Minimum wage

If you make $15 an hour, you bring home on average, $9 per hour after taxes and insurance. Most people work 40 hours per week, and according to the department of Energy, Americans purchase 40 gallons of gas a week minimum. This means after you pay for gas each week, you bring home $4 an hour. Anyone that makes minimum wage, is only paying for gas, that's it. When everyone voted for Biden because he promised wages of $15 an hour, did you think things like gas would stay at $2 per gallon. You now make less money today than you did 2 years ago, and if you make minimum wage, in another few weeks, you will start to pay to go to work Congratulations, your uneducated vote has lowered your household net income.

No mean tweets are expensive. LOL

So what if you can't pay to go to work?

Lots of data out there of standard economic measurements pointing to some serious issues looming in the next year or so. Hang onto your hats, could be a wild ride.
Jim

Minimum wage is still 7.25 an hour which is ridiculous in the current economy. I wouldn't let a 10 year old kid work for that.

Don't fall for the liberal narative that minimum wage is intended to be a wage that will support a family or even an independent individual.

You have to think: what is the 10 year old responsible for- to pay?

There should only be a free market no minimum wage at all.

If I am willing to do a job for less from any # of reasons that's is between me and who I am doing the job for.

If I need to keep and retain goog reliable employees I will have to pay them a wage and or benefits and other parks to keep and retain them. If I don't they will not work for me.

Speaking of 10 year old have you seen I'm many states kids have to be 15 or so and jump through hoops getting slips signed at school and the local government to work.

You realize waitresses still make 2.13 plus tips but they still do it.

Only 5% of all workers get.paid minimum wage. If you look only at full time workers, the number is just 1%.

The minimum wage thing is a red herring.

Nice insight loosegoose!

Kind of reinforces my post.

orange man bad.

its none of the states business what deal occurs between a worker and the business owner/boss.

If the worker doesn't want to sell his labor at what the boss is offering he can go else where.

Or if its so lucrative to be a business owner he can start his own business.
But the state makes it hard for a worker to become a boss, that only helps the bosses.

So one solution is to keep the state out of business as much as possible. A good example is requiring a license to practice a trade.

Min wage pushes all wages up except for the very highly paid very few.
If the vast majority of wages go up the prices of goods go up, so the car that was equivalent to a years salary goes up in price and ends up equal to a years wages again and the worker hasn't gained anything in the end.
Min wage also hurts the US economy by making it more profitable to send work overseas where the wages are not inflated by the state.

The answer to the problem is to have the State stop taking so much of the money from workers and businesses.

The answer is to reduce the wage of the state not raise the wage of the workers. Or another way reduce the wage of the unproductive that produce nothing that has value not increase the wage of the productive.

Those figures are grosslly exaggereated. At $15 per hour a person would earn $31,200 per year at 40 hours per week. An individual with standard deductions would pay federal tax on less then 18K and SSI of about $2,200 or a total of $4,000. With insurance say at even $100 per week that is $2.50 per hour or $5,200. The average American driver consumes about 700 gallons of gas per year or about 15 gallons per week. We could say they use a lot more but with all those costs the worker still has about $9 per hour to spend. Yes inflation hurts these lower income persons a lot and more than higher income wage earners but to use greatlly exaggerated costs or numbers to prove to one self their own mind sets does nothing to help those in the lower income brackets regardless of which party one likes or dislikes.

Bryce

My 14 year old son is starting a job at $13/hr for the summer.
Probably double what I started my first job at.

My kids worked for a lot less... they didnt get rich, but id id rather have them building on a strong work ethic than sitting home in front of the screen. Seems like part of the problem is that so many parents dont impart work ethic on their kids anymore. Pretty easy to come up with excuses not to go to work nowadays ...'they dont pay enough'.....bla bla bla
Rant over

My first job was twenty five cents an hour. I worked for my dad on a farm late 1950's and early 1960's. I could buy a gallon of gas for a quarter or a bit less, your kid is further along, he can dang near buy 3 gallons of gas for an hours wage.

My first job I made $1.00 an hour. But, as you say, the cost of living was much lower too. You could buy a lot of items for .25, cigarettes, gas, bread, etc. A pack of Twinkies was only 5 or 10 cents and they were bigger than the ones you get now for over a dollar. Hostess chocolate cupcakes with the creme filling are over a dollar and they are half the size they were back then.

My first job was ten hours a day, six days a week, 2 dollars per day. I was 8 years old and working for my uncle packaging bacon. The best part was it was a refrigerated building so I got out of that miserable southern CA heat all day

When you get $15 an hour or $10 or $20 you have to produce more than that every hour or your employer has no reason to have you working. I would guess it costs the employer another third of what you get paid to cover unemployment and insurance. So when you are paid $15 you have to make them $20 for them to break even. They are not in business to break even, so now you have to make $25 or more every hour. How many ever think of that? You are not working to make a pay check, you work to make who ever you work for money.

I worked for $1.90 an hour.
For $5 dollars I could get 1/3 of a tank of gas for the buick wildcat and have enough left over for 4 beers in the hotel.

2 for you and 2 for the guy you took there?

My first job off the farm was stacking lumber off the green chain for $1.25/hour.

Then the libards pay you to stay home!

It needs go way up, inflation an gas are scary the thought of world in year from now, I make $15 hr an might somehow stay jon until SS check in hand in August

My first job was at 10 yrs old. Delivered 21 papers 6 days a week. Payed monthly 21.00. It took me 1 hr a day to deliver those papers. It was a 3 mile walk or bike ride round trip. It’s not what you make it’s what you spend. Cant make it on one living. Find other employment or supplement yourself with another job. It’s called extra income. Pretty basic stuff. No one owes you a living. You deserve everything you earn. If you don’t want to work don’t. Beg at the corner. Makes no difference to me. The generations that are in the working age class. Are pretty lazy. Not pretty lazy. Are down right lazy. If high gas prices have you stumped. Frustrated. You haven’t seen anything yet. Let’s go Brandon

Made 2¢ a vine pullin' brush in the grapes as a kid. Moved up in the world and made $2.65 an hour. Then minimum wage went to $3.35. Boy was I bringing it home. Finally worked my way up to $5 an hour. Right after that minimum wage went to $5 and the new hires were making what I did on the farm. That's when I decided to get a job in the big city. An hour in and and hour back every day. 18 years of that while also running a small grape farm.
Worked and paid the bills and raised my family. If you feel your job pays too little either work more or quit your whining. And most of all live within your means

I rember when younger save every Penney, I had coon collections, work for $1 hour on farm with field work, then room an board on farm for 2 summers for $25 a week, then got job in factory pt after high school an stay there an work bunch times, quit, layoff an came back, things never really same after late 70 s or early 80 s, recession, mfr everthing change,lot cheap low wages after then, someplace the big mfg an other plants closed up

I think there should
be no minimum wage Pay should be what you have to pay to keep the help

No ones buisness except employer and employee what has been agreed to for compensation

Then I would feel sorry for your kids. Most would be glad to work for $5 and would be building a solid work ethic at the same time. It's not what ya earn, it's what ya learn.

Didn't minimum wage come about because some employers were taking advantage of low IQ workers who simply couldn't defend themselves against getting overworked and underpaid?
I quit buying the Snickers up by the cash register when they got to 89 cents. The other day I saw them at a new 7-11 along the interstate for 1.79. I wouldn't think they'd sell many.

It’s tough to make it on $15 an hour. I know, that’s what I make right now. I work for the state doing highway maintenance, my crew is responsible for road paint, sign repair, and street light repair, I drive a ten wheeler dump truck hauling chips for chip sealing. I operate a 20 ton crane standing up light poles, do electrical work, haul equipment on lowboys, do traffic control on accidents, drive snowplows, operate loaders and street sweepers and aerial trucks, drive water truck, and several other pieces of heavy equipment. All of which require a lot of skill, skill that in the private sector is worth double or even triple what I make. There is a very rigid pay increase scale, and in a couple years the pay gets significantly better, but for now we struggle.

The only thing keeping me there is the benefits and schedule that allows me a lot of time with my kids. Great benefits, retirement, PTO, insurance, tuition reimbursement, etc. the trade off is I just won’t make any money the next couple years. And I can’t really go get another job, because they made me sign a paper saying that this job will take precedence over any other job I may get and if I do look for other work it must be approved by my supervisor and his boss. Nobody wants to hire help that will have to leave mid shift if their other job calls.

I’m not complaining, I knew what I signed up for. Just sayin, at $15 an hour in today’s economy the struggle is real. Everyone here sayin “well I worked for $1.50 and hour” blah blah, you may have, but you never had to pay for $6 a gallon fuel and $5 a gallon milk. Not to mention $1,300+ a month rent. Inflation is kicking us in the teeth right now.

Bob I was in the same predicament you are in currently. But I found a way to earn extra money. And still be available at a moment’s notice. Like you a few yrs down the road. I got payed well. And continue. The sacrifice was well worth it. I still earn the extra income on the side

I'd look for a side hustle. Even one you could take your kids to. Selling firewood, wrenching on cars, scrapping... something like that.

Bob raising minimum wage sounds great for 5 seconds. Now Jonny gets more on his check if he did not get layed off because his employer can't pay as many people to work at the higher labor rate. The employer will also rase his prices as will everyone that has to pay more.

Now everything Jonny buyers cost more due to the price increases so while he makes more he has no more buying power.

Now guys like yourself making 15 an hour won't get a raise but your prices on things you buy will go up.

It won't bring Jonny up it will bring others down. It will directly add to the allready run away inflation.

Basic econ 101 cost vs benefit analysis.

You are making concessions in pay for security and benefits in a few years. As you said you could make 3 times that tomorrow driving a truck.

I'm on the other end I want to be closer to home and have better hours at work but am not willing to take the pay cut the hwy department would require.

Get a second job.

Make no mistake, I do not believe in raising the minimum wage in any way shape or form. Inflation already has us by the short hairs as it is, raising minimum wage will do nothing but exacerbate the situation.