Minimum Wages

This is what I am trying to say. ^^^^^ so you can LIVE off of $10 an hour, may not be a very good life but it IS possible. People do it.

Im mildly confused by this. Are you saying the Democrats get tax benefits? the lazy people? or the working class?

 

Personally, I don't think that $10.25 is much of a living wage, but it's silly of a country to set their definition of poverty above what their minimum can earn its people. At least $10.25 gets people to the poverty line. Starting simple can get things to the best end eventually.

 

Name one major company that doesn't need Wifi at all. It should be none, because they all use it.

Almost $400 of savings a year, that almost isn't even worth banking, its so little, and that is barely a weeks pay.

My god. Just because you/others say that does not make it true at all.

Sorry if I'm confused, but are you saying that who says people should be able to have a decent/higher wage? Because its a very basic thing to have a liveable wage.

Okay, so someone is struggling on the street, literally hungry, begging for money, and you're questioning why they shouldn't be begging near these places? Then where should they beg? Do not say because they're lazy or not wanting to work, because the reason is most of them are getting rejected to get jobs so they can't get any money at all. Also just because they are a citizen it doesn't mean the government will assist them either.

For the third time, please explain (IN DETAIL) how YOU will survive on $10/hour including all the things the thread has considered a requirement of living and NO HELP from anyone.

 

It's actually really easy.

You don't need to pay for internet, because you can use the library instead. Phone bill? Nah, you don't need to receive calls, it's fine. A lot of poor people buy light-rail or bus passes, but that's a waste of money because they're too lazy to walk. You don't need a house or apartment, because let's face it--a roof over your head is a complete luxury--this also means no utilities, so you save even more money.

Food is also free, you can find perfectly good food in the dumpster after the grocery store closes, if you're not too lazy to look through trash.

You just gotta pay tax--you know, to support the government that's helping you, protecting you, and serving you.

So by my calculations, you're saving around, I dunno, $1300 or so a month. That's a lot of money!!

--- Double Post Merged, May 5, 2017, Original Post Date: May 5, 2017 ---

To clarify, since I might have been unclear--I'm not a huge proponent of increasing the minimum wage per se, though it needs to be adjusted for inflation every year.

If we want social mobility, education must be prioritized. The school system, especially in inner-city schools, is failing children. Learning environments are noisy, crowded, dirty, and filled with teachers who have checked out and have burnt themselves out. Teachers teach to standardized tests, instead of actually teaching material--this encourages rote memorization instead of developing critical thinking skills, which are essential in most careers.

Gifted kids, the future of the country, are ignored because teachers are instructed to focus on the "bubble kids," kids who are currently failing but deemed to be "salvageable"; this is done to increase standardized test scores (the worst students are deemed a lost cause, and the gifted students would pass tests anyway so they apparently don't need to learn). Compounding this problem is that "tracks" in schools have fallen out of favor, instead; complete integration (at least in elements and middle schools) is the norm. This creates situations where advanced readers, for example, are sitting there bored out of their minds and creating trouble, while slower readers don't understand anything at all.

The government, and many voters, have convinced themselves that throwing money at the problem will make it go away. But per capita, the amount America spends on students is increasing each year--and yet the education system doesn't get any better. Sure, maybe standardized test score may improve, but that's mostly because teachers are just teaching kids how to take tests, instead of teaching the material (can you blame them? In many districts their pay is based on how well their students perform on standardized tests).

In fact, my uncle, who's been a high school math teacher in LA Unified Public Schools (LA school district), as well as various other places across the West Coast, has said that the entire curriculum is scripted--from lesson plans, to how to answer specific questions, everything, nearly word-for-word. If this is actually a trend, it needs to stop. Now. I understand that giving teachers freedom results in more varied results, and I'm not advocating for the removal of all standardized testing. However, teachers and parents are the people who know the students best, not some guy working in a school district office who's never actually taught before--besides, different approaches work for different groups of students.

Lastly, college needs to be more affordable. With technology playing an increasingly important role in the world, specialization is becoming necessary for successful careers. However, higher education is ridiculously expensive, and has become way more expensice in the past 30 years, which puts a huge toll on the middle class (poorer students are likely to get financial aid, richer students' parents will likely pay their tuition, leaving middle-class students with...debt). Overall this hurts the economy as well, and it's probably beneficial for the government to increase public funding of universities to make college more affordable.

Oh, I almost forgot--athletics shouldn't be the main focus of a university. I'm as much of a sports fan as anyone here--heck, just look at my profile picture) but the truth is, many schools waste a ton of money on athletics. New football stadiums, arenas, flashy high-paid coaches who don't even do their job well (*ahem, I'm looking at you, Mike Leach), etc. I don't necessarily know how to fix this, as NCAA athletics has become ingrained in our culture (plus as a sports addict id die of boredom without sports) but let's be real, college sports culture has gotten out of hand.

Sorry about any typos I wrote this on my phone

 

The people working there would be able to get minimum wage jobs easily at the new rate.
If you got numbers about the total number of stores that closed as a result of the wage increase, it would be more relevant.

 

People are not companies!!!! What are you even talking about?

This is what is wrong with society. "Oh Its only $400, thats too little to save". WHAT? If you have an extra $400 a year and you live on $10 an hour. That means you survived on $10 an hour and ended the year with $400. THATS A LIVABLE WAGE.

You constantly saying you need $15 an hour also doesn't make it true.

Never beg outside of a hospital/library/school. Idc what y'all call me but theres places for it.

This has already been done.

 

No it hasn't. Metr0nome used $15 an hour in his math, which Deljikho corrected showing the math at $10 an hour, which resulted in a negative sum per month.

 

The only reason it showed in a negative sum at the end of the month was because of the way he deducted things out. He deducted college before groceries. If he had not deducted college before groceries then he would be sitting with over $100 a month after bills.

--- Double Post Merged, May 5, 2017, Original Post Date: May 5, 2017 ---

College is not included in a "livable" wage. College is deducted in a "luxury" wage. Not a livable wage. College is considered a luxury.

--- Double Post Merged, May 5, 2017 ---

In order to take care of a family of 4 i was reading an article it said you need $15.84 an hour. To buy food, housing, transportation, etc on Average in America. Having the minimum wage at $10 would take care of you and your family if you have 2 people working minimum wage. If you have 2 people at $10 an hour that would average at about $20 an hour. Then you start deducting taxes, food, etc etc.

 

Ok, let's put it this way

I, an adult who has been working and paying real adult bills and raising children for 18 years now, am telling you, an 18 year old who hasn't held a real job or paid any bills - $10 is not a liveable wage because no matter what you budget, one emergency situation and you lose everything and are homeless at $10 an hour. At $10 an hour you can't afford college to better yourself to make more money.

If you are slaving your life away for a life that you cannot do a single thing in, why wouldn't you just kill yourself because what in the hell is the point?

Oh has health insurance been added to any of this math because with a measly $100 a month in savings you are one broken bone away from ruin.

That is the kind of America you want? Then you are simply a cruel human being.

Edit: Health care is apparently factored in if and only if you work at McDonalds, so avoid any other $10 an hour jobs such as retail stores, gas stations because those health plans are astronomical. I've seen the plans my wife's work offers at a gas station they are horrendous and blows that budget out of the water.

So yeah, don't ever get hurt or you might as well kill yourself too cause you'll never financially recover.

 

Yes, and I've never built a car but I know how to drive one.
I'm not talking about "emergency situations" I'm talking about me giving you $10 an hour with no emergency situation can you or can you not get to the end of the month? Yes, you can.

You not getting to go to dinner is not my problem. Should have gotten a scholarship for a free ride to college in high school.

Yes, I'm such a cruel person because I want people to earn what they want in life and not have a Bernie Sanders hand out.

 

But, this isn't theoretical. Emergencies do happen.

If you come from a low income family, you would often probably take a job on as soon as you can, to help get more money. However, this means you don't have time to study and prepare for tests, especially important ones like AP and SAT ones. You also wouldn't have much money to spend on extra textbooks and tutors to help prepare for that, if your family is living pay check to pay check.
Edit: I realized I didn't state my conclusion in all this, it being that with you not having time nor extra money to prepare for tests and getting good grades, you will have trouble getting into college or getting a good scholar ship.

 

But that isn't life! This isn't some theoretical fancy world you're living in but the real world where one day you can be hit out of the blue by a car! We are talking about emergency situations because those occur in life, and $10 an hour isn't a liveable wage.

Well it is when they begin stealing from stores for food causing you to pay higher prices. (You should look up how much shoplifting increases the prices we pay)

No you are a selfish person because despite evidence showing this improves society, thus your own life, you can only see what is immediately in front of you and want to keep it.

 

@Qazini Again, its not America's responsibility to pay for your ACT & SAT! My school let me take the ACT & SAT for FREE and my parents as well as myself got mad because we can afford it. People who can't afford it are the ones that should be getting more support. Hey, instead of raising minimum wage why not give SAT and ACT tests for free if you make under a certain amount of money each year!? Many companies will also pay for your college or trade schooling and testing if you go for a degree/class in which would help you improve their company.

Yes, that can happen but were not preparing you for the worst were helping you with the basic necessities. Not the "What If's...." "What if a plane falls out of the sky and hits my house?" Not my problem!

Eat the Ramen noodles and shut up. Its better then nothing. I actually eat Ramen noodles when I'm hungry and already ate dinner.

If selfish is trying to get people to find a way in life and not have the road paved for em, then I guess I'm a selfish person.

--- Double Post Merged, May 5, 2017, Original Post Date: May 5, 2017 ---

@Qazini Again, its not America's responsibility to pay for your ACT & SAT! My school let me take the ACT & SAT for FREE and my parents as well as myself got mad because we can afford it. People who can't afford it are the ones that should be getting more support. Hey, instead of raising minimum wage why not give SAT and ACT tests for free if you make under a certain amount of money each year!? Many companies will also pay for your college or trade schooling and testing if you go for a degree/class in which would help you improve their company.

Yes, that can happen but were not preparing you for the worst were helping you with the basic necessities. Not the "What If's...." "What if a plane falls out of the sky and hits my house?" Not my problem!

Eat the Ramen noodles and shut up. Its better then nothing. I actually eat Ramen noodles when I'm hungry and already ate dinner.

If selfish is trying to get people to find a way in life and not have the road paved for em, then I guess I'm a selfish person.

 

Plus the equation assumed you're already situated in life. Living off of $10hr wouldn't make it possible to even get an apartment/house in the first place. As I'm sure you're well aware, housing units usually require first and last month's rent, or a security deposit, proof of an electric/gas/water account: each of which may also require security deposits to place. Also housing usually requires you to make a certain amount more than the rent.

For instance my current house is $1,200 per month. My security deposit was $550, and $25 application fees for my gf and myself each. We also needed to be set up with the Electric and Gas companies which required a $300 and $150 security deposit, respectively. Lastly we need to make 4x the amount of rent between the two of us. Living off of $10 an hour this isn't feasible regardless of the monthly housing rent.

Edit: I completely forgot about Affordable Housing, I'm not sure how that works.

 

And then there's people like me who "have to eat ramen noodles every day!! Suck it up!!!", but no regard as to how that would literally kill me as a diabetic, not to mention meds for diabetes amoung other things, my "luxery" therapy dog?
You want people to be stressed and barely clinging onto living. Not life, but living. And then you say "You have a kid in your stomach? Cant afford a place to live? Shouldn't have gotten pregnant!" Instead of offering support and options.
Youre basically wanting many many people to never ecer be able to care for themselves at a $10 an hour wage, almost$3 more than the minimum
You are an awful selfish example of a human being.

 

Having access to health care IS a basic necessity. Do you know how many people need to go to the hospital? The odds are that sometime in your life you'll need to go to a hospital, unlike a plane hitting your house.

--- Double Post Merged, May 5, 2017, Original Post Date: May 5, 2017 ---

Also if you have student debt (ie you went to college and can't find a job in your field, so you're working for $10 and hour), you cannot pay it back on that wage.

--- Double Post Merged, May 5, 2017 ---

This is a huge problem with many college grads as they're considered employed by general statistics, yet work for low wages while struggling to pay off debt. Personally I think that instead of increasing minimum wage too much, college needs to be more affordable, but that's just me.

It's pretty clear that as is, in most places, you can't live off $10 an hour.

 

If you go to college, why are you working for 10 dollars an hour? I have 0 sympathy for anyone who majors in lesbian dance therapy and then complains that they can't earn more than minimum wage.
If you go to college, (I.E. you have skills) you should be able to get skilled labor jobs.

That being said, the minimum wage needs to follow inflation, thats just basic reasoning.

 

Already exists, fyi: Read me

I want people to be able to succeed in life and become productive members of society. As an American, that's what we all should want, right? Now, I don't understand how the current system is set up to maximize people's chances of actually contributing to society in meaningful ways. If people are slaving away at $10 per hour, not really able to move up, but also unable to afford an education, how will they ever move up in life? Or trade schools--how do you pay for a trade school when you're spending all your money on rent and utilities?

I want people to be able to work themselves up from whatever their situation is. If that means paying for welfare for a few years, that's okay with me. While you and I agree that chronic benefit-abusers don't deserve welfare and shouldn't be respected, that's unfortunately a consequence of having welfare programs--besides, the vast majority of people don't actually abuse benefits. And the truth is, most people who get on welfare aren't staying on it for too long. From the US Census Bureau:

• Of people enrolled in Medicaid, 35.6 percent participated between one and 12 months and 35.3 percent participated between 37 and 48 months.
• At 38.6 percent, the largest share of SNAP recipients participated between 37 and 48 months.
• At 49.4 percent, the largest share of people receiving housing assistance benefits participated between 37 and 48 months.
• Of people enrolled in the Supplemental Security Income program, 35.6 percent participated between one and 12 months, while 38.2 percent participated between 37 and 48 months.
• At 62.9 percent, the largest share of people participating in TANF participated between one and 12 months.

According to this source, the odds that someone born in 2013 will die of a serious injury is 1 in 20 (and more people survive than die, so the odds that they'll need medical treatment for a serious injury is probably even higher). When you're looking at the grand scale of things, this is not a "what if" problem; this is a "when" problem. Sure, you personally will probably not die of an injury, but when you're looking at scales as big as millions of people, serious injuries requiring medical treatment is something that's going to happen to a loooooooot of people.

Yeah, I eat ramen noodles for a snack too sometimes. They're not bad (I like adding a poached egg, some chopped up scallions, and a teaspoon of soy sauce--really good actually), but they're not meant to be long-term foods, as they're unhealthy and don't provide a balanced diet. Furthermore, you and I eat ramen for a snack after dinner, not FOR dinner. There's a pretty big difference there.

--- Double Post Merged, May 5, 2017, Original Post Date: May 5, 2017 ---

Haha, I feel--people shouldn't pick frivolous majors and complain about their debt. However, as someone who's going to college next year for a biology.pre-med major, it's actually really difficult to find a good job if you can't make it into med school (which, by the way, is extremely competitive. For asian males (me), here's a table showing the GPA/MCAT scores for accepted students to all med schools. I basically can't afford to have more than a couple B's if I want to go to med school). You can of course become a high school teacher, which doesn't pay super well but isn't terrible in most places, but besides that you have pretty slim pickings--you can be a laboratory assistant, which is essentially working for people in a lab for minimum wage. Except, you have a degree. Or you could enroll in further college and become a physician's assistant or something similar, but those jobs mostly don't pay that well either.

A similar thing is happening with law degrees--people are coming out and unable to find jobs as lawyers, and end up having to clerk for judges for very low wages. While clerking was designed to be a paid internship of sorts, allowing the clerk to gain experience, more and more law-school graduates have had to use it as long-term employment.

--- Double Post Merged, May 5, 2017 ---

Also @Blue_marlin98 I'm curious. If you don't mind sharing, what's your HS GPA, and have you applied to any 4-year universities?

--- Double Post Merged, May 5, 2017 ---

Nice. I actually kinda think the same thing, if you can afford it then pay for it and save the money for people who can't afford it.

Now I'm curious--how'd you do on the SAT/ACT?

 

You having Diabetes is a VALID excuse, that is why we have food stamps. So people like YOU who cant afford HEALTHY food can get the nutrients you need. YOU go to the store and buy FOOD, NOT filet mignon, lobster tail, cigarettes and alcohol. I do not mind helping people who actually have excuses and actually want to try and better themselves.

What is your condition as to why you need a therapy dog?

Support: "itll be okay sweetie, Ill change a diaper if you don't wonna get outta bed to do it"
Options: Get a better job, don't get pregnant, find a good person to have sex with.

This is not the wage your going to make until you die! This is the MINIMUM someone can pay you! Its not a set wage!!!!!

Why Thank You!

Where can I sign up for this class?

Give a homeless man ramen noodles and he'll smile, not complain.

Senior year GPA: 3.8 (I'm not sure of my over all, I would have to ask my counselor) and no I'm going to a real estate school.

Not sure why these are relevant but I got exactly a 1,000 on SAT. I'm sure I could have done better but I only tried on the reading, the rest I just kinda answered.

 

Thank you, I do like to think the way I grew up has made me a better and stronger person but that might just be me trying to simplify things and be optimistic.

As for the fees, we had to pay a fee to use the school books that we weren't allowed to keep and we had to pay another "miscellaneous" fees. Then they required we bring all of our own supplies plus donate some supplies for the classrooms.