Now that the waiter, et al, have more money, they will go to Lamplighter's Emporium and buy $10 of his stuff. Yes, it's a shell game, but results have shown that unemployment is lower when the minimum wage is higher.

The way it should work is that if you make more than $3ook (let's say), you don't get to charge more. You just make less, until you get to the point that you make less than $300k. Then you can raise prices. Should.

So why not raise it to $30/hour?

Because the goal is to help low income workers catch up a little, not give the entire 99% a raise.

Lamplighter
 

Since "minimum wage" varies across the US, maybe the following pic's and table will add some perspective:

While the individual states set their own "state minimum wage" levels,
these levels must meed or exceed the "federal minimum wage" each year.

The 2015 "federal minimum wage" will bring some state levels up to $8.05, and others up to $8.50.
Other states (in green) will exceed this federal mark.

Attachment 50249

If I use the "I Love It" McDonalds wage scale in the US, their "team" average is ~ $8.16 / hr.
At 8 hr/day, 5 days/week/ 50 weeks/yr, this amounts to $16,320 per year.

Attachment 50250

Then I compare that yearly income with the Federal Poverty standards:

Attachment 50251

As I read all this, a household of 2 parents, each working full time for McDonalds,
falls below the poverty line as soon as they have their first child,
(and without zero-cost child-care it means they are working separate shifts)
and essentially each employee on the McDonalds "team" is Medicaid-eligible from the git-go.

Let's get to $15, and see what happens. Then we can give $30 a look.

It seems like this debate ought to diminish over the decades, yet somehow it never does. We've raised the minimum wage before. Employers never like it. But the country has not yet imploded from any of the previous increases. Viable businesses give their employees cost-of-living raises at least every few years.

Not the single, your calculation of $16,320 just misses the $16,105 threshold... unless he takes some sick days. ;)

Oooops... you're right.

How about saying the bloak got no pay for the days he stayed home sick with the measles ? ;)

By fuckin' god if it ain't the American dream right there.

But you wouldn'ta said nuthin if you ain't seen Lolene when she was takin out the trash liners. Good gawd almighty them polyester shirts were pretty used up after a shift sweatin over the fryer, but she would put a knot in the bottom of that thing, and haul up that bag of cups and shit, and dang if she weren't better'n just a regular line worker no more. She could be... assistant manager.

Snob.
Lolene grew up in in a blue/no collar world, lucky if most of the extended family had jobs. She barely finished High School, and has heard of colleges, that's where they build them football teams. She's honest, reliable, hard working, and seems to be pretty smart, but we'll never know because education was always a priority behind food, rent, insurance, taxes, medical bills, etc.

Making minimum wage will guarantee the same for her children and guarantee a steady supply of disposable humans for the 1% to use.

Have you guys personally known any McDonald's lifers? I've only ever encountered one person who tried to make that a career. Never encountered a two-earner-per-household version.

What they are is "starter jobs" for the great majority. You have them for a season or two and they teach you about having a job, holding a job, earning money. You don't stay there. You move on and someone else takes that spot and learns those lessons.

You need that sort of job in the society, to learn from, but doing the job itself is not really any great help to society because it's not really *doing* anything much at all. So the last thing you want is people making it a career, because it's a waste of people and a waste of a career.

But what about the poor people, I hear you say. I know the poor people. I have been with them, I have spoken with them, I will be with them tomorrow. All of them eat at McDonalds and a small number of them work there. It would be FAR better for the poor people if their burgers stayed the price they are, and they all had "starter jobs" that taught them skills. But thanks to you guys who think you're doing somebody a favor, and believe in your hearts that you're helping these people, with the deepest of your middle class compassion and the sorriest of your middle class guilt, that's now not going to happen in Seattle. If there are burgers in Seattle, the middle class is going to be flipping them, the middle class is going to be eating them, and the poor people are going to be fucked over once again.

You're aiming for the CEOs and with all your great intentions you just shot your friend in the face. But I know you'll be able to find statistics that show employment went up. Because the ghetto people aren't counted in those numbers.

What are the grocery stores like by you guys? When I was a lad in Maine, the employees, including cashiers, were 75% teenagers. A few adults managed things. Now it's 100% adults. Are grocery store shelf stocker and cashier a couple starter jobs or (not very good) careers?

I feel like they are unionized, but they can't be making much money, even with a union.

I have. Both were "managers", and they had 2 kids. They lived in a blue collar area, without obvious niceties, but I have no idea of their finances.

Tony, half of the world has a lower than average IQ. There are many people who are not equipped mentally, physically, or emotionally to do much more than cook burgers or greet people at Walmart. Should they be penalized for inadequacies for which they are not responsible?

It's a shame that the CEO won't do the right thing, and pay the workers that are the reason he makes $9.5 million a living wage AND not raise the price for the "ghetto people". But that would mean he'd only make several million dollars a year, and who can live on that?:rolleyes:

What is the incentive for a "ghetto person" to take a job for $8/hour, with no benefits, etc.? Now, if that job pays $15/hour, and includes benefits, ghetto person might just to the plunge.

If the CEO did his job entirely pro-bono and personally wrote a check to every McDonald's employee at the end of the year, dividing his expected salary evenly to each and every one of them, that check would be for five dollars.

Sorry, that job is no longer available to the ghetto person. At $15/hour, it's now viciously targeted by the lower middle class.