Trump's Cabinet
57 minutes ago
Sunday, April 27, 2014
The minimum wage life, two versions
It is possible to live on minimum wage, but not while working a minimum wage job. Take two people with the same income. One works 40 – 60 hours per week. He has to work 2 or 3 different jobs as no one employer will give him enough hours to qualify for benefits. The second person has the equivalent of a minimum wage income, but doesn't have to work to get his income. His small income may be from a pension, rents, investments, inheritance, or some other source. The key here is that he doesn't punch a clock for that income.
The working man's days are mostly taken up with the necessities of work. By the end of the day he's exhausted. If he's lucky he'll pop something into the microwave and zone out in from of the TV for a few hours before the whole cycle starts again.
The other guy doesn't have any more money, but he has the opportunity for a much richer life. Instead of working for wages he has the time and energy to do things for himself: cook meals, garden, repair cars, bake bread, cut his own firewood, and so on. His days are full, but he's working for himself. None of that work generates taxable income, but it does much to improve his quality of life.
A minimum wage income isn't the problem. The problem is that workers are actually expected to show up and sell they time for such a pittance. Such a waste of human potential.
-Sixbears
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As you know, minimum wage jobs were originally considered stepping stones for kids to find better-paying REAL jobs. Unfortunately, the real jobs have all been sent overseas and only the minimum wage jobs are left.
ReplyDeleteThere is no ladder to climb.
DeleteSomeone will come along and start taxing the person who can feed himself and warm himself and provide a roof under which to eat and stay warm and survive on minimum wage.
ReplyDeleteThey have made it harder for anyone who finds ways of beating the system.
DeleteYes. Somewhere sometime, I'm picking much sooner than later, the workers as a collective force, will say
ReplyDeleteEnough, we've had a gutsfull of working for a pittance to make others rich!
And there'll be a revolution.
And a few country's will be brought to their knees.
There's going to be lots of casualties...
I agree the bust is coming soon. If you earn $8.00 and have an old Ford Mini-van like I do to get to work it's just not worth working. To fill up my tank just cost me $85.00. That is 2 days after tax pay just to get to work.
DeleteI'm not surprised that so many are not working and on food stamps and other assistance. You can't afford to work for low wages.
This system can't go on forever, so it won't.
DeleteJust wait until they pass that damn immigration bill - It will get a lot worse than it is now. I fear there is big trouble ahead again for our country.
ReplyDeleteInteresting times ahead. Buckle your seatbelts.
DeleteWashington state is trying to initiate a $15.00 an hour wage at the SeaTac area, it has passed but big business Alaska Airlines pitched a big fit with their money and they still have not enacted it at all, the shameless company they are, still it takes more than $15.00 an hour to live in the seattle SeaTac area, it requires 2 adults, young people to work at $15.00 to live pretty well and still not be able to buy a home built when I was born 1948 at all, Seattle never dipped low on home prices in the depression from jan 08 to now, no they did not, few got homes for anything better than rat trap tar bs the people who benefited were the few with big bucks to buy the old homes and tear them down completely building zero lot line condos which rent for thousands monthly or buying them in the $450,00 up range, at $15.00 an hour you are not gonna qualify, they did not gentrify those areas, still crime and no parking if one gets a garage they pay an extra $10,000 on the condo price, give me a break, who wants to live like that or who has the money to live like that..The immigration bill will send jobs to unskilled persons or perhaps the millions educated from foreign countries who must re-educate themselves here and the jobs will pay little but enough for them to get thru their education (Again) and move on, the young people are getting the shaft and retirees too, because even when immigrants get those jobs, they hang on for dear dear life and show up daily not like most citizens born in this great country, I have seen it..It is shameful big companies don't want to invest in the the citizens already living in the greatest country on earth USA cause it is something to see at the food pantry where I volunteer and buy food seeing many americans born here working 40 to 60 hours on little jobs try to feed themselves, they feed their wives and or husbands/partner their wee ones but they are starving..how is our country to exist if there are no living jobs to be found????????????????????
ReplyDeleteHow indeed? How much more can they steal from working people?
DeleteUsually, some royal twit will same something like: "We'll let them eat cake" or spend a few million to fly to Hawaii, before it hits the fan.
ReplyDeleteAfter that, it's guillotines and discontent.
Fixing things after they are completely broken is a tough job -and often fails. Best do something before that happens.
Delete