I am not advocating a 15 dollar minimum wage, as that is asinine. But if anything, it would just expedite these jobs being automated, as it is coming anyway.
There was a time when $4/hr was asinine. Then, $5.25. Then $6.00. Do the low / middle classes seem to be doing better or worse, as the minimum wage is increased? How about unemployment? Is that up or down? What about new jobs - any new jobs - are there more or less? Its easy to convince people to "make more money" in much the same way that someone thirsting to death can be convinced to drink turpentine. And the Democrats just keep encouraging chugging contests.
I happen to own a small business. Here's a simple truth -from the real world. If I were to be forced to pay $15.00 per hour wages, all of my workers would be looking for other jobs.
I think any increase in the minimum wage at this time is asinine. In fact, it probably needs to flat line for quite a while. The costs will just get passed on, then 15 bucks an hour will not be enough, and raise it to 25. I hate economics with a passion, yet it is 90% of what drives politics. I honestly don't understand economics, or how you can have a working theory of it much less give out a Nobel Prize for it. It is, in my eyes, completely psychological in its workings, and predicting human behavior is not always possible.
I remember my first job at Food City, making $5.25 bagging groceries. I then got my first raise to -- drum roll please -- $5.37 an hour! You would have thought I won the lottery. Ladies loved the new jeans I bought at Penny's with that raise too.
I worked a minimum wage job at $4.25 an hour in a factory for two summers in high school. The following two summers, I caught on at a plant with a temp service making $5 an hour. The following summer, the rate had been raised to $6. I bought name brand beer one weekend that $6 summer.
THe minimum wage, among many other economic topics, has been studied ad nauseam. we know exactly what a minimum wage increase will do and won't do.
I worked for glass company (#2 glass producer in the world, I think) during the summers while in college making 75% of full-time wages. I made $7.35/hr plus shift bonuses of $0.15 for 3-11 & $0.25 for 11-7. I got time & a half for Sundays & double time for Memorial Day & the 4th. That was 1990-1994. I worked right up to the day I started teaching in '94. I also volunteered for some overtime & was forced into overtime often at a rate of time & a half. That money was what I lived off of the entire school year, and I lived well. I long for the days that I could live an entire year off of $6k-$8k.
Winner winner chicken dinner. Greenland Plant not Blue Ridge. Greenland makes a bunch of glass, flat glass. Blue Ridge at the time did textured & wire reinforced glass if not mistaken.
No. It was a great gig for a college student. The largest regional employer, by far, and Fortune 500 company only paid $4-$5/hr for college help. Remember, we're talking early half of the 1990s dollars here. I felt like a king. Worked my ass off, but I feel I was treated & paid fairly. Of course, it's a union plant... Dros, I really don't hate Corporate America. I hope you really do realize that, but the reason I feel like I do is because I've lived the blue collar life myself & through my dad. I don't hate management. I actually wish workers & management would work closer together to reap mutually beneficial rewards. I don't like the combative nature from either side. All it does is hurt everyone. All I've ever wanted was honesty pay for honest work for all. That and to not uproot your company & go overseas for a million or two more. I'm not the rabid unionist you & Tenny think I am just like I know that you two aren't the soulless money grubbers you're portrayed as. We're all good folks, imo. We just might differ a little on how we see things, and it's not as much as each of us think I'd imagine. I do think you'll have a more productive work force if they have a little, not all, say in their jobs.
