| Why do people try and live off of minimum wage?
Posted: 4/25/2005 1:41:19 PM | Firefighters protect and serve as well. Claiming anything contrary is simply ignorance. Firefighters are PAID (volunteers excluded) to help the public.
Period... | |
|
| Why do people try and live off of minimum wage?
Posted: 4/25/2005 2:03:21 PM | YOUR ignorant and not educated
there are more than 200,000 mulit millionaires in the us
and they pay less taxes then the man that works three jobs
as far as having children
I worked and made good money
and the witch walked out on us
then i had to be a full time dad and father to four
I would love for you to talk to my three daughters and debate them
YOU would lose
and I cant believe how selfish and self centred you are
I hope for you sake YOU never suffer anything in your life
thats worse than a hang nail | |
|
| |
| Why do people try and live off of minimum wage?
Posted: 7/8/2008 12:53:49 PM | In most cases, people live off minimum wage because they HAVE to.
In my home province, just two generations ago people were still living off the land for the most part. My grandparents raised animals for food, picked berries, caught and sold seafood etc. My grandfather worked a job that took him away from home 9 months out of the year and didn't pay enough to take care of the 15 people at home. Then along came the fishing industry boom and my parents' generation got good paying jobs straight out of high school that were more than enough to cover everything we needed and more.
Then in the 1990's everything went sour. Our biggest "employer" (the fishing industry) closed with no warning and 30,000 people lost their jobs in a single day, and more were lost as other industries could not survive in that economic climate. In my hometown, all the young people moved away, there was a population drop of over 50% and the local businesses had to move to larger centers to survive. Government "retraining" programs gave us new graduates every year that ended up moving to other places with more opportunity. Job creation grants and tax breaks brought in companies from other places... their higher paying positions were filled from their ranks and they brought in thousands of minimum wage or slightly higher jobs that are being fought over by those desperately seeking work.
For people who cannot move, there is very little opportunity for that higher-paying job we all wish we could have. For them, minimum wage is better than no pay at all and they gladly work their asses off for it. I know of men here (who made middle-class incomes and raised their families on it) then were considered "too old" for the retraining programs and jumped at the chance to be a wal-mart greeter because they couldn't stand having to depend on welfare.
So no, not everyone has opportunity to better themselves, and you should be a little less condescending to those minimum wage earners. They make the economy run a little more smoothly than you're giving them credit for... after all, how can a business make money if there aren't "peons" to do all the hard work so that someone else can reap the benefits? | |
|
| Why do people try and live off of minimum wage?
Posted: 7/8/2008 1:18:56 PM | Well said BrandiW, ""So no, not everyone has opportunity to better themselves, and you should be a little less condescending to those minimum wage earners. They make the economy run a little more smoothly than you're giving them credit for... after all, how can a business make money if there aren't "peons" to do all the hard work so that someone else can reap the benefits?""
I was one of those such people, no opportunity at that critical time in life ( age 17 to 30 ) due to a longterm, chronic fatigue illness, and other issues, that was my full time job, I've since beaten it, however with hard work and guts, I work what I can, I make little, but at least I'm debt free, have a stable place to live, and have food, anyone who condescends anyone for living like this is truly shallow, also if gov and businesses weren't so damn cheap, and exploit min wage workers like me, we'd be a lot better off as a society,don't tell me that Walmart etc cant afford to pay better....
as a footnote, I seem to be stymied for love of a girl cause of low income, I thought POF would have tons of poorer women on it being free and all, but I cant find them , if you don't make equal or more money than someone on here, you don't have a chance with them, they value money more than the person, trust me, I've written over 165 of them lol) and yes I can support myself, I don't want someones money ,I want companionship and love and to be accepted for what I am, a decent honest person
Sincerely Tony!!! and girls, don't be so damn picky on money lol it isn't everything | |
|
| |
| Why do people try and live off of minimum wage?
Posted: 3/28/2009 12:41:27 PM | lyrical - excellent points about older people in the workforce. i was relating specifically to entry level positions where young people are getting their start or developing work experience on their resume and how that related to minimum wage jobs.
i think it's shameful that we don't value those of our citizens who have contributed a lifetime of work to society. the fact that so many seniors have to live on what they're given at food banks or worse is deplorable.
however, i have to disagree that increasing the minimum wage for many jobs currently paying said wage is not going have to a negative impact on the economy. it will if it's done across the board.
States like California and Orgeon have raised there minimum wage and had little to no negative effects.If you can not pay your employees a decent wage you need to have less employees or just not be in busines. With so many jobs being cut more and more people are having to get minimum wage jobs many who have college degrees. | |
|
| Why do people try and live off of minimum wage?
Posted: 3/28/2009 8:12:47 PM |
I was in a restaurant today talking to a close friend of mine. We often do not see eye-to-eye. But we are very civil to one another. We do not let our views get in our way. I was getting a to go order when he invited me to sit with him.
We were talking about minimum wage. I expressed to him that it should not be considered a living wage. I believe it should be considered a starting wage to learn and no more. I explained that it is a great wage for kids in high school still being supported by their parents. It would also be a very good vehicle for employers to have more entry level employees considering their line of business.
1. The way the government system is set up, it is all capitalistic and materialistic and on top of that, we are pushing all these commercials of "BMWS" and Ferraris" and "Flat screen 72 inch etc. This encourages all the young kids to try to earn from a young age while at school and to get the money, most drop schools and end up un-educated, so what would they have to do? Work more minimum wage job in order to pay the rent of the new apartment he has rented so that he could party every night and smoke weed, get buddies over and have drinks etc.
2. How do you expect someone who has got no prior education to jump up and get a position where it pays him salary and not minimum wage? This is how the society goes now a days, just like I described it above.
3. Most kids leave their parents at a young age as long as they could rent a place or hook with some roomates. They do the minimum wage job without getting any further education and will continue to do so in the future. | |
|
| Why do people try and live off of minimum wage?
Posted: 3/30/2009 5:29:51 AM | I really don't know where to start. So much to comment on. But I'll try and keep things short, so I'll pick one:
If they can force me to pay more for these people who are leeches on the system they can force them to get involved. They should be accountable for the children they bring in to the world. If I have to take monies out of my wallet and am told that I am not paying enough to these poor needy people who do not appreciate it. These are their same people who do not appreciate their own children. They do this by having child after child so we can support them, because they can't. If poor people, who have to work long hours, have to spend time teaching their children and getting involved, then it's only fair that rich parents put in at least that time teaching their kids and getting involved. If they want to pay a private tutor, they can pay the tutor to teach them, and they can teach their kids. If they want to go out to a gala, then let the babysitter go. They need to stay home and look after their kids. If poor people need to be accountable, then rich people must be EQUALLY accountable, and so you cannot really let them get off with a fine, when they are super-rich, and they can afford it. Don't look after your kids? 3 months in jail, no lawyers, no appeals to the judge, no excuses, whether you are rich or poor, powerful or not. You want to see what will happen? When poor people working 2 jobs see that millionaires go to jail for not looking after their kids, they know that they always get treated worse than rich people, and will expect worse to happen to them if they don't do the same, so they WILL look after their kids. | |
|
| Why do people try and live off of minimum wage?
Posted: 3/30/2009 10:32:53 AM |
If poor people need to be accountable, then rich people must be EQUALLY accountable,
More..
How about coin laundry in the hotels.... wash your sheets and make your bed before you check out... Brush the T-Bowl before check out.........
Starting pay for most EMT's in the south is min wage.... | |
|
| Why do people try and live off of minimum wage?
Posted: 3/30/2009 10:33:27 AM |
If poor people need to be accountable, then rich people must be EQUALLY accountable,
More..
How about coin laundry in the hotels.... wash your sheets and make your bed before you check out... Brush the T-Bowl before check out.........
Starting pay for most EMT's in the south is min wage.... | |
|
| Why do people try and live off of minimum wage?
Posted: 3/30/2009 2:53:36 PM |
While the middle class owns less then 40% of the resources, yet pay 80% of the taxes, How is this fair?
Were did you find this "fact", Mad magazine??
ry doing some research,rather than being a parrot. | |
|
| Why do people try and live off of minimum wage?
Posted: 6/9/2009 11:34:33 PM | Why do people try and live off of minimum wage?
Posted: 4/17/2005 12 19 PM
I tried to make the analogy simple so I wouldn't lose anyone, seems that effort failed. That is why I didn't make any claims as to how much revenue or profit the business took in. This was just simple economics and the chain reaction a minimum wage hike causes.
Be that as it may, a business owner has a right to make more than their employees. After all they started the business, worked all the hard, long hours before there were any employees, made all the sacrifices and took all the risks.
That is true but they do not have a right to pay slave wages and put there employees in poverty this is just immoral. | |
|
| |
| Why do people try and live off of minimum wage?
Posted: 6/22/2009 8:23:19 AM | That is exactly the point.
Everyone has the opportunity to create a better life for themselves. It is the defeatists that say 'well we have to have a certain number of floor sweepers' when they really mean 'I might as well not try anymore, we need floor sweepers'.
I was white and poor, I chose not to stay that way and I worked hard. Guess what happened? I'm still white but I'm not poor...
It is funny how you avoided answering the question asked here. Yet it no suprise that you avoid logic | |
|
| Why do people try and live off of minimum wage?
Posted: 6/25/2009 7:54:18 AM | There is no logic in asking what you did. You asked why people would try to live on minimum wage. Most people dont try to live on it they have no choice but, to in many cases. This has nothing to do with making choices. If you live in an area and all that there is to get is minimum wage and this happens often. Then guess what?
You are doing what a lot people love to do. Scapegoating the poor. Making all of the issues that effect them their own fault. You are framing the debate to make the lower class seem like good for nothings, and "lay abouts." It is sad.
The question should be why are companies allowed to pay an unlivable wage at all? A good many of these people you speak of work more than one minimum wage job just to be able to scrape by. They often have to get roommates and do what ever else they can do to get by.
I believe in logic and it is illogical the way you are attempting to frame this debate. You are obviously saying that it is poor peoples fault they are poor. When it is a systematic issue. If we are going to permit extreme wealth we are going to have to deal with extreme poverty. It is simple cause and effect in a dualistic paradox of a world we seem to love to make up as humans. I would have thought it passe by now but, people love their royalty concepts. They love to have someone whom can lord over others. They love having a poor class too that they can boss around, and blame all of the problems and hypocrisy of the system on. Even though the poor people did not set up the game for which they are being blamed for everything that goes wrong.
Sure your 100% right it's those poor people whom struggle to live on minimum wage fault because their companies are allowed by law to pay people so insanely low. Brilliant!
The logic is escaping you just like when someone uttered let them eat cake.
So now your a self claimed ex poor white whom blames all others whom remain poor as poor by their own choice.
If you do wish to live in a world where your frame of thought is possible then remove the concept of poverty from the equation all together. To do so though means to also remove the extreme in the other direction. It is a systemic issue.
Are there a minority of people whom would be called "slackers" whom might choose to do what you are suggesting YES! You seem to be taking this group and slapping them on the whole of everyone struggling on minimum wage and that is where I am telling you that you are clueless!
You will find a lot of these people are single mothers, or people trying to take care of a sick family members whom didnt have insurance. There are long lists of reasons people get stuck in low wage jobs.
To me the debate is framed in this manner.... There is no reason it should be legal to pay people so low nor to pay as high as some others are being paid. If you lessen the extremes people come closer to center where it is far more healthy. I am not saying you have to pay everyone the same wage. I am saying if we were to lessen the extremes it would be far more logical than trying to blame all of societies problems on the poor. Which is what your framing of this debate take us to.
I heard the same rubbish in Brasil when I spoke to some of the wealthy there. I asked why the poor of their country lived in such misery. They went on to blame them for everything.... I hear the same sentiment here now in the USA which concerns me greatly.
Because we have seen in this country a move towards the model of many of those nations that have a small ultra wealthy class and a huge bottom that lives in abject poverty.
Consolidation of wealth is the cause of poverty. There is more than enough of everything for us all to flourish so tell me why are so many malnourished?
You wish to always lay blame on the malnourished... That is illogical.
Are there slackers? Yes! Is everyone or even most struggling on minimum wage this? Absolutely not.
So allow me to reframe if we may.
Why are companies allowed to pay unlivable wages to people whom put in so many hours and are the base of many of the companies that do so?
Why do we allow some to be payed so little and other to be so over payed that they make more than 500 times the lowest paid worker? It is this extreme that is the root of the problem. The issue is not with a few people whom go through a stage of life where they might lean in the direction of the "slacker" lifestyle.
Though it is a typical attempt at scapegoating. | |
|
| Why do people try and live off of minimum wage?
Posted: 6/25/2009 1:42:09 PM | Any minute we should be hearing from someone suggesting re-institution of the Work House and the Tread Law...
"Then let them die and decrease the surplus population..."
How long will their length of chain be when their time comes, I wonder? | |
|
| Why do people try and live off of minimum wage?
Posted: 7/1/2009 4:57:07 PM | That's a bunch of BS. They choose not to do that. You want a college education? Go join the military, and quit ****ing about how it's everyone elses fault but your own.
 The same thing will happen if so many people join the military. The military will have to many people in it and not enough jobs or housing for people. | |
|
| Why do people try and live off of minimum wage?
Posted: 8/26/2009 7:16:21 PM | Entry-level jobs (which minimum wage jobs usually are) are not designed nor required to enable a worker to support a household on. While there is nothing wrong with them, it's good, honest work, one is expected to achieve more if planning to support a family.
 Why not they are jobs are they not and the person doing them are contrubuting to soceity. I have never seen any evidence that the minimum wage was not designed to live on. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage This link shows that miminum wage was created to make sure people were being paid a fair wage thare is nothing that says it was not intened to live on this is just some stupid crap someone made up. | |
|
| |
| Why do people try and live off of minimum wage?
Posted: 9/14/2009 9:12:36 AM | Or they can just be deadbeat and lazy and remain at the poverty level. It's all about the choices you make, everyone has the opportunity...
So everyone who is at poverty level is deadbeat and lazy. Wow your ignorance continues to show.  | |
|
| Why do people try and live off of minimum wage?
Posted: 9/14/2009 3:13:25 PM | Your way of thinking is not new. In the nineteenth century, before the discovery of the
cholera bacillus the thinking was that the poor contracted the disease more often due to their "moral" failings. It is the always the fault of the poor. You may have pulled yourself up out of poverty physically but your soul is still poor. | |
|
Home
login 
