Tiered minimum wage?

Not necessary...most minimum wage jobs are FOR non-high school graduates anyways. There's no reason to have any qualification system for minimum wage and really, no reason to raise it. Working at these jobs are not permament arrangements, not intended for or used for raising a family (mostly kids looking for their first job or a summer job and retired people looking for something to do take the jobs) and it would actually hurt the entire US economy to raise the min wage. It would force the employers and businesses to raise prices to make up for their lost profits from the government-mandated payroll expense. McDonald's wouldn't pay for the rate hike, their customers would. Also, it would make a lot of employers have to cut the number of minimum wage employees they can afford to keep, so the "feel good" political tactic of raising the minimum wage would end up puttting a lot of the people they want to help out of work instead. We haven't even gotten into the higher-paid employees' demands of raises to stay the same "value" ahead of the kids at the counter or cleaning the windows.

If you have ANY skills at all, you can do better than a minimum wage job. Sure there are a lot of kids having babies, but they better not be relying on burger-flipping to support the child.

I agree with all of this... except the bolded part. Salary inflation in the country has been about 2-3% per year over the last 7 years. Over that time, the minimum wage has not been raised, not even to adjust for inflation. So speaking in relative terms, the working poor have lost value to the higher paid employees. To be truly fair, we should give minimum wage a boost to make up for 7 years of inflation. I don't think minimum wage should be raised in that min wage employees should have more money in their pockets, but they certainly shouldn't have less than they did 7 years ago, which is exactly what happens when the wage doesn't keep pace with inflation. A 14.8% boost in the min wage would put employees on the same footing as they were 7 years ago, assuming inflation was 2% per year.

But you are right, minimum wage is not intended to support a family, and it should not be expected by anyone to do so.

Education should not drive the level of minimum wage. Think about it, if you're McDonalds and you need to hire cashiers, are you going to hire the ones that cost $9.00 an hour or the ones that cost $7.00 an hour?

It doesn't take a high school education to work a cashier at McDonalds, so they're going to hire the cheaper labor.

Besides, education is a means to an end, not an end in and of itself. Education is designed to give you more skills, which makes you a more desireable employee. But if you come out of high school without any skills, you're still no more deserving than the guy who dropped out and doesn't have any skills.

You also must leave room for people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Some high school dropouts work their ass off and gain skills, and move up the old fasioned way.

I thought of a similiar point on my drive back to work. It would be difficult to prevent a company from employing "education level" discrimination. Why hire the hs grad when I can pay the 6th grade education guy a lesser rate?

Minimum wage may be a joke and also intended as a launch pad for teenagers but many adults earn minimum wage. Given their circumstances (single parent, medical problems, etc) their opportunity to further enhance their skill set or education is nigh impossible.

I'd rather have an increase in minimum wage instead of unlimited duration of welfare payments.

As I said, it's not INTENDED to be.

Personally I think it should be, or at least a lot closer to being a livable wage than it is now.

I've had a lot of 2 cents lately, why not another?

The reason for minimum wage is not to prevent people from being exploited by thier employers. The real reason is to get votes.

Having a minimum wage hurts the economy, by increasing the amount of unemployment. Bottomline: people will not take a job that's not worth the work. If there's a low paying job and there are people who are willing to work it -- why prevent that, even if the wage is lower than what some people think is acceptable? Minimum wage is a product of the employment market (much like all other markets). Setting it artificially high just means that companies cannot/will not employ as many people as they would like to.

One could make a (weak) argument that a person earning more is happier and thus production increases. An increase in production yields greater output which could lower consumer costs.

Also, the people now earning more money have more spending power on luxury items (cars, electronics, etc) which increases overall revenue.

I've had a lot of 2 cents lately, why not another?



Having a minimum wage hurts the economy, by increasing the amount of unemployment. Bottomline: people will not take a job that's not worth the work.
this statement drives me up a wall. let me see, i can take a job, and try to bust my tail. make my life better. or i can live off the system, and be one of the millions that live off the fat of the U.S. government, and complain about the crappy hand that i have been dealt. i worked 2 jobs for over 2 years. doesnt anyone have pride in their work habits anymore?

I've had a lot of 2 cents lately, why not another?

The reason for minimum wage is not to prevent people from being exploited by thier employers. The real reason is to get votes.

Having a minimum wage hurts the economy, by increasing the amount of unemployment. Bottomline: people will not take a job that's not worth the work. If there's a low paying job and there are people who are willing to work it -- why prevent that, even if the wage is lower than what some people think is acceptable? Minimum wage is a product of the employment market (much like all other markets). Setting it artificially high just means that companies cannot/will not employ as many people as they would like to.

Jacking up minimum wage does hurt the economy, but if people are working in jobs that can't even put a roof over their head or food on the table, they will begin to resort to crime.

It doesn't take a genius to realize why crime is so bad in our inner cities. The people there are poor and will resort to drugs, prostitution, theft, etcetera to make a decent living. The more people living below the poverty line, the more people will commit crimes.

You have a few ways of dealing with this: beef up the police force to try to deter crime, jack up the minimum wage so more people don't need to resort to crime, or offer welfare benefits to keep people from resorting to crime. No matter which method you employ, they all cost money. And really, you need a balance of all three.

It costs the economy, but that's the price of doing business, unless you want to have crime in our inner cities like in Mexico City. You think it's bad in NY or Philly, try heading down there.

To add, there should be no excuse to commit crimes if you have a minimum wage job right now. The minimum wage is currently set at a level that makes life livable (though not comfortably). But it won't be that way for long, unless they do something to keep minimum wage on pace with inflation growth.

I take issue with those who say it should be jacked up to a more comfortable level. NO. Minimum wage is not supposed to be comfortable. It should provide the BARE essentials to help you get by: shelter, food, water, heat.

But if you want it to provide even the bare minimum, it needs to keep pace with inflation.

DOL WHD: Minimum Wage Laws in the States (http://www.dol.gov/esa/minwage/america.htm)

Over half of the states (and the District) in the Union have their state minimum wage set higher than the Federal law. And this is the level it should be at. The state should be able to take into consideration what bare minimum is for their area, and set it appropriately.

DOL WHD: Minimum Wage Laws in the States (http://www.dol.gov/esa/minwage/america.htm)

Over half of the states (and the District) in the Union have their state minimum wage set higher than the Federal law. And this is the level it should be at. The state should be able to take into consideration what bare minimum is for their area, and set it appropriately.

Yes. But taking that even further, many states have not increased their own minimum wages over the last seven years. So even though they have a geographical adjustment for cost of living built into their minimum wage, they don't increase it for inflation every year.