Minimum Wage

[Merika]

No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence levelâ€â€�I mean the wages of a decent living.
â€â€� Franklin Roosevelt (urging passage of minimum wage legislation)

I was thinking about dogula's post in another thread about the rich -vs- the poor. I've never had to live on minimum wage....but A LOT of people do. My feeling is if you raise the wage.....more people will have more money...then more money then goes into the economy.....and one would
think this should boost the economy rather than being a burden.

Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

BTW: The minimum wage in the USA is $5.15.....I'm not sure what it is elsewhere. In doing the Math....that's trying to survive on around $200 a week and you couldn't even do that if you were single....much less had a family.

[dogula]

Depends though, most minimum wage jobs are in retail and food, and it is conceivable that raising the minimum wage would in fact end up raising prices on everything and it would negate the effect of the minimum wage increase. But I'm no economist and am not sure what exactly would happen. But I do know that I never shop at walmart.

[Merika]

This is what someone posted on the internet about Walmart:
Walmart Pay Rate and Salary

Hourly Positions

Support Mgr my rate is $14.98 but in my store the five supports make between $9.93 to $21.23 an hour. The person making $21.23 has been with company 26 years so he skews the average.
Dept Mgr $10.62
Sales Assoc. $8.27
Overnight Stockers $9.29
Cashiers $8.05

The average walmart hourly pay $9.26

LINK: http://www.youareworthmore.org/node/...ts_per_page=30

I don't know that I would consider that a low wage. Actually, I'm surprised it isn't minimum!

I think you are right dogula in that it would bring up the cost of things....but that would be one way of getting those who can afford it to spread the wealth. If they can afford to go out and eat....they end up helping the person who is working there for a lower salary.

I don't even have a lot of money and I'd be willing to pay an extra 50 cent a burger if it would increase the worker's wage.

What do you think?

[Stone]

It will bring up te cost of things, it has to companies have to pull this money from somewhere. I also assume the cost of living will go up and then there really isn't much of a difference weather minimum wage was up or not, I thinik affordable health care needs to be stressed more than wages, in this country you can have the best higest paying job or the lowest paying job and health cost remain the same they are ridiculisly expensive, employers can't afford the high preimums, employees can't afford to cover there whole faimlies because they are living paycheck to paycheck and the extra 50 bucks or so a week they could pay for insurance is needed for other bills.

I believe that Health Care and Employee Benifits should be stressed rather than minimum wage, most of the people who work for minimum wage are high school kids and seinors. How many people do you know that are miserable in their job but they can't leave due to benifits?

[dogula]

Walmart has never released the figures for how much the workers earn at sams club, but I do know that at costco the average worker makes like $15, gets benefits (I think healthcare) and gets stock options.

[Merika]

I guess this proves your original point dogula....becuase I really can't afford to do a lot of shopping except at WalMart and KMart. If I had to pay Mall prices....I couldn't buy my kid's clothes.

I guess it's a Catch 22 regardless.

[Stone]

WOW I am going to send my dad to work at Casco, that's such a great store, I am anti Walmart to :wink:

[Merika]

I've never heard of Cosco.

[dogula]

It is a warehouse store like sam's club. I think it has been around since the eighties and walmart copied the idea to make sam's club. Anyway, costco seems to be one of the least evil corporations out there. They tend to have outrageously low markup on everything, sell things in bulk to save on packaging costs. And they stick to their guns as far as not dicking around with the markup. I think their average is something like 14%, whereas walmart's (not sam's club) is more like 20-25%, and your average department store is more like 50%.

[Merika]

I checked online and there are 3 Cosco's in Jacksonville, FL with more coming. (We have about 1.3 million people here). None of the current stores are real close to me.....but it would be worth the drive for Christmas purchases.

[dogula]

Like sams's club it is a club store. You have to pay a membership fee, something like $50 for the first year. I suppose that it is worth it if you keep track of prices for stuff in there and outside of there so you can spot the real nice deals and do this every month or a few times a month. And as far as their stock goes it always changes, so they might have some sort of printer or jeans one month, but after they sell out they might not have anymore but have something else.

Costco is generally cheaper then going elsewhere, but according to my mom it can be a little dangerous going there, because it has happened that she intends to spend like $50 on some basic items and she leaves spending like $150. Though I don't think she is really tempted by the stuff nowadays.

[Merika]

I have friends who shop at Sam's Club. I've never wanted to buy a case of corn at a time though. LOL!

[dogula]

Like forty or fifty pounds of corn on the cob? Thats just weird.

[Stone]

I have the same problem as your mom, I'll go for tolit paper and come out with 42 rolls of TP, 10 ponds of chicken, 175 cans of soda, and 5 cases of beer for 150.00

They have the BEST BEST BEER and CIG SAles

[Merika]

It's the huge case of jello fruit cups....which is such a steal! LMAO! Or...how about the 60 rolls of toilette paper!!!!!

[Adonaicole]

I think the minimum wage should be $10, anybody that disagrees is obviously making more, I can't imagine trying to live on that and many people live on less. The only exception should be minors working part time.

[Stone]

I agree to some extent that it should be higher, but $10.00 an hour is pretty good money to work at McDonalds or wash dishes. It would give little insentive to work harder, move up in companies and get an education. I think $7.50 is fair.