$15/hr minimum wage

[SunsetBengal]

(08-07-2018, 10:58 PM)Nately120 Wrote: I haven't looked at any actual employment data, but everyone I know who went to college has a job and I also know plenty of people who didn't go to college who also have jobs.  And there have been daytime TV ads running for trade schools for decades, so I'm not sure where you get the notion that this country is full of great trade jobs that people are trying to scare teens away from pursuing.

I will say one thing I've noticed is that my pseudo-nephew (yeah, I'll marry my gf eventually...get off my back) is 19 and he went to trade school and everyone else in his class was around my age.  People my age could get jobs out of high school and make enough money to support themselves and a family and have some insurance and so on.  Now that isn't true, so people are having to go back to get skills in order to earn a life that "just plain old working" no longer provides.

What I'm saying is that if going to college these days is tantamount to paying $250,0000 for a degree that will leave you working 16 hours a week at Wal Mart and going to trade school or driving a truck will get you $100k per year then kids will wise up soon enough and the market will right itself.  You can joke that getting a 4-year college degree is "following your dreams" but the real dream is making $80k+ per year when you are 19 years old, so I don't see why arms need to be twisted to lead teens towards those jobs.

Anywho, this thread is about minimum wage and I don't think that is something that applies to people who go to college or go to trade school.  But honestly I'm not deep enough into either side of the political coin to laugh about those dumb dumb conservatives who didn't go to college and work at the local dirt farm for peanuts as they lack the critical thinking skills required to understand why they "ain't rich like Trump."  Nor do I laugh about those smug liberal millennials who spend a quarter of a million dollars on their lesbian interpretive dance dream weaving degrees and then sling Starbucks for a pittance while they smugly burn the American flag.

Well, making money in a trade just might require your "nephew" to move to a more populated area, where people are employed, and can afford to hire someone to fix the hvac, etc.

Seriously, I'm familiar with PA.  I was just up there for a week, in April, to go trout fishing.  A lifelong friend of mine is from Western PA, we try to get together and go to his home area every year that we can.  Anyway, we went out every night and were amazed at the low prices at bars for beer, liquor and food.  The reason is simple, no one has much money..  We were talking about how we could live like Kings on our current incomes, around there.  All around the valley where Dave grew up, nothing but ghost towns, sad remembrances of what used to be proud towns that fed ore, coal, or other products to the steel industry. (Pitt is just 50 mi. NE of this area).  

Truth is, it's not a whole lot different that the town I was born to in Ohio.  Used to be a factory town, plants from the automakers, subsidiary industries that fed the automakers.  It's a ghost town there, as well.  Sure, a couple of generations of work places are gone.  You can't just finish school, and go to work where your Dad did, anymore.  (part of this is on the unions, pricing those jobs right out of the country..)  However, people need and will adapt.  They will find either other ways to earn an income, or relocate to an area where there is work.  (there's nuclear power plants all along those rivers, but those jobs take skills)  (fracking crew jobs are paying $34+/hr., but that's really hard, dirty work)  Some of the best sod in the Nation grows well there (again, takes a lot of work), also prime farm land, pretty much anything grows (but again, a lot of hard work).  People dreaming about the good 'ole days, when a good paying job was easy, are just that... dreaming.  My old man worked in a foundry.  When he was a grinder, on engine heads, at least a couple times each year he would have to go to hospital and have iron chips pulled from his eyes.  No job that pays is ever easy, it takes work.  Weather you wear protective gear, or a suit and tie.

People today need to wake up and realize that hard work is what earns a living.  Forcing fast food joints to pay $15 to people worth $6, isn't the way to tackle income inequality.  The way to fight income inequality is to inspire young people to work and get better skills.