In its new national poll, the Pew Research Center asked about President Obama's proposal to raise the minimum wage to $9 per hour. The results weren't close.
I put together this chart showing the public breakdown, and the fact that Americans, by a nearly three-to-one margin, endorse the White House's proposal.
Not surprisingly, there are significant partisan differences, but a minimum-wage increase enjoys majority support regardless of party -- 87% of Democrats, 68% of independents, and even 50% of Republicans.
In Congress, GOP leaders have already rejected Obama's proposal out of hand. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) condemned the idea within 10 hours of the president's State of the Union address, and a day later, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said the minimum wage shouldn't exist at all.
I should also note that there are alternatives to a minimum-wage increase, and some are quite credible.
Democrats support a new $9 wage as a way of improving the economic fortunes of struggling workers, which Dems hope will also have a broader economic benefit -- once these workers have more money in their pockets, they'll be more likely to spend it, pumping additional capital into the economy and generating more demand.
But as Matt Yglesias recently explained, economists have suggested related policies that strive for the same effect: expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit, embracing a Guaranteed Basic Income, increasing the refundable child tax credit, or even just an expansionary monetary policy.
For the record, Republican policymakers not only oppose the very popular idea of raising the minimum wage, they oppose each of the alternative policies, too. As Matt concluded, "They're just going to offer nothing."
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And yet someone will undoubtedly come in here (Blanks, you there?) and spout the meaningless statement that the Republicans really are fighting for the little guy!
If by 'little guy' you mean business owners instead of the people actually laboring to help business owner be successful, then yes blankman should be here any second.
So when will the Republicans state: "their plans will not and cannot work, our plan is the only plan that can possibly work." To wit they won't actually offer a plan, just that theirs "works."
If it makes sense, and the people want it, and it's going to make a difference, the Repugs are against it.
Children surveyed will likely respond in similar fashion, if asked whether they think cake and ice cream should become the standard breakfast. Would most agree with that result and provide children cake and ice cream forthwith?
How'd you answer that survey, Shooter?
You can't live on cake.
You can't live on cake.
How do you know? It's no sillier an idea than living indefinitely on borrowed money that will never be paid back.
How do you know?
Oh, y'know, science and other stuff that the GOP doesn't believe in.
It's no sillier an idea than living indefinitely on borrowed money that will never be paid back.
You're right - That is a ridiculously silly idea, which is why it exists only as a manufactured talking point by the Republicans, instead of in the real world.
No I'm being very precise here. Almost half of Govt expenditures are done with borrowed money that will never be paid back. The last time Federal Govt. debt was paid down happened over 50 years ago.
After WWII the percentage of debt to GNP was greater than it is now. We do need to raise revenues to pay our debt, there is no doubt about that. Two unpaid wars and Repug spending got us here.
ok they oppose the Tax plans as "Free Stuff" that's given out by Big Government to Takers...And they also oppose laws requiring that people get paid fairly for their labor...
That only leaves a couple of ways to exchange labor for income. Feudalism and Serfdom....or in it's more modern incarnation Sharecropping which I am sure would be very popular with certain ethnic groups.
Or just outright wage slavery...you get $2 a day but you get it in company script that can only be spent at company stores where a loaf of bread costs $2.50...but don't worry you can get credit...
What are they going to suggest next...sending in Pinkertons?
Libertarianism is modern day Fuedalism.
When all you have is snark, it become difficult to take someone seriously.
I wasn't being Snarky I was perfectly legitimately serious
Shooter go read some history about the begins of unions, Marxism, communism and PAY ATTENTION to the woking conditions people had: 8 days a week, 12 hour days, and 5 years old children as labors, mandatory political meetings without pay (ok so, that was last year). Why do you want to live there?
Are you so small that the only way to fell good about yourself is to insure that the rest of the world is in misery?
Sometimes answers are self-evident based on behavior. It's a staple of Conservative thinking to protect what you have from imagined threats, and maintain your status by insuring others don't succeed.
LOL these poor a$$ fools just can not manufacturer any breaks for themselves anymore. heck it`s looking as if they are truly blind to anything outside of the box their handlers/enables put them in.
it's willful blindness
Ah, but the silent majority is against it!(we all know the right wingers speak for the silent majority. After all if they are silent someone has to do the talking)
To borrow & twist a phrase from WalMart - "It's always low wages"...
Yes the GOTP love to scream about "family values" except when it comes to people making living wages to support their families. It's so much better to give lip-service to "pull yourself up by your own boot-straps" and castigate single parents working hard to hold their families together & keep food on the table! The sheeple (Blankman) eat it up, and then say how low wage people should have 2 or 3 jobs, or how "they" aren't responsible enough for their misbehaving children.
Of course it is a bit hard working 2 or 3 jobs and trying to raise your children - which is why women should be home barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen - so much better to have that man working 3 jobs and then keel over from a heart attack - so that now you really need those food-stamps, rent assistance, Medicaid that the GOTP want to deny you...../snark
Minimum wage is not meant to be a "living wage" to raise a family on. If you don't get an education, don't learn a trade, or try to improve yourself, you may need minimum wage, not to raise a family on, but enough to get by. Why $9.00, why not $10, $20 or $30? If you want to raise a family on a min wage job, then yes you may need 2 or 3 of them.
And we get eric with the normal right wing garbage talking points about how poor people should just go out and spend money they don't have to better themselves. Ever notice righties always have advice that is meaningless and useless when it comes to the real world problems people face every day. Even more noticeable is that they never follow their own advice.
New flash minimum wage is not enough to get by on.
$9/hr x 40/hrs* = $360 gross pay = 281.17 net (approximately and this amount does not include any employer with holdings for 401K and medical insurance payments)
281.17 x 4 weeks = $ 1124.68
Rent Studio (Spokane WA) $560 avg, + Food per US Gov $200, + Car payments $100, + Phone $100, + Gasoline $80, + car insurance $50
After paying the afore mentioned items one is left with a whopping $34 a month - that is what? one shirt.
* that is if you are lucky to get the 40 hours, most minimum wage jobs are part time (20-36 hrs)
Riight... but it's still $1.25 more than the current (Federal) minimum wage.
By your same calculations - $7.75 leaves them in the red by $122.80 (ish.)
Why are you opposed to people getting more money?
6.1 Eric, All the should've, would've, could've doesn't pay the rent which is due right now. It doesn't feed the children who are here right now. It doesn't pay the medical bill right now.
Sure, lots of people wish they had taken a different path or not married the guy who left them a single parent at forty trying to start over again, gotten the engineering degree when their parents were still paying for college, etc.
But none of those things address what you do RIGHT NOW.
I worked retail 15+ years, it was terrible. I knew if I wanted to get more money, I had to get an education. So, in my mid-30's I went to school most nights and worked the others. Was it hard, hell yes, was it worth the struggle, hell yes. Living on minimum wage should not, and is not easy, it's incentive to make your situation better. It actually will make no difference, this is another BO "feel good" idea, people make more money, companies pay more money, costs go up, back where we were.
Katherine
Sorry “whopping $34...” was meant in sarcasm
I left out the utilities, gas and electric, amounts so ruff estimate at $9/hr leaves one still in the red.
So Eric, let me ask you the woman who's working for the dentist that may make about $18k per year - she has a degree (Health Sciences), should she quit? The woman whose husband has left her with 2 kids - she's supposed to go back to school now and work 10x harder to complete her degree while raising her children - where is she supposed to get this extra money from when her rent is due - please don't tell me loans - cause she's barely making enough money now. It's funny cause you're the same person that doesn't think that she should get help by way of food-stamps, rent assistance, Pell Grants, etc.? Not to mention it's your types that would force her to "have another baby" should she "keep company" with another man.
Ever hear of hypocrisy, empathy for others. Everyone is not able to just go back to college/trade school - those also require money, money that many don't have. The minimum wage was set so that there was a floor that working people would not fall below, and while in a perfect world everyone would go to college/trade school - WE are not in a perfect world, life happens and choices are made. Yet that doesn't mean that there aren't people working those minimum wage jobs and it also doesn't mean that they shouldn't earn a living wage.
And what about the long-time working professionals who get laid off, own a home that won't sell in a depressed economy, can't afford to move & can't find anything locally except retail or fast food (Yes, age discrimination exists). That retail job at least puts food on the table & gets you (not great) health insurance, pays most of the bills if you are careful, but not much more. Don't even think of going on vacation on your one week of vacation, can't afford it.
I also live in Spokane. I work 2 jobs that pay me well over min wage. However if I were to loose either of them I wouldn't be able to make ends meet and I don't have anything fancy.
Are there going to be exceptions that need to be addressed? Sure, but it doesn't have to be the rule. Making the exception the rule is keeping people in poverty. I think the left wants more people in poverty, if people make more money, they tend to want to spend it themselves instead of letting the Gov't do it, and tend to vote that way.
Sure, kill a baby because someone was irresponsible, that would make perfect sense, and don't shovel the whole Birth Control should be free, it's not that expensive, and there are condoms and other options. Yes, I want people to be responsible for their actions and not have the Gov't to clean up the mess they create.
If you are making minimum wage while raising a family, you're doing it wrong.
To me, this seems like a bit of a wash - if an employer is required to pay workers more, they're going to increase their prices. And if Worker A at the minimum gets a $1.75/hr bump, Worker B at $9.00 is going (rightly) demand a raise to about $10.75 too, and everyone else on up the ladder. No business owner who pays 15% higher wages is going to allow that to cut into his profits. So prices must go up. Quality probably goes down too.
Maybe the difference is that so many more production jobs are automated now, and since they can do it with fewer people, the jobs that can be only be done by humans are more valuable.
Can someone help me out here? I want everyone to make enough money in their jobs to live on, but how do you increase wages without naturally increasing the cost of living?
I'm not saying I disagree with the idea - I'm just having trouble with the unintended (but natural market) effects.
People are going to keep buying, even if the prices go up $1 or $2. They'll complain about it as they stand in line waiting to purchase their goods. And I bet the person whose wage just went from $7.25 to $9.00 will be a lot happier to help you out while you're shopping. After all, if I'm stuck making $7.25 so the prices of the goods you are buying can stay where they are then I'm not too sure if I care if you found everything alright. It's a morale-booster.
*The examples I'm using in my head to type this out are retail examples, by the way.
Raising the minimum wage is instant stimulous, these people spend every dime they make. The economy gets a nice boost from this. Nothing is free, and the right thing to do is to help out the folks who are at the bottom.
Okay, I think I finally thought through this a bit more (thanks Jared and Lebowsky for getting me further down the path). So many things are mass produced, automatically, that their production cost will not be affected much by a higher minimum wage. A loaf of bread, a gallon of milk - will cost pretty much the same to make. Distribution will have a slight impact, but hey the kid stocking the shelves at WalMart can easily do a hundred loaves or gallons in maybe about 20 minutes. The higher wage for that 20 minutes is under 60 cents, so that comes out to less than a penny per item.
This paper explores the reasons why increases in the minimum wage seem to have very little effect on employment. There are various adjustments that happen instead; among them are increases in prices, increases in worker productivity that balance out the increase, a more stable workforce (decreasing the costs for employers of training, etc.). Very worthwhile reading.
http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/min-wage-2013-02.pdf
“No business owner who pays 15% higher wages is going to allow that to cut into his profits”
The problem is with the business owner’s greed. Pay the person who is doing the actual work, to make the product, as little as possible so the numbers in my bank account can grown big and make me fell good about myself.
Yes we do need people with the ideas, and drive to start business and run them profitable, but these "job makers" forget that their profits are created from other peoples time and energy.
Why isn't the minimum wage like Social Security, where there is an annual or biannual cost of living increase built in? It would seem to be the fairest way to handle this, if employers are unwilling to do it on their own.
It's been proposed. I don't have to tell you who thought it was a terrible idea and rejected it.
Imagine the disaster if we handled increases in Social Security like we handle the minimum wage. Those folks probably would not have had an increase in decades either.
Weren't paying attention during the years republicans were in the WH were you. 1 $10 raise per 8 years. Even under dems it hasn't been much better, average COL increase has been $20 per year which has been nothing meaningful as the cost of living has risen $50+ for every $20 raise the elderly and disabled received.
This one is easy.
In 1968, I had a minimum wage job. Pay: $1.60/hour
The BLS inflation calculator says this is worth, in today's dollars: $10.53.
$9.00 is too low.
these people do not believe that time and things are changing, they careless giving paying the same 1968 minimum wage to people today, why look the average income of these G.O.P members , in the millions, they do not know what it means to leave on minimum wage with family. they pretend to be god loving people and their actions are opposite to the bible.
It would make republicans happy if the poor and middle classes all lived in houses made of rice paper. $7.50 or even $9 bucks an hour ai'nt sheeit. They try their damndest to make us think that work clothes worn by the poor are pajamas. Just listen to Romney's 47% comment, thats the way they all feel.
Pay a person a decent wage...sorry that's not in the offical policy handbook of the GOTP.
You know what's gonna happen, inflation. The price of our general neccessities will go up. We'll be eating bugs flavored with rock soup. Everyone should find out where their water stations are. I hope our cars are comfortable enough to sleep in, mine wasn't.
If we think we've seen Republicans go batpoop insane over the private-market-driven 'Obamacare,' I'd love to observe the complete meltdown that would be caused by bringing a Guaranteed Basic Income-type bill to the floor. It would be like those old-school Baptist revivals where nurses would have to stand by with handkerchiefs and smelling salts, and the 'fainting couch' industry would go through the roof!
On the subject of the EITC as an alternative: When you’re poor, you can’t pay the electric company by saying, “Well, in April of next year, I’ll get a sweet tax return check!” When you are poor, you need money up front, in your bank account, every two weeks. The phrase “living paycheck to paycheck” comes to mind. When you’re not poor, it’s easy to wait a few months for the government to pay you back for the money they borrowed. A few thousand bucks at tax return time? Sweet. But poor people don’t have the luxury of waiting for a once-yearly bump to their income.
Plus, poor people do not necessarily have access to someone who can do their taxes. If you’re rich, you can pay a high-level tax professional to comb over your receipts and help you write off $77,000 in horse expenses (remember Mitt Romney, guys? He got $77k in tax breaks for his wife’s horse. True story). That tax person can also show you how to put your money into bank accounts in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands so that you don’t have to pay taxes on it at all. America!
But these tax guys charge a lot. Even at the “family and friends” rate, you'll still pay over $100. Poor families cannot afford $100 to *possibly* find more tax breaks they’re entitled to. Basically, it’s not an automatic part of your tax return; it’s something you have to know about when you file your taxes. Many poor people miss out on tax breaks because they don’t know about them. That was the one - ONE - advantage of Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan: it would have simplified the tax code. Right now, tax knowledge is a real ivory tower thing. Saying “But poor people already get a tax credit that increases their yearly salary” is speaking in ignorance of the facts on the ground.
This shows that just over 1/4 of the people in this country are business owners, afraid of business owners or think they may one day have to share profits in the form of paying an employee.
Or I could just say 1/4 of the people are greedy.
the republicans and the tea drinkers are against welfare and raising the minimum wage so how do they expect people to survive , raising the minimum wage will be good for many businesses , because people will have some extra money and they will spend it by buying stuffs.i always wonder what kind of decent person will vote for republicans, they are just against everything, climate change , healthcare reform, wall street reform, voting act reform, tax reform , equal pay , even to end the wars they created ,
Washington State minimum wage = $9.19/hour as of January 1, 2013. Was $9.04/hour in 2012. And yet we seem to be doing fine ....
To hear the amateur conservative econ experts tell it, you guys should be at 25% unemployment, with businesses failing left and right under the onerous burden of their employees being able to eat and afford rent.
If those on minimum wage want to make a clear statement then they should tighten their belts and do without anything they can. It amazes me that clerks at a grocery store even have cell phones but to watch them yap away at work? How many of these underpaid workers are tossing hard earned money away on cable or even a car when they could ride a bus? How many use cash advances just to avoid eviction?How many have credit cards?
If all of us were saving as much as we should for retirement and cutting out frills then the greedy pigs who are raking it in would start paying some out.
Of course I guess there is something to be said for dieing broke and in debt, provided you don't have a spouse that will lose everything to the bill collector.
How silly is it getting? Reverse mortgages should answer that. Talk about con games. They got away with flaky mortgages and lump sum payments on second mortgages so now they want those who are paid up to hand over the deed. Sure you could sell it outright and draw interest on the money or rent it out for income or sell it on a rent to own basis but then the greedy folk would not get rich off of you!
Should we go without food first, or heat in the winter? We don't have cell phones, BTW. Or a flat screen TV. Or cars less than 10 years old (no bus service here).
Yea, you can really do a lot with a $9.00 per hour job. You can finally afford to be homeless, yes homelessness does cost. Most homeless shelters do have a charge to stay there. There are homeless people in our City that are sleeping on card board boxes under bridges because they can't afford the shelter fees. This country has lost it's mind, heart, and soul.
I get you and agree except that-Homelessness is a much more complicated thing. Some of those homeless are wanted by the law and do not want to be tracked down. Some are mentally ill and are a danger to others if they are put in shelters. Some are transient workers who would rather send money home to their family than spend money on a hotel/apartment(having jobs prevents them from obtaining beds at the mission or Y).
Could we do better by them?Sure. But then we must look at all the reforms we make with a closer eye. Medicare fraud ,theft of SSNs,welfare cheats, doctors who charge medicaid and medicare for services not rendered, charities that provide one room for ten people but charge it off as if it was ten rooms and all kinds of crooks getting rich off of our empathy.
Look at what happened when Obama cut down on medicare fraud...the right tried to call it gutting medicare!
There must be a way but we can not afford to continue to let those who feed like hogs on misplaced trust eat us alive!
As a small business owner, I worry each and every time I see a minimum wage increase coming around the bend. Paying people more money to make me money means I won't be able to make as much money, and I don't like that. For Buerre, the labor pool is a never-ending fondue pot of humanity, where people are happy working for $7.75 an hour, and have been for the last 10 years. "Raises? Raisins?" I can't understand what you are saying, Pancho! Get back to work and quit yer bellyaching, or I will give you something to bellyache about.
A minimum wage increase of even .25 cents means that I have to ramp up my sales and marketing efforts, and that requires capital. Over a four-quarter operating year, that .25 increase amounts to $18,345,978 dollars for each and every employee that I have. Most workers, I mean, "Team Members," don't realize what a big responsibility it is to own and operate a successful business, because I won't make them managers so they can make enough money to start their own business. I don't need THAT kind of competition in my sales territory, and their constant complaining makes a two (2) week vacation in Bermuda a goal that we can all agree upon, as a company.
Memo:
From: Buerre Blanc, COO, CEO and every damn thing inbetween
To: Employees
It has come to my attention that not everyone is "on board" for my family getaway to Bermuda in the next two-weeks. I was hoping to utilize an individual from the shop floor to help run things when we are away, but I have contracted with a Chinese Corporation to provide us with an "Executive Robot" that will be making key decisions for our company while I am away.
Do NOT! I repeat...do not even think about asking for any of the following to "Mr. Xiang," the executive replacement, while I am vacationing:
1. "I have contracted a terminal illness and need to leave for emergency surgery. May I please be excused?"
Answer: "No."
2. "MY wife is in the process of giving birth and I would like to be at the hospital to welcome my daughter into the world of oppressive manufacturing. May I take maternity leave, as afforded under to me as a worker?"
Answer: "No."
3. "I noticed that a fellow "Team Member" has had his larynx ripped out by a rotating piece of metal on a lathe. May I take time out to telephone medical assistance?"
Answer: "You're fired!"
"As you can see, Mr. Xiang is not going to be as lenient as I have been toward all of you, and I can asure you that I will be monitoring your productivity and output through the "Video Monacle" that LOOKS like an eye on the robot, but is actually a High-Defintion web camera. I have my laptop, and I expect that all of you will be as helpful and supportive to Mr. Xiang as you have been to me. If there are any questions, save them until I get back. In the meantime, maintain your efficiencies, keep talking to a minimum, and don't forget to plug Mr. Xiang in at the end of the workday. As always, at DuBlanc Industries, our people are our most valuable asset, and the fact that we refer to them as an asset, and not people, is part of the family pride we feel at DuBlanc Industries."
This comes 35,990 employees, that is quite something for a small business. You don't make calculators do you?
Are you questioning his bushmatics?
It sounds to me like he should sell the farm and go fishing.
It's common sense to up the wage as with the cost of living etc. If big companies are raising the price of their product without raising wages, then they are the only ones who are benefitting... THE RICH GET RICHER WHILE THE POOR STAY THE SAME..Doesnt make a whole lotta sense..
I think the problem is wages period. As people on the right point out, not disingenuously, if you raise minimum wage all you get is a temporary bump before the corporate powers make individual adjustments that result in a general cost of living increase = effectively negating the minimum wage increase.
Solving the problem, it seems to me, would require a shift towards cooperative and/or profit sharing models. This meets the conservative desire for incentivizing hard work, while also potentially increasing peoples incomes in a way that is not as easily subject to effective nullification.
"Gosh.as original hirees our stock is now worth a fortune. If we stop this profit sharing and outsource to labor camps we can all retire in comfort!"
Just trying to put the finger on greed rather than the system. Any system will be exploited by greedy people.
Sniff sniff "who stole the cheese"?
In an unregulated libertarian system...sure. With regulation, perhaps not...
We had a form of "regulation" that did just that - the 90% marginal income tax rates in effect from 1938 to 1964 (then they dropped to 70%). The high marginal rates forced corporations, and individual owners, to plow the majority of their profits back into the company. either in increased wages, increased dividends, spending on machinery/etc. or, if the firm was the right type, R&D.
All those were business expenditures and were tax deductible. They also ensured that millions (billions?) of dollars were continually pumped into the economy. Perhaps that's the reason the period from 1946 to 1980 was, with two exceptions (both related to abrupt increases in oil prices), is considered the greatest economic expansion this country ever experienced?
Nah, couldn't be that...
The GOP oppose the min wage because they are stuck on how this country became Rich and i guess great."SLAVERY" People working for NOTHING.And CEOs "slave masters" reaped CRAZY profits and benefits.If law said they can legally pay workers $1,they would be happy with that.They would be ok with legally bringing back slavery if it was on the table.This is about GREED and a sense of entitlement.They truly want workers to work for free and feel workers should kiss the ground they walk on because they had an idea.I will never kiss a$$ at a job.If I'm not appreciated,under paid and over work.I will walk off that job.PERIOD.And more people should start doing that.
Rachel, I want you to sign your book in the Seattle area! WE have many fine bookstores, and in case you didn't know it, the Northwest is the biggest book market in the country! We are readers and we are progressive - perfect for you and your book. I know because I sold books in the NW for over 31 years! Come here!
My preference for the minimum wage - make it $9.75 an hour, not $9.00! It will make a huge difference for our country when all those people start spending more money, on food, clothing, gas, travel. It will help to raise the entire country up!
It is good for the economy when you can put mor money in the hands of the people at the bottom. Some employers say they will have to lay off people. If you have workers making fast food, raise the price of the food. All fast food joints have the same disadvantage but now the workers can afford to buy a meal at a fast food restaurant or buy a car. Money starts to circulate and a lot of the money ends up in Papa Johns pocket.