Abolish The Minimum Wage!
 

During his State of the Union address last Tuesday, President Obama made only one tangible, simple proposal:

"A family with two kids that earns the minimum wage still lives below the poverty line. That's wrong... Tonight, let's declare that, in the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one who works full time should have to live in poverty, and raise the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour."

Immediately the idea was embraced by the left. Those on the right who objected, were considered elitist haters willing to trample the poor in pursuit of the mighty buck. Suffice it to say, caring about humanity and objecting to the proposed minimum wage hike are not mutually exclusive.

Peter Schiff of president & CEO Euro Pacific Capital isn't likely to cool the heated rhetoric but he does know how to make his point. Characterizing the proposal as the "stupidest" of the President's ideas, Schiff says a hike in the minimum wage would have exactly the opposite of the intended effect. "It's not going to lift the wages of workers," Schiff says in the attached video. "What it's going to do is diminish employment opportunities."

Companies paying minimum wage aren't necessarily rapacious. Being a cashier at Wal-Mart (WMT) or McDonalds (MCD) was never supposed to be considered a lifelong full-time job. However that makes one feel, is beside the point. It's capitalism. A higher minimum wage means lower margins. When you raise hiring costs you reduce the number of jobs available. Period.

"What we really should do is completely abolish the minimum wage, that would make a lot of sense," says Schiff, using Singapore as an example of a strong economy with no minimum wage. "We didn't have a minimum wage for most of American history. It's something that started in the 20th Century. It was a bad idea and we ought to admit that it was a bad idea and get rid of it completely."

Beyond the standard political rhetoric, the President's $9 proposal is flawed at its heart. Obama is right that it's a travesty for Americans working full-time to live in poverty. If the solution is a higher minimum wage, Obama isn't going nearly far enough at $9 an hour.

The family of three in the President's example is still below the poverty line by official government measures. Earning $9 an hour rate is equal to $18,000 a year. By neither the official measure nor by the yardstick of humanity is a family of three not impoverished if its making ends meet on $18,000 a year.

Putting minimum wage on the table for national discussion is the right thing to do. What's not right is for a second-term President to waste the opportunity he has to make a real difference. By pegging $9 to inflation Obama takes minimum off the table for years to come. He's squandering the one shot the Left has to do something meaningful.

Minimum wage should either be lower to get as many people on what Schiff calls the first rung of the employment ladder as possible, or much higher to actually ease some pain.

$9 just leads to fewer jobs for working poor. It's not a win for Liberalism or a blow to Conservatives. It's a cynical cop out; the kind the country has grown to expect from Washington.

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/break...172858062.html

At $9 an hour you're still living in poverty. Abolish the income tax and you're getting somewhere.

How about abolish both.

None of it matters. Why discuss it? There should BE NO minimum wage. If the masses are god damned stupid enough to allow corporations to come to be what they have, fuck them.

The problem is that natural selection does not work. With this minimum wage and that welfare we've enabled a huge multiplying herd of ignorant garbage to reproduce and continue voting for horrible rapists who end up running everything.

Raise minimum wage? Why? People being paid that little have no ambition or motivation. They'd be starved dead if they could not go begging some company in need of bodies for a place to go and fuck off for 8 hours of their retarded ass days.

Then the ones who don't even have the ambition or motivation to do THAT end up getting free handouts they can barely exist on. What the fuck do THEY care? They all go out and happily contract countless social diseases while finding something to stay high on.

So now the past few years I keep hearing about "raise the minimum wage". Why? The corporations and your government are your masters, stupid, increase their costs $1 and they'll increase YOUR costs $1.25 while laughing in your face


Almost everyone in this country is too stupid to be alive at this point. Don't believe me? Go and watch just any of what the government does on a daily fucking basis. They don't even hide most of it and it's just done right in your faces.

Hell, what they're doing every day is as much of an outrage as someone coming into your home and raping your wife in her asshole. Without lubrication. Yes, it is that bad. But you're all happily taking it and you keep voting them in.

The average day in what is left of America is pretty much like that scene when ceasar raped that mans wife on their wedding night leaving her bleeding everywhere. I'm pretty sure he put a hand up the guys ass, too.

Fall in line. Get a job, slave. Fall in line real good and you can shuffle papers and make some deals for your white owner and you might be promoted to a bigger tiny fraction of what you're making for him. Don't forget to let uncle sam motherfucking jack a big percentage of your shit- if you don't allow it, he'll put you in jail without even finding a law to convict you of

YaY Employees


An old pimp told me one time about people living on the grid. I'll never forget. Most of you get sent out on the daily and you got no idea. My grandfather explained the government to me and made some predictions- he hasn't been wrong, yet.


Everyone can say on here how stupid I am but in the end, I'll be on top if anyone will

Without a doubt footsie boy and Minte will have their say in this thread. :2 cents:

:2 cents::thumbsup

Australia's minimum wage is $15.96 ($USD 16.33) per hour. :2 cents:

You also don't pay any tax until you've earned over $18,000.

I think most making $9 or less do not pay any Federal tax anyway.

mexicans do great getting paid less than min wage. I mean its either nothing at all or get paid some money. min wage and more taxes! it makes so much sense

Another one of the big issues is that people earning the minimum wage typically don't have any benefits and cost the government in Medicaid and food stamps.

The lowest starting wage that my business offers is $9.50. After 90 days it rises to $10.00. In 2012 we gave raises twice. We have skilled labor making over $24.00 per hour. We have a number of people in middle management making 60k + and top level management making 6 figures. That does not include the cost of health,dental,death and work comp insurances.

We also give no interest loans to employees after they have been with us a year. Up to $700. They can pay that back over a year. We have never been stung on one.

As far as the argument goes to whether the minimum should be raised. I haven't ever seen a benefit to having employees struggle. I hope there is no one in our organization that is receiving food stamps or assistance.

When adjusted for inflation the minimum wage hasn't risen since the 1970s. Also Walmart is the country's largest employer last time I checked, you expect them all just to be 16 year old kids working part time?

I never have seen the average wage Walmart pays. There has to be a lot of people in that group making competitive wages.

Abolish everything. Lets give America the third world status this shithole deserves

The min. wage helps create that third world status by fixing the cost of labor and destroying jobs for the unskilled. There are millions unemployed thanks to the min. wage when they could be doing something useful albeit low paid it's better than nothing :2 cents:

If Obama gets his way he'll destroy about 500,000 low paid jobs. He's very good at destroying jobs.

Amen You are one of the good ones

So they now want even more profit in name of "more jobs" yey

just so you know a lot of states have minimum wage higher that the proposed $9. It'll still be up to the state if it wishes to make the federal wage a requirement. As you can see from the link below a lot of states have no min. wages and its debatable if you can say they're doing better or not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._minimum_wages

You really see the bad side of business when the owners don't work at the same locations as their employees. I am there everyday. I know many of the team by their first names. And I have worked closely with the staff over the years to not forget that it is the direct labor that makes the money. We are all just overhead.

It makes a difference. When you have large corporations where the management is in some golden tower there is nothing personal about the labor force. They get to be just a number on a spreadsheet.

America doesn't value job creators. You're rich, your detested, your greedy, here's some more regulations and taxes.

The absolute worst thing you can do in America today is employ people. I commend you for sticking with it but you ought to know the writing is on the wall

Bring back slavery can I get an amen? Slaves got shelter and food and their kind masters have given them a free boat cruise and jobs on arrival. They really should be thanking their masters

so companies will be more likely to just outsource for $2/hour overseas and/or raise prices of their goods/services...

how exactly does this benefit anyone?

Companies would hire a lot of people who are sitting on their ass doing nothing if they could at a lower price and what's wrong with that?

A low paid job is better than no job particularly for the unskilled and young people where rates of unemployment are double the average.

I agree, with high unemployment now a days the government should be passing policies that will create jobs, not destroy them like this minimum wage proposal...

The other question should be what should be the maximum wage.

If the rich and greedy could only earn 10 times the poorest, then they might start paying decent wages.


The problem has been the attack on normal peoples' wages from the 1980s onward and the lack of good well paid jobs.

how does it benefit the country if people work a job where the wage is so low that the qualify for multiple government benefits? the government shouldn't be forced to take up the slack but thats what happens and would be even worse if there was no minimum wage at all.

$7/hr job + some government benefits is clearly better than no job at all and having government cover 100%? no?

Getting people off welfare and into work is absolutely critical for the solvency and future of America. Abolishing the minimum wage would do that along with repealing regulations and drastically lowering taxes. But the president doesn't care about jobs. He's the worst jobs president since the WW2.

sure but i think something like the more a company pays employees a good living wage, the more tax breaks they get instead of letting them run the show and forcing government to take up the slack would be better for pretty much everyone. no one is going to work for less than they would get not working at all so i would think getting rid of the minimum wage while it may get some people working, the majority would not. what incentive would there be?

Please tell us how having a min wage is destroying jobs for the unskilled? Do you mean no slaves or indentured servants?

I mean really.. If you can't pay someone $9 dollars an hour to do a job as a business, then your business has a lot more problems than worrying about min wage.

:2 cents:

From my book "Life is simple"
If you don't want a Minimum Wage don't apply for a Minimum Wage job:2 cents:

A consumer based economy only works if people make enough to consume.

Cinema's used to hire ushers to take you to your seat with a flashlight. It's unskilled and low pay work for teenager, struggling college student or part time mom but it paid something and now they don't hire ushers at all.

Gas stations used to hire someone to pump gas for your car but they don't any more because of the min. wage and it's too expensive. (although in NJ it's still the law that someone pumps your gas!)

These are just two examples where jobs are disappearing thanks to making the cost of them too expensive via the min wage so companies don't bother and service to the customer gets worse .

And that's the problem. Economies need producers not consumers. America is not producing enough because the cost of labor, regulations and taxes is getting higher and higher and so are the ranks of the unemployed and underemployed.

Look what the unions have done to Detroit, once a bustling city of manufacturing now on its knees because the unions have made the cost of labor so expensive through their rackets and extortion.

We used to use child labor in mills and coal mines, but things change.. Perhaps you should move to India, Pakistan or China.. I'm sure you could become quite the success story very little govt regulation and large pool of working slaves to do what every you want for pennies on the dollar.

Seems more in line with what you want out of America.. So why stick around here when everything you seem to want is over there?

Wrong. There are massive regulations in India, Pakistan and China. They're socialist countries with state industries and licenses needed to do anything along with political corruption and in the case of China oppression.

Why would I want to go there?!

Ahh so you want no regulation & almost free labor. Sounds realistic..

I want freedom and the constitution. There's no min. wage in the constitution.

90% of all restaurants and fast food.

its headed there even with these awesome laws. When youre in a good place minimum wage and excessive benefits make sense. $30 an hour to put screws into a GM car makes sense. when your country is falling apart and Mexicans and the Chinese are making a killing it means you need to rewind some shit. yes no maybe so?

YOU know how to run a business. I always did seem to love your posts. I can't imagine what it must cost you to provide all of those bennies for everyone, though. It makes me scared and afraid to imagine!! That said, in your place I'd do the same thing. I believe in taking care of people who take care of me. I always did.

I've never been on your level but I was partnered up with this guy one time and he always hired cheap idiots. One of them tried to run off with a truck, some never showed up, still others did the opposite of what he told them, no one did any work. I hired a couple of morons for TWO MORE DOLLARS per hour and actually found some real work.

Then after they worked their asses off for us I gave them an extra $50 and some beer and cigarettes. By the time I was done, sure I was paying them $14 vs. the $7 my partner always tried to pay people but we were making thousands more and we didn't have to do everything ourselves. Plus- those men would have m*rdered someone for me

My father taught me that. The black people in neighborhoods he was working didn't receive white people well, at all. What does my father do? He hires some of the biggest blackest guys he can find and he takes GOOD care of them. By the time he's done he's making a god damned fortune and his men were loyal like you would not believe. So instead of being bitter about black people don't like me, he ends up finding out how loyal they are to people who don't fuck them over

Turning a bad situation into good is not always impossible and greed is never profitable. These business that don't take care of people never get anywhere - except for mega corporations which have cooperation of the government (they get to be unstoppable)

muh freedoms! get real, the constitution while a great thing is old and of course a lot of things that we need to protect the world we live in are not in it. and i am not talking about minimum wage but a million other things. the idea that you want 'freedom and the consitution' is such a simple statement that you clearly did not think it through.

you dont have to. and they dont. thats why when you call microsoft support you talk to an indian. i mean really

we cant even protect the constitution how are we going to protect something reworded. are you serious. lay out what needs to be done blackcrayon

Not if you call in for an Xcube system
My sister works tech support for those idiots
She's not indian and her IQ is over 170 and she is completely white.

Clueless as always.

i am not saying it needs to be re-worded, just that rebel23's idea of all we need is 'freedom and the constitution' is just a sound bite that isn't thought out.

That's VERY true and only gets worse when the people running a business are not the people who built the business. It's also exactly the reason why things like minimum wage are so important. You'd have a hard time finding any business with an actively engaged owner paying people under $9.00 per hour... this law isn't about them. It's about the bean counters in a central management accounting department who think paying $6.25 would look good on a spreadsheet and get them a promotion at a meeting about quarterly profits.

This :thumbsup