This shit again? Fast Food workers on strike for higher wage. (15$/hour)
221 replies, posted
Contrary to popular belief people who get paid more or have a trade don't necessarily work harder. Everyone deserves a living wage, even those who work for the fast food industry.
Just because your pay is shitty in your non-fast food industry job doesn't mean you need to go all class traitor on these people who have came together to try to collectively bargain for a better tomorrow.
If you're so upset about your shit pay then maybe you should unionise too and fucking do something about it instead of putting down others who come together and make an effort to better their situation. Your employer is the enemy for that. Not these people. That self-centred apathetic and inactive attitude will get you fucking nowhere. "waaaaaa waaaa but they only work fast food they shouldn't get what I get or more than me because WAAAAAAAAAAAA TRADE I HAVE TRADE WAAAAAH NOT FAIR WAAAAAAH" you elitist temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
Ill never understand the contempt people have for the lower classes. Why wouldnt you want them to make a livable wage? How does that hurt you? Giving the lower classes more spending power is healthy for the economy.
So.... Pretty much everyone agrees we need a "living wage".
At this point the only argument is what this entails.
[QUOTE=H8Entitlement;45523291]So.... Pretty much everyone agrees we need a "living wage".
At this point the only argument is what this entails.[/QUOTE]
It's got a pretty solid definition already. It's a well recognised term. A living wage is just that, a wage you can live off comfortably without dropping below the poverty line every so often. You should be able to afford housing, water, heating, food, etc. without needing to be so frugal that you barely get enough of any part of those.
[QUOTE=hexpunK;45524783]It's got a pretty solid definition already. It's a well recognised term. A living wage is just that, a wage you can live off comfortably without dropping below the poverty line every so often. You should be able to afford housing, water, heating, food, etc. without needing to be so frugal that you barely get enough of any part of those.[/QUOTE]
Not as clear as it sounds. Housing? Buy or rent? And where? I can find studio apartments around here for ~180 a month. On the other end of the spectrum you could find a place running 2k a month...
Living comfortably? That's such a wildly variable term I can't begin to come up with a standard.
As for food- do we go with prices for raw ingredients and assume ppl know how to cook or go with the much higher prices of packaged, prepared food.
On a related note- why is it now a right to live alone? Housing is much cheaper with roommates- can we use 1/3 the cost of housing or would that be unreasonable?
[QUOTE=H8Entitlement;45526877]Not as clear as it sounds. Housing? Buy or rent? And where? I can find studio apartments around here for ~180 a month. On the other end of the spectrum you could find a place running 2k a month...
Living comfortably? That's such a wildly variable term I can't begin to come up with a standard.
As for food- do we go with prices for raw ingredients and assume ppl know how to cook or go with the much higher prices of packaged, prepared food.
On a related note- why is it now a right to live alone? Housing is much cheaper with roommates- can we use 1/3 the cost of housing or would that be unreasonable?[/QUOTE]
You must live in the middle of nowhere. 180 a month for an apartment is insanely low.
[editline]28th July 2014[/editline]
Show me some places that go for 180 a month.
even if wages go up a little fast food will become too expensive to be worthwhile
[QUOTE=sloppy_joes;45526931]You must live in the middle of nowhere. 180 a month for an apartment is insanely low.
[editline]28th July 2014[/editline]
Show me some places that go for 180 a month.[/QUOTE]
Studio apartment....
It's basically two small rooms. A bathroom and a room big enough for a bed. Most have some form of mini stove/ mini fridge. I wouldn't say they were common but there's at least a dozen in this smallish university town I live nearby.
For comparison a small, two bedroom around here is 350 on the low end (w/o utilities).
And confirming NW ohio is the middle of nowhere.
And people in a high density high cost area are shit out of luck finding anything nearly that good
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;45527370]And people in a high density high cost area are shit out of luck finding anything nearly that good[/QUOTE]
And that's why minimum wage the way is messed up in a way. It's trying to be a one-size-fits-all solution to a problem with too many variables. It's better if individual states/cities set their own so people in cities can get what they need and mom&pop stores in the country can survive. That would work out better in the long run.
[QUOTE=SgtCr4zyGunz;45523194]Ill never understand the contempt people have for the lower classes. Why wouldnt you want them to make a livable wage? How does that hurt you? Giving the lower classes more spending power is healthy for the economy.[/QUOTE]
It's the classic problem with "trickle-down": people assume rich people throw more money around and move the economy too, but the reality is a rich man isn't likely to burn more gas, eat more bread, or use more toilet paper than a poor person. I mean really, how did anyone expect a guy making 250x your wage to buy 250x the bread?
[QUOTE=FlakAttack;45529758]It's the classic problem with "trickle-down": people assume rich people throw more money around and move the economy too, but the reality is a rich man isn't likely to burn more gas, eat more bread, or use more toilet paper than a poor person. I mean really, how did anyone expect a guy making 250x your wage to buy 250x the bread?[/QUOTE]
This would be the case if sales tax was the only tax...
Trickle down economics in a nutshell. If corporate taxes are as low as possible businesses can operate with as little margins as possible leaving more monies for operating expenses (such as wages) and expansions.
Sales taxes are themselves a shit way to tax IMO, as they hit the poor the hardest.
[QUOTE=Monkah;45515696]If every job had (near) equal pay, you'd see a lot fewer people doing the more difficult jobs that society needs to function.
[I]See: Communism[/I][/QUOTE]
What the hell is this post even saying?
[QUOTE=SgtCr4zyGunz;45523194]Ill never understand the contempt people have for the lower classes. Why wouldnt you want them to make a livable wage? How does that hurt you? Giving the lower classes more spending power is healthy for the economy.[/QUOTE]
As long as people keep blaming the lower class's situation on their own choices they can continue to pretend that they'll never be in the same situation. It's denial + a need to feel superior.
[QUOTE=Zeke129;45529903]As long as people keep blaming the lower class's situation on their own choices they can continue to pretend that they'll never be in the same situation. It's denial + a need to feel superior.[/QUOTE]
This, seriously. As someone who started at nothing and managed to build a successful career without a college education, I've seen how mind-numbingly difficult it can be to find a well paying job even WITH a college education.
[QUOTE=Zeke129;45529903]As long as people keep blaming the lower class's situation on their own choices they can continue to pretend that they'll never be in the same situation. It's denial + a need to feel superior.[/QUOTE]
Plus nepotism.
Having a stronger lower class means having a weaker upper class by comparison.
[QUOTE=Korova;45519282]And you think that if everyone's wages increase as a response to this $15 figure that the dollar just won't become inflated and a $300 apartment today will cost around $575 tomorrow? I mean it has been accepted that this will readjust everything we know about prices for things in the United States.
Look at Australia, they have a fifteen dollar minimum wage, sounds like a lot but everything is significantly more expensive. What good is raising $15 going to do? From a business owner's standpoint, it'll make things a hell of a lot harder to start up if you're paying a janitor what you'd pay a programmer right now.[/QUOTE]
Adjusting for inflation the wage has gone down compared to 1974. If the wage in '74 had remained steady with inflation, we'd be making 15$/hr anyhow. If it adjusted with cost of living, 21$/hr. But go ahead and tell me how the price of everything jumps up 200$ every time we adjust the wage, we've only done it 25 times in our country's history. The fact of the matter is that increasing the wage has no major effect on costs and in [URL="http://www.irle.berkeley.edu/workingpapers/157-07.pdf"]many cases increases the job market[/URL].
Fuck, by increasing the cost of every item in Wal-Mart by a penny they could afford to pay every employee a minimum of 13$. oh the inflation of a single penny. ooo my wallet. 6$ more per hour and everything goes up a penny!
It's fucking silly. With some exceptions, raising the minimum wage increases jobs in the long run and erases poverty.
[editline]29th July 2014[/editline]
[QUOTE=H8Entitlement;45526877]Not as clear as it sounds. Housing? Buy or rent? And where? I can find studio apartments around here for ~180 a month. On the other end of the spectrum you could find a place running 2k a month...
Living comfortably? That's such a wildly variable term I can't begin to come up with a standard.
As for food- do we go with prices for raw ingredients and assume ppl know how to cook or go with the much higher prices of packaged, prepared food.
On a related note- why is it now a right to live alone? Housing is much cheaper with roommates- can we use 1/3 the cost of housing or would that be unreasonable?[/QUOTE]
The United States has a measure for the poverty line. It varies based on number of persons per household and place, but on average, for the 48 contiguous, the poverty line is 11.7k for a single person and 23.9k for a family of 4. Averaged out, a 15$/hr minimum wage would be enough to keep the majority of those people above poverty line the majority of the time so long as they spend as they do now. Which is why the 15$ figure was chosen.
[QUOTE=sloppy_joes;45530019]Plus nepotism.
Having a stronger lower class means having a weaker upper class by comparison.[/QUOTE]
I doubt Facepunch has many upper class posters
[QUOTE=Zeke129;45531602]I doubt Facepunch has many upper class posters[/QUOTE]
As of right now, I'm successfully levitating after managing to pull myself by my own bootstraps.
[editline]29th July 2014[/editline]
But I was talking about society in general.
[QUOTE='[Seed Eater];45520302']At massive costs to the companies, and of course once you have the machines you're going to be paying a skilled specialist to make sure the machines function. And then you have to hire a team of technical folks with expensive degrees to keep one-upping your competition, because all of a sudden you're competing not only for customers, but you've opened up the front of mechanical and technical superiority where an equal human capital market was.
It's not so easily done. And even if it were, I'll bet you that there would be [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite"]reaction[/URL].[/QUOTE]
I just imagined Fox News running hour long specials on the rise of Machine workers and their illegal immigrant maintenance men...
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