welfare vs wages

[GenuineRisk]

Originally Posted by Danzig

no one is talking about someone 'getting rich'. i get that people need help-but should the amount of help be higher than what can be earned by working? if so, why work? many people won't get rich working either...

that said, i'm all for raising the minimum wage. it's funny, the other day, i saw the clips of neil cavuto discussing his first job, and his wage at that time. adjustments over the years from what he'd made, means the current min. wage should be $10 an hour.
now, i get why they have a fed. minimum. however, this is an issue with doing things on a federal basis. what you can live on in one area isn't close to what you can live on elsewhere.
the current atmosphere in the fast food industry points to serious issues as well. as the govt has ramped up it's assistance, businesses are taking more profits for themselves. mcdonalds alone showed what, $5 billion in profits.
so, just imagine if employers paid a living wage, and the amount of assistance could be cut dramatically. but no, the rich get theirs, and the rest of us support a bloated mess.
what would businesses save in taxes? what would taxpayers save? the system is skewed.
the rich have had their taxes cut repeatedly, they are a former shadow of what they once were. where are the jobs that they're supposed to be creating with their savings? we're in worse shape than ever.

I'm sorry; I wasn't accusing you of anything; just pointing out that the Cato institute was making some pretty big assumptions in their reporting of the stats (as you know, I have a perpetual bug up my bottom about accuracy in the media) and that welfare is likely even less than they are assuming. I agree with you that work should be more financially rewarding than welfare, and it's incredibly effed up in this nation that a 40-hour-a-week minimum wage job won't put a single woman and her child above the poverty line.

The other crazy thing about part-time low-wage jobs like fast food is that it's incredibly difficult for people working them to even get a second job because they are kept on-call (for no money, of course), and expected to be available at the employer's discretion. I'm not necessarily opposed to jobs that do that, but holy cow, they should be paying the employee enough to make up for losing any sort of personal time. A job flipping burgers is not worth that.

I worked fast food as a teenager, and I remember the schedule was done a week in advance and you never knew when you would be working. How on earth is an adult supposed to apply for a second job when they don't know what their hours will be two weeks in the future?

And absolutely I agree with you about the minimum wage needing to be raised. We are a consumer-based economy. If the large working class does not have money to spend, we all suffer.

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by GenuineRisk

I'm sorry; I wasn't accusing you of anything; just pointing out that the Cato institute was making some pretty big assumptions in their reporting of the stats (as you know, I have a perpetual bug up my bottom about accuracy in the media) and that welfare is likely even less than they are assuming. I agree with you that work should be more financially rewarding than welfare, and it's incredibly effed up in this nation that a 40-hour-a-week minimum wage job won't put a single woman and her child above the poverty line.

The other crazy thing about part-time low-wage jobs like fast food is that it's incredibly difficult for people working them to even get a second job because they are kept on-call (for no money, of course), and expected to be available at the employer's discretion. I'm not necessarily opposed to jobs that do that, but holy cow, they should be paying the employee enough to make up for losing any sort of personal time. A job flipping burgers is not worth that.

I worked fast food as a teenager, and I remember the schedule was done a week in advance and you never knew when you would be working. How on earth is an adult supposed to apply for a second job when they don't know what their hours will be two weeks in the future?

And absolutely I agree with you about the minimum wage needing to be raised. We are a consumer-based economy. If the large working class does not have money to spend, we all suffer.

i didn't take anything as an accusation, so no worries.

yeah, it seems many have forgotten what henry ford always thought and worked by, pay your employees enough that they can afford to buy the product they're making.
thing is, people like to look down their noses at people in fast food, or other service industries...but-we use those places, we need those places. that's like sneering at the garbage collector. hello, if it weren't for him, we'd be toting our own stinky stuff to the dump.

[dellinger63]

Originally Posted by Danzig

yeah, it seems many have forgotten what henry ford always thought and worked by, pay your employees enough that they can afford to buy the product they're making.
thing is, people like to look down their noses at people in fast food, or other service industries...but-we use those places, we need those places. that's like sneering at the garbage collector. hello, if it weren't for him, we'd be toting our own stinky stuff to the dump.

Fast food workers don't make enough to buy the hamburgers and fries they're making?

And take a guess what a City of Chicago garbage collector takes home?

Actually it's a Streets and Sanitation worker and that means juicy pension in addition to salary.

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by dellinger63

Fast food workers don't make enough to buy the hamburgers and fries they're making?

And take a guess what a City of Chicago garbage collector takes home?

Actually it's a Streets and Sanitation worker and that means juicy pension in addition to salary.

because fast food workers are the only ones who make min. wage? and if they wish to live on their own, no, they can't afford to buy food out.

[dellinger63]

Originally Posted by Danzig

because fast food workers are the only ones who make min. wage? .

You used fast food workers as the example.

The skill-set needed to punch a picture of a hamburger and fries and then communicate it to the kitchen must be tough. Look at how many times it results in a mistaken order. Surely they should be paid as much as those who provided said skill-set, public school teachers.

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by dellinger63

You used fast food workers as the example.

The skill-set needed to punch a picture of a hamburger and fries and then communicate it to the kitchen must be tough. Look at how many times it results in a mistaken order. Surely they should be paid as much as those who provided said skill-set, public school teachers.

no:


'yeah, it seems many have forgotten what henry ford always thought and worked by, pay your employees enough that they can afford to buy the product they're making.' last time i checked, henry ford had owned a car maker

and then i said : 'thing is, people like to look down their noses at people in fast food, or other service industries...'

[dellinger63]

Originally Posted by Danzig

no:


'yeah, it seems many have forgotten what henry ford always thought and worked by, pay your employees enough that they can afford to buy the product they're making.' last time i checked, henry ford had owned a car maker

and then i said : 'thing is, people like to look down their noses at people in fast food, or other service industries...'

Yes Henry Ford owned a car maker and his employees made cars. Fast food workers make hamburgers and fries and it's hard for me to believe, using your Henry Ford model, they can't afford the product they make.

[GenuineRisk]

Originally Posted by Danzig

no:


'yeah, it seems many have forgotten what henry ford always thought and worked by, pay your employees enough that they can afford to buy the product they're making.' last time i checked, henry ford had owned a car maker

and then i said : 'thing is, people like to look down their noses at people in fast food, or other service industries...'

From "Nickeled and Dimed":

“When someone works for less pay than she can live on — when, for example, she goes hungry so that you can eat more cheaply and conveniently — then she has made a great sacrifice for you, she has made you a gift of some part of her abilities, her health, and her life. The 'working poor,' as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropists of our society. They neglect their own children so that the children of others will be cared for; they live in substandard housing so that other homes will be shiny and perfect; they endure privation so that inflation will be low and stock prices high. To be a member of the working poor is to be an anonymous donor, a nameless benefactor, to everyone else.”

[GenuineRisk]

Originally Posted by dellinger63

Fast food workers don't make enough to buy the hamburgers and fries they're making?

And take a guess what a City of Chicago garbage collector takes home?

Actually it's a Streets and Sanitation worker and that means juicy pension in addition to salary.

City sanitation worker salaries top out in the mid 40's.

http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/bizfin...features/4086/

http://www.salaryexpert.com/index.cf...sitionid=78876

Overtime will take them, on average, into the mid 60s. Hardly a rich person's salary. Especially living in a city.

[GenuineRisk]

Oh, and a follow-up on the welfare vs work- Lori, I know you read Slate as much as I do, so I imagine you've already seen this, but I thought it was interesting follow-up:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_...wpisrc=flyouts

[dellinger63]

Originally Posted by GenuineRisk

Overtime will take them, on average, into the mid 60s. Hardly a rich person's salary. Especially living in a city.

Add in covered healthcare and 70% of average salary as a pension and we're a far cry from minimum wage.

That's why even Rahmbo is looking to privatize garbage collection.

[GenuineRisk]

Originally Posted by dellinger63

Add in covered healthcare and 70% of average salary as a pension and we're a far cry from minimum wage.

That's why even Rahmbo is looking to privatize garbage collection.

So you're saying garbage collectors deserve to live in poverty?

[dellinger63]

Originally Posted by GenuineRisk

So you're saying garbage collectors deserve to live in poverty?

No I'm not saying that. Private collectors are paid comparable wages to public workers. It's all in the pension.

And no garbage collectors should not earn a rich-person's salary unless there's a MG (Masters' of Garbage) program at Wharton I'm not familiar with.