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 Ketara wrote:

Spoiler:

Prestor Jon wrote:

The majority of people in the workforce have switched jobs at least once. There are plenty of companies that offer moving stipends to entice qualified applicants to relocate to where the job is located. Within my circle of friends, family, coworkers and business contacts I know people that moved here from Az, Ind, NY, NJ, PA, and Tenn in addition to people that emmigrated from Mexico, Venezuela, Canada and Japan. They all managed to get here and none of them are rich. Before I had finished elementary school my family had moved 5 times and we did it on a middle class income during a recession. Losing your job doesn't mean you'll never get a decent job again.

We've already closed down the majority of our mining towns and textile towns a long time ago. There's currently half as many people living in Detroit as there was 50 years ago because the car factories closed. The 700,000+ people that have moved out over the past decades aren't just wandering the earth jobless and forlorn.

Yes, if a person is an weak job applicant that managed to get a minimum wage job and that job goes away that person is in dire straits. However, that person was already in dire straits because they already had the pre-existing condition of lacking useful marketable skills. Even when that person had a low paying job he/she needed to upgrade their marketability in order to get a good paying job.

There are federal and state assistance programs, as well as private charities, that offer help to the destitute but that's a topic that is beyond the scope of minimum wage.

Stop. Rewind.

My original statement was that there are no longer as many jobs in industry/agriculture as there once were, and that increasing mechanisation has diminished the total number of jobs available (relative to the population size). You rebutted that it didn't matter if jobs were lost, because 'Yes there are less jobs in some sectors but there are also more jobs in other sectors.

My counterpoint was that a job is not magically created every time one was lost, and even if it was, geographical issues, industry reliant areas, and non-transferable skillsets would mean that not every person who lost a job due to that mechanisation would necessarily be able to find another one. The implication/relevance being that they would end up working minimum wage/finding it hard to even get a job, through no fault of their own.

Responding that, 'Well, people move areas for jobs all the time' does not contradict me. It does not counterbalance my original point of the jobs pool being generally diminished overall. Yes, some people have the funds/contacts/skillsets to be able to switch. Many do not. It is them I am focusing on, and they who are relevant to this discussion.

People losing their jobs doesn't prevent the economy from creating more jobs. The economy does not have only X number of jobs and every time sombody loses a job the labor market shrinks irreparably. The market is constantly creating new jobs and new industries. The loss of jobs in one local area does not mean that there are fewer jobs overall just that there are fewer jobs in that area. We've always had unemployed people, I don't believe we've ever achieved full employment outside of war mobilizations and I don't think there are many, if any, respected economists that believe full employment is even attainable.

Again, I don't know how things are where you're at but here in the US sparsely populated areas have always struggled to create jobs and towns/cities built on the back of a single industry always see a population decrease and unemployment spike if those industries go under. That's been true for centuries, the economy has kept growing and the standard of living has stayed high. You can create hypothetical people trapped in the middle of nowhere with no job or money if you want to but historically we've always climbed out of recessions, grown the economy and had low unemployment so it doesn't seem to be the problem you think it is.

 Ketara wrote:

Spoiler:

If parents want to artificially limit the aspirations of their children that's bad parenting in my book. If you want to teach little Johnny that there's only a few jobs worth having then that's a personal choice on your part and can't be blamed on a nebulous entity like the economy.

So far our children have, at various times, expressed an interest in growing up to be a construction worker, a fireman, a lineman for the electric company, a landscaper, a farmer, a nurse, a veterinarian, a pizzeria owner, a mechanic, an ice cream parlor owner, an archaeologist, a stablehand, a faerie and a zombie slayer. Among that list there are only 3 jobs that aren't currently held by people we know. As parents my wife and I would be happy if our kids grew up to be any of those things, well except for the last two that would be weird, or something completely different. There's a plethora of jobs that aren't "white collar" and provide a nice living. Most people we know aren't white collar and they're content.

Stop. Rewind.

My argument is that parents are driven to push their kids to white collar jobs because there are less available good jobs in the blue-collar sector compared to the previous few centuries due to mechanisation. That is an economics issue. Pushing your kids to the sectors where good work is most available (the white collar sector), is not bad parenting. It is attempting to give them better odds of increased wage/social status/employability. The motivation for them doing this however, originates with economics. Which is my point.

You may tell your children to be zombie slayers, but your motivation for that is undoubtedly less based on economics. If you equate the two together, it may explain why you have difficulty comprehending other people's parenting motivations.

Did you not read the part where I wrote that my wife and I don't want our kids to grow up to be fey or zombie slayers, cause it's there. It was in there for levity and full disclosure.

My point still stands that anecdotally, the vast majority of the people I, and my family, come into contact with are employed in blue collar jobs. We don't live in the city, although plenty of people commute to it (including myself). I dispute your claim that there aren't enough blue collar jobs to make aspiring to hold one a worthwhile endeavor. There are more than enough blue collar jobs, they're held by everybody that doesn't live in a major metropolitan area (and quite a few people who work in urban areas are blue collar too). Do you think there are a lot of white collar jobs in Nebraska or Wyoming or the Dakotas? Yes millions of people live there and have jobs and live happy lives.

Again, I didn't say that people shouldn't encourage children to aspire to white collar jobs I said that parents shouldn't exclude blue collar jobs because they can provide for happy productive lives.

Ketara wrote:This is true. But not enough of them to accommodate every person who works in a minimum wage job or is unemployed. Hence the problem.

Again, I'm not claiming that we have full employment or that full employment is attainable. I'm stating that there are job opportunities available. that the economy continues to create new jobs even as some jobs are lost, that blue collar jobs are worth aspiring to and that the govt shouldn't artificially inflate labor costs. At no point did I claim that there is a better job out there for everyone who would like to transition to one right now.

Ketara wrote:

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PrestorJohn wrote:Not exactly. While it's unlikely that there are enough higher payer jobs to absorb all of the people working minimum wage jobs or are unemployed, would those people have the desire or qualifications to get those jobs even if there were enough openings? It would be interesting to see data on just how many apprenticeship programs and entry level openings there are in trades and similar jobs and gauge the interest in them among the people working minimum wage jobs. Trades like welders and pipe fitters struggle to find people and both pay good money.

So you concur that there are not enough of these jobs available for every person on minimum wage or unemployed? That's the sole point of contention here. If so, the logical follow up point is, 'Are there enough for every unemployed person, and every person trapped in a minimum wage job?'

Again, you seem to believe that it's full employment or nothing. Minimum wage jobs exist because somebody needs to do them even if there were other jobs available to everyone in a minimum wage job those jobs would still need to be filled. If there were that many jobs available the market would favor workers and the pay would increase since there would be more jobs than workers. If you really want to raise wages create more jobs don't make labor more expensive. If something is more expensive people will find ways to need less not more of it. Not everyone who is unemployed is employable. There are reasons other than "no fault of their own" that cause people to struggle to find work.

Ketara wrote:

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PrestonJohn wrote:Unfortunately for people who work minimum wage jobs those jobs often don't require the employees to learn a lot of marketable skills on the job. Putting in years of work in a minimum wage job and still not being able to transition to a better job is the key problem. Instead of being a stepping stone it traps you in a holding pattern. I know people who worked the floor, then became a shift supervisor, key holder, assistant manger, finally store manager or district manager but that's a long road, not easy and not common. Increasing the minimum wage doesn't help people transition to a better job it just makes it easier to live on a minimum wage job but people shouldn't be aspiring to work a minimum wage job for decades.

I agree with all of this except the bizare idea that people trapped in a minimum wage job 'aspire' to work there. And it all proves my point, namely, that people get stuck in minimum wage jobs and are not able to extricate themselves into a nice little blue collar job. They simply do not have the time, tools, or money to do anything except be trapped in that job.

If people don't hav e the time or tools to acquire skills to transition to a better job then they still wont if the minimum wage is increased. Unless you help the person become more employable they'll never move beyond a minimum wage job. Is the goal to help move people to a better job or is the goal to make the job people have better? We already have state and federal programs to assist struggling people, there's no reason for the state to force employers to give people more money just to make them more comfortable.

Ketara wrote:

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PrestorJohn wrote:
I have an Uncle Bryan who got a computing degree in the punch card days, true story I swear on my kids. The first company he worked for got bought out and instead of using his buyout money to go back to school or going to work for another company started by his coworkers he decided to use it for travelling money and take an extended vacation. Not a great decision on his part.

Not really. Did he then get unemployed for a sustained period of time, or trapped in a minimum wage job he couldn't extricate himself from? Because that's what happened to mine. His skills weren't transferable, and he didn't have the resources to extricate himself from it. He also didn't get the nice payoff to begin with.

Yes. He was unemployed for at least a few years, moved into his parents' house, was then given that house so he could have a place to live and now works some kind of job out west somewhere I believe. The family doesn't really keep tabs on him, he's pretty difficult to get along with.

Ketara wrote:

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PrestorJohn wrote:There are lots of jobs that require people to maintain licenses, certifications, etc. and pretty much every job is subject to changes and innovations over time. Some companies will cover some or all of the costs incurred by their employees to stay current, some companies don't. I know plenty of people who have either saved up, taken out a loan or gotten money from their employer to take classes to get degrees or certifications that would enhance their job security, get them a raise or help them get a better job.

We're going to keep making technological progress and it's going to continue to affect the job market. That is nothing new and people can handle it. Do you think the state has a greater responsibility for our uncles' job security than they do to themselves?

In the case of my uncle, he took out the business loan you're talking about to try and break free of his minimum wage trap. The small company he tried to start got strangled at birth due to market circumstances, and the additional financial pressure guaranteed he stayed minimum wage for the rest of his days. He was never paid enough to get additional skills or training, and his newly acquired debts prevented him from being able to even think about taking risks like moving area.

Had he possessed a living wage as opposed to an 'existing wage', he might have been able to extricate himself from it.

So state sponsored job training would have been much more advantageous than merely making an extra pound an hour? That seems like a better solution for everybody than leaving him in a minimum wage job that pays slightly more, takes up the same amount of his time, and doesn't include training that makes him more marketable. If the goal is to move people to better jobs there are more effective ways for the state to do it than increasing minimum wage.


[

Ketara wrote:spoiler]

PrestorJohn wrote:Wow. You mad bro? You must have some pretty sweet rock skipping skills to want to throw stones across the pond.

I have several friends and coworkers who have achieved the "American Dream." It exists and it is achievable.

[/spoiler]

Achievable for some. Which is my point.

Still achievable and not rubbish. The opportunity is still there for people, economic improvement is still possible. The state can't guarantee an outcome it can only ensure that opportunities are provided, that's the American Dream and it's a reality.

Ketara wrote:

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PrestorJohn wrote:What you consider luck isn't really luck. Yes, we don't get to choose our parents but our parents aren't good, stable, loving parents by cosmic benevolence. They make a conscious choice to the tough work of parenting and making their relationship work. I speak from experience on that but you can ask anyone on Dakka that's a parent. It has a lot of fun moments and is very rewarding but parenting is also hard work. We can't choose our genes either but healthy intelligent people will reproduce healthy intelligent children the majority of the time. Yes, children can be born with mental or physical issues even with healthy parents but good parents can also mitigate or overcome those issues.

That's absolutely wonderful, and completely and utterly irrelevant. The point I'm making here (to put it bluntly), is that not everyone is blessed with the specific combination of circumstances that allows them to pull themselves out of the gutter. My parents are foster carers, and Jesus, you should see some of the kids that pass through their hands. They have psychological issues and disadvantages that make your anecdotal examples and my own look like a walk in the park. They are not equipped in any way, shape or form, to be able to partake in 'the American Dream'.

Which is why it is rubbish. Yes, a good chunk of us working poor can climb the financial/social ladder, one fingernail at a time, through hard work and perseverance. But others try and fail despite working harder than us, and others still are incapable of trying for reasons not their own. Those people are often destined to spend their lives making an absolute pittance, trapped in dead end minimum wage jobs or unemployed. But they deserve a reasonable standard of living, or the opportunity to break out of that trap.

People with serious problems have serious problems. Whether the minimum wage is $10/hr or $15/hr doesn't change that one iota. There are people out there who, through no fault of their own, are incapable of ever holding any job. There are people I care about who have suffered horribly and are never going to recover enough to function normally in society and nothing the state does to the labor market is going to change that sad fact.

Ketara wrote:

Spoiler:

PrestorJohn wrote:The point is that while we are all unique individuals the families and societies into which we are born are not so rare as to not be replicated in a sustainable way because they are the product of choices and actions of others. I had good parents who valued educations, I can follow their example and be a good parent who values education, my children can grow up to be good parents who value educations etc. That's not random chance or luck.

That's exactly what it is. You were luck enough to be born with good parents. There are many who do not. You were lucky enough to be born into a society that values education. You were lucky enough to be born into a society that provides the means to access it. You were lucky in many, many ways.

Nope, not luck. There are a lot of foster parents out there, not all of them provide the level of care and stability that yours did/do. They are not good foster parents because of a flip of a coin, they choose to be good parents. They could care less, they could put in less effort, they choose not to, that's not luck.

Ketara wrote:

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PrestorJon wrote:I don't want to lower the level of discourse here so I'm just going to say that you shouldn't worry, I make sure to schedule the time I spend volunteering in my community to allow me enough time to polish my monocle and attend yacht christenings.

Then please explain to me how the wonderful American Dream allows somebody on the outskirts of Liverpool, who wasn't quite smart enough to go to University, who can only get a three days of zero hour contracted work per week (that barely pays higher than his dole money being minimum wage) to 'better himself'? He has no money, no ability to move around, and no educational opportunities. All the nice blue collar jobs you mention have about three hundred applicants, so he has no hope of getting those.

How does the 'American Dream' dictate he should proceed?

Step one would be move to America.

If step one isn't possible then that person needs to take the best available job that pays more than his dole money. Do that job to the best of his/her ability and live as meagerly as possible in order to save up as much money as possible. Then that person needs to use those savings to either pay for public transportation to a location where there are better jobs to interview for and hopefully get hired or use the money to take classes that will have a tangible effect on his/her employability. I don't know how things work in Liverpool but in the US you don't have to be a great HS student to get in to community college to take classes.

Ketara wrote:

Spoiler:

PrestorJohn wrote:Again, I don't consider it random chance that I was raised by parents who worked hard to make me take school seriously, want to better myself with higher education, and worked hard and sacrificed to provide me with the opportunity to attain a degree without piling up a crippling amount of debt. I am a product of my upbringing, not everyone had the same kind of childhood but since that's completely outside of my control and not my responsibility anyway I fail to see why I should feel guilty about it.

It is nothing but purest LUCK. Random chance dictated the circumstances of your birth, your parents, your society, your intelligence, your geographical location, and your access to resources.

Nobody is telling you to be ashamed. You should be proud of what you achieved with what you had. But not everybody gets even as good a start as did.

Nope. Not purest luck. People have free will, they make their own choices and control many aspects of their lives. Loving homes and successful careers don't fall out of the sky and land on people at random.

Ketara wrote:

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PrestorJohn wrote:Raising minimum wage doesn't do anything to fix bad schools or a flawed public education system. I don't understand your point about people who support relatives instead of going to college. If by supporting you mean working a job to earn money to support them financially then they already have a job that pays well enough to support at least 2 people so they're doing pretty good.

Yes. Pretty good. Working themselves to the bone six days a week pulling ten hour shifts just to meet subsistence level. What lucky people they are, and how well they are doing.

Clearly a slightly higher wage to enable them to try and develop themselves and strive for something better is a laughable notion. Waitaminute...

Again, if the goal of the state is to move people to better jobs there are easier and better ways to do it than inflating the cost of menial labor.

Ketara wrote:

Spoiler:

PrestorJohn wrote:Not every job needs a college degree and once you have a job it's easier to acquire more skills or transistion to a better job.

Unless of course, you happen to be trapped in one of those minimum wage, low skilled jobs....

Earning an income, even a small one, makes it easier to acquire skills and transistion to a better job. Minimum wage jobs aren't Chinese finger traps, people can move on from them, they do it every day.

Ketara wrote:

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PrestorJohn wrote:If you find yourself in a town that has full employment and excess people then I suggest you look for a job in a neighboring town. I personally drive a 45-60 minute commute of 36 miles each way to get to work in the next county over from our house. If you are physically trapped in a town with literally no jobs available and you can't afford public transportation and you don't own a car and you don't have any job skills then yeah, you're probably not going to find a job. There are govt assistance programs for people like that and if that person is properly motivated he/she can use those programs to find a job.

Ah, I see. Rather than having them paid a living wage, the Government should pick up the tab of the private businesses being able to employ people for peanuts, and either subsidise the trapped people, or pay for them to get the opportunities they might be able to seek for themselves if they earned a bit more.

Less government interference indeed.

How does raising the minimum wage create jobs in a town that has no job openings? If you want to use the hypothetical example of a town with literally no jobs available how does raising the minimum wage (to any amount you want to name) create new jobs? The best solution is to take inexpensive public transit to another locale that has jobs available. If people are truly utterly destitute we do have social programs that give them help. They're very flawed programs but I'm not going to deny their existence.

The govt always picks up the tab for the private sector, the private sector supplies all the funding for the govt.

Ketara wrote:

Spoiler:

PrestorJohn wrote:It's pretty weird (and ludicrous) that you chose to refute a claim I never made Did I say a higher minimum wage will require applicants to have a college degree?

You said that if minimum wage goes up, employers raise their standards on who they hire. Presumably, you mean academic standards. So where that burger flipping job would have required no qualifications, it now requires some, right?

No I meant standards in general not specific to academics. The bigger the investment an employer makes in an employee the more certainty they want in the benefit of that investment so the employer is going to give fewer opportunities to borderline or questionable applicants.

Ketara wrote:

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PrestorJohn wrote:Take the SanFran example, current minimum wage $10.77, annual salary for a full time employee $ 21,540 the increased minimum wage in 2018 $15/hr for an annual salary of $30,000. The higher salary is a bigger investment in the employee by the employer and makes the job more attractive to a wider pool of applicants. Take three applicants, a high school dropout, a high school graduate and a high school graduate who's currently a part time student at a local community college. Which ones are interested in earning $21k a year? Which ones are interested in earning $30k a year? Which one would you hire for $30k a year? See how the higher minimum wage makes it harder for the weakest applicants to get jobs?

Wait, so your argument is that if you bump up minimum wage, people with better qualifications will apply for the job?

That's.......absurd. Sorry, but it really is. It works on the premise that the burger flipping job will provide sufficient financial remuneration so as to be competitive enough to lure better qualified people out of other job fields into applying.

Yes, you are correct in the initial thought. If flipping burgers suddenly paid £100,000 a year, I'd be queueing outside for a job, along with most people. But seriously? Think it through. It's logically ridiculous. If minimum wage was suddenly raised to £100,000 per year, every other job would have to pay at least that as well. The result being that actually, I'd look for for jobs with more job satisfaction than burger flipping, that would be 100% cast iron guaranteed to pay me an equivalent amount or more.

Ten years ago I was a college graduate working for $10/hr for a big box retail store, that's less than minimum wage in SanFran today. I wasn't the only one working for that wage in the store that was a college graduate, I wasn't the youngest either and some of them made less than me. If that job had paid $15/hr it would have attracted more applicants and it would have been more difficult for me to get it because of the stronger competition from a larger pool. If you don't understand that the number of applicants for a job increases when the wages paid by the job increases I don't know how else to explain it to you.

Ketara wrote:

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Prestor Jon wrote:

I'm pretty sure that my explanation of how service sector employers don't have to raise wages because they have a large pool of applicants competing for job openings covers the concept that they don't want to pay more than they need to in order to get the jobs filled.

I'm not sure what it's like where you are but when I was working service sector jobs (I didn't earn more than $10/hr until I was in my late 20's) the majority of my coworkers were students and people who didn't plan on making working food service or retail a career. Most people I met viewed minimum wage jobs as either part time work or a stepping stone.

Sadly, not everyone has that luxury. Hence the aforementioned trapped people.

Live frugally, save money, improve yourself. Not a complicated formula, anybody can do it.

Ketara wrote:

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Prestor Jon wrote:
Again, I don't know how people behave in your neck of the woods but in the US we actually changed from a negative savings rate to actual having people saving money by the end of the recession that started in '08-09. Maybe people are also swimming in it like Scrooge McDuck, I doubt it since Duck Tales reruns don't get much airtime these days. My point still stands, people subsisting on minimum wage don't have enough money left over after their essential spending to buy enough luxury goods to guarantee economic growth and stability. Raising wages raises prices which reduces any increase in buying power achieved through wage increases and people making minimum wage would be better off saving money to help them acquire more marketable skills and to have in case of unexpected emergencies.

In terms of economic benefit, raising minimum wage vastly offsets any minor adjustments caused in the living essentials, assuming it is kept within sensible limits. If you quadrupled it, yes, costs would also skyrocket. But if you say, put it up by three or four dollars, and are clever about only generally applying it to companies that can afford it, the net result is less private profit, and more money ploughed back into the tax system and general economy.

A penny apiece from the masses doth far outweigh a pound a pound apiece from the few.

If the goal of increasing the minimum wage is to increase consumer spending why limit the wage growth to minimum wage earners? Why not have the govt force companies to pay everybody more money? That would surely lead to more spending than only increasing minimum wage. Why let companies set wages at all? Surely the govt would be able to determine the best wages for everybody and act as a central planning agency for running the whole economy.

Ketara wrote:

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PrestorJon wrote:Raising wages raises prices and people barely getting by should have other spending priorities than hedonism.

Technically, anything you buy that isn't essential is inherently hedonistic.

You also keep jumping back to this bugbear that 'prices will rise'. I agree, yes, they will do, if you institute a ridiculously huge minimum wage rise applied uniformly.

But no-one is suggesting that.

Lower the cost of manufacturing goods lowers their price for consumers and raising the cost of manufacturing goods raises their price for consumers. Why are flat screen tvs less expensive now than 10 years ago? They're all still made overseas by the same companies. Costs drop, prices drop. You raise the cost you raise prices. It doesn't have to be a dramatic rise in minimum wage to affect the cost of manufacturing. Labor costs a lot less overseas. You could increase labor costs there and they would still be less than in the US but you would certainly see a difference in the prices.

Ketara wrote:

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PrestorJon wrote:If you're working minimum wage and get a small pay increase it's not in your best interests to run out and spend it all. It's not going to give you much more buying power anyway.

What if I'm spending it on 'bettering myself'? Because y'know, that was the point earlier on. First you say that people should better themselves, but then you say that if they were given the financial means to do so, they should save it. Which is it? Do they try and better themselves, or do they put it away for a rainy day?

Ideally they do both. It would be best to save up more than you need so you don't spend it all when you pay for additional education. Obviously they should also closely examine any possible scholarships and other programs that help lower the cost. Even if you can't get into classes because you're a HS dropout you should still save money, get your GED and then spend some of the money on improving your skillset further.

Ketara wrote:

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PrestorJon wrote:Why are poor people poor?

Because they have no money. It's what you might call a defining attribute of being 'poor'.

Why don't they have any money?

Ketara wrote:

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PrestorJon wrote:How should people earning a low income prioritize their spending? If people are going to break out of a cycle of poverty they have to change the behaviors that keep them in a cycle of poverty. I fail to see why you want to encourage poor people to spend all their money, that'snot going to help their situation.

Keeping them locked in a cycle of poverty also does not help their situation. If you earn a bit more, you might be able to prioritise all that 'American Dream' stuff.

Should they spend their money on education or should they go out and spend money on luxury goods? Which do you want them to prioritize bettering themselves or having cool stuff?

Ketara wrote:

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PrestorJon wrote:The govt awards billions of dollars of student loans every year and colleges have a variety of financial aid options and course schedules. The majority of college graduates I know paid for school with loans. If they're fiscally responsible and employed they should be able to work their way into a better financial situation. That's the benefit of being fiscally responsible.

I see. So your logic is, 'If you have a minimum wage job, and are fiscally responsible, you should be able to earn enough to better yourself'. In other words, you believe the minimum wage is sufficient as it is, and it provides the means to pay for the essentials and offer opportunity? Please clarify if that is indeed your position.

My position is that each person should take the best job they can get, live within their means and strive to better themselves regardless of their income.

Ketara wrote:

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PrestorJon wrote:You seem to have a low opinion of the abilities of the working poor. They're working, they have opportunities to improve themselves and many of them take advantage of them and improve their job prospects and careers. You seem to believe that poor people can't help themselves and need the govt to save them. Govt dependency isn't going to help their job prospects either.

How is raising the minimum wage Government dependency? It's the exact opposite. It's making businesses who are capable of doing so bear the brunt of the costs to improve the lot of society as a whole. Beyond writing on a bit of paper, it doesn't cost the Government a penny. As things stand, maintaining the status quo is what costs the Government money, and requires vast state intervention, because people don't earn enough to survive or better themselves without it!

In other words, I'm anti-Government intervention! By raising the minimum wage, there is less burden on the taxpayer, less subsidies required, and less social schemes required!

Raising the minimum wage is govt dependency because it makes people dependent on govt action. If you can't earn the income you want you need to change yourself so that you can, the govt can't do it for you. If your problem is not enough money the solution isn't make the govt increase my pay, that doesn't make you any more valuable it just makes it easier for you to be happy with a minimum wage job.

Ketara wrote:

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PrestorJon wrote:People spending within their means is a good thing. Yes it leads to a contraction but it also avoids credit bubbles and debt. If you think the economy is in recession because rich people aren't spending money then you should try to encourage them to spend more. Having the state force employers to pay minimum wage employees an additional dollar an hour isn't going to offset rich people sitting on billions of dollars.

If it all the economy needs is people spending money then why did people spending credit they couldn't repay crash the economy in the first place?

Okay, to the basics....

If minimum wage is raised, people are by definition, spending within their means. It means they have cash to spend that isn't dependent on loans. It isn't debt. That's why it's good for the economy.

If people were taking out loans to spend, then you would be entirely correct. But nobody has ever, at any stage, advocated that. Ever.

If people are living on minimum wage and want to move on to a better job they need to prioritize their spending to enable them to do so. It is better to sacrifice in the present for a benefit in the future.

Ketara wrote:

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PrestorJon wrote:I'm not sure why you don't realize that a healthy company is providing goods and services to consumers. No company makes a profit simply by cutting labor costs, they need to actually move product or provide services. If companies have enough customers to fluorish then that means lots of people are buying goods and services which creates and secures jobs. That's good for the economy. Companies are in business to serve customers not to screw over their employees.

No. People do not create businesses to 'serve customers'. No business ever came into existence for the pure pleasure of distributing goods to mankind. The motivation of your average CEO to come into work isn't 'to serve customers'. They exist, to make money. You're deceiving yourself if you think otherwise.

There are organisations that do exist to help people, but they're called charities.

Every business that has ever existed has been created to provide goods and services to people. That's how businesses earn money, selling stuff to consumers. You have a very warped view of business, maybe it's a cultural thing. If a business doesn't sell products or services they have no income, if they have no income they cannot make a profit regardless of what they pay employees. If GW paid redshirts a farthing per fortnight they still wouldn't see an increase in profit if they didn't sell any models or books or paint or brushes. The only reason GW employs redshirts is to help facilitate the sale of their products. If nobody bought GW stuff GW would go out of business, they are in business solely to sell hobby stuff to hobbyists, that is the only way they make any money.

Ketara wrote:

Spoiler:

PrestorJon wrote:We both agree that businesses want to make money and that govt needs to provide a certain amount of regulation to ensure a fair market wherein everyone plays by a known set of rules. We're not going to agree on how much regulation is necessary for each given industry etc.

We don't appear to be disagreeing on regulation. I'm just nitpicking at some exceedingly illogical defences for what is currently turning into an exploitative system that is bad for the economy (aka, a minimum wage that is too low for purpose). There's a healthy balance between state, and industry. The pendulum has swung slightly too far one way, and it needs to be forcibly realigned for the good of all (even the businesses that bear the costs). And by signing a bit of paper, the government can do that.

If the problem is that the economy isn't producing the type of jobs we want people to hold then the solution isn't to try to force the jobs that do exist to pay like they're better jobs but to set policies that foster the growth of better jobs. If the only problem with the economy is the minimum wage, if those jobs would be great jobs if only they paid a few more dollars then yes raising the minimum wage fixes that problem. However, the minimum wage isn't a cause of the economic problems it's just a symptom and you can't get better if you only treat symptoms.

Ketara wrote:

Spoiler:

PrestorJon wrote:Are you raising the minimum wage to provide more resources to get a better job (there's better ways to do that) or are you increasing the minimum wage to allow more people to continue to work minimum wage jobs without having to make fiscal sacrifices? If people can live the life they want on a minimum wage job, why would they be determined to move on from on?

Both, to an extent. I'm not advocating raising it to ridiculous levels. It shouldn't be raised so high as to dent the economy, or smash small businesses. But by raising it by a proportionate amount, you can get two birds with one stone. It means people trapped there have a tolerable quality of life (not extremely comfortable, it is a no-skill job after all), and potentially, the financial tools to get out if they're prepared to exert themselves.

IMHO, the goal should be to create programs that ensure that people aren't trapped in minimum wage jobs unless they choose to be. I don't want anybody trapped in a minimum wage job. The state already taxes companies to fund unemployment benefits. The state already taxes companies' income to fund govt spending. Take some of the tax revenue and fund training programs so that people can learn the skills they need for better jobs. Our consumer economy creates an unheathy high percentage of minimum wage jobs and our education system provides an unheathy high percentage of people that aren't ready for better than minimum wage jobs. Neither of those problems gets fixed with higher minimum wage.

 Ahtman wrote:

Wall of text makes Baby Jebus cry!

Prestor Jon wrote:


My argument is that parents are driven to push their kids to white collar jobs because there are less available good jobs in the blue-collar sector compared to the previous few centuries due to mechanisation.

That is laughably untrue. If it were really so true, why would Mike Rowe spend so much time and effort on championing the fairly vastly wide open "blue collar sectors" of employment?

I mean, if you type in "welding job shortage" into google you get a buffet's worth of articles from esteemed publications such as Bloomberg, Newsweek, and USA Today.


It's not really the parents that are driving kids to white collar jobs (though there certainly are many who do), but rather, it's the school's at the elementary and secondary education level. My own daughter's school has banners plastered everywhere about how "X Elementary students are college bound" All throughout my school years there were much the same kinds of posters, especially in high school. Districts and school boards regularly cut actually useful-to-trades classes first before narrowing the options for other requirements (as in, why should we be forcing, or even be giving students the option to attend college courses when they aren't even out of high school yet? Why do we have "Shakespearean Literature Analysis" as a HS course, when the typical Sophmore, Junior, Freshmen English will do?). Teachers are basically told (many of the ones I've kept in touch with have told me this) by the district/board to in essence, "push" college on students like a drug dealer. When you're basically told "the ONLY way to be successful is if you go to college" there's something seriously fething wrong with the system; ESPECIALLY in the school I attended where probably 70% of parents' had some form of Blue Collar type of job.

Dear god Prestor. I've written some doozies in my time. Some bigs ones. But that... Wow. That just put me to shame XD

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:


My argument is that parents are driven to push their kids to white collar jobs because there are less available good jobs in the blue-collar sector compared to the previous few centuries due to mechanisation.

That is laughably untrue. If it were really so true, why would Mike Rowe spend so much time and effort on championing the fairly vastly wide open "blue collar sectors" of employment?

I mean, if you type in "welding job shortage" into google you get a buffet's worth of articles from esteemed publications such as Bloomberg, Newsweek, and USA Today.


It's not really the parents that are driving kids to white collar jobs (though there certainly are many who do), but rather, it's the school's at the elementary and secondary education level. My own daughter's school has banners plastered everywhere about how "X Elementary students are college bound" All throughout my school years there were much the same kinds of posters, especially in high school. Districts and school boards regularly cut actually useful-to-trades classes first before narrowing the options for other requirements (as in, why should we be forcing, or even be giving students the option to attend college courses when they aren't even out of high school yet? Why do we have "Shakespearean Literature Analysis" as a HS course, when the typical Sophmore, Junior, Freshmen English will do?). Teachers are basically told (many of the ones I've kept in touch with have told me this) by the district/board to in essence, "push" college on students like a drug dealer. When you're basically told "the ONLY way to be successful is if you go to college" there's something seriously fething wrong with the system; ESPECIALLY in the school I attended where probably 70% of parents' had some form of Blue Collar type of job.

This.

So. Much. This.

I can tell you, as a member of "blue collar" workforce, there is a definite shortage of highly trained professionals in my trade (I'm a steamfitter by trade, and welding is one of the myriad of things we do) and others like it. I kept in contact with teachers I had in high school, I have friends that teach high school, and my wife is an elementary school teacher, so I can say that in my county and part of my state, college is pushed on kids all the way through school.

Because I was a teacher at my apprenticeship school, I was able to be part of an outreach program the county I live in started in order to get it through to kids in high school that there are plenty of good, well paying jobs outside of college in the building trades. It was started by one man that worked for the county and he had almost no help from the county proper, yet he was able to organize events for the high school he worked in that gave my local union, the plumbers union, the sheet metal workers union, the electricians union, and the largest nonunion electrical shop in the area to opportunity to talk to parents and students about alternatives to college. It was awesome to be able to talk about what I do and hopefully help kids who know they won't succeed in college, especially considering that it had been drilled into them for years that college is the only way to make something of yourself.

And that's the primary place our education system is broken, and why comparisons to many of the "socialized" European (especially the Scandinavian countries) are completely misleading (and that's not even counting the demographic differences).

Simply put, the American education system, and culture in general, frowns upon and condescends to the blue collar or trades, in large part because our government continues to push the "everyone should go to college" agenda. Of course, it couldn't possibly be because the gov'ment made student loans non-dischargable and then became the largest lender.....

But I digress. There are lots of GREAT trade jobs to be had; sadly, we treat our HS vocational schools as dumping sites for kids we (inappropriately) see as burnouts and wastes of space because the university path doesn't fit them. All of which is HIGHLY SKILLED LABOR. Something working at McDonald's is not.

/rant over. Sorry.

 cincydooley wrote:
Of course, it couldn't possibly be because the gov'ment made student loans non-dischargable and then became the largest lender.....

Federal and state loans aren't the issue, as there are plenty of means to delay or modify payment. The issue is privately held loans which often have freakishly high interest rates, cannot be discharged, and have fewer options regarding payment.

 cincydooley wrote:

But I digress. There are lots of GREAT trade jobs to be had; sadly, we treat our HS vocational schools as dumping sites for kids we (inappropriately) see as burnouts and wastes of space because the university path doesn't fit them. All of which is HIGHLY SKILLED LABOR. Something working at McDonald's is not.

Deriding McJobs is probably not the way you want to go if your goal is to elevate the regard for other positions.

 dogma wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:
Of course, it couldn't possibly be because the gov'ment made student loans non-dischargable and then became the largest lender.....

Federal and state loans aren't the issue, as there are plenty of means to delay or modify payment. The issue is privately held loans which often have freakishly high interest rates, cannot be discharged, and have fewer options regarding payment.

I disagree... it's ALL loans derived from higher education.

There's this whole incestuous relationship between Colleges and the Government's trough that pales in comparison to other racketeering schemes.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:


My argument is that parents are driven to push their kids to white collar jobs because there are less available good jobs in the blue-collar sector compared to the previous few centuries due to mechanisation.

That is laughably untrue. If it were really so true, why would Mike Rowe spend so much time and effort on championing the fairly vastly wide open "blue collar sectors" of employment?

I mean, if you type in "welding job shortage" into google you get a buffet's worth of articles from esteemed publications such as Bloomberg, Newsweek, and USA Today.


It's not really the parents that are driving kids to white collar jobs (though there certainly are many who do), but rather, it's the school's at the elementary and secondary education level. My own daughter's school has banners plastered everywhere about how "X Elementary students are college bound" All throughout my school years there were much the same kinds of posters, especially in high school. Districts and school boards regularly cut actually useful-to-trades classes first before narrowing the options for other requirements (as in, why should we be forcing, or even be giving students the option to attend college courses when they aren't even out of high school yet? Why do we have "Shakespearean Literature Analysis" as a HS course, when the typical Sophmore, Junior, Freshmen English will do?). Teachers are basically told (many of the ones I've kept in touch with have told me this) by the district/board to in essence, "push" college on students like a drug dealer. When you're basically told "the ONLY way to be successful is if you go to college" there's something seriously fething wrong with the system; ESPECIALLY in the school I attended where probably 70% of parents' had some form of Blue Collar type of job.

Just for clarity's sake I wanted to point out that it's Ketara you're quoting not me. It's my bad for having the quote tunnel messed up. I went back and fixed it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 dogma wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:
Of course, it couldn't possibly be because the gov'ment made student loans non-dischargable and then became the largest lender.....

Federal and state loans aren't the issue, as there are plenty of means to delay or modify payment. The issue is privately held loans which often have freakishly high interest rates, cannot be discharged, and have fewer options regarding payment.

 cincydooley wrote:

But I digress. There are lots of GREAT trade jobs to be had; sadly, we treat our HS vocational schools as dumping sites for kids we (inappropriately) see as burnouts and wastes of space because the university path doesn't fit them. All of which is HIGHLY SKILLED LABOR. Something working at McDonald's is not.

Deriding McJobs is probably not the way you want to go if your goal is to elevate the regard for other positions.

If neither the federal govt nor private banks offered student loans for high education then colleges and universities would have to either find a way to lower tuition back to affordable levels, like it was when my parents and grandparents attended or be left without enough students.

I don't think pointing out that working at McDonald's isn't highly skilled labor is deriding the people who work there. It's just a fact, some jobs require a bigger or more specific skillset. There are plenty of entry level and/or unskilled jobs out there that need to be done and there's nothing wrong with doing them but the reason they don't pay as much as other jobs is because they pull from a large pool of unskilled applicants.

Prestor Jon wrote:

If neither the federal govt nor private banks offered student loans for high education then colleges and universities would have to either find a way to lower tuition back to affordable levels, like it was when my parents and grandparents attended or be left without enough students.

Everyone I know in my parents' generation (~60) has only just recently paid off their student loans. Most of the people in my grandparents generation (~80) didn't attend at all, as student loans didn't exist; meaning that tertiary education was not affordable.

Prestor Jon wrote:

I don't think pointing out that working at McDonald's isn't highly skilled labor is deriding the people who work there. It's just a fact, some jobs require a bigger or more specific skillset. There are plenty of entry level and/or unskilled jobs out there that need to be done and there's nothing wrong with doing them but the reason they don't pay as much as other jobs is because they pull from a large pool of unskilled applicants.

Are the managers, maintenance men, and cooks that work at McDonald's not skilled?

 dogma wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

If neither the federal govt nor private banks offered student loans for high education then colleges and universities would have to either find a way to lower tuition back to affordable levels, like it was when my parents and grandparents attended or be left without enough students.

Everyone I know in my parents' generation (~60) has only just recently paid off their student loans. Most of the people in my grandparents generation (~80) didn't attend at all, as student loans didn't exist; meaning that tertiary education was not affordable.

Prestor Jon wrote:

I don't think pointing out that working at McDonald's isn't highly skilled labor is deriding the people who work there. It's just a fact, some jobs require a bigger or more specific skillset. There are plenty of entry level and/or unskilled jobs out there that need to be done and there's nothing wrong with doing them but the reason they don't pay as much as other jobs is because they pull from a large pool of unskilled applicants.

Are the managers, maintenance men, and cooks that work at McDonald's not skilled?

None of your grandparents went to college on the GI Bill following WWII? All of mine did. All of my parents, aunts and uncles went to college and did so without acruing any significant debt and all of them were from blue collar families.

Some jobs at McDonalds probably can be classified as skilled but none of them pay minimum wage. Minimum wage jobs pay minimum wage because they are pulling applicants from the broadest labor pool which is unskilled workers.

Prestor Jon wrote:

None of your grandparents went to college on the GI Bill following WWII? All of mine did. All of my parents, aunts and uncles went to college and did so without acruing any significant debt and all of them were from blue collar families.

Probably due to the GI Bill, at least in the case of your grandparents.

What is significant debt?

Prestor Jon wrote:

Some jobs at McDonalds probably can be classified as skilled but none of them pay minimum wage. Minimum wage jobs pay minimum wage because they are pulling applicants from the broadest labor pool which is unskilled workers.

Cooks and maintenance men often earn minimum wage, and not just at McDonald's corollaries.

A cook at McDonalds isn't a skilled position. A cook at another restaurant might be(because there you'd actually be cooking and not just stacking hamburgers)

 Grey Templar wrote:
A cook at McDonalds isn't a skilled position. A cook at another restaurant might be(because there you'd actually be cooking and not just stacking hamburgers)

I don't see a material difference between a person who prepares food according to someone else's recipes, and someone who prepares food according to someone else's recipes.

Surely you can tell the difference between stacking a hamburger at McDonalds and making a medium rare T-bone steak and mashed potatoes at Cattlemans.

One requires some actual skill, the other doesn't.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Surely you can tell the difference between stacking a hamburger at McDonalds and making a medium rare T-bone steak and mashed potatoes at Cattlemans.

One requires some actual skill, the other doesn't.

Cooks at McDonald's do more than just stack hamburgers, you continue to deny them any credit. And yes, stacking hamburgers requires skill.

 dogma wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

None of your grandparents went to college on the GI Bill following WWII? All of mine did. All of my parents, aunts and uncles went to college and did so without acruing any significant debt and all of them were from blue collar families.

Probably due to the GI Bill, at least in the case of your grandparents.

What is significant debt?

Prestor Jon wrote:

Some jobs at McDonalds probably can be classified as skilled but none of them pay minimum wage. Minimum wage jobs pay minimum wage because they are pulling applicants from the broadest labor pool which is unskilled workers.

Cooks and maintenance men often earn minimum wage, and not just at McDonald's corollaries.

They earned their undergraduate degrees without incurring debt. Some earned graduate degrees, mostly at night since they had jobs. I'm not sure if they paid their own way through grad school, some definitely got help from their employers and there might have also been a couple of loans not entirely sure so there may have been debt but nothing that they couldn't handle. This was during the mid-late 1970s so tuition + room and board was around $7k.

I'm sure there are positions in the kitchen that pay minimum wage and I know that there are also kitchen positions that pay much better than minimum wage. Depending on the job description of maintenance man there can be some skill required and that drives up the wage.

Prestor Jon wrote:

I'm sure there are positions in the kitchen that pay minimum wage and I know that there are also kitchen positions that pay much better than minimum wage. Depending on the job description of maintenance man there can be some skill required and that drives up the wage.

But not universally, which is why minimum wage exists.

 dogma wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Surely you can tell the difference between stacking a hamburger at McDonalds and making a medium rare T-bone steak and mashed potatoes at Cattlemans.

One requires some actual skill, the other doesn't.

Cooks at McDonald's do more than just stack hamburgers, you continue to deny them any credit. And yes, stacking hamburgers requires skill.

Right, they also watch a timer for the fries and push buttons on a touchscreen.

No, its not a skilled position.

A skilled position is a plumber, a cook/chef at a restaurant which actually makes real food, a welder, an auto-service technician, a forklift operator, etc...

Your claim that flipping burgers at McDonalds is a skilled position is incredibly insulting to anyone who has a real skilled position.

 Grey Templar wrote:

Right, they also watch a timer for the fries and push buttons on a touchscreen.

And sweep the floor, clean the bathroom, take orders, process orders, and handle difficult customers....etc. Often all in a single shift while also being treated poorly.

 Grey Templar wrote:

A skilled position is a plumber, a cook/chef at a restaurant which actually makes real food, a welder, an auto-service technician, a forklift operator, etc...

What is "real food"?

AS someone who is fairly familiar with commercial kitchens, there is not muc difference from a fast food line cook, and your standard chain restaraunt line cook.

You only see the difference when you go to really high end places, but there they are no longer line cooks, but various levels of chefs.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 dogma wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Surely you can tell the difference between stacking a hamburger at McDonalds and making a medium rare T-bone steak and mashed potatoes at Cattlemans.

One requires some actual skill, the other doesn't.

Cooks at McDonald's do more than just stack hamburgers, you continue to deny them any credit. And yes, stacking hamburgers requires skill.

Right, they also watch a timer for the fries and push buttons on a touchscreen.

No, its not a skilled position.

A skilled position is a plumber, a cook/chef at a restaurant which actually makes real food, a welder, an auto-service technician, a forklift operator, etc...

Your claim that flipping burgers at McDonalds is a skilled position is incredibly insulting to anyone who has a real skilled position.

In my local (Steamfitters Local 602), a mechanical helper makes $13.35 in the pocket and a $7.66 contractor contribution to medical (they get no other benefits like pension, annuity, etc.), plus they are entitled to paid overtime (both time-and-a-half or double time, depending on hours worked and day of the week), paid holidays, and shift differential.

They are nothing more than an unskilled laborer. They aren't required to have any of the skills that a journeyman mechanic or welder is supposed to have nor can they do anything directly related to the installation of piping systems or equipment; their job is to sweep up, organize tools/material, fill water jugs, unload supply trucks, dig ditches, and pretty much be a gofer.

If someone who does the things I described is worth at least $13 an hour (plus medical insurance), so is a fast food employee.

I think it's fair to say those unskilled helpers are only getting that wage because of the union.

McDonald's workers are free to unionize.

 cincydooley wrote:
I think it's fair to say those unskilled helpers are only getting that wage because of the union.

McDonald's workers are free to unionize.

No, it's fair to say that helpers make that wage because they earn it. I know, it's terrible that someone without "skill" can earn all that money, isn't it?

But $13 dollars an hour in the DC Metro area isn't much... it would be near impossible to live off of (let alone support a family) in town or in most of the suburbs in VA and MD.


The nonunion wage in the DC/Metro area is pretty close to ours, and on any government job it is the same as ours (or more, if you don't take the benefits).

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 dogma wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Surely you can tell the difference between stacking a hamburger at McDonalds and making a medium rare T-bone steak and mashed potatoes at Cattlemans.

One requires some actual skill, the other doesn't.

Cooks at McDonald's do more than just stack hamburgers, you continue to deny them any credit. And yes, stacking hamburgers requires skill.

Right, they also watch a timer for the fries and push buttons on a touchscreen.

No, its not a skilled position.

A skilled position is a plumber, a cook/chef at a restaurant which actually makes real food, a welder, an auto-service technician, a forklift operator, etc...

Your claim that flipping burgers at McDonalds is a skilled position is incredibly insulting to anyone who has a real skilled position.

In my local (Steamfitters Local 602), a mechanical helper makes $13.35 in the pocket and a $7.66 contractor contribution to medical (they get no other benefits like pension, annuity, etc.), plus they are entitled to paid overtime (both time-and-a-half or double time, depending on hours worked and day of the week), paid holidays, and shift differential.

They are nothing more than an unskilled laborer. They aren't required to have any of the skills that a journeyman mechanic or welder is supposed to have nor can they do anything directly related to the installation of piping systems or equipment; their job is to sweep up, organize tools/material, fill water jugs, unload supply trucks, dig ditches, and pretty much be a gofer.

If someone who does the things I described is worth at least $13 an hour (plus medical insurance), so is a fast food employee.

I think it's fair to say that most people who work at McDonalds could also work as mechanical helpers, both jobs require able bodied people capable of learning and executing basic tasks. I think it's also fair to say that the steamfitter's union has more leverage to get the wage they want for their mechanical helpers than the workers at McDonalds. If a job requires steamfitters the General Contractor has to hire steamfitters and if the steamfitters submit the proposal that the work will require X number of steamfitters and Y number of helpers at given wages there's very little the GC can do to alter those terms (changing the scope of work or the schedule is all I can think of). Nobody is going to wreck their schedule because they think mechanical helpers should earn a couple dollars less an hour. McDonalds employees have no leverage to get higher pay as long as there are other applicants willing to work at McDonalds for minimum wage.

@ ScootyPuff: That makes sense. Hard work, whether skilled or not, ought to be rewarded decently. What current unskilled laborers get (at least I get the impression that that's the way of things in the US) amounts to nothing more than slave labor in all but name.

And while I do agree that unskilled labor shouldn't rate the same pay as someone who's worked hard to get up in the world (whether through sweat or brains makes no difference), that's no reason to treat and pay them like dirt, either. There should be an acceptable middle ground somewhere.

Bran Dawri wrote:
@ ScootyPuff: That makes sense. Hard work, whether skilled or not, ought to be rewarded decently. What current unskilled laborers get (at least I get the impression that that's the way of things in the US) amounts to nothing more than slave labor in all but name.

And while I do agree that unskilled labor shouldn't rate the same pay as someone who's worked hard to get up in the world (whether through sweat or brains makes no difference), that's no reason to treat and pay them like dirt, either. There should be an acceptable middle ground somewhere.

Stop being reasonable! This is the INTERNET!

Bran Dawri wrote:
@ ScootyPuff: That makes sense. Hard work, whether skilled or not, ought to be rewarded decently. What current unskilled laborers get (at least I get the impression that that's the way of things in the US) amounts to nothing more than slave labor in all but name.

And while I do agree that unskilled labor shouldn't rate the same pay as someone who's worked hard to get up in the world (whether through sweat or brains makes no difference), that's no reason to treat and pay them like dirt, either. There should be an acceptable middle ground somewhere.

Are you seriously comparing people willingly entering into a contract for paid labor to slavery?

 Easy E wrote:

Bran Dawri wrote:
@ ScootyPuff: That makes sense. Hard work, whether skilled or not, ought to be rewarded decently. What current unskilled laborers get (at least I get the impression that that's the way of things in the US) amounts to nothing more than slave labor in all but name.

And while I do agree that unskilled labor shouldn't rate the same pay as someone who's worked hard to get up in the world (whether through sweat or brains makes no difference), that's no reason to treat and pay them like dirt, either. There should be an acceptable middle ground somewhere.

Stop being reasonable! This is the INTERNET!

I think what the disconect is for most people is that they feel low earning jobs are "easy" by default, which is asinine. In a lot of ways, being a mechanical helper is harder than being a journeyman mechanic. All things considered, they make a pretty fair wage, but it is significantly than even an apprentice (a first year apprentice makes $17.21 in the pocket + full benefits).

I'm a big believer in a fair days work for a fair days pay, no matter what the job is.