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Thread: States where the minimum wage will be increasing on Jan. 1

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    Default Re: States where the minimum wage will be increasing on Jan. 1

    Quote Originally Posted by eagle2 View Post
    It will if the revenue is used to improve schools for the poor, especially pre-school, provide better health care, help more poor people go to college, provide child-care for working single moms, and poor families with working moms, provide better housing and nutrition for poor children, build better roads and infrastructure, provide drinking water for the poor that's not toxic and full of lead. There's a lot that can be done to help poor people get out of poverty.



    The 62 wealthiest people in the world have a total net worth of $1.76 trillion. That's as much wealth as the poorest 3.5 billion people have.

    http://money.cnn.com/2016/01/17/news.../oxfam-wealth/
    I wish you were right. But we've been doing what you suggest for over FIFTY YEARS !

    Improve schools ? Are we talking "charters " or just pouring more money into failed systems. NYC and Wash. D.C. spend the most per pupil ( with Chicago and L.A. close behind ) and the results have been dismal.
    Preschool ? A documented and proven boondoggle that does nothing but provide more jobs for the NEA and AFT.
    Health care ? Have you looked at what we are spending on Medicaid and Medicare NOW as opposed to when those programs started ?
    Helping poor people go to college ? Yes , Yes and YES ! But first most of those people need remedial help so they can keep up.
    Child care ? So their moms can work ? Absolutely.
    Better housing ? - 50 years of failure. How many housing projects do we have to demolish ?
    Better nutrition ? We have SNAP.
    Better infrastructure ? Absolutely ! I've long been in favor of raising the gasoline tax to finance repair and maintenance of our EXISTING infrastructure first and then look at "new " projects i.e. no more "Bridges to Nowhere ".
    What happened in Flint was outrageous and yet is a symptom of larger problems. The FEDERAL EPA was totally asleep on that one. Obama's EPA.

    As I have said the best way for poor people to get out of poverty is to get good paying jobs. Failing that , give them money.

    Your stat about the 62 wealthiest people is virtually meaningless. It includes people like Bill Gates , Warren Buffet , Carlos Slim , the Waltons , Zuckerberg etc. who EARNED that wealth. What are they doing with it ? Most of them have pledged to give away at least half of their fortunes. Some like Gates , Buffet and Bloomberg are already doing so. What do you want to do ? Confiscate their wealth ? I've repeatedly said that under the current tax structure that the super-rich do NOT pay their fair share. I want a flat tax that will force them to pay more than the 12 to 15 % effective rate that they currently pay. I want to bust up some of the worst "charitable trusts " that are just vehicles for tax avoidance and we can start with the Clinton Slush Fund aka The Clinton Foundation. Let's see Chelsea get a REAL job.

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    Default Re: States where the minimum wage will be increasing on Jan. 1

    Quote Originally Posted by KatyBoleyn View Post
    The redistribution theories work because poor people spend their money differently. Once you have so much money you're just shifting capital around...a small pool of rich guys buying and selling assets to each other. There's not much net creation of jobs when that happens. Now if you cut 1,000,000 low-income people a $200 check, that money changes hands many times until it gets back to the top, effectively multiplying the economy. Poor people are also likely to spend that money rather than save it, and when they get a little more, they spend it on things like...cammodels and strippers
    You conveniently ignore business expansion and charitable giving. Two things that rich folks do with extra money.

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    Default Re: States where the minimum wage will be increasing on Jan. 1

    Quote Originally Posted by minnow View Post
    Just for fun, I researched some history of federal minimum wage rates. Then I went to www.inflationdata.com "Inflation Calculator" to see how current federal minimum wage of $7.25/hr. stacks up against that of the last half century.

    In 1966, the minimum wage was $1.25/hr. One would have to make $9.14/hr. to have the same purchasing power. Todays minimum wage earner is making 20.7% less than their 1966 counterpart.

    In 1991, the minimum wage went up to $4.25/hr. One would need to make $7.40/hr. to equal their counterpart of a quarter of a century ago. Shortfall of 2.1%.

    Every time I hear the buzzword "confiscatory tax rates, I just roll my eyes. Current corporate, and high income earner tax rates are at or near post WW2 lows.
    If one says making the rich less rich won't help others, I say putting more money in rich peoples pockets will not (and has not) helped others either.

    Put another away, putting more money in wealthy 1% pocket will not automatically result in more hiring. Corporations are sitting on huge piles of cash, and what do they do with that $$ ? Why they either buy other companies or do stock buy backs. If company can make money without hiring any extra people, why do it ? (Hire more people)

    Now I don't advocate a knee jerk sock it to the rich solution, but having the historically low tax rates of the last 3 decades or so brings us to the wage stagnation and wealth disparity that we have today. Maybe putting more money in a greater number of households pockets will actually cause people to spend more money, which in turn creates demand for more products, and hence more jobs. That doesn't sound like a bad thing to me.
    There is some truth to what you are saying. I've railed against a tax system that enables John and Theresa Kerry to pay effective tax rates of about 10 to 15% on millions in income. The super rich do NOT pay their fair share in taxes and just raising their rates will ONLY impact those collecting high salaries. You know what Warren Buffet's "salary" is ? Roughly $100,000 a year.

    Which is why a flat tax that eliminates most credits and deductions and taxes ALL income ONCE is the better way to go. I even part with many of my free market brethren by supporting reasonable inheritance and death taxes so long as there is generous exemption that includes ONE family home. I don't care how many tax lawyers, K-Street lobbyists and CPA's will be thrown out of work as a result. Our current Tax Code is the "Lawyers, Lobbyists and Accountants Relief and Benefit Act ".

    I want an economy that makes everyone richer : I want people making $20,000 a year to be making $25,000 ; $200,000 making 220 or even 250, $ 2 million making $3 million. We HAD that; under Coolidge; under LBJ ; under Reagan and under Clinton. We know it works so long as we limit the carve outs and crony capitalism.

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    Default Re: States where the minimum wage will be increasing on Jan. 1

    Quote Originally Posted by Eric Stoner View Post
    You conveniently ignore business expansion and charitable giving. Two things that rich folks do with extra money.
    Rich people aren't going to expand their business unless there are people to buy the additional output.

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    Default Re: States where the minimum wage will be increasing on Jan. 1

    Quote Originally Posted by eagle2 View Post
    Rich people aren't going to expand their business unless there are people to buy the additional output.
    We are getting far afield. This is almost a "chicken and the egg " discussion. An across the board tax REFORM will increase everyone's DISPOSABLE income. Some will spend their increase thus increasing demand. Some will save and invest it in whole or in part. Just average economic growth ( about 3 to 3.5 % ) will cure a lot of ills. History shows that we are likely to see 5 % and better.

    Secondly American corporations are very good at creating demand for new products.
    Last edited by Eric Stoner; 02-05-2016 at 10:27 AM.

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    Default Re: States where the minimum wage will be increasing on Jan. 1

    Wealth redistribution never works almost anywhere, except in a couple of unique nations that are tiny and have unusual natural resource advantages. Further, the more heavy handed such efforts are, the worse the economies of those countries become. Why? Because when you take someone's earnings away from him, then the value of working hard ceases to exist. So economic production suffers. Entrepreneurs don't open businesses, hire other people, and produce goods and services that can be bought and sold, which btw also leads to resource scarcities in many of the most heavy handed redistribution jurisdictions. Other workers work only as much as they need to live because there is little point in extraneous effort, which also leads to less overall economic activity.

    Just look around the world and you'll find examples too numerous to easily list. Even more benign versions, such as those in Europe, have led to perennially retarded economic growth in most of the countries who have implemented those policies.

    We had decades of nearly unparalleled prosperity in this country leading up to the downturn, with big booms, relatively modest recessions, and low unemployment rates coupled with high labor force participation rates. All of that is directly attributable to the free flow of capital among private participants in the economy, which rewarded job creating innovation in technology and several other industries. Unfortunately, people in their 20s and younger don't remember those periods well because it has been do damned long since this economy has been in a healthy place.
    Last edited by rickdugan; 02-03-2016 at 12:35 PM.

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    Default Re: States where the minimum wage will be increasing on Jan. 1

    Quote Originally Posted by eagle2 View Post
    It will if the revenue is used to improve schools for the poor, especially pre-school, provide better health care, help more poor people go to college, provide child-care for working single moms, and poor families with working moms, provide better housing and nutrition for poor children, build better roads and infrastructure, provide drinking water for the poor that's not toxic and full of lead. There's a lot that can be done to help poor people get out of poverty.
    Here are a few things to consider:

    • We spend more per capita on education than almost any other developed nation, yet we continue to fall behind many of those nations in educational achievement.

    • We are one of the few nations on earth where one of the biggest health issues facing our most poor is obesity. Seriously now, not hunger, which is the case with the poor in all too many other countries, but obesity.

    • We are one of the few nations in the world where people can drink water right from the tap without fear of serious health consequences. Try that almost anywhere else in the world. That is not to say that one off issues do not crop up from time to time, but on the whole our water supply is among the safest on the planet.

    • Oh yeah, and we now give free health care to every kid in poverty and almost free care to various other classes.

    Seriously now, it is time to stop believing that throwing more money at perceived problems is the ultimate solution to the poverty dilemma.

    My 3 kids go to a private school that receives NO federal or state funding, yet I pay a fraction of the $12k per year that is spent on each public school kid. My kids are all top students and my oldest is scoring high on standardized tests, as are many of her classmates. So I am most definitely not buying that theory that more money is the solution on the education front.

    At some point, we have to start looking at other issues which may serve as root causes of poverty, such as structural disincentives to work and dysfunctional family environments. Blindly throwing gobs of money at education and assistance programs clearly hasn't worked and there is no reason to believe that throwing yet more money at them in the same manner is going to make a meaningful difference.
    Last edited by rickdugan; 02-03-2016 at 12:46 PM.

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    Default Re: States where the minimum wage will be increasing on Jan. 1

    We have great public schools in this country, if you happen to live in a wealthy neighborhood and wealthy school district. There is a very big disparity in our schools between wealthy school districts and poor ones. Money isn't the only factor between good schools and poor schools, but it does make a big difference.

    One of the reasons why there is an obesity problem among poor people is because eating healthy food is more expensive than eating junk food. Just because there are poor people with obesity problems, doesn't mean there aren't others who are going hungry.
    Many of our cities water systems are old and outdated, due to lack of investment.

    From:
    http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/uscities.asp
    Many cities around the country rely on pre-World War I-era water delivery systems and treatment technology. Aging pipes can break, leach contaminants into the water they carry and breed bacteria -- all potential prescriptions for illness. And old-fashioned water treatment -- built to filter out particles in the water and kill some parasites and bacteria -- generally fails to remove 21st-century contaminants like pesticides, industrial chemicals and arsenic.

    Quote Originally Posted by rickdugan View Post
    Seriously now, it is time to stop believing that throwing more money at perceived problems is the ultimate solution to the poverty dilemma.
    Obviously part of the solution is spending money smartly, and not just throwing dollars at problems without regard to how much it's helping. Other countries that aren't as wealthy as the US, spend more money on programs for the poor, and have much lower poverty rates.

    Quote Originally Posted by rickdugan View Post
    My 3 kids go to a private school that receives NO federal or state funding, yet I pay a fraction of the $12k per year that is spent on each public school kid. My kids are all top students and my oldest is scoring high on standardized tests, as are many of her classmates. So I am most definitely not buying that theory that more money is the solution on the education front.
    It's my guess that you send your children to Catholic schools, which receive subsidies from the church and religious community. In addition, private schools have some advantages over public schools. Private schools can expel problem students permanently. Since private schools charge a decent amount of money for tuition, their students come from more affluent and educated families, whose children need less attention than children from poor families without well-educated parents.

    There are plenty of school districts that spend far less than $12k per year on each student. In 2014, Oklahoma cut their spending per student to $2,737.
    http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/...nding/2866529/

    Quote Originally Posted by rickdugan View Post
    At some point, we have to start looking at other issues which may serve as root causes of poverty, such as structural disincentives to work and dysfunctional family environments. Blindly throwing gobs of money at education and assistance programs clearly hasn't worked and there is no reason to believe that throwing yet more money at them in the same manner is going to make a meaningful difference.
    Again, I'm not advocating "Blindly throwing gobs of money at education and assistance programs", without regard as to how well they work. For many poor people, some of these programs make the difference between having a roof over their heads and being able to feed their children. There are plenty of people living in poverty who do work, some at two or three jobs. This shouldn't be necessary in this country.
    Last edited by eagle2; 02-04-2016 at 06:17 AM.

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    Default Re: States where the minimum wage will be increasing on Jan. 1

    ^^^also a large percentage of the kids parents, grandparents, teachers, and alumni also donate money to the private schools. Offsetting some of the costs.
    “Cook for him like a housewife, fuck him good like a nympho….pay the rent and the car note, he invests in me like crypto”

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    Default Re: States where the minimum wage will be increasing on Jan. 1

    I'm sorry but increasing the minimum wage is not throwing money at a problem, it is allowing people to have the money to throw at their own problems. Corporations large and small have been subsidized by the gov't in many way, one of which is an artificially low minimum wage, which is made up by taxpayers in the form or various low income programs to allow people to, oh, eat and live indoors while actually working. One cannot simultaneously promote policies that ship all the good paying jobs overseas and tell people that if they want to pay their rent they must get a 'better job'

    I am not sure if 15 an hour is the right number, but less than 8 is not.

    The wealthy are not capable or qualified to make policy. Too many of them and their toadies take the 'let them eat cake' line while focusing on their own problems[do you have any idea what it costs to heat 5 mansions? Oh My!]

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    Default Re: States where the minimum wage will be increasing on Jan. 1

    Eagle, your numbers re: Oklahoma are off. That $2,700 only accounts for the state's contribution. The Oklahoma schools are also funded by property taxes and federal funding. In 2013 (the last reported number), spending per pupil in Oklahoma was over $7,600. And you are right in that, sadly, many school systems spend multiples of that for equally shitty results. It costs a whopping $20,000 per student in NYC and their school outcomes suck ass. Baltimore is not far behind, with similar results.

    By comparison, my kids' private school does the job for less than $5k all in. That is after tuition AND other fundraising activities. I am active in the PTO and I can assure you that there are no special subsidies coming from anywhere else.

    As far as the comments about affordable healthy food options, bullshit. There are plenty of categories of vegetables that are quite cheap and fresh meat is generally less expensive than the processed varieties. If you are on government assistance and you are obese, it is because you are making poor food choices. I have a household of 5 and I can assure you that, if we were limited to the $771 per month max benefit for our household size, we would eat quite well. And all of this doesn't even factor in the plethora of private food banks and soup kitchens that abound in most poverty stricken areas. In fact, in recognition of the obesity problems with our poor, many legislatures are trying to limit the use of SNAP benefits for junk food and I wholeheartedly support these efforts.

    As far as the other stuff, there is always something that could be improved anywhere - you can play that game all day. But the reality here is that our poor are getting food, healthcare, access to very expensive educational services for their children and even clean drinking water (I travel all over the country and drink tap water from hotel faucets in every city I visit). What's next - we send roving groups to help wipe their asses too? Throwing yet more money at these things and expecting different results is folly.

    We need to try something different now. If anything, the generosity of our current system is entrenching a class of poor people, not empowering them. Perhaps instead of making the system even more generous, we need to redirect some of the existing spending in ways that reward people who make real steps towards self sufficiency. Bill Clinton started down that road with welfare reform, but sadly it has been far less effective than originally hoped. We also need to start tackling the other cultural issues and irresponsible choices that continue to entrench the poor, including aggressive hunting down of baby daddies for support (including forcing the mothers to cough up their names) and real incentives for low income people with children to raise their kids in 2 parent homes.
    Last edited by rickdugan; 02-04-2016 at 07:50 AM.

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    Default Re: States where the minimum wage will be increasing on Jan. 1

    Quote Originally Posted by oldster View Post
    I'm sorry but increasing the minimum wage is not throwing money at a problem, it is allowing people to have the money to throw at their own problems. Corporations large and small have been subsidized by the gov't in many way, one of which is an artificially low minimum wage, which is made up by taxpayers in the form or various low income programs to allow people to, oh, eat and live indoors while actually working. One cannot simultaneously promote policies that ship all the good paying jobs overseas and tell people that if they want to pay their rent they must get a 'better job'

    I am not sure if 15 an hour is the right number, but less than 8 is not.

    The wealthy are not capable or qualified to make policy. Too many of them and their toadies take the 'let them eat cake' line while focusing on their own problems[do you have any idea what it costs to heat 5 mansions? Oh My!]
    Oldster, the conversation went sideways and became a broader discussion of wealth transfers (i.e., yet more taxes). If a raise in the minimum wage resulted in increasing labor force participation and reducing the historically unprecedented reliance of our population upon government assistance programs, I might actually be in favor of it.

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    Default Re: States where the minimum wage will be increasing on Jan. 1

    >>>>>>>>As far as the comments about affordable healthy food options, bullshit. There are plenty of categories of vegetables that are quite cheap and fresh meat is generally less expensive than the processed varieties. If you are on government assistance and you are obese, it is because you are making poor food choices.<<<<<

    Rick

    You are correct, all they have to do is hop in their car, drive over to their neighborhood supermarket and buy some fresh veggies.

    Sometimes you have to jump out of your personal life and imagine the situation of others. There are no supermarkets, there is limited public transportation to get to supermarkets. if they are working poor they are not home to monitor their children's food choices. We have not paid to educate them to make good food choices if they even had the ability to make them.


    Your education examples are equally off. Average 12k private secondary school tuition. And obviously they will pick up and drop off the kids in their car on the way to the supermarket. Your other major errors have also been previously noted.

    Get real



    Libertarianism is the polar opposite of Communism and is just as wrong

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    Default Re: States where the minimum wage will be increasing on Jan. 1

    Quote Originally Posted by oldster View Post
    >>>>>>>>As far as the comments about affordable healthy food options, bullshit. There are plenty of categories of vegetables that are quite cheap and fresh meat is generally less expensive than the processed varieties. If you are on government assistance and you are obese, it is because you are making poor food choices.<<<<<

    Rick

    You are correct, all they have to do is hop in their car, drive over to their neighborhood supermarket and buy some fresh veggies.

    Sometimes you have to jump out of your personal life and imagine the situation of others. There are no supermarkets, there is limited public transportation to get to supermarkets. if they are working poor they are not home to monitor their children's food choices. We have not paid to educate them to make good food choices if they even had the ability to make them.


    Your education examples are equally off. Average 12k private secondary school tuition. And obviously they will pick up and drop off the kids in their car on the way to the supermarket. Your other major errors have also been previously noted.

    Get real

    Libertarianism is the polar opposite of Communism and is just as wrong
    Oldster, I've been poor, both in college and yet again when my first attempt at starting a business failed miserably. I have had long stretches where I had to feed two adults on $50 per week. I also had transportation challenges during those times and had to take public transport to do everything from my laundry to shop for groceries (and contrary to your assertions, many of the very poor live in areas with ample public transportation options). I speak very much from personal experience when I talk about this stuff.

    Maybe my perspective is a bit different than your Ivory Tower view not only because I have had to deal with these things myself, but also because I routinely interact with a group of people who face these challenges and many more every day. There are 11+ million undocumented immigrants in this country who cannot access most public assistance, yet manage to work, house themselves, feed themselves and get from place to place, all the while without the obesity problems that our homegrown poor do (largely because they cook and otherwise use their limited food resources much more wisely). These are people who cannot even work legally and get utilities or cars registered in their own names, nevermind access our generous welfare benefits, yet they manage to do all of the above and care for their children too.

    Yet we are not supposed to expect our home grown poor to even get on a bus to buy food or to know the nutritional differences between a candy bar and an apple?

    And my educational examples were provided by the Census Bureau. If anything, they may be understated. See below:
    http://www.governing.com/gov-data/ed...upil-data.html

    So I'll send "get real" back your way.
    Last edited by rickdugan; 02-04-2016 at 10:34 AM. Reason: grammar

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    Default Re: States where the minimum wage will be increasing on Jan. 1

    Quote Originally Posted by rickdugan View Post
    Maybe my perspective is a bit different than your Ivory Tower view not only because I have had to deal with these things myself, but also because I routinely interact with a group of people who face these challenges and many more every day. There are 11+ million undocumented immigrants in this country who cannot access most public assistance, yet manage to work, house themselves, feed themselves and get from place to place, all the while without the obesity problems that our homegrown poor do (largely because they cook and otherwise use their limited food resources much more wisely). These are people who cannot even work legally and get utilities or cars registered in their own names, nevermind access our generous welfare benefits, yet they manage to do all of the above and care for their children too.
    And send money back to wherever they came from.

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    Default Re: States where the minimum wage will be increasing on Jan. 1

    Quote Originally Posted by rickdugan View Post
    Oldster, I've been poor, both in college and yet again when my first attempt at starting a business failed miserably. I have had long stretches where I had to feed two adults on $50 per week. I also had transportation challenges during those times and had to take public transport to do everything from my laundry to shop for groceries (and contrary to your assertions, many of the very poor live in areas with ample public transportation options). I speak very much from personal experience when I talk about this stuff.

    Maybe my perspective is a bit different than your Ivory Tower view not only because I have had to deal with these things myself, but also because I routinely interact with a group of people who face these challenges and many more every day. There are 11+ million undocumented immigrants in this country who cannot access most public assistance, yet manage to work, house themselves, feed themselves and get from place to place, all the while without the obesity problems that our homegrown poor do (largely because they cook and otherwise use their limited food resources much more wisely). These are people who cannot even work legally and get utilities or cars registered in their own names, nevermind access our generous welfare benefits, yet they manage to do all of the above and care for their children too.

    Yet we are not supposed to expect our home grown poor to even get on a bus to buy food or to know the nutritional differences between a candy bar and an apple?

    And my educational examples were provided by the Census Bureau. If anything, they may be understated. See below:
    http://www.governing.com/gov-data/ed...upil-data.html

    So I'll send "get real" back your way.

    So you have been poor?

    you have been where you parents, grandparents, perhaps great grandparents never rose above subsistence?

    you have been without hope of rising above it yourself?

    I don't think you know what poor is

    I have never been poor, but I have been broke. I understand the difference.

    You want to live in a society that does not care for the disadvantaged and does not tax its wealthy, move to Mexico. It is the right wing paradise.

    You opinions reek of bourgeois capitalism, a disease that is far too common in this country.

    Yes you did it, so did I. Does not mean that everyone can, or will, and we need to make accommodations for those who cannot or will not.

    No, the government is rarely the answer, but neither are slave wages


    Unfettered capitalism has never in history worked well.

    we are at wealth ratios unseen since the gilded age, and we are arguing about dollars per hour.

    In the 50's and 60's uneducated men worked hard at good jobs and raised families and bought houses while the wealthy paid quite literally twice the taxes they do now, and growth was staggering.

    The current selfish and short sighted political climate cannot continue unabated.

    Look, I was for welfare reform before it was chic. I cannot stand what unions do to a workplace. But I benefited from their existence in a way that current workers do not.

    If you do not pay people now, you must be prepared for the consequences, either the rise of unions, or people stealing all your stuff.

    I vote for paying people

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    Default Re: States where the minimum wage will be increasing on Jan. 1

    Quote Originally Posted by oldster View Post
    So you have been poor?

    you have been where you parents, grandparents, perhaps great grandparents never rose above subsistence?

    you have been without hope of rising above it yourself?

    I don't think you know what poor is

    I have never been poor, but I have been broke. I understand the difference.

    You want to live in a society that does not care for the disadvantaged and does not tax its wealthy, move to Mexico. It is the right wing paradise.

    You opinions reek of bourgeois capitalism, a disease that is far too common in this country.

    Yes you did it, so did I. Does not mean that everyone can, or will, and we need to make accommodations for those who cannot or will not.

    No, the government is rarely the answer, but neither are slave wages


    Unfettered capitalism has never in history worked well.

    we are at wealth ratios unseen since the gilded age, and we are arguing about dollars per hour.

    In the 50's and 60's uneducated men worked hard at good jobs and raised families and bought houses while the wealthy paid quite literally twice the taxes they do now, and growth was staggering.

    The current selfish and short sighted political climate cannot continue unabated.

    Look, I was for welfare reform before it was chic. I cannot stand what unions do to a workplace. But I benefited from their existence in a way that current workers do not.

    If you do not pay people now, you must be prepared for the consequences, either the rise of unions, or people stealing all your stuff.

    I vote for paying people
    Dude, I mean two garbage bags over my shoulders with all my belongings, no car, a few bucks in my pocket and a rented room in a slum with street walkers strolling past my front door poor. I'm talking about years of sleeping on a mattress on the floor, using a toaster oven and hot plate as my kitchen, and sitting in a bathtub while using a sprayer as my "shower" poor. All of this started a month after I turned 20 and it is what motivated me to become the first person in my family to earn a college degree. I also continue to see and hear about others living this way every day through my wife's family relationships (she is Latina). So spare me the ridiculous " bourgeois" label - there is only one of us speaking about this stuff purely from an academic viewpoint and it ain't me.

    I brought up the comparison of immigrants to our homegrown poor because it is instructive. They get no assistance from our government, grow up in conditions far worse than those that have been experienced even by most our homegrown poor, face challenges doing even the simplest things that we could not even comprehend, yet they all work (they have no choice - it is work or starve) and, as a group, they do a much better job in capitalizing on opportunities than do our homegrown poor. In fact, most of the poor immigrants that I deal with are baffled by the attitudes and issues they see with our homegrown poor and tend to have a very unflattering view of them as a group. Frankly I can understand why. Many of the jobs that these immigrants work wouldn't exist for them if our homegrown poor were willing to do them.

    Now to be clear, I have not advocated taking away social safety nets and I am very much in favor of increasing the minimum wage if it helps to get people back into the labor force.

    But I do object to throwing yet more gobs of money at social programs that are already very generous, yet seem to be doing nothing to tackle poverty, including the problem of generational poverty. In fact, I believe that the way that we currently spend money is actually further entrenching the poor by subsidizing and even rewarding non-production. It is well understand that constructive employment is the road out of poverty, yet how do you convince folks who are receiving food subsidies, housing allowances, SSI payments, other cash assistance payments, and even free medical care, to work if they will lose some or all of those benefits by doing so?

    So if raising the minimum wage will help push the scales towards productive labor, I am all in favor. More than that though, it is time for us take a harder look at what we can do to motivate our homegrown poor to help themselves the way that immigrants do, such as re-configuring our current social programs to reward work and paths to work.

    IMHO we also need some drastic changes on the education front. For starters, we need an education system that faces the reality that not every kid is going to go to college or even should go to college. Yet this is the only path pushed in most school systems. We are graduating tons of kids each year who have neither the scholastic aptitude to make college a serious benefit nor any real world skills. So for many, including many of our poorest kids, High School is one colossal waste of time, which no doubt contributes to high drop out rates in many urban schools as well as the continuation of poverty. Yet all the while, we have a plethora of good paying blue collar jobs in this country for which we lack skilled workers.

    IMHO reducing the number of traditional schools and seriously increasing the number of Vo-Tech schools would help on any number of fronts, including: (1) providing many kids with paths to meaningful work immediately after graduation and, by extension, reducing poverty in a real way; and (2) providing a supply of skilled workers that our industries desperately need, which is good for the economy as a whole. But of course the politics around that are atrocious and it is far easier to approve more gobs of money for meaningless education expenditures than it is to make structural changes that might face stiff resistance from teachers' unions.

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    Default Re: States where the minimum wage will be increasing on Jan. 1

    Quote Originally Posted by oldster View Post
    >>>>>>>>As far as the comments about affordable healthy food options, bullshit. There are plenty of categories of vegetables that are quite cheap and fresh meat is generally less expensive than the processed varieties. If you are on government assistance and you are obese, it is because you are making poor food choices.<<<<<

    Rick

    You are correct, all they have to do is hop in their car, drive over to their neighborhood supermarket and buy some fresh veggies.

    Sometimes you have to jump out of your personal life and imagine the situation of others. There are no supermarkets, there is limited public transportation to get to supermarkets. if they are working poor they are not home to monitor their children's food choices. We have not paid to educate them to make good food choices if they even had the ability to make them.


    Your education examples are equally off. Average 12k private secondary school tuition. And obviously they will pick up and drop off the kids in their car on the way to the supermarket. Your other major errors have also been previously noted.

    Get real



    Libertarianism is the polar opposite of Communism and is just as wrong
    To some extent he is right. A BIG reason for obesity resulting from poor food choices are LIMITED food choices in "Da Ghetto". By and large they do not have supermarkets.
    There is not a single supermarket in the entire city of Detroit. Not one. The same goes for many other poor areas.

    As for educating people about healthy eating we HAVE spent a lot of time and money doing so. It hasn't helped much.

    Charter schools in poor areas have kept up with and even outperformed white suburban and wealthy city school district schools. Money helps but competent and motivated teachers and motivated parents are much more important in boosting student achievement.

    Libertarianism is a belief in limited and EFFECTIVE government. If we need it and it works then a lot of so-called libertarians support it. Airports, highways , the military , police , fire departments etc. etc.

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    Default Re: States where the minimum wage will be increasing on Jan. 1

    Here's the weekly flyer for Aldi on Mack Ave in Detroit. Some pretty good produce and meat deals if you ask me and, since they are a discount grocer, even their normal prices tend to be a lot lower than even the standard supermarket chains.

    http://weeklyads.aldi.us/Aldi/Browse...tionViewMode=1

    I'm guessing that they have the same deals running at the Gratiot Ave location in, you guessed it, Detroit MI.

    Oh, and lest I forget, the Mack Ave location is serviced by the 031 bus and the Gratiot location by the 017 bus. In case anyone is posting here from Detroit, is reliant upon public transportation and feels like they do not have access to fresh meat and produce at competitive prices.

    This was 5 minutes of my time doing a quick and dirty search. I'm sure I could have come up with a lot more (some decent neighborhood stores, farmers markets, etc.) if I really tried. There are also Aldi locations on the northern (Highland Park) and Eastern (Lincoln Park) outskirts that are also serviced by buses from Detroit proper. And since Detroit is widely reputed to be the most extreme example of this issue, I don't buy this excuse pretty much anywhere.

    LATER EDIT: OK, I couldn't help myself. It seems that Save-a-lot has a few stores rather close to downtown. Below is the circular. Some good meat deals and tons of produce specials.

    http://save-a-lot.com/weeklyad?store_code=24091
    Last edited by rickdugan; 02-05-2016 at 01:19 PM. Reason: just adding

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    Default Re: States where the minimum wage will be increasing on Jan. 1

    Taking the bus to the grocery story isn't always the best option for poor families. For one thing, if they don't have some type of monthly pass for public transportation, taking the bus cost money. If the family is already spending all of their money on food, clothing, and housing, they're not going to want to use their limited funds for taking the bus, if there is a corner store they can walk to. There is also the time and effort of walking to the bus stop, waiting for the bus, taking it to the supermarket, and then carrying all of the bags to the bus and home from the bus, vs walking to the corner store down the street.

    Here's more on why many poor people don't have a healthy life-style:

    From:
    http://www.scholarsstrategynetwork.o...-long-problems

    Why the Risk of Obesity is Greater for the Poor

    Eating right and engaging in regular physical activity are decisions all individuals in America can make to lower the risk of obesity and associated health problems. But of course the choices made by children and adolescents are strongly affected by the family and community environments in which they live. Impoverished living conditions matter especially for the young, because they throw up many barriers to engaging in healthy behaviors.

    Poor families have limited food budgets and choices, and must often stretch supplies toward the end of the month, before another check or allocation of Food Stamps arrives. This leads to unhealthy behaviors in several ways:

    Families choose high-fat foods dense with energy – foods such as sugars, cereals, potatoes and processed meat products – because these foods are more affordable and last longer than fresh vegetables and fruits and lean meats and fish.

    Poor families often live in disadvantaged neighborhoods where healthy foods are hard to find. Instead of large supermarkets, poor neighborhoods have a disproportionate number of fast food chains and small food stores providing cheap, high-fat foods.

    Economic insecurity – such as trouble paying bills or rent – leads to stress, and people often cope by eating high-fat, sugary foods.

    Options for regular physical activity can also be restricted for poor people:

    Families cannot usually afford to pay for organized children’s activities outside of school – and schools in impoverished areas are less likely to run sports or physical activity programs than schools with more resources.

    Due to inflexible work schedules, lack of transportation, or unmet needs for child care, poor parents, especially single mothers, may find it hard to support extra activities for their children. Leaving kids in front of the TV is often all stressed poor parents can manage.

    In many poor neighborhoods, parks, playgrounds, trails, and free public gyms are often not available or safe. Neighborhoods may be crime-ridden, and there may be no nearby indoor places for play or exercise. Ironically, parental efforts to keep kids safe and indoors may increase encourage sedentary behaviors such as watching TV and playing video games.

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    Default Re: States where the minimum wage will be increasing on Jan. 1

    E2, being poor is not a good situation, that is for sure. That is why I strongly favor the earned income tax credit (EITC). It assures every person who is willing to work that they can not only work, but make a livable wage, once the tax credit check arrives in the mail. Frankly, I favor expanding the EITC. The EITC is a much better method of reducing poverty than raising the minimum wage which will only raise costs for employers and perhaps have other adverse effects.

    HTH
    Z

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    Default Re: States where the minimum wage will be increasing on Jan. 1

    McDonald's and Walmart have both increased investment in employee wages and training, and they're seeing an improvement in customer satisfaction scores. Walmart is also seeing increased sales and traffic.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/walma...ployees-2016-5

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    Default Re: States where the minimum wage will be increasing on Jan. 1

    Quote Originally Posted by eagle2 View Post
    McDonald's and Walmart have both increased investment in employee wages and training, and they're seeing an improvement in customer satisfaction scores. Walmart is also seeing increased sales and traffic.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/walma...ployees-2016-5
    Net income is down, EPS down. Increases in customer satisfaction? I rarely shop at WMT, but the last time I was in there, half the lights were burned out and the aisles were blocked with product on the floors. Fixing the lights and cleaning up their dumpy stores would increase customer satisfaction.

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    Default Re: States where the minimum wage will be increasing on Jan. 1

    Quote Originally Posted by eagle2 View Post
    McDonald's and Walmart have both increased investment in employee wages and training, and they're seeing an improvement in customer satisfaction scores. Walmart is also seeing increased sales and traffic.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/walma...ployees-2016-5
    Both also made changes to their product offerings too, which likely had something to do with it. Walmart brought back certain items that they had discontinued and lowered prices further on a number of items and McD's went to an all day breakfast format that has been quite popular and has increased store traffic. So let's be cautious in trying to draw simplistic cause and effect illustrations between employee pay and customer satisfaction.

    I can tell you one cause and effect scenario that is assured, which is that places like McD and many others are going to start replacing employees with kiosks and other automation if the likes of Sanders get their way and jam up the minimum wage to $15 per hour. Fast food and retail sector jobs were never intended to be long-term paths to economic prosperity, but rather stepping stone jobs for teens and other young folks and as well as secondary sources of income for people who were seeking jobs with scheduling flexibility, such as students, mothers with school age children and retirees. If we make every basic retail employee that much more expensive, then there will be far fewer of them when it all shakes out. The economics simply will not support it - many of these retailers are already running on slim margins. Even WMT took a sizable hit to EPS when they raised there minimum pay even by a small amount.

    Anyway, just my

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    Default Re: States where the minimum wage will be increasing on Jan. 1

    Quote Originally Posted by rickdugan View Post
    Both also made changes to their product offerings too, which likely had something to do with it. Walmart brought back certain items that they had discontinued and lowered prices further on a number of items and McD's went to an all day breakfast format that has been quite popular and has increased store traffic. So let's be cautious in trying to draw simplistic cause and effect illustrations between employee pay and customer satisfaction.

    I can tell you one cause and effect scenario that is assured, which is that places like McD and many others are going to start replacing employees with kiosks and other automation if the likes of Sanders get their way and jam up the minimum wage to $15 per hour. Fast food and retail sector jobs were never intended to be long-term paths to economic prosperity, but rather stepping stone jobs for teens and other young folks and as well as secondary sources of income for people who were seeking jobs with scheduling flexibility, such as students, mothers with school age children and retirees. If we make every basic retail employee that much more expensive, then there will be far fewer of them when it all shakes out. The economics simply will not support it - many of these retailers are already running on slim margins. Even WMT took a sizable hit to EPS when they raised there minimum pay even by a small amount.

    Anyway, just my
    You have been proven correct on BOTH counts. McDonald's and other fast food chains are going to automated ordering.

    Seattle was studied , TWICE , to see the effects of a $13 Minimum wage. According to Jacob Vigdor and his colleagues at the University Of Washington ( hardly a hot bed of free market economics btw ). First when the minimum wage went to $11 an hour in April , 2015 the low-wage job market did not experience any major or noticeable effects. But when it was increased to $13 an hour in January , 2016 there was a reduction in the number of low-wage jobs. Hours worked at low-wage jobs dropped 9 %. Vigdor admitted that he and other academics were surprised that the drop in jobs and hours worked resulted in a LOSS OF INCOME of $125 per month per worker.

    Vigdor had the integrity and intellectual honesty to look at the rest of Washington where the minimum wage had not been dramatically increased. There were NO Changes.

    The problem is that most businesses that employ large numbers of low wage workers : restaurants , hotels , retail etc. have very narrow margins. They simply can't afford a $13 hourly wage without cutting back somewhere else.

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