Quote:Let me ask this:


What's wrong with raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour?  Which is what most are looking for.  And would make a real difference for most minimum wage earners (of which the median age is 28)

 

Nobody is advocating a $30.00/an hour minimum wage, and only few want to raise it to $15.00/hour.  Many jobs don't make $60k/year.


Take my wife for example.  She's a high school teacher, and has been for 7 years.  She's not even making $50k/year.  She wasn't even making $40k/year her first year.   There are a lot of jobs that don't make anywhere near $60k/year, and aren't minimum wage jobs.  I know that my job doesn't make that much either.  (And we live in one of the areas for WORST cost of living.)


With minimum wage at what it is now, that's (assuming 40 hour weeks, 52 weeks a year) $15k/year.  

Raise it to $10.10/year and it becomes $21k/year

 

That raises people's standards of living, and those making minimum wage are going to pump more money into the economy.  Because those who are making the least, are going to spend the money they get.  (This is simple economics).  


$21k/year is far more livable, and a totally reasonable wage.  (It would still put you above the poverty threshold for a family of 3) 

A lot of non-minimum wage workers make less than $60k/year.  Quadrupling the minimum wage would kill the economy and cause inflation.  Raising it to $10.10 would not.  

 

It all has the same effect just on different scales. I used 60k a year to drive that point home. Raising the minimum wage to 21k a year doesn't change the situation for people on minimum wage, at that level of pay you're either a dependent of someone else or you need welfare to survive. Making the pay floor 5k more a year isn't changing any of that. The people on minimum wage have to figure out a way to increase their income that's simple economics, the reality is any job paying minimum wage was never designed to be a living wage.

 

Why is $7.75 an hour a gross injustice of this world and $10.10 a practical living wage? Because $10.10 sounds good? You think someone can support a family on $10.10 without help?

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