The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

My state, Massachuetts, is gradually increasing it's minimum wage up to $15 an hour.  It's now $12, and will be going up to $12.75 next year.  I work part time on the weekends at a grocery store, where this applies.  Our state used to mandate time and a half for Sunday employees in retail.  The mandate is now time and a quarter.  When, it hits $15, the mandate will be dropped.  My store, for now, has kept time and a half.  I have been trying to take advantage of it the best I can.  I have tried to work as many Sunday hours as I can, which is why I haven't followed the games much. 

I worry though, if our state will collapse because of the high wage increase.  I don't think minimum wage jobs were intended to jobs you support a family on, or even yourself on.  I think Obama instilled the attitude in this country of "If you want kids, have them, and everybody else will take care of you".  I think this is an extension of that attitude.

What do you people think?

You are correct in this statement.  Minimum wage was never intended to be a living wage and jobs that pay it were never meant to be jobs that you spend your entire career working.   I think it's wrong to raise the minimum wage that high because then all other jobs will demand a pay increase as well, which could very well put some companies out of business. 

Minimum wage jobs were meant to be held by your average goofy high school student who is learning what it's like to work and develop proper work habits while hanging out with their equally goofy high school friends.  If John McBurgerflipper wants to be paid more than minimum wage, he needs to bring more than minimal job skills to the table.

They are also jobs for people who can't better job skills due to disabilities, and need family support.  Also for married couples where one partner works full time and the other part time due to children.

They can also be hold over jobs while you are looking for full time work.

In my case, it's a side job.  My main job is in healthcare.

The minimum wage only affects people who work, so I don't see what this has to do with wanting other people to take care of you.

In fact, right now the US taxpayer subsidizes many businesses (like Wal-Mart), who pay their full-time employees so little that they still qualify for poverty assistance like food stamps and Medicaid.  I don't think that we should be using taxpayer money to increase profits for corporations.

As far as the "costs" of increasing the minimum wage: low-income families are MUCH more likely to spend their income rather than saving it, so the probable outcome of increasing the minimum wage is that local businesses receive a lot more customers, which allows them to hire more people, etc.

The assumptions going on here are just wrong to begin with. There's no such thing as a "wage that wasn't intended as a living wage" that's bullshit. if you work full time, you should earn a living wage. period .. end of story, no exceptions.

Sorry. If you want a job that pays minimum wage because you don't want to achieve skills to make more ... that's on you. It's a choice. Every trade has a way of working their way up. No way in hell a job meant for high schoolers should come with top pay, vacation, and retirement. I'm not paying someone $400 a month to cut my yard so they can have benefits. That's just stupid.

First off .. there are no full time jobs meant for high schoolers. School is their full time job. McDonalds is open when high school is in session. Companies won't ever volunteer to do the right thing, Desperate people don't stand for their rights because they fear other desperate people will take their job. This is because people like you assume all choices are equal. And sometimes when faced with a set of bad choices, you have to chose the least bad one. How would you feel about a general strike? no-one worked until there was a legal living wage. I'm pretty sure you'd cross that picket line, because "choice". When you're the one making the choice harder.

second off .. if you have someone cutting your lawn full time .. 40 hours a week .. then you need to pay them a living wage to do that. Unless you have a full time gardener, maybe don't toss that straw man out there.

benefits are a sham.. It's a lie told to workers to get them to take less money. So these companies say instead of giving you $1000 in cash ..we'll give you $1000 in "benefits" then they turn around and cut those "benefits" to $800 . .they work the profit from both ends.

the only benefit i want out of my work is cold hard cash .. $$$ .. lets move this country into the 20th century where health care isn't dependent on your employer.  No country in the world does that .. because it sucks. Universal health care, divorced from employment. Lets not imprison people into jobs because when faced with the prospect of upward mobility or the prospect of not getting your insulin, that's not a choice.

LOL ... When high schoolers are in session ... it's wide open for college kids and senior citizens ... both of whom work at places like McDonalds and Wal-Mart.

In my whole life I've never met a person who was forced to work in any job but yet I've seen many people make some sacrifices to get ahead in their job status to improve life for their family.  I'm sure I'd much rather have been working at Blockbuster than being a loborer on a bridge crew or a grunt on a roofing crew but that's not an option in the real world.

I would tend to agree with this mostly. Healthcare shouldn't be tied to employment. 3 things that I think would fix healthcare would be to allow competition across state lines, everyone is eligible and pays the same for the same level policy and coverages, and every procedure and drug should have a cap on it's cost from Doctors to the insurance companies. 

My part time job does offer a 401k

Did someone hack pondwater's account?  A national heath system instead of 50 individual state programs.  Fixed pricing of insurance premiums.  Fixed prices for procedures and drug prices.   

I don't disagree with any of it, but that is socialized medicine and sounds more like a spider proposal than pondwater. 

at that point tho. what's the point of an insurance company middleman ? fixed prices in a national system. .. why allow for a profit motive in the middle there with absolutely no benefit whatsoever.

No, it's competition which is the very core of capitalism.   Why should a person like myself, a Florida resident, not be allowed to buy health insurance from Big Sky Healthcare in Montana?  Doing that would increase competition among insurance companies and as a result, healthcare premiums would go down.  

Hacked? No, what you guys don't understand that I agree with Republicans and Democrats on certain issues. However, it's not a national health system that I'm talking about. It's competition. If Blue Cross has a certain level plan for $300 a month and Cigna has a plan for $280 with better benefits. Then assuming it's available to everyone in the country and each company has to charge everyone the same for the same plans. Then Blue Cross is going to lose market share and have to revamp their premiums and benefits to be more competitive. I'm certainly not talking about the government giving healthcare away to everyone. Everyone should have access and everyone should pay the same. If people can't afford their premiums they could implement some type of tax credits or subisidys based on income like they have now.

Correct. But for it to work you would have to charge everyone the same. Just like at Walmart, everyone pays the same for that can of beans. If people ain't buying your beans then you need to adjust your prices or people are going to buy a different brand.

Government doesn't give healthcare away, you pay for healthcare with taxes. It's not free healthcare, it's universal healthcare, and it's paid for.

Do senior citizens deserve to make a livable wage?

I don't know about FL, but here in CA, when I go to a fast food restaurant or a retail store, I see a LOT of workers that are not in high school (I daresay the majority of them).  There may have been some point in the glorious past, maybe back when a 1-income family could have a stay-at-home mom and put two kids through college with no debt then retire with a pension, when fast food and retail were jobs for kids in school... but those days are long gone.  Saying that minimum wage jobs are for kids is as out-of-touch as saying that kids can get a paper route.

If a senior citizen is working at McDonalds or Walmart it's most likely a fill in job. There is no reason to retire if you can't afford it.

LMAO ... adults have taken over the paper routes as well! Dammit man.

Exactly.   Each health insurance company should have fixed premiums/deductibles/copays for certain levels of care and people should be able to decide which level of care is best for them and pay the necessary premium.   

Kinda like buying an 8 oz can of beans as opposed to a 16 oz can of beans and they're a little more expensive at Publix than they are at WalMart.

communist

If that were true, no one would get beans.   >:D

How is that Communist?

He clearly doesn't understand what Communism is.  In Communism, the government would own the factory that produces the beans and ration every family to get one 8 oz can of beans per week regardless of how much money they were willing to pay.

You're right.  The system you are describing is socialism, not communism.

You can trace this back to Reagan, he did more damage to the middle class and to american families than any other single modern era president.

LOL ... you don't think logistics and urban sprawl might have had a little to do with it?

Got to love when even mainstream media supports the conservative viewpoint

https://youtu.be/A02ciYFzTHw

Problem is insurance is not a can a beans.  Walmart doesn't care who buys its beans.

With insurance the purchaser makes a huge difference.  A  74 year old with a history of heart disease is a different customer than a healthy 20 year old.  The ONLY way to have uniform premium for both is with government intervention. 

i got links too!!!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EL2RSd_U4AAk7RP?format=jpg&name=large
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EL2RSd_U4AAk7RP?format=jpg&name=large)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EL2RSeAU4AAALDg?format=jpg&name=medium
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EL2RSeAU4AAALDg?format=jpg&name=medium)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EL2RSeBU8AAqcvw?format=jpg&name=900x900
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EL2RSeBU8AAqcvw?format=jpg&name=900x900)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EL2SU0FU8AAi-4P?format=jpg&name=medium
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EL2SU0FU8AAi-4P?format=jpg&name=medium)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EL2c8VbUEAESvfh?format=jpg&name=900x900
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EL2c8VbUEAESvfh?format=jpg&name=900x900)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EL2c8VbU0AEZ9NW?format=jpg&name=small
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EL2c8VbU0AEZ9NW?format=jpg&name=small)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EL9DR91UYAY5713?format=png&name=small
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EL9DR91UYAY5713?format=png&name=small)

and i watched your video .. stossel's wrong.

LOL ... OK ... I think he makes a good case complete with statistics and interviews. Let's see you prove he's wrong.

BTW ... what's the deal with posting a bunch of links that have nothing to do with the topic?

I postulated that reagan did a bunch of harm to the middle class .. you replied with a non sequitor video about the minimum wage from teenagers that provide wide generalities without considering causation. Economics is hard, I don't claim to know everything, but I do read alot of economics in my spare time and i provided some images to helpfully illustrate my point that reagan was the cause of the downfall of the middle class in this country.

I'm not sure how surprising it is when a Fox News employee makes a video for a libertarian think tank that supports a conservative viewpoint.  ReasonTV is about as "mainstream" as RedState or The Blaze.

How many states are represented on this Board.

FL
MA
CA

are the three I can think of right away.

What is the minimum wage in CA and FL?

Simple google search will tell you:

CA:  $12
FL:  $8.46

Not sure how. What laws would Walmart break and what backlash would they face if they priced beans based on age or health status?

I would imagine they would be breaking a raft of privacy laws by requiring your medical history to sell you food.

John Stossel is known for his work on ABC 20/20 for 28 years. Few people know he is on FOX Business and I'm guessing you even had to Google it but it brings about an interesting point. Stossel was very liberal during his ABC time but his years of investigative reporting exposed many lies.  Stossel is a Libertarian today.

My first respnse response was a direct response to your post. The second was directly geared towards the title of the post. LOL ... didn't realize that was an issue.

This is like saying that Kid Rock is "known for" being a musician from bright-blue Detroit: true but irrelevant.

Do you really think I had to google John Stossel to find out that he has pushing libertarian talking points for decades?  There is some small amount of evidence on this forum that I am marginally aware about the political leaning of various figures.

This would be as opposed to the other people who merely "discovered" that they were economically conservative once they started making a lot of money.

Replace "beans" with any other commercial product for sale. Pricing any product based on age and medical history seems discriminatory.

Yet it is done all the time; children prices,  senior prices,  etc.

So restaurants in your area require a medical history to get the kids meal, or a senior discount?

NYS has also been on a 6 year plan to raise the minimum wage to $15.  For NYC they hit $15 as of 1/1/20.  For the rest of the state it increases to $11.80 for 2020, $12.50 for 2021, and Potential $15 for 2022 but that one hasn't been finalized.  The crazy thing is that fast food workers, whether in NYC or other parts of the state reach $15/hour faster.  For instance this year out side of NYC the min wage is $11.80, unless your a fast food worker who will get $13.75.  Really makes no sense.  This is why fast food chains are going away from order takers and having customers punch their order into a kiosk.

Continuing to pay fast food workers $11.80 will not stop the kiosks from arriving, or even slow it down appreciably.

It's like thinking that if only we get rid of unions, manufacturing jobs won't be automated out of existence.  Those ships have sailed, and the only questions now are:

1) How much pay will the people who have yet to be automated away receive?
2) What will we do when most of these jobs no longer exist?

The word age was in the  sentence I quoted.  Thanks for playing.

While you did successfully read the word "age" in that sentence, unfortunately you failed to read the word "and" that came right after it.  In English, the word "and" ties two dependent ideas together, in a way that (for instance) the word "or" would not.

So while your attempts to refute the cited quote (and my response)  would have worked out had pondwater used the phrase "age or medical history," the fact the he used the phrase "age and medical history" means you are left adrift without a sail.  Thanks for playing, indeed.

You are correct in what I quoted but look back to the original mention and you clearly see he said or, so now we split hairs on intent.😀

Damn, you people will argue about anything, LMFAO. The point was that for real competition to work for health care, everyone would have to be charged the same for the same level of coverage while allowing companies to sell across state lines. Also, prices for all procedures would have to be capped from the provider to the insurance companies. Everyone wants to blame the insurance companies, but the doctors, hospitals, and other health care providers are just as guilty as the insurance companies for the health care situation in this country.

There are doctors, hospitals and healthcare providers in every country .. there are only health insurance companies to this extent in the US. So when you wanna talk about the difference between the US and the rest of the world and why the US has by far the most expensive care with universally weaker outcomes, a higher maternal mortality rate, and a lower life expectancy than other developed countries .. why don't we look at what the difference is.