Minimum wage being upped to $8 in CA & MA

[Teenager]

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill Tuesday to give California one of the highest minimum wages in the nation.


More here. (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003256333_ndig13.html)

[Trau]

Good.

[Teenager]

Why?

[Trau]

California's an expensive place to live.

[Wolfcounsel]

Now any moron without even a half-way decent high school education can take the reins of an 8 dollar an hour job and screw it up accordingly. What is it with these political sacks of shit that they believe they are doing something good for society, when all they are doing is making more taxes and producing more dumbasses for the labor force? Hire-a-retard is alive and well in those two states.

[Trau]

Now any moron without even a half-way decent high school education can take the reins of an 8 dollar an hour job and screw it up accordingly. What is it with these political sacks of shit that they believe they are doing something good for society, when all they are doing is making more taxes and producing more dumbasses for the labor force? Hire-a-retard is alive and well in those two states.

You've obviously never lived in California. Eight dollars might be a year's wage whereever you live, but it's not much here.

[Wolfcounsel]

"You've obviously never lived in California. Eight dollars might be a year's wage whereever you live, but it's not much here." --Trau

I do okay on 8 dollars a week, if it makes you feel better.:evilgrin:

Did Ah-nold promise not to increase the taxes on an 8-dollar-an-hour paycheck or what?

I wait with bated breath for an answer.<!-- / message -->

[Naturalized-Texan]

You've obviously never lived in California. Eight dollars might be a year's wage whereever you live, but it's not much here.
That might be a good argument if anyone was trying to make a living on a minimum wage. However, almost all who are working for a minimum wage are teenagers or in their early twenties and are students trying to earn a little spending money. In this area, a low cost of living area compared to CA, McDonald's starts their employees at about $9 per hour.

[Trau]

That might be a good argument if anyone was trying to make a living on a minimum wage. However, almost all who are working for a minimum wage are teenagers or in their early twenties and are students trying to earn a little spending money.


I'm not sure this is the case, at least in California; do you have statistics?

[2nd_Amendment]

Good.

Jesus wept.

The response of businesses will be to lay off people and/or consolidate positions with attrition and not indulge as many new hires. Happens each time they do this, fewer people doing more work. Then the government comes out and says the higher socialist pay scheme hasn't hurt employment but can't explain why there's both an unemplyoable segment of the populous and why youth have a tougher time getting jobs.

So, where DO you people think the extra money comes from to pay these arbitrary government edicts? You think business just magically makes more money? Maybe business owners just cut their own pay? Sorry, I fire people. I'm here to make ME money, not you.

[DoctorDoom]

Good.I'm not sure this is the case, at least in California; do you have statistics?Ignorant liberal Traull, do you have clue one about the purpose of the minimum wage (aside from giving government more control over the private sector, which is one of liberalism's endless quests)? No, you probably don't. That would require thinking, and libs just feel.

For Freecers and lurkers with more than two active neurons (ergo not the liberalosers), the MW is intended as an entry-level wage for unskilled, untrained, inexperienced people entering the work force, and for folks looking for a supplemental income. It is NOT and never has been intended to be a "living wage". However, feel-good liberal dipshits will not rest until it allows a family of four (or 16 for illegals) to live in Beverly Hills and drive a Beemer.

NOTHING done, desired or praised by liberals is good for America.

[MSGT]

NOTHING done, desired or praised by liberals is good for America.

That's a keeper.

[Trau]

the MW is intended as an entry-level wage for unskilled, untrained, inexperienced people entering the work force, and for folks looking for a supplemental income.

Many people have no other choice than to take a minimum wage job.

[GrocerySacker]

Many people have no other choice than to take a minimum wage job.

Please. I'm 18 and have only a high school education (working on the degree), and I make $8.75 an hour here in West Texas, where the cost of living is peanuts compared with CA. It's not difficult to earn more than minimum wage.

[DoctorDoom]

Many people have no other choice than to take a minimum wage job.Perhaps, but they have a choice about staying on a minimum-wage job. If they're satisfied working for MW, and they make no effort to better themselves and go on to greater things, then let them whine and bitch. No one owes them a living wage.

This country wasn't built by people who were content to remain on the bottom rung of the economic ladder and demand that others support them.

[Wyatt_Junker]

I already have a labor effeciency study in place that will hopefully shave off 15% of my payroll due to this MW hike. In addition to that, I will not hire anyone who has no work experience. Sorry, but I will not teach you how to use a broom.

If the government will not subsidize me to train the new labor force, then they are on their own. Good luck with that.

On another note, I was thinking how incredibly awesome it would be if there was no MW floor period. I could have the ACTUAL DISCRETION to REWARD and INCENTIVIZE the GOOD employees and keep the lowlifes at wage bay. (oh, that's right, the government doesn't like words like 'good' employee and 'bad' employee do they? oh darn.) I would love to pay some of my workers $25 - $30 an hour. And this is retail! If I could just as well pay the lameducks $4 or $5.

Why not give me, the employer, MY FREEDOM BACK? Is that thought too scary do-gooders? I would dig being able to reward the hardworkers and ding the losers, but for some reason the rubbermint always forces me to give everybody Russian black bread. No discretion. No choice in the matter. Very little freedom, really. And no margin. Just 'fairness'. *chuckle*

I suppose it wouldn't be fair if one employee made a soaring amount more than another now would it? No. We should give them all the same sheckel for a day's work. Isn't freedom in America grand? I can't reward anybody. The government won't let me. Everyone gets the same shit per hour. The highs, the lows... all brought down to the middle, the least common denominator.

Its going to be a fun year and a half with that kind of ROCKING MORALE around here because now I'm the bad guy for putting the freeze on everyone's hoped-for raise. Thanks to the Cali leg. & Conan the Dumbshit Barbarian.

[Trau]

Please. I'm 18 and have only a high school education (working on the degree), and I make $8.75 and hour here in West Texas, where the cost of living is peanuts compared with CA. It's not difficult to earn more than minimum wage.

How many expenses does an 18 year old have?

[Trau]

Perhaps, but they have a choice about staying on a minimum-wage job. If they're satisfied working for MW, and they make no effort to better themselves and go on to greater things, then let them whine and bitch. No one owes them a living wage.

I think you're making it simpler than 'tis.

[DoctorDoom]

Not simple enough, evidently. You still don't grasp the concept.

• Government has no constitutional authority to impose operating expenses or financial mandates on private enterprise.

• Government has no constitutional authority to dictate what employers shall pay employess.

• No-skill or minimal-skill jobs do not merit wages equal to semi-or highly-skilled jobs.

• MW jobs are by definition not skilled-labor jobs.

• MW jobs are not intended to be lifelong occupations.

• The MW is not now nor was it ever are intended to be a living wage.

• People without incentive to better themselves do not merit concern, let alone sympathy.

• Lasting success in life never comes oivernight. It requires years of long hours, hard work, gains, setbacks, frustrations, blood, sweat, tears, hope, vision, commitment and drive.

• Anyone who says, "I can't!" will never achieve success.

• Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
-- Lao Tzu

• Liberalism: "Let me help you. You can't do that by yourself."
Conservatism: "Let me teach you to help yourself."

Doom's Great Truths of Life:

• Liberalism is lying to you.
• The world doesn't owe you anything.
• The world doesn't love you.
• The world doesn't like you.
• The world doesn't give a shit about you.
• Chance favors the prepared mind.
• There's no such thing as luck.
• There's no such thing as a free lunch.
• You will get out of life what you put into it, maybe less but no more.
• Opportunity doesn't knock. You have to go looking for it.
• It takes a good many years to be an overnight success.
• No truly successful person has ever said, "That's good enough."
• The majority of people that you'll meet on the way up are assholes.
• When you've become successful, the assholes will try to ruin you.
• The number of assholes increases as the square of your success.
• The more successful you are, the more you'll pay to support the parasites.
• When you've had your fill of assholes and parasites, you'll become a conservative.

[Republican_Legion]

There isnt many jobs left in california that are below minium wage since the cost of living here is very high so I fail to see how that bill is gonna change anything. Even alot of the Illegal Aliens are making 8$ an hour. Cost of living is continuing to rise in californina along with the population growth. 8$ MW isnt gonna improve or weaken things in california since most places pay 8$ or more already.

[GrocerySacker]

How many expenses does an 18 year old have?

What difference does it make? My point is that it's not hard to earn more than minimum wage.

[DoctorDoom]

How many expenses does an 18 year old have?That's the age where most people enter the work force, fresh out of school, with no work experience or marketable skills. They seek entry-level jobs that allow them to gain the experience in the working world that will enable them to advance as time passes.

Only the clueless or the terminally lazy think that they're going to make a career out of the sort of jobs that pay minimum wage.

[Wolfcounsel]

"How many expenses does an 18 year old have?" --Trau

Your typical 18 year old? Or your typical welfare bum 18 year old? Ask any bimbette with two or more kids living with her mommy how many expenses she has. Ask any momma's boy still living with his mommy and is the father of two or more babies through a typical welfare bimbette how many expenses he has? Are you getting all this?<!-- / message -->

[routerider]

• When you've had your fill of assholes and parasites, you'll become a conservative.


That's a good one...lol!

[Naturalized-Texan]

I'm not sure this is the case, at least in California; do you have statistics?
Yes. Characteristics of Minimum Wage Workers: 2004 (http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2004tbls.htm#1)

As you can easily see from Table 1, only 2.3% of those earning at or below minimum wage are 25 years old and over. The rest are all under age 25.

[Wyatt_Junker]

There isnt many jobs left in california that are below minium wage since the cost of living here is very high so I fail to see how that bill is gonna change anything. Even alot of the Illegal Aliens are making 8$ an hour. Cost of living is continuing to rise in californina along with the population growth. 8$ MW isnt gonna improve or weaken things in california since most places pay 8$ or more already.

Maybe so, but look at it this way. If you decided to someday open up a business, how would it make you feel knowing that legislators in Sacramento(most of them who've never had a real job let alone ran a business) which comprise a small cult of elitist, insular stupidity attempt to dog you day in and day out, big bro you with their immense ignorance and arrogance? Think of the principle of what they're saying here. I don't care if the cost of living is as high as Marin County or Dubai! Its an irrelevant argument and whoever frames the argument in such a way wins. Look at the media. They don't even look at the bigger question or ask what right the legislators have in doing this. Its merely accepted due to common practice. Fuk common practice. The media allows the democrats to frame the debate and then respond to THAT, every news story revolving around the 'cost of living' when that's not even the issue. You've already lost the debate when they've taken your eye off the ball. Even the discussion of the cost of living is unworthy of addressing since it has no relevance to the prior principle and the concept of freedom. And in this way, through incremental thought control, the entire debate is the product of sociological brain washing. No one asks the real question.

And also, I could pay real hard workers so much more than the lamedux if the government didn't butt-in. The high wages and the low wages in practically every industry get squished into an amorphous center, a middle ground, discretion is removed as in all socialist regimes. I rarely pay newhires min. wage, but that's not the point. I want the choice to OR NOT TO. And plus, even the workers who aren't making MW, say like Grocery Sacker, he bases his pride on the fact that he isn't making $6.75. Everyone looks to the MW floor as a starting ground mentality so even if you aren't making MW, if its raised, you now also WANT A RAISE to keep a safe distance between you and the newhires just brought on. In effect, EVERYONE gets a raise, not just newhires.

[Wyatt_Junker]

Also, this just encourages 1) More people to flee the state and 2) More businesses which employ people to flee the state and 3) The businesses which remain to continue using foreign labor and not state-born labor.

The total dumbshittery here is mind blowing.

And to top it off, the Nov. election will also have Prop. 87 which would raise taxes on gasoline. So, let's raise the min. wage AND simulataneously raise gas prices. Gee, what else can we do to wreck the state?

[Kathy30]

Many cities in CA have their own MW laws. LA and surround recently raised the MW to $8.00 an hour. Some cities have "living wage" laws and those cities have to pay a MW of $10.00 an hour.

Recently I declined to offer employment after having done so, because the MW was raised. I'm not going to pay it. I'm just not. I'll clean the cages myself rather than pay $8.00 an hour for a $5.00 an hour job.

[DesertFox]

Luss solve all the world's poverty problems and establish a minimum wage of $100 per hour and mandate that everybody gets to work at least eight hours a day. That way everybody can live like Barbra Sandypussy next door to that other rich sumbitch out there that gots his own stretch of beach, not meaning the one next door, of course.

[Trau]

Alright I'm convinced. NT's statistics were the most persuasive.

Those who cannot rise above minimum wage and whatnot should be helped in some way, but minimum wage laws are like fixing a typo with a bucket of paint rather than a swish of White Out.

[BarkleUSA]

RE:

Alright I'm convinced. NT's statistics were the most persuasive.

The funny thing is that if you take a good look at any compassionate liberal policy intended to help for the “greater good” you will be equally persuaded that it seems like a good idea on an emotional level but is not supported by the facts.

The reason is that liberals derive their power from people too stupid, too lazy, too addicted, too angry to think for themselves.

So they support policies to keep educators from educating, reward people for not working and play the class and race card like a Texas Hold’em tournament.

Liberalism is like a brain fog… that keeps you from seeing things as they are.

[DoctorDoom]

Those who cannot rise above minimum wage ...Cannot, or will not? Lazy bastards who don't want to work to improve themselves sell their souls to liberalism and expect to be "helped" at the expense of America' productive citizens. If there is a genuine, unarguable reason why a person is incapable of advancing his lot in life, then perhaps some sort of assistance is justifiable. But if a person just doesn't give a shit and wants to be handed everything without exerting himself, fuggim.]

America was built from a wilderness by men and women who busted their asses to make better lives for themselves. What happened to the pioneering spirit? A: liberalism.

[Beowulf]

Alright I'm convinced. NT's statistics were the most persuasive.
I'm impressed! A dose of the truth CAN change the thinking of a Liberal. There is hope for you yet.

Those who cannot rise above minimum wage and whatnot should be helped in some way
Just when I had some hope for you....
As Doc said, "cannot or WILL not?" Many making minimum wage are, as NT proved, in High School or college working for some side money. If someone can't better themselves beyond minimum wage via furthering their education, who's fault is that? It certainly isn't mine, Docs or anyone elses on this board. I put myself through Tech School with little help so what's the excuse for other people who say they can't?

I could go on forever with this rant, you know, the 21 year old girl who already has 3 kids that expects us to take pity on her for her ignorance or the totally lazy bastard who just wants to government to take care of them but I think my point has been proven in my post and in previous posts.

[Wolfcounsel]

I'm reminded of the story about the woman who told her friend that she couldn't go to college at her age because she would be a certain age by the time she graduated. Her friend asked her how old would she be then if she didn't go to college.

[capri142]

On another note, I was thinking how incredibly awesome it would be if there was no MW floor period. I could have the ACTUAL DISCRETION to REWARD and INCENTIVIZE the GOOD employees and keep the lowlifes at wage bay. (oh, that's right, the government doesn't like words like 'good' employee and 'bad' employee do they? oh darn.) I would love to pay some of my workers $25 - $30 an hour. And this is retail! If I could just as well pay the lameducks $4 or $5.

Gasp! You mean actually pay an employee what they are worth?
What a novel concept!

[Beowulf]

Gasp! You mean actually pay an employee what they are worth?
What a novel concept!

Isn't it though? But your right, the government doesn't believe in that kinda stuff and you know before long someone in your employ will cry foul and next thing you know, a Union is involved.

[EdmundDantes]

You've obviously never lived in California. Eight dollars might be a year's wage whereever you live, but it's not much here.

And, Trau, I have lived in Ca. and know how expensive it is, and that is why wages are higher there than they are in Arkansas. The point is that wages settle where they have to to attract employees. For example; if McDonalds has to offer $9.00/hr. to get employees than that is what they offer. The market sets wages, there is no need for the government to do it. here in NH for example the local McDonalds has a sign offerring $9.50/hr. for closers. This is well above the minimum wage.

Also when are libs going to admit that the MINIMUM WAGE is not designed to support a family. It is an entry level wage for someone just enterring the workforce, or without the skills to attract a higher wage.

88% of minimum wage earners are teenagers working part-time, and retirees supplementing their social security.

Now here is another set of facts for you; A local restaurant which I know but will not name here serves a 1/2 lb. burger w/ fries for $6.95

Food costs in that meal are: $1.13
Labor Costs are: $2.78
Fixed overhead costs $2.26
Net profit $0.78

So when you raise the minimum wage by 30% you raise the price of this dinner by 35% the difference accomodating the payroll taxes and increased compliance costs, The question is, how much co you want to pay for a burger?

[Faithful_Servant]

You've obviously never lived in California. Eight dollars might be a year's wage whereever you live, but it's not much here.
Then move. Relocate. Change your address. Here's a suggestion: Try Kerguellan Island.

This will ruin many businesses who can't afford to pay more than they already do. It will also mean that in the parts of California where the cost of living isn't sky-high will see an influx of the chronically under-employed, hoping for a raise by virtue of moving to a new state and getting a job at Dairy Queen.