Raising the Minimum Wage

[bleyd]

I think the minimum wage should be raised but I don't believe it'll help. People will end up paying more in taxes and price of good will go up. Unless people live off the old rate and save the difference or use it to payoff debt, nothing will change.

[Forp]

Raise it...it will help.

[monnee]

Do you think raising the minimum wage genuinely helps the working poor or just, in the long run, drives prices up for everyone and ends up being negligible? 

Both ways, but for multimillion and multibillion dollar companies it's pocket change to them.  CEO's and management are making millions so they should share the wealth.

[talboojm]

Obviously a great idea all around.

[talboojm]

Petition to Raise the Minimum Wage

http://www.timeforaraise.org/take-action/

[teresa3200]

It would be a bad idea. The ones that it would hurt the most would be our retired that are living on SS income. I can see it now with the raise in it. My parents are suffering already with the cost of groceries increasing. Unfortunately they don't increase their retirement income based on the increase in the minimum wage. They have been forced to ask for meals on wheals for supplement food to try to get by, and that food is not good from what they tell me. How much worse can it get.

[paints]

If minimum wage had kept up with inflation, it would be around 23 dollars an hour now.
Instead of raising wages, companies have paid their CEOs and owners billion dollar salaries.
If they don't want to pay the people who are making money for them, maybe the CEOs and owners should do the work themselves.

[countrygirl12]

Raising the minimum wage to a ridiculous amount (i.e., $15.00 per hr.) would do nothing positive not even for those who would be earning it.  You would pay more for the item or services you buy and the person making the money would PAY MORE IN TAXES!!!!!!!!!!  I call that a LOSE, LOSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Exactly.  But people cannot see that.  It's like when min wage was $5.25 an hour.  I, at that time, thought it needed to be raised.  But now I see that what the older people were saying was true.  Min wage was raised and so were the prices for everything.  When min wage was around $5 an hour I could get a gallon of gas for 99 cents.  If min wage is raised to as low as even $10 an hour the price of EVERYTHING will increase and you still will have no more money.

And, if the standards for welfare and food stamps does not change, the people who work and still get government assistance will loose that extra money and prices have increased so they actually have less money.  But as I have already said, people cannot see that until it actually happens.

[countrygirl12]

I think the minimum wage should be raised but I don't believe it'll help. People will end up paying more in taxes and price of good will go up. Unless people live off the old rate and save the difference or use it to payoff debt, nothing will change.

If you do not believe it will help then WHY do you think it should be raised?  That makes no sense.
And you cannot live "off the old rate" whatever that means.  And most people do not use extra money to pay off debt.  You see this when the first of the year comes and people get income tax refunds and they go buy new cars, tvs, and other crap they do not need.  Most people do not use the extra money to pay off debt.  And if it is credit card debt they don't care.  They just go file bankruptcy and say who cares.

I know a woman who stopped making her house payments, moved from the residence, filed bankruptcy against that debt, went and bought a new house and could not understand why the lender of the first house filed a lawsuit against her and contested the bankruptcy.  If you can buy a new home you are not bankrupt.  She is a dead beat who didn't want to pay for her other loan.

[countrygirl12]

It would be a bad idea. The ones that it would hurt the most would be our retired that are living on SS income. I can see it now with the raise in it. My parents are suffering already with the cost of groceries increasing. Unfortunately they don't increase their retirement income based on the increase in the minimum wage. They have been forced to ask for meals on wheals for supplement food to try to get by, and that food is not good from what they tell me. How much worse can it get.

Why don't YOU help them get food?  The meals on wheels is not 5 star hotel quality food but it is actually decent food.  I think it is wrong to ask for something for free and then complain that it is not good.  I totally understand that buying food is hard.  I like a lot of other people struggle.  Maybe that's why I don't feel sorry for people.  Most people who cry about how hard their life is have things WAY better than I do.

As for how much worse can it get?  American is going to fall.  We are going down.  People are stupid and say "oh nothing can happen to us we are the United States".  Yeah, open your eyes.  We will be worse off than any of these third world countries before it is over.

[countrygirl12]

If minimum wage had kept up with inflation, it would be around 23 dollars an hour now.
Instead of raising wages, companies have paid their CEOs and owners billion dollar salaries.
If they don't want to pay the people who are making money for them, maybe the CEOs and owners should do the work themselves.

Here is the thing.  The CEO of McDonald's I am sure is a very rich man.  The owners of the individual restaurants are not hurting for money.  BUT, the people who fry french fries, flip burgers, and take orders are not worth $23 an hour.  Heck, doctors don't even make that.  If you want to make $23 an hour you need to go to college and get an education.  You cannot expect to get a job in a fast food restaurant and make $20 plus an hour.  That is just ridiculous. 

And I guarantee if YOU owned your own business, say a fast food restaurant, you would pay dead beat worthless employees the minimum wage.  You would not pay them $20 an hour and share you fortune.  You would keep it for yourself.

I recall threads on this site about how rude people at Walmart are, orders being screwed up at fast food, and other low paying jobs.  Do you think those people deserve $23 an hour?  They deserve what they are making.

[ejholt]

I think when they raise the minimum wage, they should also give the ones that are making more then minimun wage a little more money too.  Hope everyone has a good day and may God bless each of you and keep you safe.

[oldbuddy]

When I graduated from High School in 1957 minimum age was $1 and they have been raising it ever since, but the actual benefit to an individual worker is the same. When are they going to figure out it's just smoke and mirrors?

[ghunter]

I think it should be raised, but $15 an hour is a little high.  Bring it down to around $10.00 or even $9.00 an hour.  That sound more like it.

[lvstephanie]

It should be raised but unfortunately I do think the price of other things will go up to becsuse comoanies will claim they needed to increase the price of there product to pay fir the increasedcost in wages.

And the point is if you raise min wage and then the price of everything goes up then raising the min wage is futile because you are paying more for everything so you are not really getting more money.  But people are too stupid to see that.

You misspoke, but your logic is correct... The issue is the difference between currency and value. The whole point behind money / currency is that it is a measure of value. When you work, you increase value to society as a whole, and as such you get money to show the value that you increased in the world. You can then use your money to purchase something -- a product of someone else's value that they've added. When you increase the minimum wage, the person does get more money / currency, but since the raise was caused by a legal mandate, the increase in money causes a decrease in the value of that currency. Thus in order to purchase a physical good, you'd still need to pay its value meaning you'll now have to pay more money for the same value. So you're incorrect in saying that you are not getting more money; it'd be more correct to say that increasing a person's pay won't actually increase their value and therefore the purchasing power of the money will decrease.