Democrats Options

[celebritygooner]

i guess yes its possible for these people to save and eventually move up in the world, but you have to realize that not only are they having to save for the future, but also accrue enough to pay back what they owe now, which could be a whole lot depending on medical bills and such.

yes if everyone started with a clean slate tomorrow im sure many more people could make min wage work for them if they had to. but how many people really have a clean slate?

Spectrix, I was agreeing with you ... sorry for not being confrontational enough ... I forgot this is THE INTERNET.

kc, it's a sad fact of life, but not everybody GETS to "eventually move up in the world" ... two generations ago, it was called "hoping my kids have more than me" ... but pre-approved credit cards and buy now pay later and 24-hour advertising and good old fashioned human greed have tried to convince us that we'll all be millionaires and rock stars and live the American Dream. that's why it's a dream ... it's an ideal ... it just doesn't always work that way, particularly for those who are uneducated and probably irresponsible.

[Spectatrix]

its different if he has a family.  then i think its 23k?

$13,200 for a family of 2, 16,600, 20k, and 23,400 for families of 3, 4, and 5. Add 3,400 for each person over that. Alaska and Hawaii are a bit different: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States

Spectrix, I was agreeing with you ... sorry for not being confrontational enough ... I forgot this is THE INTERNET.

No no, TEH INTERWEB.

This post has been edited by Spectatrix: Jun 28 2006, 09:11 PM

[pebkac]

but pre-approved credit cards and buy now pay later and 24-hour advertising and good old fashioned human greed have tried to convince us that we'll all be millionaires and rock stars and live the American Dream. that's why it's a dream ... it's an ideal ... it just doesn't always work that way

Is this a test sir?

[kcroxyoursox]

$13,200 for a family of 2, 16,600, 20k, and 23,400 for families of 3, 4, and 5. Add 3,400 for each person over that. Alaska and Hawaii are a bit different: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States

Spectrix, I was agreeing with you ... sorry for not being confrontational enough ... I forgot this is THE INTERNET.

No no, TEH INTERWEB.

sorry
forgot to mention he has a wife and four kids and the wife cant work because one of their children is autistic

[Hartmann]

Let's not forget that people who make minimum wage almost always get raises to compensate for natural inflation.

I agree with celebrity completely. If you can't manage your money, it's your fault.

Credit cards have put this country in the mindset of constantly spending, even when we lack the resources to back it up.

[Billy]

Celebrity, stop making arguments based off information that is wrong.

You claim that raising minimum wage reduces employment. Here is some hard data that says otherwise:

Here is a table of data of states who, not only have higher than the $5.15 a dollar minimum wage, but a couple also increased their minimum wage during the years of 1997 and 1998.



Here is a table of data of states who use only the bare minimum wage and did not increase their minimum wage during the same year.



If you look at the unemployment levels of each of those states, it turns out that unemployment actually decreased even more, in fact, by 10 times more, in states with not only an increase in wage rate, but who also have higher minimum wages.
The argument that raising the minimum wage will decrease employment is BUNK.

[Spectatrix]

Wow, Billy. ONE state that had a statistically significant decrease in unemployment after an increase in minimum wage (Connecticut). Yep, total bunk alright.

This post has been edited by Spectatrix: Jun 29 2006, 11:21 AM

[Billy]

Wow, Billy.  ONE state that had a statistically significant decrease in unemployment after an increase in minimum wage (Connecticut).  Yep, total bunk alright. 

It's States with higher than $5.15 minimum wage vs those who just use the federal standard.

The tables show that a higher minimum wage does not equal a higher unemployment. Yes, only one state had a significant decrease in unemployment from raising the minimum wage. The other of the two, still had double the decrease in unemployment than the average of the states that only used $5.15 an hour. However, those states that have the higher minimum wage, also have a lower unemployment rate. Now, where's that evidence to show otherwise?

Nice try though.

EDIT: I am not arguing that increasing the minimum wage decreases unemployment. What I am arguing is that increasing minimum wage DOES NOT increase unemployment, which is one of the arguments for holding down minimum wage. As far as any data has shown, there is not a hard correlation between minimum wage and unemployment rates.

This post has been edited by Renegadepeon: Jun 29 2006, 11:32 AM

[Billy]

So you want an increase in minimum wage, which in turn raises inflation?

I didn't see you complaining about inflation when the republicans wanted to spend billions of billions of dollars on the War in Iraq, which so far hasn't even been shown was necessary.

[Spectatrix]

Billy, it's not a higher wage that increases unemployment. It's the act of raising the wage. Layoffs after a minimum wage increase are inevitable (both because of a true financial burden on some companies and because of a *perceived* burden), but they're temporary and short term (3 months is what I'd estimate). I don't think it's a good argument against minimum wage increases and I dont' think celebritygooner was arguing that point, was he?

I don't really care either way. Personally, I think raising minimum wage is pretty ineffective, but doesn't really harm OR benefit the economy.

[chook]

Wow, Billy. ONE state that had a statistically significant decrease in unemployment after an increase in minimum wage (Connecticut). Yep, total bunk alright.

I think he was showing that there was no signifigant corrolation between the two. Do a T test and tell me results! I do not think it helps the economy, but the stratification of wealth.

[Hartmann]

I didn't see you complaining about inflation when the republicans wanted to spend billions of billions of dollars on the War in Iraq, which so far hasn't even been shown was necessary.

Please don't pull this into an Iraq war debate, especially since I haven't seen any inflation data that points to the war artificially pushing it up. If you have such data I'd be thrilled to see it.

[celebritygooner]

Celebrity, stop making arguments based off information that is wrong.

Here is a table of data ... during the years of 1997 and 1998.

It's intellectually dishonest to try to use one event to prove a trend ... everything that came within 500 feet of the US economy in 1997 and 1998 grew like biceps on steroids.

Every liberal will scream that formerly-American manufacturing jobs are being shipped overseas at an alarming rate ... every liberal blames greedy industrial tycoons for selfishly hiring foreign workers just to increase corporate earnings and profits, American workers be damned ... every intelligent person can comprehend "minimum wage increase" to mean "higher cost of labor" ... but for some reason, none of you will acknowledge the connection between the three truths.

Yeah, having more cash in pocket helps poor people buy things ... but the more money you give away for free, the fewer jobs there are for poor people. There will always be a "lower class" of some sort, and if you spend all your efforts pandering to them, you undermine the economy by destroying our export market ... destroy the export market and you destroy the economy.

[Billy]

You like to make a lot of unsupported claims. In fact, you're entire argument is unsupported.

You say higher minimum wage = higher unemployment for the poor. I show a time when that wasn't true. You claim that I can't use that time, because of massive growth. Well, wouldn't that massive growth effect all states at least, near eqaully? How does America's massive growth only effect those states with higher minimum wages, thus making my data invalid?

You also have claimed that raising the minimum wage will increase inflation. I will agree with you there, but I will not agree to the extend. So please show by how much, and give historical data. When they raised the minimum wage to 5.15, what rate did inflation increase?

But then you claim that increased inflation, increases the cost of our goods, which makes it harder for us to export, hurting our economy even more. Well, I don't know if you've taken international finance or not, but that is absolutely wrong. Rising inflation heavily reduces the value of our dollar, giving foreign currencies more buying power in our country. Lowering our dollar's value actually helps our trade deficit, not hurt it.

The bottom line: America's lower working class deserves a wage increase. It will likely not effect the economy, and it will give that group of people much needed relief. It is time for minimum wage to catch up to the cost of living.

[Dogmeat]

I think one of the reasons you see congress fight so hard sometimes against minimum wage rates is because effectivley that is gonna mean the company is going to have to raise the pay of all their hourly employees as well.

Think about it ... If you've got 15 people who have all been working with the company for 3 months making minimum wage, and you've got 15 people working for the company who have been there 3 years and are making ... I dunno, minimum wage + %10 let's say ....

You have to keep the "more tenured" employees let's say at that %10 higher pay rate otherwise you are gonna have a hell of a lotta people get pissed off at management...

I don't think that it's just the minimum wage that has to actually be increased, it's effectivley the hourly rates of hourly employees in general in a lot of cases...

I could be wrong about this, but this is something I haven't ever really heard anybody address in the media or discussions, so I thought I'd throw it out there.