The Minimum Wage

[citymouse]

He only feels infastructure he uses is acceptable. He may not subscribe to time magazine either but that dosen't mean other people don't or shouldn't read it.

[DelawareDistrict]

I like Time, good magazine. What I consider to an essential function of government has nothing to do with whether or not I use it now. It is the simple fact that government is not efficient financially when providing services which could be better and cheaper through private enterprise.

[mikewrona]

A minimum wage is a great thing to have, but it is sometimes not as easy to put into practice. Example: You have a job with a set maximum amount to get paid per week. The hourly pay is set at a certain amount. But, if you work more hours per week than you regularly would, you could end up making less than the minimum wage.

If you are being paid an hourly rate and that hourly rate is minimum wage, you must be paid for all hours worked. It is illegal to pay less than the minimum wage for any reason.

[DelawareDistrict]

There are exceptions to the minimum wage requirement, including exceptions for some classes of farm workers. You can get more info here.

[mikewrona]

CALL YOUR SENATORS TOLL-FREE AT 888-355-3588 OR 800-828-0498

ACTION PAGE: http://www.usalone.com/wright/pnum435.php

It used to be that after the wealthy and powerful had their banquets,
whatever scraps and crumbs might be left over would fall to the dogs.
And in the House of Representatives late Friday night and into wee hours
of Saturday morning it was still just that way. The bill they were
trying to jam through on the last day before their recess, H.R. 5970, was
entitled "Estate Tax and Extension of Tax Relief Act", yet another
shameless budget busting giveaway to those precious few who least need it,
which had already been rejected time and time again by the Senate.

But their Republican co-conspirators in the Senate had hatched an evil
plot overnight. You knew there had to be something suspicious going on
because most of the day passed and the House still had not come into
session. What they decided to pull was to try to grease this pig of bill
through by tagging on a crippled version of the long overdue minimum
wage increase, for which there WAS popular support, as if all of a sudden
Republicans were in favor of the minimum wage increase they had
previously blocked at every juncture for 10 years.

Well we can read the title of the bill ourselves [the actual text is
still not available online], and an increase of the minimum wage is
mentioned NOWHERE in it as its purpose. The Democrats had to scramble to
even read the thing, dumped as it was in their laps literally just before
the Republicans tried to ram a vote through on it. And come to find
out that if enacted as written many workers would actually see a
REDUCTION in their wages. Oh, and they threw in a bunch of other stuff the
Republicans had been dragging their hooves on too that really needed to be
passed.

At the end of the day the bill would do infinitely more harm than good,
saddling the rest of us with 800 billion dollars in additional debt so
that the excessively rich could get theirs first. And of course the
clincher was that when the Democrats called a vote on restructuring the
bill to strip out the estate tax giveaway only, the result was a
mean-spirited near party line vote. So much for Republicans in favor of
raising the minimum wage. All they EVER wanted to do was hold it for
ransom.

In the 10 years since the minimum wage was passed, members of Congress
have voted nine times to raise their pay, the ninth pay hike is set to
fatten their wallets to $165,200 a year, starting Jan. 1. House
Republican leaders have refusing to hold a straight up or down vote on a
bill by Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) to raise the minimum wage to .25 an
hour. Democrats have been fighting to force a vote on the minimum wage
bill without any crippling amendments, or now any more outrageous
budget killers. In the Senate, Republican leaders recently led the fight to
defeat a similar bill from Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Calif.) by using
parliamentary rules that required 60 votes to win. The bill won a majority,
52-46, but fell short of the 60-vote threshold.

We've waiting nine long years for OUR next pay raise, while Congress
has raised its own salary every year. We can wait another 3 months to
kick out enough of these hypocrites to get a real Congress working again
in the interests of the people.

ACTION PAGE: http://www.usalone.com/wright/pnum435.php

This alert is brought to you through the activism of James Wright,
running for the U.S. House in the 8th Congressional district, and one of
the leading progressive voices in the state of Texas. Follow the other
links on the action page for Jim's own proposals of bills to REALLY
protect us.

When a brave candidate steps forward in such a district as Texas 8th,
shall we do anything to show him our support? If so, please also
consider making a donation to Jim's campaign so he can spread the call to
action message on impeachment, starting to bring our troops home from
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[Batman]

We've waiting nine long years for OUR next pay raise, while Congress
has raised its own salary every year. We can wait another 3 months to
kick out enough of these hypocrites to get a real Congress working again
in the interests of the people.
A real Congress? The only way that will happen is if career politicians dissapear and the jobs are just part time with low wages.

[leftWNYbecauseofBS]

But what exactly is a livable income?

Say you have 3 people working the same job and have similar productivity.

The 1st is single and due to family support has zero debt.
The 2nd is a single parent with 3 kids and has loans and mortgages.
The 3rd is married to a spouse that makes 4 times as much money.

To these 3 employees a "livable income" is completely different amounts. The 1st and 3rd can probably live on much less that the 2nd that has debt and a family to support.

Yet you can't say the 2nd should get more money just because of her needs, since all 3 are doing the same job. If you gave the second more money it would not be fair to the other 2 that work just as hard. That is basically a socialist type system and productivity would collapse.

That alone isn't an argument against a minimum wage though. I'm more of a capitalist but I think some level of minimum wage is still desirable. The disagreement is usually how high that level should be and how often to increase it.

Good post. It reminds me of the grocery workers strike in California a couple of years ago. There were men and women who by choice made a career of being an isle clerk or checkout clerk. They went on strike because the grocery chains did not feel the need to keep on paying these positions a living wage. They wanted to pay a minimum. Just because you choose a job does not equate to a mandate of that job or employer supporting your lifestyle. There was this couple, where both worked in the grocery store. Both made below what they needed to own a home. They felt is was their right to own a home. To have the American dream. So instead of finding another job that would allow them to buy a home, they went on strike to get their current employer to pay a wage that would allow them to own in San Diego.

We have to face the facts that there are jobs in America that can support a living and there are jobs that can not. Working at Burger King is not a job you support yourself on. It is for expendable income. For example you live with your parents or you are in school. What the public has to stop is allowing the taxpayers act as the subsidizing party. So a single mother should not be allowed to work a job that does not give her the minimum living wage needed to support herself. If she is not able to do this, she should get government assistance for a set period of time and be required to subsidize that support with volunteer work or mandatory education programs.

The chain has to be broken. Raising the min wage or enforcing it at all is not the solution. Pretty soon you will have to pay $10.00 for a burger. Wait, in some places you already do!!!

[leftWNYbecauseofBS]

The argument against minimum wage has and always will be an argument against people. Economic statistics and theories have nothing to do with it.
Asking for sacrifice by the lowest rung worker is a sign of greed on behalf of the upper rung. The top 2% of the nations workers make in access of $215,000 per year. The lowest 2%of the nations workers make $5.15 and hour or less. Just imagine what a shifting of a mere $5,000 form the top @% to the bottome 2% would do for the nations economy. The poor turn there dollars over more frequently and with greater distribution than the wealthy.

Yet, we would be told they are hurting the economy.


"A Decade of Executive Excess,'' the sixth annual survey of executive compensation by the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy, finds the ratio of top executive to factory worker pay has exploded this decade from 42 to 1 in 1980 to 419 to 1 last year.

Had worker pay risen at the same pace as executive pay, the average production worker would earn more than $110,000 a year today, compared with the $29,000 he or she actually makes. And the minimum wage would be $22.08 an hour, rather than the current $5.15."
Tim Smart, Washington Post, Monday, August 30, 1999

Forget 5k. Let us just level it completly.


Why don't we have everyone make the same amount of money. Regardless of the job and education. Everyone will have the same health care. Everyone will get the same amount of food....


wait I think I heard that idea before.

[boomeriam]

[QUOTE=leftWNYbecauseofBS] So a single mother should not be allowed to work a job that does not give her the minimum living wage needed to support herself. If she is not able to do this, she should get government assistance for a set period of time and be required to subsidize that support with volunteer work or mandatory education programs.

How long would you let them stay on these programs? The volunteer work would never go over, you want them to work for their benies? Outrageous. We should just let them stay home a get free health care, free heat, free food, and pay for housing. Oh, we already do that, sorry. What do the people in the other states do that dont have the giveaway programs - move to N.Y.

[Riven37]

to say, poor people.

[mikewrona]

Homeless veterans: http://members.aol.com/veterans/warlib6z.htm