Federal Minimum Wage

[Eadora]

Still Here:

I quote my own post of Dec 29: 11:24

[apothanein kerdos]

Wow you're rude.

Stats from http://www.heritage.org/Research/Labor/WM19.cfm#1

First, there are only 1.6 million people...out of 300,000,000 people...that are on minimum wage (Heritage Foundation calculations based on the March 2000 Current Population Survey conducted by the Census Bureau. This estimate includes paid-hourly workers earning the federal minimum wage and paid-hourly workers earning state minimum wages that are higher than the federal. Over 1.1 million earn the federal minimum wage and 500,000 earn higher state minimum wages.)

I was wrong on my 90% and recant it (it was from an article I read...unfortunately the date was 1989...failed to look).

Over half (53 percent) are teenagers or young adults under the age of 23. More than half (54 percent) of these young workers live in families with incomes two or more times the official poverty level for their family size and 18 percent live in poor families. The average family income of these young workers is almost $50,500 per year. The average income for single young workers is $11,200. Over 63 percent are enrolled in either high school or college

The other half (47 percent) are workers ages 23 and up. More of these workers live in poor families (29 percent). Yet, even within this half of the minimum wage population, the average family income is over $38,100 per year. The average income for single workers is $19,300. Over 30 percent of these older workers did not graduate from high school and another 36 percent had only a high school diploma. (Look at that...dropped out...aka...are not willing to work hard for something).

Almost 43 percent of all minimum wage workers are children, 26 percent are married family heads or spouses, 11 percent are single family heads, and 17 percent are single people (another 3 percent are other relatives).

Less than 21 percent of minimum wage workers are the sole breadwinners of their families and less than 5 percent are sole breadwinners that work full-time year-round. Less than 5 percent of minimum wage workers are poor single mothers over 18 years old.

Over 57 percent of all minimum wage workers work part-time voluntarily. Only 25 percent work full-time year-round while over 28 percent work part-time part of the year.

The average family income for all minimum wage workers is $45,200 and their wages account for 35 percent of their total family income. The average income of single-nonfamily minimum wage workers is $16,800.

Nearly two-thirds of minimum wage workers move above the minimum wage within one year, and the median raise for those workers is over 10 percent. For full-time minimum wage workers, the median first-year raise is almost 14 percent. Entry-level jobs are not lifelong dead-end jobs. These jobs allow Americans to establish a track record of work that creates opportunities for better paying jobs.

There are 7.1 million paid-hourly workers who would be affected by an increase in the minimum wage to $6.65 per hour _ 1.6 million are currently paid minimum wages and 5.5 million are paid between $5.15 and $6.65 per hour.3 These workers can also be broken down into two broad groups.

One half (50 percent) are teenagers or young adults under the age of 23. Two-thirds (66 percent) of these young workers live in families with incomes two or more times the official poverty level for their family size. Just 14 percent live in poor families. Almost 74 percent are enrolled in either high school or college. Just 5 percent are married. Over 88 percent live in families with an average income of almost $63,600 per year. The average income for single young workers is $10,000, but their average household income is $47,100 because 81 percent live with two or more people.

The other half are workers ages 23 and up. Over half (51 percent) of these older workers live in families with incomes two or more times the official poverty level for their family size and 22 percent live in poor families. Over half (56 percent) do not have any children of their own to support. The average family income of these older workers is almost $38,300 per year. The average income for single workers is $18,000. Over 27 percent of these older workers did not graduate from high school and another 40 percent had only a high school diploma.

Over 42 percent of the workers who would be affected by an increase in the minimum wage are children, 26 percent are married family heads or spouses, 12 percent are single family heads, and 16 percent are single people (another 4 percent are other relatives).

Less than 17 percent are the sole breadwinners of their families and less than 7 percent are sole breadwinners that work full-time year-round. Less than 6 percent are poor single mothers over 18 years old.

Almost 54 percent of all workers who would be affected by an increase in the minimum wage work part-time voluntarily. Only 31 percent work full-time year-round while over 26 percent work just part-time part of the year. Almost 6 percent are union members.

The average household income of all paid-hourly workers affected by the minimum wage increase is $51,200 and their wages account for just 29 percent of their total household income.

Almost half (48 percent) live in the South and 27 percent live in the Midwest.

Increasing the Minimum Wage Would Not Help the Poor

Just 1.9 percent, or 404,000, of the 20.8 million poor Americans over the age of 15 would be affected by an increase in the minimum wage to $6.65 per hour.

Studies show that raising the minimum wage does not significantly reduce poverty. In fact, for some subgroups, minimum wage increases appeared to raise the level of poverty.4

Unprecedented Increase

Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) is proposing an unparalleled increase in the minimum wage. His bill (S. 964) would increase the hourly minimum wage by $1.50 over the next 18 months to $5.74 thirty days after enactment; $6.25 on January 1, 2002; and $6.65 on January 1, 2003. It would amount to a 29.1 percent increase in the minimum wage

[Eadora]

[Yoh! Thank You Super Jew

For a very good response!

I try and defend my views and will continue until I see definitely that they are wrong.

My views seem to offend. I will strive not to.

As for rudeness

I feel that I have had to endure a fair bit of rudeness

My patience wears a mite thin when a point is consistently ignored again and again..

Irregardless your input is much appreciated!

And that little bit of rudeness, I dare say:

Quote

Edited December 30, 2004 by Eadora

[Guest shiloh357]

Eadora,

I would propose that regional consideration might be advisable here.

Perhaps State legislatures working together might be best placed to deal with this problem. Using a carefully constructed formual as to what is a subsistence wage in any given region.

There would have to be consultation and mediation from State to State regarding their regional disparities.

In cases of dispute there would be need of some form of arbitration, mediated I would suggest by the Federal Government.

Neither of these would require large bureaucracies, and could be handled to a most large degree by State Legislature.

The present system of subsidies, food stamps, rent vouchers, etc, all require a large bureaucracy to be maintained.

Now as far as you second concern that economic hardship and turmoil would result.

The proposal here is that any recognized needed adjustment must be phased in over a sufficient time period that would allow Business both Big and Small to adjust to the change.

If a $2:00 dollar increase would create havoc in the economy start with $.25 cents or what ever.

Eadora, you are still just not getting it...

Regional minimum wage? Unrealistic.

If the minimum wage in some states is higher than others, where do you think business owners are more likely to start new businesses? States with lower minimums will get the bulk of new businesses and more franchises of existing businesses. In fact, business owners may close down and move existing locations to lower cost states.

If I were a business owner, I would do whatever it took to maintain solvency. If I have to contend with a higher min. wage, I will lower the number of hours of my full-time employees from 40 to 25-30 hours. They would make the same amount of money with the higher minimum wage as they were with the lower wage. I am not required by law to give anyone 40 hours a week.

Even if it is a phased program, business will compensate ahead of time so that the phased increases will have little to no impact on the profit margin.

Here is another consideration. If you want to be fair to senior employees that make over minimum, you will have to raise THEIR wages in the same increments that minimum is increased. So you not only have the cost of increased minimums, but the increase of wages of higher payed employees. If that is not an option, you are looking at layoffs.

[irishcowboy]

I use to work for a company, that was looking to try and cut spending, cut the cost of production. They even asked the employees to pitch in and help them find area's that could help them cut cost.

I came up with a plan, and presented it, and told them that I could cut cost tremendously.

they asked how, I said let me stand one complete shift rotation with each crew, and i will give specifics....

they did not understand, then I explained to them, that they have three times the number of employees as they need to operate the machinery.

they asked what i ment by htat.

I said that they have people that are nothing but baby sitters, continuously sending some one else away from their assigned place of duty, to seek out some one else that is suppose to be at their work station that is not, thus you have two people out of three people not working.

I told them that they could decrease expendature on wages and at the same time increase wages. that they could increase productivity, for the people on the machine would be working and not trying to slip away. they would increase quality of production cause those on the machine could concentrate more on the machine rather then trying to figure out where john is....

they shot it down, saying that can not release people like that,

I told them that if they wanted specific names I had a dozen, and could come up with the rest.

a month later, they spent almost 50,000 dollars to hire a man to come in and do what I had just told them, and then he gave them specific names, to include the same names i had listed.

they still did nothing, in fact, they hired more people and production got behind, they lost major contracts ( wendy's, burger king, even arbys ), the rework rate went up and the intercolm activity increased ( looking for the people that were not at their work stations )

the people at this company earn ( starting out ) almost 7 bucks an hour ( no experience required )..... you wonder why your burgers cost so much? look at the wages they are paying the people to sit and watch a printing press make their burger wrappers, or their french fry bags and such, then look at what they are paying the people to make the cups and then the carry home bags, or the sheets of paper that sit in the tray that you carry.

i can feed my family of 5 kiids and two adults a good meal for the same price two people can eat at McDonalds or Burger King.

how many people do you know that want to eat out intead of cook?

i know there have been times some one has asked me to loan them a bit of money, one lady asked my wife one day, at church, if she could borrow 15 dollars, that her and her husband wanted to get some food. this couple is on food stamps ( no kids ) they are on SSI as well, and they have their rent pretty much paid for by the state as well.

I told my wife, that we can take them and buy them some food at teh store and set them up for a few days this way.... they refuesed, they wanted to go to the burger joint, and eat one meal. with that 15 bucks i could have set them up to eat for a week at home.

15 DOLLARS TO EAT FOR A WEEK??????????

Yes,

it is called not living beyond your means.

beans and rice go a long ways, as does the fixings for home make bread.

if you do not have the money, do not spend it.

the Bibel speaks of this. when you borrow money ( loan, credit cards, and such ) you are making yourself a slave to the one you owe. if they had debters prison, it would be packed right now with people that can not and will not pay back what they owe others.

if you want that new TV. save your nickles and save your dimes, and when you have enough, make sure you do not need new tires, or car repairs or new shoes and such and then if all the other needs are met ( that includes your food for a month or so ) then you can maybe get that TV.

our house has enough food to last at least a month, not to include the deep freeze.

a raise in wages is not the answer, if it was the federal deficet would be gone now. the answer to the problem is cut spending, cut spending cut spending cut spending.

when a person goes to get a loan at a bank, one of the things they look at is not so much the amount of your income, but how you spend it. seen people making 50 grand a year, get denied for a loan, and then see some one that makes 10 grand a year, get their loan. why???? cause of their spending.

you should pay no more them about 30% of your income on housing. if you have to spend more then that, and you are single, then you may wish to move back home and pay rent to mom and dad until you either make more, or you find some one to share the rent with.

todays kids want everything now, they do not want to wait until they can save for it they want everything mom and dad has, but mom and dad has worked for many many many years to get where they are now....

20 years ago, it was the same thing. and 20 years before that a house hold was lucky to have one car sitting out front ( grandpa, mom, and a couple other people shared a car to get to work grandma didnt even drive ). now we have ( this house hold ) 7 vehicles. my daughter (23) has a car, son 22 has one, son 18 has two, son 16 has one, the work truck, and the family van.

seems abit much? well, they are all paid for, and the insurance and taxes and tags are uptodate for them.

mostly, people that say they are in need, are wearing the designer cloths, driving better/newer vehicles then we are, eat out most of the time, and do not work even when offered a job.

mostly they squander what they get, i know of one couple, that had over 1000 dollars and with in a month they have NONE..... they pay no rent, they buy no food they pay no utilities. they are living with other people. they even have a hard time getting gas for the car. she is pregnant, he refuses to work, she can not work ( complications ). he says he is looking, but every time a call comes in, he has an excuse for not being able to take that job.

you want more money, then join the military, you get room and board, and money in your pocket....... and you can ( that is if you want to ) learn a trade.

stop mooching off of others.

personally, i am tired of those in the federal pen having better living conditions then those that were victimized by them. let us stop the cable service to the jails, let us stop the food going to the jails, start up the prison farms again, make them earn and work for their own food. let them grow it and then sale the excess for money to buy material with to make their uniforms.... let us stop paying these creeps to live high on the hog..... and then maybe we can keep a few extra dollars a year for our selves too....

I was there, with out money, with out food and with out transportation..... i have wondered where my next meal will come from.... i have been in other countries, and been out of money and wondered where i was going to sleep that night when it was below zero F ( actually was - 40 c or about -40 deg f ) ... whos fault was that??? mine, for not keeping enough for a motel and dinner. i squandered it away.

if you want more, then work more until you have more, and then cut spending. look around you will be surprised at how much you throw away, not even thinking about it.

mike

[Eadora]

Wow more good posts.

I'm going to need a bit of time to digest some of this.

I just printed out the points Super Jew, makes, pretty meaty stuff.

and went to the Heritage foundation document and got a copy of it.

I'm going to be off for a while. Obligations!

Be assured I will be back.

[Eadora]

Hailing SuperJew - Hello Eadora here

Regarding and answering to your post of: Dec 30 04:01 am

I must say I have enjoyed dealing with the document that you have offered to the on going dialogue involving Minimum wage. My resulting studies, although short due to time constraints, proved most valuable to me. I learned much.

Any document proffered for discussion should be dealt with fairly and not rejected out of hand. If it is to be accepted or rejected the decision to do so must be done after careful analysis of any unwarranted or warranted Bias. I will attempt to give you my analysis of the document in two steps

(A) I propose to first look to discovering the source of the document and the source of any facts and figures that the document uses. We all hold certain bias which is fair. But it behooves us to discover the bias of any document submitted so that we can adjudge it to be fair and objective or bias and slanted.

(B) Due as I say to time constraints I will deal with the facts and figures of the document in a latter posts

I can find three sources cited in the document that you submitted: and may be found at

Stats from http://www.heritage.org/Research/Labor/WM19.cfm#1

First: - Most statists seem take form studies done by

[Eadora]

SECOND SOUCE

THE HERITAGE FOUNDATON

Founded in 1973, By Beer Miester Joseph Coors, Paul Wyrich, and Edward Nobel, all have heavy corporate and neo con interests and support any policy that would destroy social programs. The Heritage Foundation is a neo-conservative public policy research institute. Its stated mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of "free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense."

With a long history of receiving large donations from overseas, Heritage continues to rake in a minimum of several hundred thousand dollars from Taiwan and South Korea each year.

In autumn of 1988, the South Korean National Assembly uncovered a document revealing that Korean Central Intelligence Agency, KCIA gave $2.2 million to the Heritage Foundation on the sly during the early 1980s.

Meanwhile, there was also a connection between Heritage and the Rev Sun Myung Moon (founder of the Moonies). This first appeared in a 1975 congressional investigation on the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) activities in the US.

Other funding and support has been receive from Adolph Coors Foundation, Bechtel Foundation, and Americans for Tax Reform

Among Heritage efforts have been the publications

Edited December 31, 2004 by Eadora

[apothanein kerdos]

LOLOLOL

Ciriticizing the source only works if you have evidence to counter what they found. As it is, I can turn to other evidences and other articles.

This government site backs up the findings in the original article

More evidence to back up original claims by CATO institute

Here's another damaging article

So, discredit the sources, but until you can provide conflicting statistics...that defeat the government sources listed, i think you can't make a case.

Oh, and btw, posting articles without proper citation is plagarism...you might want to give us the sources for your last two posts.

[Work in Progress]

So true!!

And, lastly, you are a liberal if you look like this:

LOL

Too funny, Reb. And too true!