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Seattle Approves $15 Per Hour Minimum Wage
An anonymous reader writes "The Seattle City Council announced on Monday that it has unanimously approved a $15 per hour minimum wage mandate. The new rate will go into effect starting April 1, 2015 in a tiered, gradual manner that depends on employer size. In the first year of implementation, hourly minimum wage will be raised to either $10 or $11 according to the employer size category. By 2021, hourly minimum wage across the board should be at or above $15. Seattle is the first city to implement a living wage for its lowest earners."
Still further there is the even more ignorant people that believe that not only should there be a minimum, but that it should be a "living wage" -- because all work that must be done must also be worth enough to afford a nice cozy life.
Whoa, back the horse up. A living wage is not about a "nice cozy life". It is about not having to choose between eating and paying the rent. Believe it or not, there are some people in this country that have to make that decision. Why should anyone have to work 2-3 jobs just to survive when corporate profits are at an all time high?
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Back in the 1990s, i was making $12-14 an hour rolling buritos for a restaurant chain. My wages changed if i went to a different store which is why there is a wage wiindow. Minimum wage went from 3.35 to around 5.25 or so. I only worked at minimum wage once and that was because it increased before i recieved raises.
Anyways, that was only possible because unemployment was low. We hired in kids with no work experience at $1-1.50 an hour above minimum wage just to get people in the door. With raises every 6 months, if you actually put some effort into the job, you could increase that in no time. Skilled people were hired in at even more.
The answer is not raising a minimum wage but lowering unemployment. That was the key to Clinton's "its the economy stupid". Anyone who wanted a job could get one and in most places, they could get one that paid somewhat better than minimum wage.
Minimum wage is not supposed yo be a living wage. It is not supposed to be a career goal. It is supposed to be a minimum for people with no work history so they can prove thenselves. It is a sad sign when our economy and people in it have resigned themselves to accepting the minimum and are relying on the state in order to better their careers. The answer is to lower unemployment. The people will go to whomever is paying the most and companies will have to pay more on their own out of profits in order to get and keep people. Prices don't jump either because they need to stay competitive with other companies.
What the actual fuck? In the worst case, if your company somehow has 100% of their costs being labor, a 5% increase in wages would be a 5% increase in costs. It is mathematically impossible for what you say to happen.
The story was later corrected... the math is off and is incredibly misleading.
That won't stop anyone from using it.
OK so some businesses will not be able to either give up some profit or raise prices to accommodate the higher wages... they go belly up. But then whatever services they provided will be unavailable & someone will jump in & fill that gap. It's hard to believe the claims of job losses tied to the minimum wage.
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Keep in mind that a family would qualify for SNAP and rent support also.
Translation: the employer can only get away with paying only $7.50 because the government makes up the difference between that and a realistic wage. Benefits without minimum living wage == state subsidy of industry. Still, don't worry, if you look around enough you'll be able to find someone faking disability to parade in front of the media, and prevent people asking awkward questions about how much taxpayers money goes to allowing working people to survive on unliveable wages.
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