Living Wage… a little bit less living
Remember back when Wal-Mart was hemming and hawwing about having to pay people enough to keep their heads above water, and you became so exasperated because The Big W is clearly strapped for cash? Turns out they might have had the law on their side. An opinion just came down that would render the “Living Wage” law unconstitutional.
You know, because forcing huge companies with fully lined pockets to offer a decent wage and benefits to their employees… that’s just wrong.
Well, it wouldn’t be unconstitutional because it’s not just… it would be unconstitutional because Chicago might not have the authority to legislate minimum wage (a subject typically reserved to the states).
Additionally, the law is really targeted at Wal-Mart… which just might be narrowly tailored so far as to be a Bill of Attainder. Now, I’m not a fan of Wal-Mart. Hate them, in fact. But I am a fan of the Constitution, and it applies to Chicago just the same.
If people (you know, *we* the people) want Wal-Mart to pay a living wage, there is a right way to go about it… two, in fact. One: get your elected state/federal representatives to increase minimum wage. Two: stop shopping at the damn store as long as they are treating their employees like crap.
I guarantee that if American’s stopped shopping at Wal-Mart, it would have more influence over their corporate policies than the City of Chicago passing unconstitutional bills.
Laura & Daiv-
First off, please define “living wage”.
Secondly, have either of you ever taken (passed) an economics course? By your comments above, I’ll venture at a solid ‘no’.
Laura-
Just listen to your rhetoric. You think that it’s correct to force a business to pay wages and benefits above what they are worth. You obviously do not understand supply and demand. It works for employees too, not just goods and services.
Daiv-
Don’t you know that raising the minimum wage increases unemployment? If you let the free market dictate prices and wages, the economy will run more smoothly. How is the government supposed to know all the changes in the various factors relating to Wal-Mart and every other competitor?
Why do you hate Wal-Mart? Because moveon.org said so? Their eminent domain policies have been questionable, but besides that, what?
Long live Wal-Mart. Hopefully they never unionize – that would be their downfall.
Let me get out my violin…
#1 – It’s Lauren & Dave… not Laura and Daiv
#2 – Yeah… I get economics. And I get supply and demand. But I also get that gas prices have more than tripled in the past 10 years, and the cost of living is super high. Minimum wages need to keep up, and I think the minimum should be higher. $5.15 is fine for a 15-year-old working at McDonald’s while mommy and daddy put the clothes on his back, but not for someone supporting a family – who probably has to pay for health insurance out of their own pocket as well.
I could give a fuck about Wal-Mart, and don’t expect much of them. They won’t do anything on their own. That is what commerce is all about. There is no moral responsability included in supply and demand – that is why it needs to be legislated. I agree with Dave, but that doesn’t mean that the federal minimum wage shouldn’t be reconsidered.
Also, they defined living wage in the 3rd paragraph of the article if you clicked through the link
Laura-
I don’t think you do get economics. If you did, you wouldn’t support higher minimum wage laws, for they increase unemployment. If an employer has to pay an employee more than he is worth, that leaves him less money to operate his business. In turn, he will either lay people off, not hire anymore, increase the hours his employees work, put more hours in himself, or all of the above. It’s been proven throughout history, all over the world, that minimum wage laws increase unemployment. I do not have the statistics on me, but I’m actually reading an economics book right now that proves you to be incorrect. You need to expand your thinking and viewpoint a bit further.
Also, the percentage of adults with families on minimum wage is pretty low. If they stay at their job they will get a raise. BTW, did you ever think about why someone would have a family when they have a minimum wage job? If they can’t afford to raise children, they need to focus on being able to do that before they start demanding a “living wage”, which by the way, you never defined.
Since you are such an economic wiz, enlighten me as to why a minimum wage law would help…
Like I just said
And you are missing the point. I get the economics behind the minimum wage. I got that – it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to realize that the less you pay people, the more people you can hire. 1 + 1 = 2. Duh.
I’m referring to the MORAL obligation of companies. Just because you CAN pay someone $5.15 an hour, doesn’t mean you should. You are referring to the inherent “worth” of an employee, and I am saying the worth is too low.
It’s isn’t that a minimum wage law would help – we already have one of those, and Illinois does set their rate higher than the federal baseline. What I am saying is that I agree with raising the minimum wage law, especially for companies with $1 billion + in yearly sales.
Also, a lot of people (especially those working in a minimum or just above wage environment) that are raising a family didn’t necessarily do so by choice. And I’m not going to pass judgement on that – that’s due to social factors that I am not going to touch with a ten foot pole. But it exists, and only a bonehead stuck in their ivory tower would think that people always have a choice in those matters.
Enjoying the debate tremendously, but I just have to be a little bit nit-picky here and point out that as talented as Mayer, Brown lawyers are, their “opinion” regarding the ordinance is hardly binding authority on any court, let alone the Supreme Court of the United States or for that matter the Supreme Court of Illinois.
This is more scare tactic and posturing ahead of a final vote on the wage ordinance than an opinion coming down. And it’s an effective one–getting Mayer, Brown’s opinion in writing probably cost Wal-Mart at least a couple grand (conservatively) and litigating this ordinance could cost hundreds of thousands.
Sorry to be so particular but when I read the headline in my newsreader, I was thinking that an IL court had decided an actual case involving a wage ordinance. If you have access to Westlaw or Lexis, there are several cases considering the constitutionality of living wage ordinances in other states on-line–I haven’t had a chance to read through them closely yet. The Supreme Court hasn’t decided this particular issue just yet, though.
Shep (or is it Sheep?)-
First, it’s *DAVE*…
Second, I never said *I* supported raising minimum wage. I don’t actually have an opinion on it. Just that if *one* did support it, there are better ways to go about it than targeting one company.
Third, I hate Wal-Mart because they sell cheap-ass shit and have really, really annoying and lame advertising.
I hate them almost as much as reactionary people who whip out their violin cases of assumptions without bothering to carefully read what I’ve written.
Lauran-
Similar to socialism, the proposal you speak of will encourage mediocrity. If only businesses with sales of $1 billion had to pay these higher rates, then that would encourage them to not sell as much, in turn not employing as many, etc.
It is not immoral to make a profit; quite the opposite. The more profit a company makes, the more people they employ, the more money is put back into the economy, the better peoples standard of living is, etc.
“Just because you CAN pay someone $5.15 an hour, doesn’t mean you should. You are referring to the inherent “worth” of an employee, and I am saying the worth is too low.” (talk about ivory tower…”I am saying the worth is too low.” – was your college degree in economics???)
If the market sets the rate at $5.15 for a particular job, then that is the correct rate, otherwise you are allocating resources to one place when they are more valuable in another. Once again, you’re not grasping the overall economic picture, just the emotionally convenient viewpoint.
Economics (and life) is dependent upon tradeoffs. It’s not going to be perfect. You can either get rid of the minimum wage law and have employment increase or you can have a minimum wage law and feel good about yourself.
Dave-
I stand corrected – you did not take a stand on minimum wage laws. But surely you’ve got some feelings about them…
man I hate when people stoop to petty tactics, like misspelling names, to piss people off. grow the hell up.
oh, and stop shopping walmart.
Congress just voted down legislation which would have raised the minimum wage (it has not been raised since Clinton’s era- that’s a long time with no adjustment to the minimum wage).
A week later, Congress gave themselves a big fat raise.
This week, upper-tier White House staffers like Karl Rove gave themselves a nice raise. The secretaries and other cogs in the WH machine got nothing.
The only way to solve this problem is to pressure Congress, vote Democrat, and stop shopping at Wal-Mart.
What problem? Regarding minimum wage laws, the main problem is that they exist. Ignoring economic reality in order to be “compassionate” does not make sense, unless you’re more concerned with intentions, rather than results. But hey, welcome to the modern Democratic-Socialist party.
Does anyone have any statistics to prove that minimum wage laws help increase employment? Otherwise, these are just random analyses from self-anointed experts.
The point isn’t whether minimum wage laws increase levels of employment, but whether raising the minimum wage can increase the standard of living for those whom are already employed.
Ask yourself this: what do you think would happen in the absence of minimum wage laws? You think Wal-Mart (or any other employer) would suddenly, out of the goodness of its own heart, pay employees $5.15 an hour? Hell no, they would pay as little as economically possible. And in the absence of better paying jobs, Americans would be forced to either work for nothing or not work at all. How is that good for America?
As I stated earlier, supply and demand does not apply only to goods and services. The market would help determine the appropriate wage, depending on where the resources (labor) are most efficiently allocated.
Another good question to ponder is, would you rather have 6 people employed at $10/hour or 10 people employed at $6/hour. Before answering, consider this:
– The majority of people earning minimum wage are teenagers who are just learning the value of money and hard work
– The average person living in “poverty” in the US has a better standard of living than the average European. If, in the US, people in “poverty” have tv’s, ac, cars, etc, people earning a “living wage” probably don’t have it that bad, especially considering the fact that if they stay employed, their pay will continue to increase.
From today’s Tribune:
“Wal-Mart still faces a number of problems, both environmentally and in its workforce. The company faces the nation’s largest class-action suit, which alleges discrimination against as many as 1.5 million of its female employees. And as recently as December, Wal-Mart faced a criminal investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles into its handling of hazardous waste.”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/la-fi-walmart13jul13,1,4473758.story
Hi Shap!
“Another good question to ponder is, would you rather have 6 people employed at $10/hour or 10 people employed at $6/hour.”
If Republican Congress would stop obstructing the increase in the minimum wage, then maybe it could be raised to $6 an hour. That’s been the whole point of this discussion, not your hypothetical, misleading and random observations.
“The average person living in “poverty” in the US has a better standard of living than the average European. If, in the US, people in “poverty” have tv’s, ac, cars, etc, people earning a “living wage” probably don’t have it that bad, especially considering the fact that if they stay employed, their pay will continue to increase.”
There’s a lot of nonsense to unpack here, but here’s a small attempt…
– I love how you put quotation marks around the word poverty as though you doubt its existence. Poverty exists, in the U.S. and elsewhere. Do you deny that fact? And yes, it IS possible to own a car and a TV and STILL be in poverty.
– I’d love to take you to a low-income neighborhood and watch you tell the people there that they don’t ave it “that bad.”
How are my observations misleading?
I put “poverty” in quotes because most people don’t realize how the government calculates “poverty”. It all depends on how much money you make in a particular year. For example, if I am a millionaire, and I decide to take my new yacht out to sea and write a book for the next year, I am living in “poverty”. If a soccer mom quits work to play tennis everyday because her husband can pay the bills, she is living in “poverty”.
Poverty is one of those words that has lost its true meaning through liberal demagoguery. Just like racist, Nazi, oppression and torture.
I understand that there are people living in true poverty (mostly outside the US). In the United States however, a country where you have many opportunities to succeed, the majority of those people are there because of their own actions and decisions.
If you own a car, a television, microwave and have air conditioning – that is not poverty to me. If you’re so poor, how did you afford all those amenities?
The whole minimum wage issue is basic economics. Among respected economists, it’s not even debatable.
OK, Shep, since Faux News rhetoric, rather than facts, seem to your stroing suit, take a look at what the U.S. government says on the matter.
So far, you’ve only been successful in demonstrating the “poverty” of your analytic skills:
* The official poverty rate in 2004 was 12.7 percent, up from 12.5 percent 2003.
* In 2004, 37.0 million people were in poverty, up 1.1 million from 2003.
* Poverty rates remained unchanged for Blacks (24.7 percent) and Hispanics (21.9 percent), rose for non-Hispanic Whites (8.6 percent in 2004, up from 8.2 percent in 2003) and decreased for Asians (9.8 percent in 2004, down from 11.8 percent in 2003).
* The poverty rate in 2004 (12.7 percent) was 9.7 percentage points lower than in 1959, the first year for which poverty estimates are available (Figure 3). From the most recent trough in 2000 both the number and rate have risen for four consecutive years, from 31.6 million and 11.3 percent in 2000, to 37.0 million and 12.7 percent in 2004 respectively.
* For children under 18 years old, both the 2004 poverty rate (17.8 percent) and the number in poverty (13.0 million) remained unchanged from 2003. The poverty rate for children under 18 remained higher than that of 18-to-64-year olds (11.3 percent) and that of people aged 65 and over (9.8 percent).
* Both the poverty rate and number in poverty increased for people 18 to 64 years old (11.3 percent and 20.5 million in 2004, up from 10.8 percent and 19.4 million in 2003).
* The poverty rate decreased for seniors aged 65 and over was 9.8 percent in 2004, down from 10.2 percent in 2003, while the number in poverty in 2004 (3.5 million) was unchanged.
How is poverty defined? We’ll see how the U.S. gov defines it in a moment, but your statement that owning a TV, A/C, etc. somehow by definition lifts one out of poverty is utterly absurd and, to be frank, offensive. Here’s a handy chart: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/threshld/thresh05.html
note that for a family of 4 (2 adults, 2 children) the poverty threshhold is $19,806.
Can you imagine trying to feed, clothe, house and educate a family of four on LESS THAN $20K a year? Of course you can’t; because you are an asshole without the slightest shred of sympathy or empathy for your fellow man.
Just to further how little $5.15 an hour works out to…
$5.15/hr x 40 hours a week x 52 weeks a year = $10,712 a year before taxes.
That is not a living wage, even by the governments standards of poverty. Even if you have 2 adults working at that rate (not even accounting for child care costs, since they’ll both be at work) that just scrapes the poverty rate after taxes.
And yeah, people get raises. I remember being a teenager, happy as a pig in shit, because I got a 25 cent an hour raise. Let’s assume you have a family, and you work while your partner stays home and watches the kids. Not because your partner is lazy, but because you want your kids reared right, with an adult that is blood around them. And let’s assume you start a job at Wal-Mart for $5.15 an hour. If you got a 50 cent raise every six months (pretty standard), it would take you 4.5 years to get to 9.50 an hour which, by the way 9.5/hour x 40 hours a week x 52 weeks a year ~ $19k
Your statistics are great, but if we get back to my examples of how poverty is calculated, then these stats aren’t quite as meaningful. By labeling a rich millionaire or a soccer mom as living in “poverty”, the government is just trying to inflate the number of people in “poverty”, causing alarmists and demagogues to run to the microphone and call for more programs, new benefits, more social engineering, etc. This is a way for politicians to keep buying votes and get even more control over our lives, and eager, “compassionate” individuals will take the bait…some more often than others.
No, I can’t “imagine trying to feed, clothe, house and educate a family of four on LESS THAN $20K a year”. I would be smart enough to realize that if I make less than $20K/year, I have no business trying to raise 2 kids. It’s called being responsible.
Hmmm…It offends you if someone says a family that owns a car, television, microwave, air conditioning, etc, is not poor? That’s hilarious. All of those things cost money to purchase and maintain. If they’re so poor, why don’t they sell a few things – get rid of the cable bill or the cell phone. There is a difference between needs and wants.
There is also a difference between good intentions and good results….a big one, which liberals have failed to discover over the past 40 years.
And I’m an a**hole because my opinion is different than yours. Thanks for enlightening me!
Laurin-
Why would you even think about trying to raise a family of four on $10,712? Does that sound like a good idea?
Don’t insult me by making it seem like if it is a decision I wouldn’t make, then it doesn’t happen. The fact of the matter is, people start families from all walks of life. Sometimes it’s an accident. I know… I’m one of those kids. And my parents didn’t want to abort me, thank god. So they sucked up the responsability. The were young, decided to get married, and gave it a go. And they are still married to this day… happily, 26 years later. They were both fresh out of high school, and my dad worked 2 jobs and spent 8 years putting himself through college while my mom stayed at home and raised me. So don’t talk to me like it is irresponsable to do so. I thank fucking christ that my mom didn’t go the route of “good idea” and rip my little fetal head out with forceps.
(as an aside – I am firmly pro-choice. My personal choice just wouldn’t include abortion, but other women are free to make up their own mind)
When was the last time you lived around the poverty level and had to actually deal with this issue face-to-face?
That’s a great story and all, but you’ve drifted away from the topic – minimum wage.
Just because some people make bad decisions, doesn’t mean the government should hurt the economy in order to help them out. If a couple gets pregnant when they can’t afford it, they can get help from friends and family, but they still must realize and accept the fact that it’s not the government’s fault or responsibility. The more we rely on government, the further we are from freedom.
BTW, you say:
“(as an aside – I am firmly pro-choice. My personal choice just wouldn’t include abortion, but other women are free to make up their own mind)”.
Here is a quote from your personal site on Nov 3, 2004:
“And even though I am staunchly against abortions (for myself, you can do whatever you want – but for me personally I couldn’t ever get one, especially being a child that was conceived to unmarried teenagers) I WOULD probably end up getting one simply because I COULD NOT AFFORD THE MEDICAL COSTS OF BIRTHING A CHILD.”
Just wanted to point something out here. In 2004 you seemed to think it was better to abort a baby rather than try and raise the baby when one couldn’t afford to. Why the change of heart?
Refocusing on topic: Can we all agree that increasing the minimum wage reduces jobs, therefore hurting the economy?
Sorry… did I drift away from the topic? Because I thought you asked me a personal question that was not about minimum wage but rather I thought it was a good idea to raise a family on that income, and I answered it, as well as provided an example to the fact that this does indeed happen.
As for the aside on my site, that was to accentuate the medical costs of pregnancy (i.e. – an abortion is cheaper than the medical bills incurred from pregnancy). Hence, the snide capping to stress the absurdity of the situation that most people are left in. I understand that sarcasm doesn’t translate well online.
I don’t think there was an argument against the fact that raising minimum wage reduces the number of jobs. (see above: “I got that – it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to realize that the less you pay people, the more people you can hire. 1 + 1 = 2. Duh.”)
It’s a quantity vs. quality issue. And I, personally, think we would be better off having people that get fair pay for their job and can actually support their families / selves (quality) versus more people that can barely scrape by (quantity). And whenever you talk quality vs. quantity, it is a personal preference. It’s not like I am setting economic standards here – no one is waiting for my opinion on the matter to raise the federal minimum wage. It’s just my take on the matter – I pick quality. You pick quantity. BFD.
The thing is, you don’t understand economics. What statistics and equation did you utilize to come up with what you view as “fair pay”? Please define “fair pay” for us…
“It’s not like I am setting economic standards here.” No, but you support politicians setting economic standards. How can a bureaucrat in DC know what is “fair” pay for millions of different workers in millions of different jobs with millions of different skills? Answer: He can’t. That is why the free market is the best gauge of what is “fair”. If the pay wasn’t “fair”, the individual wouldn’t take the job. If enough people don’t take the job, the wage will lower until it is fair (notice no parentheses here).
Shep-
You’re every bit as annoying, ill-informed and trollish as when you used to post under the name “Ben.”
First of all, Shep, as the first one to call someone a Nazi, you automatically lose the arguement. That’s the rule.
But in addition, its called Google people – use it. By doing a quick search on “minimum wage” and “increased unemployment” – a search which should skew rightward (a negative connotation to a proposed initiative tends to favor the party desiring the status quo) you know what you find? Nobody really knows if raising the minimum wage lowers, raises or is relatively unimportant to the employment rate.
Like the sun revolving around the earth, something may look straightforward, but that don’t necessarily make it so. When you look at it in the most isolated, cartesian terms, having to pay your workers more means less profits to the buisness owner. But then again, more people will have more money in their pockets, so they will spend more.
Now wait, aren’t we forgetting a few other things – illegal immigrant workers? Nafta? Outsourcing? Rising productivity? Weather? Fuel costs? Et and cetera?
So there’s your problem – you’ve got a hugely complex interwoven system and you’re saying that by upping one little part a nudge (we’re not talking CEO wage increases here) you will destroy America as we know it and godless communists will start making everone play cricket insteead of baseball or something.
Of course each family dependent on said low wage jobs won’t have to scrape as much to get by – and if you’ve ever lived an hourly existence you know that’s a closed system.
Nobody will be surprised that during your little Google search that the right wing sites will say increasing the minimum wage will cause us to lose thousands of jobs (anywhere from 100,000 to .75 million were stated) and the left wing sites say that there is no effect or a slight (a few thousand here and there) increase due to more people with money left-over at the end of the month. Naturally enough they both poo-poo the other sides’ studies – although more often the right side will dismiss them out of hand and the left side will say something to the effect of “this right-wing study is flawed because it states this when it really should take into account that.” However, I’ve found that in general, people on the right don’t seem to feel like thay have to back up their claims, why buck the trend? What I found most interesting though is that – almost to a site – when the right-wing contrasts employment patterns relative to minimum wage laws they compare now to the time-period between World War II and Vietnam. If you don’t realize that the economies of the U.S. have not changed radically in the last 40 years you are incapable of understanding this subject.
However, on the other side of the equasion I would like to point out that the last time we had a minimum wage increase was in 1996 and everyone knows the economy went absolutely nowhere in the late nineties. Oh, no wait, that completely supports my arguement.
cheers,
Bob
That should read:
If you don’t realize that the economies of the U.S. have changed radically in the last 40 years you are incapable of understanding this subject.
Switching negatives mid-sentence is a hard habit to break.
Bob-
It’s a pleasant surprise to actually find people who comment on this blog, other than the extremely angry and virulent moderators. I thought their bitter diatribes had driven everyone away.
To your first point, you contend that I lost because I called someone a Nazi. If you could show me where that happened, that would be great.
Secondly, you speak of economics as though it’s a liberal/conservative concept. 90 – 95% of respected economists will say that raising the minimum wage will decrease employment. Even the strident, leftist moderators on this blog haven’t disagreed with that analysis (perhaps they haven’t received their talking points?).
Either way, I would like to respectfully disagree with your analysis Bob. If you’d like to continue a civilized, non-name-calling debate over the issue, filled with facts, logic and history, not just emotional platitudes, we can get some stats and references involved.
Have a nice weekend.
“Poverty is one of those words that has lost its true meaning through liberal demagoguery. Just like racist, Nazi, oppression and torture.”
Oops, my bad, you merely associated Nazi and liberal – you haven’t lost due to the nazi rule. Sorry.
90%-95% of them also compare the economy of today with the economy of 1950’s america for their examples. That’s called false sampling. My overarching point is that in 1996 we raised the minimum wage and the economy of this country soared, with significant increases in employment. That didn’t happen with the “trickle down” theories or union-busting of the eighties – it happened with an increase of trade combined with the empowerment of the average american worker. That a massive expansion in this country’s economy coincided with the only time in the last 40 years where the average american’s standard of living actually increased is not coincidental.
Perhaps you’ve heard the old adage “Money is a lot like manure. If you spread it around it does a lot of good. Pile it up in one place it stinks to high heaven.” That traditional value is my point.
When you are living from paycheck to paycheck, any increase in pay is going to directly and immediately help you. Not even the most cold-hearted right-wing trolls who comment on this board argue that. But there is no hard proof that so long as you account for the multitude of variables in a modern interconnected economy increasing the minimum wage will do permanent harm to the economy.
On your statement:
“If you’d like to continue a civilized, non-name-calling debate over the issue, filled with facts, logic and history, not just emotional platitudes, we can get some stats and references involved.”
perhaps you’d like to practice what you preach, because you have yet to cite a source or even pull a quote from somewhere and instead continue to rely on emotional platitudes.
stay frosty people,
bob
Most of those commenting here have excess disposable income which would be better utilized providing for the less fortunate. Please send it to the government immediately.
“From each according to his ability – to each according to his needs”
I’m not sure why I thought there could be a reasonable discussion on this blog, but your insistence on purposely misinterpreting my comments shows me that you’re not willing to engage in a serious debate. No, I didn’t associate Nazis with liberals. As clear as day, my comment points out that due to liberal demagoguery, certain words have lost their meaning.
Try not to hurt yourself…
Just like a republican – focus on an incidental statement and hope to god that nobody holds you to the fact that you can’t counter the truth.
To review:
1. Paying people a living wage can not be proven to hurt local economies.
2. Paying people more does help them to strengthen their local economy and their own lives.
3. Ergo pro-buisness anti-people stooges are wrong.
4. When this is pointed out they whine about irrelevant drivel, claim to be right and feel a little more hollow inside.
As one of your people said it best, “Reality has a well known liberal bias.”
Try not to hurt yourself or others, though that is your way…
Bob-
Your comments are insightful and much appreciated.
That being said, don’t feed the trolls. Ben/Shep is immune to facts.
This is certainly off topic and going against nikkos’ wishes, but I must point out that the association of “Nazi” as “liberal demogoguery” by shep has to be one of the most idiotic things posted yet on this blog.
You only have to read a post from yesterday on the right-wing site Powerline (which I do not read on a regular or even semi-regular basis) to see that the “demogoguery” comes from idiots on all sides.
“…this is a party in which Joseph Goebbels would feel at home,” the author writes of the Democratic Party.
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/014715.php
(a follow-up post today at that site tries to soften the blow of his original idiocy)
I know that shep/ben/comrade likes to feign outrage at the lack of civility in these discussions while he himself throws out insults as childish as misspelling someone’s name to the over-the-top Nazi/liberal association, but come on, at some point you have to realize that you are completely full of shit.
If your objective is to help the working poor, an expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit would be a much more effective and equitable way of doing so than raising the minimum wage.
David – sounds great – lets do both.
Because while tax breaks for the poor go counter to the current trend of increasing the tax burden on those least capable to shoulder them (via back-door payroll tax increases and the reduction or elimination of programs through which the poor would otherwise not have to to pay full price – reduction of funding for Section 8 housing comes to mind.) actually seeing a fair wage for a hard job done well is not just about money – its about respect. When a CEO takes a big raise for firing people and shipping the rest overseas in the name of efficiency it can come across as a tad disrespectful.
stay cool out there people.
Bob