Hillary tries to be Bernie with Fast Food Workers; Supports fight for $15 an hour

[BmorePat87]

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/clinton-to-fast-food-workers-i-want-to-be-your-champion-118708.html?hp=c3_3

It sounds like she didn't explicitly say that she supports $15 an hour, she said things like she supports their fight for a living wage and ““No man or woman who works hard to feed American families should have to be on food stamps to feed their own family... Every worker in every state and every city deserves a fair wage and a real voice on the job".

Can an average working American can actually get behind this? Before I was a teacher, I was working as a Paraeducator making $15 an hour in a job that required a degree and me doing more than pushing some pictures on an LCD screen or flipping burgers.

I get calls to raise the minimum wage to $9 or $10 bucks. The current is $7.25 so that wouldn't be as extreme, but more than doubling it? It would have to take place over a few years (like Maryland is doing, but they only raised it to $10.10).

You're going to have a lot of angry medical assistants, teachers assistants, or administrative assistants who went to school and are making that much money. Obviously they'll want much more than $15.

[Yojimbo]

The difference between Hillary and Bernie, is he's been fighting this fight his entire career, it's not just lip service from him. Hillary is just looking around the landscape and pandering to get votes.

[BmorePat87]

(06-07-2015, 06:03 PM)Yojimbo Wrote: The difference between Hillary and Bernie, is he's been fighting this fight his entire career, it's not just lip service from him. Hillary is just looking around the landscape and pandering to get votes.

To paraphrase what many people commented on the Politico facebook post for this: "She's just saying what Bernie has always been saying for years. At least he isn't in the pocket of Wall St like she is".

Will be interesting to see what official stance she takes on minimum wage hikes (Obama currently supports $12 an hour) and how that plays out if she actually gets elected.

[*bfine32*]

If you consider a 40 hours work week a new recruit in the Military earns about $8.30 per hour. Most can earn the pay grade of E-3 in about 1 year. Then they earn $9.90 per hour.

Unfortunately a Soldier works much more than 40 hours per week. A conservative estimate would be 50 hours per week (if not deployed). This means the new recruit earns about $6.70 per hour and an E-3 earns about $7.90 per hour.

It is worth mentioning that Soldiers can be given an extra allowance of about $12 a day for food if they choose not to be on a meal card.

[BmorePat87]

(06-07-2015, 06:22 PM)bfine32 Wrote: If you consider a 40 hours work week a new recruit in the Military earns about $8.30 per hour. Most can earn the pay grade of E-3 in about 1 year. Then they earn $9.90 per hour.

Unfortunately a Soldier works much more than 40 hours per week. A conservative estimate would be 50 hours per week (if not deployed). This means the new recruit earns about $6.70 per hour and an E-3 earns about $7.90 per hour.

It is worth mentioning that Soldiers can be given an extra allowance of about $12 a day for food if they choose not to be on a meal card.

Add soldiers to the list of jobs fry chefs think they deserve more money than. 

[BmorePat87]

Baltimore City police Cadet makes about $28,000 ($13.46) an hour.

Now, to be fair, all of these jobs tend to have other benefits, but those don't put on the table.

[RoyleRedlegs]

Coming soon:

[JustWinBaby]

And it gets even crazier - people are buying more and more clothes and even FURNITURE online, which are two of the last things you'd expect since it's so tough to shop for that stuff without testing it out.

Anyway, $12 an hour sounds about right to me. That's almost $25k per year, which is pretty decent for a single person...and for a family a couple could hit nearly $40k with one of them working part-time.

Outside of energy, and possibly food, I'm not sure how limited we are by resources. So the real problem that needs to be solved/navigated is the apparent lag between rising wages and the subsequent purchasing power being created by globalization in developing economies. The real issue is simply the global supply of labor outpacing the global demand FROM that labor. Sure, the wealthy slice off their piece of the pie, but the real wealth transfer is from labor in developed economies to labor in developing economies. That's a much tougher problem to solve and a less sexy thing for politicians to pontificate on.

[BmorePat87]

(06-07-2015, 07:09 PM)RoyleRedlegs Wrote: Coming soon:

Works for Royal Farms. If you're unfamiliar with them, it's like Wawa or Speedway (I just googled Ohio convienence chain and got that) 

The machine always takes my order correctly.

[Bengalzona]

(06-07-2015, 06:22 PM)bfine32 Wrote: If you consider a 40 hours work week a new recruit in the Military earns about $8.30 per hour. Most can earn the pay grade of E-3 in about 1 year. Then they earn $9.90 per hour.

Unfortunately a Soldier works much more than 40 hours per week. A conservative estimate would be 50 hours per week (if not deployed). This means the new recruit earns about $6.70 per hour and an E-3 earns about $7.90 per hour.

It is worth mentioning that Soldiers can be given an extra allowance of about $12 a day for food if they choose not to be on a meal card.

Don't forget to add housing, discounted life insurance, free medical care, and veterans benefits.

But, by the same token, many soldiers have hazardous jobs. Especially during wartime.

[JustWinBaby]

(06-07-2015, 07:30 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: Works for Royal Farms. If you're unfamiliar with them, it's like Wawa or Speedway (I just googled Ohio convienence chain and got that) 

The machine always takes my order correctly.

And I'm not sure this is all that relevant to the wage debate.  The break-even on the investment in those machines keeps getting shorter and shorter, and wage rates are already high enough for those machines to yield a cost savings. This is the inevitable outcome whether we raise wages or not.

[*bfine32*]

(06-07-2015, 07:09 PM)RoyleRedlegs Wrote: Coming soon:

They do something similar to this in many places in Japan. There is a machine outside the restaurant complete with pictures and prices, you put your money/ swipe card in the machine, make your selection, a ticket is produced. You take tat ticket inside the resturant and hand it to the cook.  

[Bengalzona]

(06-07-2015, 07:30 PM)JustWinBaby Wrote: And it gets even crazier - people are buying more and more clothes and even FURNITURE online, which are two of the last things you'd expect since it's so tough to shop for that stuff without testing it out.

Anyway, $12 an hour sounds about right to me.  That's almost $25k per year, which is pretty decent for a single person...and for a family a couple could hit nearly $40k with one of them working part-time.

Outside of energy, and possibly food, I'm not sure how limited we are by resources.  So the real problem that needs to be solved/navigated is the apparent lag between rising wages and the subsequent purchasing power being created by globalization in developing economies.  The real issue is simply the global supply of labor outpacing the global demand FROM that labor.  Sure, the wealthy slice off their piece of the pie, but the real wealth transfer is from labor in developed economies to labor in developing economies.  That's a much tougher problem to solve and a less sexy thing for politicians to pontificate on.

I don't agree with an across the board minimum wage. The cost of living in New York City is vastly different than the cost of living in Almost-a-Ghost-Town, Oklahoma. Decisions on minimum wage should be made at the lower levels of government (city, county, etc.), not the federal level. Competition help will sort it out over time.

Dam! I sound so conservative!

[BmorePat87]

(06-07-2015, 07:36 PM)Bengalzona Wrote: I don't agree with an across the board minimum wage. The cost of living in New York City is vastly different than the cost of living in Almost-a-Ghost-Town, Oklahoma. Decisions on minimum wage should be made at the lower levels of government (city, county, etc.), not the federal level. Competition help will sort it out over time.

Dam! I sound so conservative!

And to be fair, many states do exceed the minimum for this reason, but you are right.

Costs vary greatly from state to state. It's the same reason why similar jobs make different amounts between different states. 

$15 in Alabama would go much further than $15 in Maryland 

[Benton]

(06-07-2015, 06:22 PM)bfine32 Wrote: If you consider a 40 hours work week a new recruit in the Military earns about $8.30 per hour. Most can earn the pay grade of E-3 in about 1 year. Then they earn $9.90 per hour.

Unfortunately a Soldier works much more than 40 hours per week. A conservative estimate would be 50 hours per week (if not deployed). This means the new recruit earns about $6.70 per hour and an E-3 earns about $7.90 per hour.

It is worth mentioning that Soldiers can be given an extra allowance of about $12 a day for food if they choose not to be on a meal card.

yes.

plus living, health insurance, life insurance, etc. Those who serge deserve more, but lumping it in with so done making $7.50 at McDonald's with no benefits is a little disingenuous.

back to the op, the minimum wage doesn't need to be $15. At least not for most of the country. It should be a state issue as the cost of living varies greatly. In most of Kentucky that's a living wage. In most of new York or California, that's enough to cover not much.

[JustWinBaby]

(06-07-2015, 09:24 PM)Benton Wrote: In most of new York or California, that's enough to cover not much.

While this is mostly accurate, it ignores many other benefits available to them such as subsidized housing, food stamps, etc..  If we're going to talk about a living wage to the exclusion of other transfer payments, then cuts (or basically lower spending) to those programs should accompany wage increases. 

Otherwise, it's just a shell game moving money from one bucket to another.  All else equal, I think I'd favor higher wages and inflation and lower taxes and lower transfer payments.  But what's optimal could be something more in between.

Part of the problem here is where are we headed and really accomplishing?  Because you can literally create more or less poverty simply by changing how you define it.  Point being, wages and transfers are mechanics not solutions...and there's no discussion without context of what poverty really is, because debates about increasing wages or decreasing transfers are, at the core, debates about our target poverty level being too high or too low. And no one likes to talk about the poverty level because whichever side you come down on, you offend people either for being poorer than they thought or not poor enough.

[*PhilHos*]

The problem is not with minimum wage, not really. The problem is that people don't manage their money properly.

Sent from my samsung SPH-L710T Using Ez Forum for Android

[StLucieBengal]

There should be no min wage.

Negotiate your own wage. End of.

All min wage hikes do is escalate pay raises for Union contracts that are based off min wage.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

A big question about a minimum wage increase I have is what will the government do for those on Social Security, welfare and food stamps? Will these people get their benefits increased to match what minimum wage is?

The government would have to raise these programs or people and families will starve in my opinion.

[Shake n Blake]

(06-07-2015, 07:32 PM)Bengalzona Wrote: Don't forget to add housing, discounted life insurance, free medical care, and veterans benefits.

But, by the same token, many soldiers have hazardous jobs. Especially during wartime.

You beat me to it. Not to mention the college benefits. Besides, I don't know any soldiers who signed up for the pay.

Btw, to those arguing that the federal minimum wage shouldn't be increased because cost of living varies by state: In what state is 7.25 enough to live on?

Count me among those who think $15 is ridiculous, but $10-11 sounds about right. Keep in mind that most of these minimum wage jobs are also part time with no benefits. It's not just restaurants, either. That's a silly stereotype. All retail and temp jobs pay that much, in addition to many many other job types.