$15/hr for flipping burgers - are you flipping kidding me?

[Tripper11]

Dori writes... Local liberal idiocy has reached a new level. Let me provide a basic economics lesson for the labor unions, local politicians, and local media who have all been shilling for $15/hour minimum wage for fast food workers. For 12 years of my life, I worked at or below the minimum wage. Mindless minimum wage jobs are not a career... you're not supposed to be able to raise a family of four on your minimum wage job... they were never designed to provide a "living wage" (the nonsense phrase that trendy progressives have come up with for this cause). My minimum-wage jobs included: supermarket bagboy; stuffing game pieces into plastic bags; operating a shrink-wrap machine; restaurant busboy; video-tape logger; and several others.

more at link : http://mynorthwest.com/category/dori_monson/

This should go over well....

[bemildred]

1. Why argue with morons who think vehement reassertion of their position is an argument for it?

"Minimum wage jobs are supposed to suck, so we should not make them pay a living wage. Whom would we have left to look down on?"

[LisaLynne]

6. That is so exactly what their position is.

Those types are so afraid of someone getting something they feel they didn't get. It must be a really sad way to live your life.

[eridani]

2. The reason is that that is what you got for flipping burgers in 1965--in today's dollars n/t

[frylock]

22. eggzactly!

[BeyondGeography]

3. What a blowhard

[pgr]

4. That's what these

Narrow minded fools don't seem to understand. They still think $15 an hour is "good pay". They wouldn't consider the job today was high paying if it was offered to them so why should anyone else - to enrich the employers bottom line even more?

[LisaLynne]

7. But they are special snowflakes who deserve more than others!

Why? Um .. because ... er ...



Welcome to DU, BTW!

[Quantess]

17. Hmm... to unemployed job seekers, $15 is good pay.

I noticed that before the worst part of the recession, (say or 2007 or early 2008) $12 was a common wage for entry level jobs. A couple of years later those exact same jobs were paying $9 or $10.

[fizzgig]

50. that would be great pay for me

i make considerably less than that

[Tien1985]

57. $15/hr is an

Unimaginable luxury to many people. My mom never made that much an hour the entire time she was raising me '85-'03 and only just makes a bit over it now--working at the same place for more than a decade.

$15/hr is a lot of money

[DetlefK]

5. Let's follow this argument, shall we?

1.
Thesis: "A minimum-wage-job isn't supposed to provide a living for a family."

Accordingly, people working minimum-wage-jobs for a living aren't supposed to found a family.
This is social engineering.
And any republican will tell you that social engineering is something bad. (Well, at least if the goal were to better the lives of the poor.)


2.
According to this logic, there are two kinds of jobs: Those that provide enough money to support a family and those that don't.
One of those allows a worker to contribute to nation and society in a productive, open-ended way.
The other kind of jobs is a societal dead-ender, because it leads to shrinking economic contribution and shrinking population.
Therefore, jobs that don't allow you to found a family are unpatriotic.


Gotcha.

[HiPointDem]

51. +1

[randome]

8. Do they know what happens when the 'heavy hand' of the government comes down a business?

It adjusts. It gets innovative. And the employees can better take care of their families. Seems like a win-win to me.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Birds are territorial creatures.
The lyrics to the songbird's melodious trill go something like this:
"Stay out of my territory or I'll PECK YOUR GODDAMNED EYES OUT!"[/center][/font][hr]

[LuvNewcastle]

9. This article is a good example of the sort of arguments RWers use

to make their 'points.' He goes on to compare flipping burgers to Tom Cruise's acting and LeBron James's talents on the court, as if paying short-order cooks a living wage is the first stop on the way to becoming filthy rich. They usually exaggerate and try to apply logic to a ridiculous premise. They'll give a column to anybody these days.

[Quantess]

10. That part jumped out at me, too.

I personally don't begrudge celebrities for making tons of money, partly because their audience demands them greatly. Celebrities and star athletes are in a weird category.

CEOs, however, are the grossly overpaid goldbricks that reap their riches by exploiting the little guys. Notice he doesn't mention any of them, such as the awful Walmart woman, or John Schnatter of Papa John's, etc.

[LuvNewcastle]

13. I totally agree.

I don't have a problem with any talented person making big money, but it's outrageous that a lot of those CEOs make 250 times what the average worker does. The Waltons, of course, are raking in obscene amounts. CEOs are generally at least as expendable as line workers in a factory or cooks in restaurants.

[socialist_n_TN]

11. Then if that's the case, then the CEOs of these ....

low wage jobs shouldn't make anywhere NEAR what they currently make.

[demwing]

12. Why even post this Tea Fucker?

he's a typical dickheaded Republican, spouting off shit on a topic of which he knows nothing other than the talking points that FOX has tattooed on his ass.

[Javaman]

14. another right wing moron that believes that working like a dog

is part of life.

I'm truly amused and completely freighted, at the same time, at the abject stupidity that this fool displays without even this slightest hint of willful complicit nature into the destruction and subjection of our society.

[AngryAmish]

15. At $15 per hour many employees will be replaced by robots

Cashiers replaced by kiosks will be first. Then rhoomba types for the floors. Capital replacing labor with larger returns for capital.

Actually, this is going to happen one way or the other.

[ConcernedCanuk]

21. We already have automated checkouts in Northern Ontario

.
.
.

Put your groceries through a scanner, use a debit/credit card, and transaction is completed without a human involved.

Ya gotta bag your own purchases tho.

CC

[laundry_queen]

23. That's why I never go through those

in fact, recently ALL of the automated checkouts were open, and they had 1 employee monitoring them, while there were huge lines for the tills with the cashiers. The 1 employee was going around asking if anyone wanted to use the automated check outs, since they were all free. No one volunteered. I emphatically said no, I will wait for a real cashier. It was nice to see I wasn't the only one objecting to those stupid things.
I've also started to shop at grocery places that bag groceries for you. I got tired of cashiers shoving my groceries down for me to bag, then waiting impatiently while I struggled to get it done (and somehow pay for everything at the same time) before they started moving more people through.

I decided to vote with my $$. You can get great deals at any of the stores, so why not shop at places that use cashiers and have people who bag...

[RebelOne]

37. Those self-checkouts are a godsend

when you are behind shoppers with carts overflowing and you only have a few items. In fact, I used the self-checkout today at the grocery. There was only one register open and there were two people in front of me with full carts. I only had about 20 items, so I opted for self-checkout.

[laundry_queen]

58. Companies count on people like you

Means they can schedule less cashiers, pay fewer man-hours. Less money for the workers, more profit for the corps.

[Orsino]

24. Minimum wage was never going to be doubled with the wave of a wand.

A significant increase, however, would change the nation's economy. At that point, Congress could look at the matter again, and again after that.

The way they're fucking supposed to do as legislators and regulators.

[Yo_Mama]

26. Yes, great point

I feel like Congress went out for a smoke break and never came back.

[tularetom]

53. When the 1% no longer needs humans for cheap labor abortion will be mandatory

Why keep wasting food on people who serve no purpose for those who are in charge?

[HockeyMom]

16. Let an old person explain it you

In 1971 I was an $8/hour Secretary in NYC. Not minimum wage, but probably in those "low end jobs". Let me explain the difference in $8/hour then, and even in NYC, and what we know it is like in 2013.

I had been subletting a tiny Manhattan apartment for $150/month, but decided I wanted more room so I moved to Queens. My rent for a one bedroom, including gas heat, was $200 a month. Very nice building with a doorman. I did not drive but the subway cost me under a $1.00 a day back and forth to work. Eat Ramen Noodles? Nope, I cooked dinner almost every night for my fiance and the grocery bill was around $25/week. I ate lunch out every day, again in Manhattan, when I was working. Saturday night was go out to dinner night.
My electric bill was $25/month. There was no Cable back then and TV was free. No cell phones either, but my AT&T bill was about $25/month.

Benefits? I did not have to pay for my health benefits. Free through the company. No co-pays either for meds (including my BC), or doctor visits. I was going to college part-time at night, and that was also free, paid by the company I worked for.

My husband and I bought our first house in Queens in 1976. It was $47,000. Our monthly mortgage payment, including taxes, was $450 a month.

Please compare the Cost of Living in 2013 versus 1971. Tell me if anyone today could do what I was able to do back then on that $8/hour?

Can you SEE what the problem is here? Wages are still stuck in 1974 and the COL has skyrocket since then. Sorry, if this is so long, but some people need to understand what the real problem is.

To the OP. I never made made minimum wage in my life. Not even as a new HS graduate at 17 years old. You could earn a living with just a HS diploma, but that is another topic.

[Quantess]

18. I'm younger than you but still old enough to appreciate how good it used to be.

I was just thinking about this the other day. I was a teenager in the 80s, when just about any teenager who wanted to work could get a job.

I didn't get a clothing retail job like I had hoped for my first job. When I walked into a mom & pop burger joint, they were ready to hire me that day. But I decided I was too good looking and too much of a princess to be flipping burgers, so I took a job at a movie theater concession stand instead (same minimum wage but I thought it was a cooler job, somehow). None of these places asked for a resumé, by the way.

My 2nd teenage job, at a self-serve buffet, also minimum wage (almost never got tips there) I remember thinking feeling a bit sorry for the older co-workers (by that I mean people in their 20s or 30s) for having such a shitty job. And at the time, I had a point.

Employers didn't expect a resumé for minimum wage jobs until some point in the mid 1990s. These days you need a resumé, and probably an individually tailored letter of interest, too, to stand a chance at getting a job.

[PoliticAverse]

29. $8 in 1971 is equivalent to about $46.01 now.

http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=8&year1=1971&year2=2013

The minimum wage in 1971 was $1.60:

http://www.dol.gov/whd/minwage/chart.htm

Equivalent to about $9.20 now:

http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=1.60&year1=1971&year2=2013

[Quantess]

61. You need to clarify your point, please. (no text)

[badtoworse]

36. Just out curiosity, where in Queens did you live?

[HockeyMom]

59. Middle Village

Off Woodhaven Blvd. near St. John's Cemetery.

[badtoworse]

63. I grew up in Flushing, north of Kissena Park

Queens in the 60's and 70's was an OK place to be.

[HiPointDem]

52. $8/hr was a decent amount of money in 1971. Minimum wage was $1.60. I hear you on the costs

but $8/hr in 1971 isn't a good comparison point. That's a middle class salary.

[HockeyMom]

60. Secretary

with only a HS diploma.

[PD Turk]

19. Well then, Dori....

Here's an idea, get off your lazy ass and cook your own fucking burger, nobody owes you a goddamn thing

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

20. Dori Monson

Hosts a talk show program in Seattle. He is hardly in any position to assess, or assign, monetary values to jobs. After all, he sits on his ass and talks. That is his job......

[winter is coming]

25. "you're not supposed to be able to raise a family of four on your minimum wage job"

People aren't trying to do this by choice. Too many better-than-minimum wage jobs have evaporated.

If $15 an hour is "too much" for burger flippers, how much is "too much" for corporate CEOs?

[Politicalboi]

27. That's how it used to work

Yes the incentive was to get a "real" job after McDonald's, but that's when jobs were plentifully. Now more and more 30 year old and older are working at McDonald's. When I was a kid, the ONLY adult looking person behind the counter was the manager.

[MrSlayer]

28. This makes some sense.

Paperboy, fast food and the like are supposed to be entry level jobs for kids in high school and the like. But because we have destroyed our manufacturing base and have outsourced much of our customer service and other office jobs in the name of greed, these minimum wage jobs have become a way of life for the working poor. There simply is nothing else for them to do to earn money legally. The idea that any and everyone can become rich as an entrepreneur or athlete or entertainer through "hard work" is absolute bullshit.

We have to raise the minimum wage to a living wage because this is all the greedy pigs have left.

[one_voice]

35. I was just thinking along these lines...

fast food joints, paperboy and that sort of job is supposed to be for kids--high school kids.

However there are other jobs that pay minimum wage, janitorial jobs (in schools, hospitals,office buildings etc) some office jobs, other jobs in hospital transportation (taking people from their rooms to the front door, to xray, etc) these jobs aren't for high school kids. Most of these jobs (and others I haven't mentioned) are done by adults, are these people not supposed to have a family because they're doing these jobs?

These types of jobs, used to pay enough for a family, not a shit load of money but you could live on it. They certainly paid more than minimum wage.

I'm sure/hope someone can come and articulate this better than I did.

[HockeyMom]

40. End of Unions

that is another key problem today. Many of these jobs used to be Union jobs, and therefore were not minimum wage jobs then.

They destroyed the Unions in order to keep wages down so they could make more profits.

[MrSlayer]

47. I know what you're saying.

The cost of everything has outpaced the wages.

It's disgusting what we've allowed to go on in this country for the past thirty years. Hell, it was welcomed with great fanfare and with landslide elections. And all so some fictional welfare queen couldn't get over on the working (read: white) man. Reaganism has destroyed us.

[southernyankeebelle]

30. There are many adults working in the burger places who have family and aren't able

to afford to go to college. Many of them work very hard. I feel offended that people who think just because you are a burger flipper you aren't worth anything. Well many that I know are not smart enough to go to college. These people at one time would have been working at factory jobs doing pretty with a living wage. Factory jobs are gone now and if you have just a high school or no school education your happy to be working flipping burgers. They deserve a living wage just like anyone else. I am ashamed at how some thing they are better then others. I am willing to pay an extra .15 cents on a meal if it helps the employees pocketbook and not the corporation. If we lift their boats then they in turn are able to spend money and go out themselves and it helps the economy. People need to stop degrading low wage earners. Be happy they don't go out and rob us like those guys on Wall Street and Big Banks.

[Ilsa]

31. If minimum wage had kept up with inflation,

wouldn't it be about $15/hour?

[PoliticAverse]

34. Around $11/hour.

Minimum wage in 1968 was $1.60:

http://www.dol.gov/whd/minwage/chart.htm

this translates to about $10.71 now:

http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=1.60&year1=1968&year2=2013

[RebelOne]

38. In the late '50s, it was $1 an hour and I worked for that.

Fortunately, I was married and my husband earned a little above that, but we managed to make ends meet.

[PoliticAverse]

39. Yes in 1956 it was $1/hour...

http://www.dol.gov/whd/minwage/chart.htm

Equivalent to about $8.56 now:

http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=1.&year1=1956&year2=2013

[liberal_at_heart]

42. the gap between wages and cost of living today is much much wider than in the 50's.

[Ilsa]

44. That's interesting. I thought I heard of other estimates,

and I think they were from govt sources, but maybe they were using a different inflation rate for a different government program, or another inflationary measure.

[PoliticAverse]

45. If you run into any other estimates showing how they were calculated please post them. n/t

[Ilsa]

46. I will, but I think I heard Thom Hartmann quoting them.

I'm not sure what database he was using, and this was probably two years ago.

[PoliticAverse]

48. Note some people have been linking the minimum wage to productivity...

Which yields a current equivalent much greater than $11...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/13/minimum-wage-productivity_n_2680639.html

[sgtbenobo]

32. I don't understand why this is such a big deal.

When anyone who flips burgers, cleans motel rooms, busses tables, bags groceries, or the like can always supplement their meager income by enter the exciting world of methamphetamine distribution.

Carry on.

[TeamPooka]

33. This post is trolling for reactions.

[liberal_at_heart]

41. I immediately stopped listening to his show as soon as I heard this garbage come out of his mouth.

He was actually laughing at these people for fighting for a living wage. I will never listen to Dori again.

[Marrah_G]

43. Many more skilled jobs are barely above minimum wage these days

I am currently looking for a second job ( I am an admin asst with 10+ years exp) most of the jobs I am finding are 8-12 dollars an hour and are asking for a bachelors degree plus experience.

I would love to see minimum wage raised to a fair level so other wages will get pushed up also.

[ileus]

49. Unskilled kid jobs should should pay unskilled wages....

these jobs are supposed to be for kids living at home or in a dorm while they acquire the skills/degree that will pay the bills.

Of course we now find ourselves with fewer career oriented jobs so skilled workers are having to root out kids for shit jobs.

[napoleon_in_rags]

54. I'm so sick of the "why stop there" argument.

AKA why not make minimum wage a million dollars an hour?

Here's the reason: Because more and more people are forced to work these minimum wage jobs because that's all there is. Wages are lagging behind productivity, which means people are getting paid less for the same work.
http://www.epi.org/publication/lagging-minimum-wage-reason-americans-wages/
That's what the unemployment info translates to: supply of workers means they can be paid less. And when everybody's getting minimum wage, guess what: no one can afford to buy anything, so the economy gets hit again, more layoffs, etc. However if people get paid more, they will spend more, which will help the economy, without much impact on inflation, because increased businesses can increase profits without having to raise prices much. However a million dollars an hour clearly has to correspond to mass inflation.

[closeupready]

55. 'Your masochism is nothing to be proud of,' is how I'd respond to

a resentful moron like that.

Minimum wage should allow anyone earning it to support themselves and their families. Period. AFAIAC.

[think]

56. Wanna bet he gets paid more than $15 an hour to spew that garbage?

[jmowreader]

62. Dori doesn't realize those jobs HAVE become a career

Let's go 320 miles east of Dori's place to mine. You can work in a store for minimum wage, cook food for minimum wage, wash boats for minimum wage...what you can't do is get a job that pays serious money unless you can come up with enough money to leave town and go to nursing school so you can come back and inject Botox for the rest of your life.

If we are going to create a society with two classes - rich people who buy nice things, and minimum-wage workers who provide them - the least we can do is to make sure the minimum-wage workers don't have to live with their parents for life.