Seattle Passes Ordinance For $15 Minimum Wage

Forcing a new minimum wage (instead of the economy naturally growing to accomodate it) is a bad idea - that money has to come from somewhere, so hours or benefits (or both) will get cut to make it happen. Also, lots of companies in the southern industruial end of town will likely relocate a mile or so further south to get out of town.

If folks want a better paying job they should go get one - this is a free country. $15/hour for any random shit job is just plain stupid.

 

Great news if you're an unskilled worker (or so they think). Terrible news if you're a small business owner. Whatever though, not my problem...I've worked hard to get ahead rather than sitting on my thumb and demanding more.

 

I have the answer... let's do like our forefathers... let's have a revolution. When you are truly willing to die for your neighbor and your values it's a lot different than posting on the interwebs.

 

Unfortunately, sometime in the future, history will have to repeat itself and people will have had enough. I can't imagine how bad it will have to be for that to happen.

 

The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.... And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants,,,,.Mr. Thomas Jefferson

 

If that number takes into account high school kids or retirees just working for a little spending $ or something to do, that's all the more reason it's asinine to believe that # will ever be near zero.

 

It's funny, I was talking with a coworker about some things we see in America today such as the bailouts, the everyone-gets-to-play mentality, etc..and he said "I think what we need is a good old bloody revolution in this country". Ideally I'd not see the bloody part, but I can't disagree with the general statement.

 

I'm glad I will be out of Seattle before the full $15 takes effect.

Then again, I am not going to be heart broken to see half of the McD's close down due to greedy employees and lack of income for the franchise owners. Hope they understand they just lost a lot of their jobs.

 

As a corporate employee in a Seattle based company I can tell you the most frustrating part of the whole deal is the ridiculous letters the CEO's are writing against the minimum wage hike.

I know how much the owner and executives of our company make.

I know that they are all very much against the minimum wage hike, their reasons are the typical responses:

We will have to cut jobs
We will have to cut hours
We will have to cut 401k
We will have to cut medical
We will have to lower the quality of our staff and stretch our workers thin

Not a single owner or CEO has said "I would be willing to take a few percent less for my entry level, older or younger employees to earn a livable wage"

The gap between the upper class and middle class is at it's widest point in history and all business owners can think of is how to make this money back from their employees. CEO's earn more money in this country than in any other country, 10x ... 100x. Businesses are hoarding unprecedented amount of cash.

One exception to this is another Seattle based company, Costco. Who already pays their employees a livable wage. Somehow, their business is flourishing. Always has. I wonder why.

I don't know exactly where I fall on the idea, but every letter some scrooge business owner writes slowly pushes me further to one side.

 

Awh fuck it. Let's all work for the gubmint. They have lots of money and give great retirements.

 

Catch-22.

Fresno is already packed with the dregs of California.
There aren't enough minimum wage jobs to go around in Indio and Blythe to cover all of the poor who can't afford to live in Los Angeles.
For fucks sake, *I* can't afford to live in Los Angeles or Orange County!

Of course, exporting them to those cities will increase demand for low wage service jobs, but then we're back onto the circular logic.
The root of the problem is that nobody is PRODUCING anything. When everyone is working in a service job, there is nothing being produced that adds value to the economy... the money just circulates around, with a little bit being siphoned off for COGS at each transaction, so the area gets poorer and poorer with each transaction.

Unless and until someone actually picks up some raw material and adds value to it, the area will spiral into deeper recession... same as what is happening to the middle class across the country as manufacturing jobs are exported.

 

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/06/144019-results-seattles-minimum-wage-hike-deserve-big-fat-told/

Little teaser of what's happened so far

 

I DO use my head, as a filter looking for signs of intelligence in the TW community & gotta say my filter is clean as a whistle.... But to reiterate, weren't you making statements of welfare bitches that keep getting knocked up , refusing to use birth control... Well if they're on welfare, they're not working, ergo no minimum wage of any amount applies would you not agree ?

Ahh my filter caught some intelligence after all, & yes Thomas Jefferson said we needed a revolution every 12 years or so to keep the meat of the constitution strong & intact & safe from subversion of those who do not share the core values the founding fathers had in place for the good of the republic

 

Yup yup yup.

But not 1981... Reagan was in and things were beginning to turn around, though unemployment was still high.
Carter was '76 to '80.

The "Misery Index"... Inflation + Unemployment + Interest rate.
Oh ya... the 70s sucked.
19% mortgage
15% unemployment
15% inflation
Norlin Gibson guitars
CBS Fender guitars
200hp 454 Chevys
AMF Harley Davidsons
Donna Summer and ABBA.

 

No. I made one statement regarding how the less fortunate continue to bore children they know they can't support, the word welfare was never used. Why do you insist on swaying my words? I have known some minimum wage workers who go out and spend their paychecks on weed and such

 

To me that sounds like a bandaid to the real problem, which would be the creditors and schools that charge astrinomical amounts for education. Also, what are they going to do for some of the EMT's and start out firefighters who make around $14-$15/hour? You're telling me that joe blow flipping burgers at McDonalds is going to be making the same wage as them? And you don't see an issue with this? These minimum wage jobs arent there for career options, they are stepping stones and always have been. All this is going to do is decrease the amount of people they hire or stop the hiring where its at, and increase the workloads for those already employed. But if they keep up with the hiring you better expect the prices of their producst to increase to cover the cost of those new employees. I mean this is basic economics gone bad IMHO. They are always pointing the finger and blaming whatever is easiest, instead of tackleing the real problem and actually digging into what the root cause is. It's always the bandaid, at least until it bleeds through.

 

the top 1% pays 1/3 of the income taxes, no?

 

+1

CEO salaries are a perfect example of the free market in action.
If the company makes money for the shareholders, then the shareholders vote to share a portion of THEIR REVENUE with the CEO to ensure that he remains at the head of their company.
If he underperforms, they do not increase his salary, or they fire him.
Every CEO is at risk of being fired at every shareholder meeting.

If another company likes what he is doing, they will make him an offer.
If that offer is better than he is currently being paid, he will either accept and leave, or he will give the shareholders the opportunity to increase his salary if they feel that he is worth keeping.

That is how it should be for ALL employees, all the way down to the guy mopping the floor at the local McD's. If you think you are worth $15/hr, the apply for a job that pays $15/hr. If you don't get the job, then guess what... you have not proven your worth to be $15/hr.


As far as commenting that CEOs used to make hundreds of thousands and now make millions, that's called inflation.
$10.00/hr was a GREAT salary in 1980.
In 1960, on $3.00/hr my father made a house payment, maintained two fairly new vehicles in the driveway, and raised 2 kids.