$7.25/hour, 40 hours/week, 52 weeks/year, amounts to $15,080/year. You think that’s a living wage?
If you’re young and single and share an apartment, it’s fine—to START! And that’s the part that’s you and others seem to leave out of the equation. It’s a minimum wage. The very least you can be paid. You can certainly be paid more, much more. So if you don’t like the minimum wage, set yourself on a road to have options other than just making the minimum.
Some people don’t have those options, and still have families. Some of them have sick relatives to take care of. There are hard-working, decent people who will never gain the skills to make much more than minimum wage. These folks deserve enough to eat, pay rent, feed and clothe their families, have their health cared for, and even put a little aside for retirement and a rainy day.
It wouldn’t take a massive increase in most places to do this. $7.25 is just too low. We should raise it a little at a time, pause to make sure we’re not significantly increase unemployment, and then peg the minimum wage to inflation.
No. But I work much more than 40 hours/week. Why is your living wage constrained by “40 hours per week?”
Why do they “deserve” that?
That, I fear, you will never understand.
You must, you simply must, realize what a stupid question that is.
Because working extra hours should be a bonus, not a prerequisite for meager survival. If you want to get ahead you should push hard. You shouldn’t have to run at 100% to survive.
When I moved to Cali, I worked two full time jobs. And one of them was pretty close to minimum wage. I could do it because I was young and strong, but I doubt I could do it now. And other people, who aren’t young and strong, simply couldn’t handle it.
Also, your work, in all honestly, probably isn’t that physically draining. I’m not saying that law, or whatever it is you do, is easy. But the majority of it is less draining than working the same number of hours at a typical minimum wage job.
This isn’t written in the sky anywhere, or in some holy book. This is just what I think.
Because the most powerful, richest, country in the world should have the best conditions for its citizens?
Many conservatives balk at the idea that the poor in America have TVs and refrigerators. That’s a good thing. I want the poor in America to live better than the poor in India.
Check out what a living wage is in your county:
I note that the living wage amount for two adults is smaller than for one. I believe the calculator is assuming two wage earners.
Also compare what they think are “living” food and housing expenses for your area. My wife and I blew about three days worth of food allowance today grilling hamburgers with whole wheat buns, coleslaw, asparagus, fruit juice, and some nuts and dates. (OK, we have leftovers so we’ll get another lunch out of it.)
Please describe for us uninitiated folk, just how those bus loads of folks are going to know just who to impersonate at exactly the correct polling places?
I assume you’re telling us the FIBs doing the fraudulent voting are ignorant folk, so how will they know John Smith on the South Side of, say Racine, is not voting this year and a FIB and sneak in and use his name? Oh, and they have to know his address as well. Who sets this all up?
Seems pretty elaborate for garnering just one vote at a time.
Fill us in please.
Thing is, Walker does not even think that – from your earlier link,
He wants people to make fifteen or twenty bucks an hour. They should, really. But as far as he is concerned, it is all up to them, he wants no part of it, has no desire to facilitate that. I would guess that he would be disappointed in them if they were not making more.
Nitpick: It specifies a sole provider. The two adult family not requiring double the minimum wage of a single adult is mostly because housing is only a little bit more expensive. It also assumes child-care costs of $0 if there’s two adults.
So it can’t be explained. You announce that people deserve “X,” and it simply must be accepted. To so much as question it is stupid.
Got it.
Well, you’re certainly entitled to think that. But why should the rest of the country be obligated to enact your thoughts into law, without so much as questioning their validity? (Since questioning the validity of this particular sentiment is stupid.)
This is a moral judgment about my concept of justice. I understand others have differences of opinion.
In my view, someone who works hard and behaves in a lawful and respectful way in society deserves all of these things, regardless of their actual talents and skills. They don’t necessarily deserve wealth, or luxury, but they do deserve these basic necessities, in my view, and it’s just for the government to ensure that they get them.
Unborn babies don’t deserve to be aborted. The richest country in the world should have the best conditions for its citizens, both born and unborn.
Many liberals balk at the idea that the unborn in America have any right to life. They don’t think the small sacrifices necessary to allow an unborn child to live are worth it. But I disagree. I want the unborn in America to live to be born.
“Unborn baby” is what you tell a kid his new brother or sister is before it’s born. In political debate, it’s a bit less useful.
The crux of the matter, which is never going to be resolved, is that we each have our own definition of when an embryo or fetus acquires the right to be carried to term. Some say at conception, very few say right before birth, some say somewhere between conception and birth. That debate will never be settled. Since there is no consensus, it will forever be debated and nobody will ever change their mind about it.