Good lord, this is the most stark portrayal I’ve seen of this.
Holy crap, over nine years?
I haveto reblog something like this. This is actually a very good argument for why the minimum wage needs to be raised.
Why do we say minimum wage needs to be raised?
Why aren’t we asking how to bring down the cost of food/education/health care instead?
Why is our generation’s first response to a crisis “Give me more money”?
I don’t want people to be poor. But, I don’t understand why we’re supposed to just accept higher food costs and higher health care costs, and at the same time demand to be paid more by our employers, who are also incurring increases in insurance costs, rising oil prices, vehicle maintenance, etc. Businesses are already being forced to pay more money for everything required to operate their business.
And don’t play the “evil corporations have enough money, they’re just greedy” card. The big conglomerates like WalMart, McDonald’s, Home Depot, Microsoft — yeah, they can afford to take that hit. But most businesses can’t.
Small businesses can’t afford it. Small businesses go out of business when you raise minimum wage. Unemployment rises. Without small business competing with big businesses, those evil corporations you hate so much automatically win. The small businesses keep the United States running, and they keep small towns employed. They keep the economy competitive.
But raising minimum wage shuts them down. Big businesses will survive. Small businesses will not. It hurts our economy, and only benefits big business by shutting down their smaller competitors.
This is simple. When raising the minimum wage, you ensure only the wealthiest businesses survive. Small business dies. Entrepreneurs suffer.
My aunt currently works for a small pizzeria, and the cost of operation is skyrocketing thanks to rising food costs. If we raise minimum wage, we know that she will be getting laid off, or worse, the entire business will go under.
We’re asking the wrong questions. The question should not be “Why aren’t people giving me more money?!” … the question should be: “Why is the cost of living rising?” and “What can I do about it?”
FYI, this is coming from a person who has lived in poverty most of his life. I will not go into my full family history, but we’ve never been higher than “low-middle class”. I do not want, or feel I have the right, to suddenly start demanding people pay me more money. I want the cost of living to go down. I’m not greedy, and I’m not looking for the quick simple solution of “give me more money!!” We should be able to survive on a somewhat low income…. but we can’t. I think that needs to be fixed before we demand more cash for menial jobs.
And that’s my unpopular opinion of the day!
I’m going to agree, and disagree with you Mando.
You’re right, rising costs in necessities is ludicrous, and much of it is simply because of greed (why charge less for things people actually need, tends to be the trend there)
However, I respectfully disagree on your argument against raising the minimum wage.
As I understand it, the base minimum wage in the US is below the poverty line. This is just plain wrong, and it’s effect is obvious, people working ridiculous hours, holding down multiple jobs etc, just to try scrape together enough to get by.
This has a big flow-on effect, since people don’t have money to spend, they won’t, local business suffers, people lose work, cycle repeats.
Many other countries have much higher minimum wages than the US, and they’re doing fine, or in many cases, much better than the US.The issue is a complex one, because it’s been built over decades, it’s something that will really require a radical restructure of how the US economy works, but unfortunately, I don’t see it happening any time soon.
TL;DR: it’s not one thing that’s broken, it’s everything.
Also it has a lot to do with inflation, which the minimum wage has NOT kept up with very well.
Of course, silly me. I completely forgot that point.