jobs think how fast they’ll speed up the implementation of the self serve life for 15.00 an hour. Would you honestly pay someone 15.00 an hour for their first job with no skills right off the bat. Tells me that liberals as a group don’t own or run businesses. I think they should pay the kid down the street 15.00 an hour to start his first grass cutting job. See how well that works for them. But they’re really good at convincing othets that’s what they should do yo be humane.
Walk into a panera bread- see those kiosks for ordering? Each one replaces an hourly worker. Now double the labor cost for everyone else. Think you’ll still have hourly workers manning the registers in McDonalds? Gonna social justice themselves right out of a job…
In all of these govt initiatives there are always unintended consequences. What do you think will happen to the minority youth unemployment rate? And then with no place for their time the crime rate goes up. Not only of course minority kids but all kids because they’re kids. Is the increase really going to better more folks sufficiently enough? Probably not. Might not businesses implement more robotics in response? Likely. But it does sound nice but let seattle see how this works for awhile and then relook at the situation as to whether it works or not.
“There are plenty of people who are honest, hard-working people who in this economy will have no opportunity to move up.” This I will agree with. Job training is needed, completion of HS is vital. GED’s work for some but not as well as a HS diploma. A lot of youth are lost, no direction, no hope … a lot of helplessness and hopelessness. I’m good with increasing wages for those who “need it” opposed to across the board for everyone.
To add to that, if you had a marginal understanding of economics (oh, and it’s also in the slide presentation) you would understand that a minimum wage so far below poverty lines has a direct impact on the ability to create more jobs. So your dithering about it being the unemployment rate (THAT statistic you refute yourself) is backwards.
Lilith, I see that you have to go to “insults” to make your point? I’d love to see minimum wage go to $12.hr. That means the company I work for will have to give raises to ALL of it’s staff. Not only the ones below $12. but the ones who are at $12 and above who should be, based on their tenure and positions, making more then those under $12.
Oh what a slippery slope.
She knows nothing about YOU? But you imply you know about people earning minimum wage because of some skewed statistics on a government web site? She’s right. It doesn’t take statistics all it takes is a calculator. There are plenty of people who are honest, hard-working people who in this economy will have no opportunity to move up. And your numbers are so far off the mark from even my family, where both wage earners earn more than minimum wage, as to make your attempts at an intelligent refute of the minimum wage issue laughable. And your dismissal of Candy’s… Read more »
So in your view, if I were to pull stats that relate to female on make violence, I guess those are skewed as well? Or is it a situation you choose what you want so that it fits your argument? I know quite a bit about poverty lines, I work with under privileged youth virtually every day of the week and have done so for more then 13 years. Do you? Does she? How many years have either of you worked at homeless shelters and I’m not talking about occasional holidays? Have you ever manned a food pantry?So again,don’t presume… Read more »
Candy. Note the $53k didn’t say only minwage jobs in the house. As to “deserve”, keep in mind the question of where the money is to come from. Your Big Mac will cost more, for example. And once the labor cost rises beyond a certain point, the job disappears. Either the shopkeeper decides to hire a cleaning firm instead of your nephew–the firm has lots of equipment and works really fast–or he sweeps himself. Recently been reported that a hamburger making machine can crank out 480 burgers an hour including any combination of goodies like cheese, lettuce and condiments. Even… Read more »
Do Most Minimum Wage Earners Live in Poverty? No. The average family income of a minimum wage earner is $53,000 per year. In 94 percent of families with an adult who works a job that pays at or below the minimum wage, the spouse works as well, making a two-income household. In 8 out of 10 of the families with children present, the minimum wage accounts for less than 20 percent of the household’s total income. Two-thirds of adults living below the poverty line do not work. The problem is the lack of jobs, it’s that simple. And don’t talk… Read more »
That’s bull crap, you don’t know what it is to live in poverty and work. Those who earn minimum wage don’t make anywhere near 53000 a year, where did you come up with that number? Two people who take what jobs they can get even if it’s just minimum wage don’t gross more than 23000 a year. Just because you believe something doesn’t NOT make it true! Until you live it you have no right to tell people they make enough because one person might have a better job! Those two thirds in poverty you are talking about probably have… Read more »
These are not my stats, they are the governments and you know NOTHING about me, so don’t make assumptions. Cindy, READ what was written and not what you want to read into it. As I said, the problem is the lack of jobs, not minimum wage. Minimum wage jobs were not intended to support families unless the plan was to move up in the company. My daughter started working as a kennel cleaner at a veterinary hospital also boarded and cats. She worked there throughout HS but left 5 years ago when she had her son. She busted her ass,… Read more »
“No. The average family income of a minimum wage earner is $53,000 per year.”
I don’t see how that number can be right.
At $9 an hour, working 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 4 weeks a month, 12 months a year nets you 17,280.
If two of you are working that is 34,560
Most likely what is going on with that number is poor people need roommates just to afford housing and the three people living together are being lumped in as one.
No. It’s entirely correct. The vast majority of minimum wage workers have family household wages that exceed the minimum wage. This is simple math. My friend is a lawyer- he pulls down approx $150M a year. His wife is a preschool teachers asst who makes $8 per hr. Not that hard to understand.
Most min wage workers are part of a household with another worker who makes far more than min wage. This isn’t injustice. Tom is citing facts unfortunately they don’t align with what “feels” good so we have to try to explain them away. This is pretty simple math
ahaha most people have sugerdaddys in other-words?.
Sounds like the important point still stands. You can’t live off of min wage.
No. The point is that the vast majority of min wage earners are in households with higher income earners. My wife doesn’t work- if you called me her sugar daddy she,d slap the taste out of your mouth