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Why not? After the last year and a half plus of them being hailed as "essential" and "heroic" for their "sacrifice" in keeping society functioning during the pa

Why not? After the last year and a half plus of them being hailed as "essential" and "heroic" for their "sacrifice" in keeping society functioning during the pandemic Personally the entire concept of "I own one of the basic pillars of your survival, pay me for shelter" never really sat well with me. But if we're just making a value judgement on "deserved" I'd think the people who keep society together for the rest of us should get a pretty big seat at the table

oh_sigh 5y ago
What minimum wage earners are "holding society together"? It's not even positive to me that any specific group of non-minimum-wage earners are holding society together either.
- lelandbatey 5y ago
  Minimum wage workers like those stocking grocery stores and cashiers at said grocery stores are pretty close to holding the world together (I realize many are not minimum wage workers, but many are, or are close enough, that I believe it holds). If everyone who will organize and process transactions for groceries stores dissapeared, life as we know it would change immediately and for the worse.
  - oh_sigh 5y ago
    If they all disappeared, wouldn't someone else just do the job for minimum wage + $1? Unless of course they were afraid if being disappeared too.
    - IntelMiner 5y ago
      That's something we're seeing now. Except instead of the + $1 it's "come in for an interview and get a free (old) iPhone!" Or the endless snarky remarks plastered on restaurants about "nobody wants to work!"
  - willcipriano 5y ago
    I suspect the minimum wage is quite well below the natural wage floor in most, if not all of the country at this point. Those cashier jobs pay over twice the federal minimum wage in my area, and I don't live in a particularly wealthy place. The only adults I've ever known that worked for minimum wage did so with other opportunities available to them, but took the part time minimum wage position in order to stay on Medicaid and collect other means tested benefits. If you were to raise the minimum wage to say $12 I'd expect the effect to be largely symbolic.
    - jackson1442 5y ago
      I live in a fairly well-off place and most food service jobs pay about $7.25-9/hour, _maybe_ with tips. My university (3 hours away) pays $8.50/hr for most student positions, a cruel joke when tuition is $10k+/year. Mine is about $13.5k but I have enough scholarships to bring it down to about 3k. Napkin math shows that, to afford a $13.5k tuition bill, one must work 1564 hours for the university. They cap you at 20hrs/wk so as not to overburden you, so you can pay off your tuition bill in a mere 78 weeks. I go to one of the least expensive state universities. A minimum wage raise would not be merely symbolic, at least not in Texas. If my university paid $12/hr, it would take 55 weeks to pay off tuition and at $15 it would take 44 weeks.
      - willcipriano 5y ago
        Tipped workers take some liberties with the income math. I spent a decade in the restaurant industry and front of house made considerably more than the back of the house while also paying less tax even though they were "only paid $2.75 an hour". Generally speaking cash tips are not reported and tax free, a server will make in excess of $20 an hour in a moderately successful resturant. The back of the house jobs now start around $13 an hour for unskilled labor in a hot and dangerous kitchen, every cent of it subject to tax. In addition by under reporting income, tipped workers often gain access to social programs that their true income would disqualify them from. I don't know what the deal is with your university in particular, but your local Amazon warehouse is paying $15 an hour as that is their national minimum. Walmart just recently announced they are moving to $15 nationally as well I believe.
- muzani 5y ago
  The ones who are categorized as "essential" and allowed (expected) to work during a lockdown.

oh_sigh 5y ago

What minimum wage earners are "holding society together"? It's not even positive to me that any specific group of non-minimum-wage earners are holding society together either.

lelandbatey 5y ago
Minimum wage workers like those stocking grocery stores and cashiers at said grocery stores are pretty close to holding the world together (I realize many are not minimum wage workers, but many are, or are close enough, that I believe it holds). If everyone who will organize and process transactions for groceries stores dissapeared, life as we know it would change immediately and for the worse.
- oh_sigh 5y ago
  If they all disappeared, wouldn't someone else just do the job for minimum wage + $1? Unless of course they were afraid if being disappeared too.
  - IntelMiner 5y ago
    That's something we're seeing now. Except instead of the + $1 it's "come in for an interview and get a free (old) iPhone!" Or the endless snarky remarks plastered on restaurants about "nobody wants to work!"
- willcipriano 5y ago
  I suspect the minimum wage is quite well below the natural wage floor in most, if not all of the country at this point. Those cashier jobs pay over twice the federal minimum wage in my area, and I don't live in a particularly wealthy place. The only adults I've ever known that worked for minimum wage did so with other opportunities available to them, but took the part time minimum wage position in order to stay on Medicaid and collect other means tested benefits. If you were to raise the minimum wage to say $12 I'd expect the effect to be largely symbolic.
  - jackson1442 5y ago
    I live in a fairly well-off place and most food service jobs pay about $7.25-9/hour, _maybe_ with tips. My university (3 hours away) pays $8.50/hr for most student positions, a cruel joke when tuition is $10k+/year. Mine is about $13.5k but I have enough scholarships to bring it down to about 3k. Napkin math shows that, to afford a $13.5k tuition bill, one must work 1564 hours for the university. They cap you at 20hrs/wk so as not to overburden you, so you can pay off your tuition bill in a mere 78 weeks. I go to one of the least expensive state universities. A minimum wage raise would not be merely symbolic, at least not in Texas. If my university paid $12/hr, it would take 55 weeks to pay off tuition and at $15 it would take 44 weeks.
    - willcipriano 5y ago
      Tipped workers take some liberties with the income math. I spent a decade in the restaurant industry and front of house made considerably more than the back of the house while also paying less tax even though they were "only paid $2.75 an hour". Generally speaking cash tips are not reported and tax free, a server will make in excess of $20 an hour in a moderately successful resturant. The back of the house jobs now start around $13 an hour for unskilled labor in a hot and dangerous kitchen, every cent of it subject to tax. In addition by under reporting income, tipped workers often gain access to social programs that their true income would disqualify them from. I don't know what the deal is with your university in particular, but your local Amazon warehouse is paying $15 an hour as that is their national minimum. Walmart just recently announced they are moving to $15 nationally as well I believe.
muzani 5y ago
The ones who are categorized as "essential" and allowed (expected) to work during a lockdown.