Are you for or against raising the minimum wage?

[Quixote1818]

Poll question: Are you for or against raising the minimum wage?

I just spent an hour reading up on it. I was for it before and am still for it.


http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/issueguides_minwage_minwagefacts

[Muttocracy]

1. is it feasible to make it go up at intervals based on inflation

rather than taking an act of Congress?

I'm also not sure about state-to-state and even within state variation.

[gateley]

2. I'd like to see the reasons of those who vote 'leave it' -- just because I don't

understand why someone would think raising it wouldn't be a good idea.

I haven't read up on it, but am happy to see that you still are for it, after your research.

[dweller]

3. anyone voting 'leave it'

should live it.

dp

[last1standing]

4. I'm for leaving the minimum wage in place...

And lowering the cost of living till everyone has a livable wage. If we can't do that then sure, let's raise it.

[Why Syzygy]

5. Democratic platform . raise to $9.50 by 2010

[ColbertWatcher]

8. Damn, even that's too low!

I remember reading Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickled and Dimed when it first came out and thought $14.00/hour would be a good minimum!

[Why Syzygy]

10. I think I read that on the Demo site

This is what Obama's says:

Raise the Minimum Wage: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will raise the minimum wage, index it to inflation and increase the Earned Income Tax Credit to make sure that full-time workers earn a living wage that allows them to raise their families and pay for basic needs.

[Lucian]

6. It needs to be raised pronto.

And whoever voted for "leave it" shouldn't be allowed to post on this website.

[chollybocker]

7. Time to trickle UP. That's how economies boom.

[gravity]

9. I really don't know

Raising minimum wage could be a good idea, but there are alternative ways of making sure people have a living wage. You can increase tax credits to low income workers with families and have nationalized health care for example.

I think a minimum wage hike is still good at these levels, but I just started thinking how high can it get. If you raise it too much, there is going to be a limit where it starts effecting employment. There are also differences between high school kid with a summer job and someone who has to support a family.

[Lyric]

30. Firstly, unless the tax credits you speak of are fully refundable (like the EITC)

then they won't help. A single mother with two children would have to make over $31,000 per year before she'd owe a dime in federal income taxes--and that doesn't even *count* the EITC reduction. People making minimum wage are earning FAR less than $31,000 per year, so unless "tax credits" are fully refundable, they don't help poor people.

Nationalized health care is also a good thing, but it doesn't make much of a difference in the budgets of truly poor people. I'm poor, my family is poor, and most of the people they associate with are poor. I have literally never--not even once--known a poor person making minimum wage to actually *pay* a medical bill. When these people get sick, they go to the ER, and when the bills come in the mail, they get thrown away unopened. Health care costs aren't a big part of the budget of someone making minimum wage, because there is just no way to pay those bills--they're too enormous. So they get ignored. Nationalized health care would help decrease the unpaid debt of poor people, but unless the plan also pays for medications (like Medicaid does) then it isn't going to make much of a difference in day-to-day operating cash.

My take on wage hikes affecting employment is this: our economy is chock-full of companies that are ONLY profitable because they are permitted to take horrible advantage of their employees. "Small business" is a feel-good term that Americans love, but the truth of the matter is that any business that isn't profitable enough to survive while paying its employees a decent wage, is NOT the kind of business that deserves to succeed. If you cannot run a business unless you are permitted to pay minimum wage and deny your employees benefits, then your business doesn't deserve to be artificially propped-up by draconian minimum wage laws. De-industrialization is the root cause of the problem. The factories and plants of old, in which people made decent wages, had benefits and pensions, AND the company made a profit--those are gone, and have been replaced by corporations that ship jobs overseas, and "service industry" businesses that pay slave wages with no benefits or pensions.

The longer we prop up this artificially-sound service economy, the longer it's going to take to bring back the industrial jobs that we simply CANNOT survive without.

Sure, it sucks for the small business owners who are doing their best to make a living. But these people (and our willingness to excuse and idealize them) are part of the problem. Well-meaning they might be, sweet and kind, yes, but there is no denying the fact that a business that cannot pay more than minimum wage would never survive without the permissive laws that permit them to operate without any oversight into how they compensate their employees. And poor people have no CHOICE but to take these jobs, because there AREN'T any others. The wages, benefits, and pensions of the poor have been usurped by our shitty service-based economy, and re-distributed to the American middle class in the form of artificially-low prices for goods and services.

"Stuff" is cheap in America because we treat low-wage workers like shit. The reckoning is coming, and when it does, the middle class is going to be shocked at how expensive everything becomes--at least until we start demanding the return of industry.

[Selatius]

11. Instead of revisiting the issue, why not peg it to inflation? That way, you avoid Republicans.

Whenever Republicans get power, they don't raise the minimum wage. This is something the working poor can very ill afford. They cannot afford to wait for politics to swing their way.

[OhioChick]

12. Raise it. n/t

[sandnsea]

13. My doctor's visit is $200

30 years ago, I paid $20 at most. My husband's specialist is $500.

30 years ago, minimum wage was $2.90 an hour. If minimum wage had risen at the same rate as doctor's rates, it'd be $29.00 an hour.

Something is out of whack, especially considering minimum wage hasn't even tripled at the federal level.

[4lbs]

15. Much of that is to offset the cost of malpractice insurance and equipment costs in his/her office.

n/t

[sandnsea]

16. Horse. Shit. n/t

[4lbs]

22. Ask a specialist how much operating costs are these days.

I asked my hematologist/oncologist a few years ago how much it costs him to run his private practice. He was actually kind enough to tell me some of the specifics.

It costs him $12,000 per month to keep his practice going.

He pays $2,000 per month on his business lease. He has two medical assistants that each earn $2,000 per month. His malpractice insurance is $5,000 (five thousand) per month. Utilities and various medical supplies cost the remaining $1,000 per month.

His practice is open 20 days per month. That means he has to take in $600 per day, 5 days a week, just to cover his costs.

He has about 4 to 6 patient visits in his office per day. He charges $150 per visit. That covers his costs, just to break even.

Then there are the visits to his other patients in various hospitals, as well as consulting on various cases. His charge/rate per visit/consult depends on how much he does in the hospital. That brings in his "income". He didn't say how much it was, but only that it was much more than what he charges for an office visit.

All this was 5 years ago when I asked him. It is likely a little more now.

[Dems4me]

25. I was office manager for a small doctors office, we would see about 35-45 patients aday.

Each being billed anywhere from 60.00 to about 480.00 on average. Thats just ov and
basic blood profile, very common. Doctors also tend to love expensive tests. Hospital tests
or treatment, we then charge the patient for their care on our behalf. We would also charge your
insurance company for fees if you had insurance. The hospital would then send us funds for
each patient we would send to their hospital.
Doctors also receive kick backs from the drug companies
for promoting their drugs to you. The pharmacutical companies know if your physician is
writing those scripts pushing those drugs. It's very lucrative for the physician to be sure.
I also did medical billing for a doctors group. Honestly, you would not believe how much
money they pull down in a months time, especially in a multi-physician practise.
Costs for a small doctors office is really very low compared to what they make in amonth.
Their operating costs are really no more than many businesses making much less.
I also live in a state where there is a 150,000 cap on medical malpractice suits.
Some are less than that, some more. They also make sure you keep their favorable forms filled out
so your billing, contact info is upto date and your right to sue the doctor/s are
also limited and upto date.

[Mollis]

14. If the cost of living doesn't go up

then it makes sense to me.

[Dragonfli]

19. Could you live on it? - NT

[Mollis]

20. Not at what it is right now...

if it went up and I was able to get a fulltime job, I could hope so.
The cost of living is so high. There is no way I could live on what I make now.

[Dragonfli]

21. Best of luck to you. I hope it goes up, because I've lived it

With two full time jobs at min. wage my wife and I barely made it through (that was pre-2000).
That is in a city with a nationally low cost of living.
Luckily it was only for about a year, as all bills were not fully met(and became menacingly large) and our diets were less than healthy. I consider that experience and consider todays economy and I conclude things have progressed to emergency levels for the millions that can not for whatever reason find any other work.

I am ashamed of our country at this time and feel deeply for the impoverished working class. I can not stand for it and do what I can to change it. As a voter I vote with this in mind, as a foreman, I have convinced my boss to pay 3 dollars above current minimum wage for the unskilled helpers on my crew. I am very good at what I do and get my way, with surprisingly good results from the unskilled help. They are very loyal, very hard working, and show genuine gratitude for the opportunity. Some of them have learned enough from their hard work to be promoted to skilled positions with better pay.

As a coordinator of such labor I wish I could convince others to try this method as well.
One should never underestimate the savings in less "turn-around"(new hires to replace those that quit). Also theft is no longer a problem and my crew works harder than any others I know of.

Raising a wage to a living wage is not a business killer if you look at the whole picture.

[Dragonfli]

17. I don't understand people who would keep such low wages

FYI I have not always worked in a field that pays a living wage. At times in-between my career jobs I was forced to take minimum wage jobs with my wife doing the same. We both worked full-time and still had to eat mostly rice while utilities were never fully covered and so became rather large bills with a constant danger of being shut off.

This was before 2000 when the economy and cost of living were far more reasonable than they are now.

I do not for the life of me know how people can live in the current economy under such conditions.

For whoever voted not to raise the minimum wage to at least a level where one does not face freezing in the winter while experiencing malnutrition and keep it tied to cost of living, I just don't understand you or your complete lack of empathy for a living, breathing and yes WORKING human beings. Are you sure your not a conservative? Have you a trust fund or something and simply do not understand that this is more than a number on a page?

Please explain yourself.

[Jamastiene]

18. Raise it to at least a living wage. n/t

[TygrBright]

23. AND index it to inflation. n/t

[depakid]

35. That's how it works in Oregon and Washington

The Chamber of Commerce claimed the unemployment rate would soar when Oregon proposed raising the minimum wage and indexing it to inflation. Of course, nothing of the sort occurred.

Austrlia's minimum wage is now at $14.31 per hour (though the cost o living is a bit higher). And the unemployment rate has remained considerably lower than in the US.

[Winnipegosis]

24. What is the minimum wage?

In Manitoba it's $8.75.

[RichardRay]

26. I kind of like the idea of a MAXIMUM compensation.

I believe it's Ben & Jerry's where the highest compensation in the company can't exceed some multiple of the lowest. It's not a maximum compensation amount for everybody, but it applies within each business. I admit to not having thought through every possible aspect, but on the face of it I like the idea.

[Libertyfirst]

27. It should be living wage. n/t

[proud2BlibKansan]

28. Why would anyone oppose raising it?

:shrug:

I live in Kansas where it is $2.65!!

[LeftishBrit]

29. How does anyone live on that? Shocking.

In the UK, it's £5.73 (converts to $8.74) and I wouldn't even call that princely.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

31. Cost of living in the UK is ridiculously high compared to the US and the rest of Europe

for what other Brits tell me. Correct?

[LeftishBrit]

34. It depends where you live.

In Oxford (where I live) or London, yes. In some northern or rural areas, not so much.

I would guess it's the same in the US - much more expensive to live in New York City, say, than somewhere out in the country?

[Romulox]

32. I'm ALL FOR a Wall Street bailout. But my ideology won't allow any help for working people.

I'm a "progressive"!!!

[DU GrovelBot]

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[Quantess]

36. Which states, and would wait staff be included?

[mdmc]

37. kick