DarkBlack
Elite Member
You have a big enough hurdle just trying to justify windmills in this thread. Maybe you could leave your opinion of overpaying entry level jobs, for another thread.
Wind Turbine ********. Just opened the mail and seen the plan for three massive units
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You have a big enough hurdle just trying to justify windmills in this thread. Maybe you could leave your opinion of overpaying entry level jobs, for another thread.
aczlan
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Please explain the distinction and how it should be defined. IMO, a "living wage" will greatly depend on the person and their circumstances and I do not support the government forcing a business owner to give someone a raise just because they have more kids than someone else.
A living wage for my sister (who can pinch a penny till it screams and is one of the most frugal people I know. She got a double major major bachelors degree and a masters degree with straight As and no debt) is going to be a lot different than a living wage for my brother (who makes decent money and spends it almost as fast as he makes it).
A living wage for a single mom with 3 kids in their own house will be different than a living wage for a college student sharing an apartment with 3 roommates.
Aaron Z
k0ua
Epic Contributor
Exactly, I have never bought in to this "living wage" BS.. more liberal foaming at the mouth if you ask me. The term itself is just designed to cement a political position into the vernacular of the populace. I reject your "living wage" term.
dave1949
Super Star Member
Another vacuum dweller speaks. Are you so freak'n stupid you don't realize the mental capacity of some folks will never rise above entry level or that opportunities at all levels of ability are being limited by outsourcing and automation?
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/01/n...asingly-entering-fast-food-industry.html?_r=0
The classic image of the high-school student flipping Big Macs after class is sorely out of date. Because of lingering unemployment and a relative abundance of fast-food jobs, older workers are increasingly entering the industry. These days, according to the National Employment Law Project, the average age of fast-food workers is 29. Forty percent are 25 or older; 31 percent have at least attempted college; more than 26 percent are parents raising children. Union organizers say that one-third to one-half of them have more than one job — like Mr. Shoy, who is 58 and supports a wife and children.
Back to wind power. There is a reason that wind and solar are being developed as low carbon energy sources even though they are not able to be easily or seamlessly integrated with older energy technologies on the grid. That reason has been explained to the vacuum dwellers many times, doing it again will not make any difference.
dave1949
Super Star Member
A minimum wage is arbitrary floor, and as has been pointed out, it bears no resemblance to an actual consistent buying power.
A living wage is one that would enable the average family of ~3.5 people to live without welfare support in their cost of living area. It is an idea conservatives should love; take away the welfare, reduce government involvement in poverty, and pay a living wage. Obviously some people will handle that better than others, the same way some people handle a $100K salary better than others.
dave1949
Super Star Member
It's simple math James. When what person earns fails to meet what it costs to live there are three possibilities:
1) the difference is made up in tax funded welfare
2) homeless people and their children beg, live, and die on the streets as in India or some other poor place
3) what we do now--some middle ground between (1) and (2) is attempted with varying degrees of success
houstonscott
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MinnesotaEric
Super Member
1. The salary you command is based on how valuable others find your skill. If you have a low salary, it's because your skills are not valuable or because many other people share those same skills.
2. You choose which skills to learn; you are responsible for determining how valuable your hours are and what salary you will command.
3. If you are poor, it is because the value you offer to others is less than the value you take away from others.
4. This may be because you have nothing valuable to offer, or because physical disabilities keep you from offering it, or because age limitations keep you from offering it, or because you choose not to offer it.
5. If you have nothing valuable to offer, or if you choose not to offer it, then you are poor through your own choice.
6. In a world where everyone is responsible for themselves only, there is no moral infirmity in being poor. But in a world where those who are productive are taxed to pay for those who have nothing valuable to offer, or who choose not to offer it, then the poor who take advantage of such benefits are not contributing.
7. The poor in America are comparatively rich when compared to the poor elsewhere.
8. You are responsible for yourself and your family and no one else. And no one else is responsible for you.
9. Claims to tax the rich are generally based on envy and laziness, and a failure to recognize one's own poor choices in life.
Give to the orphans, the widows, the disabled, and the handicapped, and keep them warm and safe.
aczlan
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Or 4 (what I did when my job didn't pay enough to make ends meet), change jobs, and/or get another job so I could earn enough to make ends meet.
You can get a job making more than $8/hour ($8.70 a couple of years back when minimum wage in NY was $8) working for a temp agency stocking shelves at Walmart.
Aaron Z
dave1949
Super Star Member
That still doesn't answer the question of do you earn enough to live on without subsidies? If a living wage is $X and you can only earn $.75X that still leaves a gap.
It isn't just a question for the low wage worker. If the only way a McD's or a Walmart can stay in business is if we subsidize their labor costs (which seems to be their claim), then we are eating subsidized food and buying subsidized goods while resenting the tax burden required to support that scheme. Maybe we simply cannot afford to subsidize all the meals eaten at McD's or the next piece of plastic crap hauled home from Walmart?
It is hard to quantify but I think there are several factors at work in income mobility:
1) The qualification bar is constantly being raised as more specific and specialized skills are needed. In contrast, people are not generally smarter than they used to be.
2) Skill sets age out more quickly than they used to due to the rapidity of technological change. Skill upgrading can be expensive, the more often one needs to do it, the less income they net from work.
3) Companies are trapped by the speed of change also and will look for a person who has existing skills, even if that means H2B workers, rather than hire a bright person and develop them in-house.
4) Globalization means competing with more people with the same skills, many of whom require far less to live on than in the US.
5) Automation and IT is replacing many low and moderate skill level jobs.
The net effect of all that is simply that more people are worth less than they used to be as economic entities. In the next 50-60 years there will be another 80-100 million of those people living in the US. It might be time to step back and re-examine how we value people at work because the traditional viewpoints are fast becoming overtaken by events.
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