McDonalds workers in New York City are striking, asking for a hike in wages from the fast food average of $8.94 to a more livable $15 an hour. Wendy's and Burger King workers are also involved. Walmart workers have done this as well.
Wow- doesn't that seem like a HUGE jump in pay!? For most minimum wage workers, that would be DOUBLING their pay! Is that fair to McDonalds? How can even a multi-billion dollar organization afford that?
When yours truly had minimum wage eligible jobs in high school, waaaay back in the 20th century, the minimum wage was $1.60 an hour. Believe me, that was pretty good in early 1970's dollars. Gas was like 30 cents a gallon, smokes were @.50 a pack, a burger/fries/and shake at one of the above places would maybe be a dollar? I don't remember all the prices. But, that was the minimum wage. Grown ups at other jobs were making more. In fact, the minimum of $7.25 now, was about what I would make as a non-union painter, a few years later when I was about 21. The union guys I worked with made $13 an hour. That was good money that you could make a mortgage and car payment with. My pay wasn't chopped liver either!
It is insane that 30-40 years later that minimum is only $7.25 and fucking obscene that the monied powers that be want to eliminate the minimum!
The actual workers believe they need twice the minimum to survive and the people forced to pay them the minimum believe they need to pay less. Where's the happy medium? By the way, economists tend to agree that, to keep pace with today's dollars/inflation, the minimum wage should be $21 an hour. Fifteen is pretty much a bargain!
The representatives of the corporations- the republican party- say that the minimum wage holds workers back. They say this with straight faces. In the free market... they say straight-faced...no minimum wage would mean that you the worker could command more based on your skills. I think they are confused about what minimum might actually mean. They might be confusing it with maximum. Well, unless less really is more, that is.
I'm paraphrasing some comedian here but, the minimum wage is your boss telling you: "I want to pay you less but, the government won't let me! I would pay you less, if only I could!!"
The corporate spinmeisters (GOP again) are trying to tell us that your boss is saying: "I want to pay you more but, the government won't let me! I can only pay you more if they remove the MINIMUM of what I HAVE to pay you!"
Well, if you put it that way....it makes even less sense. In fact, it's stupid and insultingly so. McDonalds and Walmart DO NOT want to pay their workers more. Even that idiotic, fanciful *budget* that they put out for their workers assumed one had a second minimum wage job and still didn't need to heat one's home. That they might pay a dollar over the minimum doesn't mean much when few hourly employees get near the 40 hours to be eligible for benefits. It's well known that thousands of Walmart employees are eligible for welfare as are millions of similarly employed people. Want to get people off the taxpayer dole? Pay a living wage! I read recently that Walmart having to pay the living wage of $15 an hour would increase the costs of your purchases at Walmart by 53 cents. Not $.53 on the dollar. FIFTY THREE CENTS for the whole fucking basket! The horror.
Greed, for lack of a better word, sucks. I'm paraphrasing again. This is all about greed. On the threads today was an article about how millionaires- those that just technically qualify- are not really all that well off. One Topix teabagger of note, who shall not be mentioned because he is litigious and can sue people for free, said that a million bucks today was not like it was in the fifties. If he was a millionaire, he would need a lot more security that that! Indeed. Back in '08 I remember Fox *news* discussing how Obama's plan to tax folks making $250k or more was bad because $250,000 a year was not really a lot of money. They interviewed people who were in that bracket. They talked about how tough it was for a family of four to get by. It seems to me that in the Clinton era, the same thing was said about trying to get by on $100,000 a year. Sigh...
Did you see the pattern there? The minimum standard for wealth has gone up- and people find it tough to get by on that. Just since Bill Clinton was in office, it's risen from $100,000 to a million. And those fuckers are crying! And they are crying hardest about the folks at the bottom rung of life's ladder, wanting to climb up a rung and not giving a moments thought to how hard it might be to get by in life at $7.25 an hour. They own the entire forest but, believe they are one tree away from becoming a desert. You are that one tree in their way. Mcfuck 'em!
5 comments:
byline: Deer Whisperer/Luke
I have to 'look up some stuff' before adding more, but if I understood what I've read about "life and times" of the 50s, wasn't income tax brackets for the rich pretty damn high then?! I mean 3 or 4 times higher than now?
Yep, the rate in the Eisenhower years was like 90%(?) i think. Of course, they had tax attorneys and write offs. Today if you went from making (what one article called the median income) $51,500 to a million, you could also rejoice about entering a lower tax bracket. YAY! Curiously, the standard of living for most Americans was higher. Some people want the fifties back but with low to zero taxes and low to zero wages. That's the 1850's!!! Oops...
The old argument pro minimum wage is, "But it's a just a starting wage!" Flipping burgers and stocking grocery shelves are after school jobs for teenagers. It's expected that they'll move along, go to school or learn a trade and get married and live happily ever.
Of course, that was possible 40 years ago. In the olden days, when our public education system actually offered auto shop in high school. Anyone remember shop? And business classes for the girls? So they could type somewhere until they got married?
Well, like it or not, our economic climate is today so mucked up that we are actually better off NOT working a minimum wage job.
Oh, and a note to those who think they're safe because they have their college degrees - there are a lot of folks whose degrees are worth less than a hamburger wrapper, and they're now bellied up to the counter in their red uniform shirts asking, "Do you want fries with that?"
Shit happens, and it's equal opportunity. Support these people.
Yep, no longer a teenager's or a starting wage, people are trying to live and raise families on it. What would one aspire to while they are also killing Unions and making college a ridiculously expensive crap shoot? I like hearing these brilliant economic... strategerists... who think that all 300+million of us just need to decide to become entrepreneurs and become corporate pioneers. And, if we don't, we're just lazy people! It's that simple!!!
And the divide grows, Fer.
"Lazy!" or my favorite: "You made the wrong choices!"
But the flatasses scream like mashed cats when our impoverished WORKERS need food stamps, rental assistance and God forbid, health care!
Here in California, a single person earning minimum wage does not net enough to live in decent housing, and also eat.
If you're a couple with a minor child, then the fun really begins. They still won't qualify for decent housing, and if they do find a dive to sleep in, they still can't eat. If they don't have Nana to watch the baby, then just forget the whole deal!
To argue against this badly needed change is unconscionable.
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