Posted by examinerebb on 6/5/2014 11:19:00 PM (view original):
Posted by bad_luck on 6/5/2014 7:28:00 PM (view original):
Posted by MikeT23 on 6/5/2014 7:22:00 PM (view original):
Posted by toddcommish on 6/5/2014 5:24:00 PM (view original):
Posted by bad_luck on 6/5/2014 4:35:00 PM (view original):
Posted by MikeT23 on 6/5/2014 3:15:00 PM (view original):
It also helps to NOT live in the most expensive enviroments possible. You like the weather in SoCal? Good for you. You can't afford to pay for that. Move.
And when everyone who works low paying jobs moves out of SoCal, New York City, the SF Bay area, Seattle, etc., what happens to the companies that employ low paid workers?
They employ high school students that live at home instead of ADULTS. Like we did in the Bay Area in the 70's
Or they do like every business on earth. They review their hiring practices and wage scale.
Trust me, if a business can't conduct business, they will do something so that they can or they will close up shop.
You know, free enterprise and all that bullshit. Crazy right-wing bullshit, I know.
OK, great. And in the environment that we have now, the government allows companies to pay employees so little that the employees have to be on public assistance to survive. It's a wealth transfer from tax payers to companies that employ minimum wage workers.
The wealth transfer occurs because the assistance doesn't create an incentive for anyone to improve their financial position. As we've discussed earlier, and you agreed, it removes the incentive to do so, so the assistance is paid out in perpetuity. Do something to fix the assistance system, or stop ******** about the wealth transfer from taxpayers. Believe me when I tell you that every conservative wants every person receiving assistance to better their situation and start paying into the government coffers instead of taking from them. Conseratives aren't the bad guys on this one - the people who blindly defend a broken, unsustainable assistance system are.
And, for the record, I'm 100% behind reforming the tax law, closing loopholes and raising the upper income tax tier. But we need to fix the way we spend the money first. I see absolutely no benefit in pouring more money into broken programs.
We both agree that the system is broken. How to fix it is where we disagree.
The way I look at it, there are three participants: low wage employers, low wage employees, and tax payers. Right now, who's really winning with the broken system?
Is it the low wage employees? Sure, they're the ones receiving assistance. But that's so that they can survive. I don't consider someone on assistance so that they can eat winning anything. Their lives suck.
The taxpayers certainly aren't winning. We pay for the assistance.
That leaves the low wage employers. They pay their front line employees such a small amount that the employees have to go on assistance (
one company even encourages their workers to get food stamps). They maintain their margins, bonus out their executives, and are clearly benefiting from this system.
A low minimum wage is a corporate subsidy.