Should People Working Full Time In The U.S. Live In Poverty?

[Andrew D]

That is the essential question posed by the proposal to raise the minimum wage.

People work hard eight hours a day, forty hours a week. And they live in poverty.

Full-time work yields only 64% of poverty-level income for a family of four. And only 77% of poverty-level income for a family of three.

What kind of society is it in which people who work hard, full time, are consigned to poverty?

[Gob]

Depends how you define the poverty level surely?

[Andrew D]

Our government defines the poverty lines for families of various sizes. A full-time worker earns less than poverty level for a family of four, a family of three, and even a family of two.

[Gob]

So what would a two parent family, with both adults earning minimum wage jobs, bring in?

I'm not being awkward, I'm not sure of your system.

Australia's minimum wage is $15.96 per hour ($16.45 USD) or $606.40 per week

The UK adult rate (for workers 21 and over) is £6.19 an hour ($9.39 USD)

[dales]

Min wage is $8.00 in CA.

[Econoline]

Current U.S. federal minimum wage is $7.25; there is a proposal on the table to raise that to $9.00. (That would be $15,080/yr. currently--$18,720/yr. under the proposed raise--for someone working a full-time 40-hour week for a 52-week year; but many minimum-wage jobs are not full-time, or not year-round, or neither.)

[Andrew D]

Who is going to care for the kids while the two parents are working full time at minimum wage?

[Rick]

The same folks that take care of the kids that make just a few dollars more...

[Andrew D]

And if the right-wingers continue to have their way, all of those people will continue to work for next to nothing, while the parasite class aggrandizes its wealth by leeching the lifeblood of ordinary working Americans.

[Scooter]

Australia's minimum wage is $15.96 per hour ($16.45 USD) or $606.40 per week

And could you remind us please, Gob, what the current unemployment rate is in Australia? Something like 5.4%, is it not?

So much for the notion that a higher minimum wage must lead to more unemployment. With a minimum wage more than double that of the U.S., Australia has an unemployment rate that is the envy of the world. Go figure.

[Rick]

And if the right-wingers continue to have their way, all of those people will continue to work for next to nothing, while the parasite class aggrandizes its wealth by leeching the lideblood of ordinary working Americans.

Gimme a break yer smarter than that...

[Andrew D]

And if the right-wingers continue to have their way, all of those people will continue to work for next to nothing, while the parasite class aggrandizes its wealth by leeching the lifeblood of ordinary working Americans.

Gimme a break yer smarter than that...

No, you gimme a break.

What's wrong with what I posted?

Well, other than it's being true, what's wrong with it?

The corporate parasite class wants labor to be cheap. That's why the corporate parasite class hates the idea of any minimum wage, let alone a raise of the minimum wage.

Australia has a minimum wage more than twice ours. And Australia is doing very well.

So why can't the US get a minimum wage even equal to the poverty rate?

Because corporate interests own Congress.

Especially the Republicans.

The Democrats are far from blameless, but it is the Republican party which owes its electoral existence to licking clean the corporate anus.

Stop the Republicans, and we stop the destruction of America.

[dales]

Thinking out loud here:

Let us say there was no minimum wage.

How cheap could we get people to work?

Especially in this shitty economy.

There was a very recent case in SF's Chinatown where people (unaware of labor standards) were working for $4/hr.

The restaurant that employed them was fined somewhere around $500,000.00.

[rubato]

Thinking out loud here:

Let us say there was no minimum wage.

How cheap could we get people to work?

Especially in this shitty economy.

There was a very recent case in SF's Chinatown where people (unaware of labor standards) were working for $4/hr.

The restaurant that employed them was fined somewhere around $500,000.00.

During the great depression Okies came to California and died from starvation while working full time. Their children died with them. Their women died too.

yrs,
rubato

[Rick]

What's wrong with what I posted?

Yer irrational insistance that it is all right wing, that's bull and you know even if you refuse to accept it.

THAT is what I am referring to.

As for the minimum wage thang it's placebo, fine raise it I would prefer getting my orders correct because we now can afford someone that can read. I totally accept the need to raise minimum wage, I'm on board with that idea, I like the very thought of it, do I need to go on?

It is not the panacea that some seem to hang their hats on.

"Oh let's do this this things will get some much brighter"

Risking sounding like editec, with an open door immigration policy and failure to police the work force/contractors/employers that hire wage earners that will work for wages under the table and goods and services that we import that are cheaper and sometimes better than that produced here...on and on and on...

Well I'm sure you catch my drift, if you don't I give you more credit than you deserve.

[oldr_n_wsr]

This is a tough nut. On one hand it would be nice that anyone working full time make enough to support themselves (and maybe their family). On the other hand should the "free market" be forced to pay more than the product (and the labor that produced it) is worth?

If a manufacturer makes a widget, and the most he can get for it is $X. But some "law" causes the price of the widget to be $X+Y, what is he to do? The widget is available from some other place (state, country?) for $X-Z. So the company that makes the widget in "some other place" is able to sell the widget for $X (pocketing $Z) and the manufacturer who was forced to pay $Y closes his doors. Now neither tha manufacturer nor the worker nor the gov that forced the issue make money.

How much is one persons labor worth? I work with my brain. Seems to be more lucrative than working with ones back yet their lives and comfort seem to be comprimised much earlier than mine, yet they work much "harder" (now define harder).

No skills, no education (for which we pay tons of money so it's really ones own fault that they didn't, at the very least, graduate high school) you can expect not to make much money. For some that is fine. I have seen many examples of people in AA who were at the apex of their profession, lost it all and now have found happyness in the simple life. While they may be making above minimum (stocking shelves in the grocery store pays above minimum around here) they are content. Raise the minimum, companies that can absorb it will, those that can't will shed workers.

[dgs49]

A few questions and observations:

On what basis may the United States Federal Government dictate private sector wages? Surely, this is not a matter of regulating "interstate commerce."

Does it occur to any of you that for every single person working at any wage, THAT JOB IS THE BEST OPTION THE PERSON HAS? Otherwise, they would occupying themselves elsewhere.

Having worked minimum wage jobs, I find it difficult to believe that anyone who has ever done so would advance some of the absurd arguments mentioned above. A minimum wage job is not a caste. It is a starting point. Anyone working a minimum wage job has one overriding obligation: to find something better. Either get a raise or a promotion, or a better job, or start a small business of your own. THIS IS LIFE! If you are working a minimum wage job for more than 6 months, the problem is not with the JOB, it's with you!

Furthermore, there are many minimum wage jobs for which overtime is abundantly available. A punctual, responsible security guard will have the opportunity to work as many hours as his personal stamina will permit. I knew several security guards who worked two full-time jobs simultaneously, for years. These guys had no skills, no education, and yet made a decent living due to their willingness to do whatever was necessary to maximize their own income.

When I started my work career (before military service), I wasn't WORTH more than minimum wage. I had no skills, no experience, and little more than a willingness to show up and follow instructions. And with those minimal qualifications, I was head and shoulders above most of the people who worked with me.

The very idea of some outside force determining what the minimum compensation should be for any person or job is simply absurd.

Move to fucking North Korea or Cuba. Everyone there is guaranteed a living wage.

[Rick]

On what basis may the United States Federal Government dictate private sector wages? Surely, this is not a matter of regulating "interstate commerce."

Dave that might be a meaningful arguement if the GMen had never instituted nor raised minimum wage in the past...

[oldr_n_wsr]

I was told long ago (by my dad) that if all you do is "your job" then that is all you will ever do.

People who are satisfied by working for minimum wage their whole life, might just deserve their fate. Is it up to the gov to rescue/boost them?

I know of no person other than maybe my kids friends who are just starting out, working for minimum wage (and I don't think that they are working for minimum). I was one day away from stockng shelves at the supermarket and they were paying more than minimum wage for a job that does not take brains and barely any braun (lift 40lbs for 5 seconds).