[QUOTE=AlphaFrog]
Not to mention, but if you can barely afford food, then why are you going for the most expensive gallon of milk? And why are you going to the movie theater when you can rent the movie for way cheaper when it comes out on video?

I'm making $8 at one job, and $10 at the other. I work a total of maybe 3 days a week. I could survive on my own if I didn't have a car, insurance, paid for BC and a pretty expensive phone bill every month. I could probably have a decent apartment with a roomate, maybe nothing special to it, but a roof over my head and a job that I can work my way up on or just get experience for another job. If you're making minimum wage, or around what I'm making (which amounts to horsecrap) maybe you should skip out on that $8 movie and buy yourself a $1something gallon of milk. It's all about budgeting wisely.

Aldi's = broke person's best friend.

Unless that movie is Snakes on a Plane, in which case it's totally okay.

WOOOOO SoaP!

AlphaFrog has already explained why you're totally wrong here, but I'll go into more detail.

Prices are set by the provider. The provider is a company. The first priority for any company has to be to make a profit, whether it be for shareholders, employee-owners or simply to pay salaries etc.

Raising wages significantly increases cost, which reduces profits, which leads to higher prices. Because the first dollar you earn is SIGNIFICANTLY more important than the last dollar you earn, these additional dollars in turn hurt people who make less money. You're taxing the semi-poor to pay the possibly poor (or the young, or the governmentally-assisted, or etc.).

Many seniors are also past retirement age, and already qualify for governmental assistance. Also, if you can show me a study where raising the minimum wage any reasonable amount (say, to $7/hr) would alleviate all drug-related ills among the elderly, I'll run with this argument - however, this problem is NOT a minimum-wage issue.

Also, this would be subject to market correction if seniors would a.) keep working the jobs they retired from, b.) utilized their collective power in organizations such as the AARP (seniors are NOT getting screwed in this country; they're the most overrepresented group on Earth) or c.) actually used the programs available, and didn't cheat them.

I get why this is your clarion call, but it's a touchy-feely argument that essentially amounts to BS under scrutiny.

In your state, why were these people cut from TennCare? Did they . . . no longer meet the requirements? Meaning . . . they earned too much?

Again, this is a feel-good argument that doesn't address the actual point: raising minimum wage may not help their 'buying power', and will significantly hurt those in the next tier(s) above them.

I did learn from Hurricane Katrina - I learned that it was a catastrophe, and using it as a bizarre strawman in an unrelated argument is pretty distasteful. You're distorting the issue for emotional effect - grow up.

Maybe, instead of 'protecting the rich', they're simply not favoring a very small part of society at the expense of an equally large segment (if not larger)?

Also, insinuating that this is purely a Republican problem is pretty short-sighted - both sides have attempted to tack increases onto non-related bills to kill them, it's a bipartisan effort, my friend.

This is only true in situations where one person is providing for multiple people - the poverty line for an individual is under $10,000, and 40 hours of $5.25/hr for 50 weeks is just over 10k. If you add a child, sure, it jumps to just over $13,000 - however, I don't think you want to really argue that scenario, lest ktsnake get all "down with social welfare programs" on your ass.

I'm a Republican. I'm far from rich. I believe that I have a right to earn what I keep. I don't understand why the money I make to support myself has to go to support other people so they can buy food, clothes, Nikes, Ipods and designer handbags. Why is it my job to earn money for them? I don't think anyone is entitled to health care just because they're a walking, breathing person. I honestly don't think anyone is entitled to anything just because they're a walking, breathing person. If you want services or products, go earn money and pay for them.

/Black sheep from a liberal family
/I take it back. I'm not espousing Republican views. I'm just really cheap.

What is a "higher skilled job"? Is it a Marketing Manager or a CEO or is it a Plumber or Electrician?

I don't know what it's like in the US, but here in Canada, everyone and their mother goes to University, to get that degree that will give them "higher skills", but those degrees are a dime a dozen. I know so many people that have done a B.Comm thinking they were going into the world of high financing and would be starting at a 6 figure salary. Instead, they work as a bank teller making $25,000 a year.
However, we are really desperate for skilled trades people like Plumbers and Electricians and Masons. Jobs many people think are for the lower classes, where workers don't make any money. In fact, these are the people that are making the money.

I can attest to this. Licenced plumbers make probably as much as most people with a BS or BA (or in a lot of cases, more). The trade off is working hard labor for the rest of your life.

Eek I didn't mean that a person has to go to college to be skilled. I believe that plumbers and welders and the like are skilled. They must go to trade schools or learn on the job training. I believe that "unskilled" would be places like fast food joints and the like.
On the other hand my bf is working as a trained phlebotomist (to pay for med school) and he works with blood and hazardous materials everyday and he only makes $7/ hour.

You obviously don't know many people or are an elitist that doesn't properly socialize. OK has one of the highest rates of people working for minimum wage. Almost all of those people fall below the poverty line.

And if you think that people who work for minimum wage don't contribute to society, you are sorely mistaken. Every restaurant would close, since many of those people work for less than minimum wage. The orderlies at the hospital would be gone, and I don't think that doctors would be willing to sully their hands with taking out the trash... Most jobs that are neccessary for society to keep going are minimum wage jobs. Hell, half the teachers I know have to take a less than minimum wage job just to live over the poverty line.

Minimum wage should be raised. Most small and medium businesses I've worked at pay far over minimum wage, while it's the big business box stores that pay the bare minimum. Walmart is reporting record profits, while their employees are barely making over 5.25 and are losing benefits.

Waitresses make make less then min BASE PAY, but I've waitressed before. Unless you're a crappy waitress, you make a pretty good hourly when you add in the tips. Kitchen staff also make more then min. wage.

I doubt there are ANY hospitals that pay ANY of their employees min. wage.

Name a few, besides the ones I've already told you aren't true.

There is no such thing as a "less then min. wage job" for anyone with a legal SSN.

I worked at Walmart in Highschool five years ago and I made $6.50 an hour. Fulltime employees make more then that, plus the benefits aren't as crappy as people like to make you think they are.

Most hospitals here in OK do pay min. wage for the janitorial/kitchen staff. Wait staff makes less than min. wage and shouldn't have to rely on tips as the rednecks here in OK don't usually know how to tip, the restaurant should pay minimum wage not pass the cost to the customers. Unless you've been to a cooking school, most kitchen staff makes min. wage. And as I already pointed out, waitresses make less than min. wage. Walmart might pay more in your area, however people I know, stockers and cashiers, make 5.25 full time and hardly have benefits.

It's going to get passed to the customer seither way.

FOR CHRIST'S SAKE...NO ONE WITH A LEGAL SSN MAKES LESS THEN MIN. WAGE!!

Restaruants are hardly going to change their compensation policies at this point in the game, and even if they did, they'll just pass the cost on, your $8 burger would now cost $10...so what's the freaking difference?? My husband has never been to cooking school, but cooks in a restaurant and makes decent money.

Walmart's benefits are universal. They couldn't offer more benefits to one store's employees then another stores. And their rate of pay matches the cost of living vs. skill level for that part of the country.

Why the personal attacks? Doesn't properly socialize? What do you mean? It's true that I don't really socialize with people who aren't of a similar background as myself. I think that's true of most people. Do you want me to go make some poor 'friends' so that I can claim that I properly socialize?

Your second sentence is as ridiculous as your first. I don't care how many people here receive minimum wage. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Oklahoma has about 4% of its population working at or below minimum wage. This of course can be largely attributed to the fact that in Oklahoma, waiters and waitresses almost without exception work for $2.35/hr. The rest of their salary is tips. In other words, if these are the stats you're relying on, they're extremely misleading.

Maybe we have too many unskilled workers? How would raising the minimum wage help our economy and help those people? I get it -- we just throw money at the problem, pay our lowest-skilled workers another couple of bucks per hour, and the problem goes away, right?

Your contentions are simply false insofar as I know. I don't know anyone at a hospital who receives minmum wage. I've already explained how your information regarding restaurant staffs was misleading. The businesses have the right to offer as much or as little as is needed to keep the positions filled and the quality of employees at a tolerable level. People who earn minimum wage have a world of options open to them. Framing houses, roof work, pouring concrete, janitorial services -- these jobs are all readily available, and they all pay well above minimum wage.

Wal-Mart doesn't even pay minimum wage. Here in Oklahoma, in a place where the cost of living about the lowest you'll find, even Wal-Mart pays at least $6.50 if not $7.00/hr to its employees. Even so, the minimum wage earners in those kinds of jobs are easily interchangable, they have no real value to the company, so why should the company be forced to pay more for the employee than the employee is worth?

Shouldn't the burden be on the employee to improve their worth??