It depends... What exactly are you saying here? Are you talking about minimum wage laws or am I looking too far into it?

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Yes.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Well, minimum wage and responsibility. People are responsible for their own lives, actions, and the consequences of their actions. Speaking of consequences, they are also responsible for the lives they bring into this world until their children are at an age where they can become independent (according to the law it's 18 but responsibility and maturity varies by each individual). Sure, mistakes happen but people should own up to their mistakes.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Well, I don't think working two full time jobs at 3$ an hour and not being able to feed your family means you're irresponsible.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Having children when you can't support them is an irresponsible thing to do. It is still not the responsibility of your employer to raise them. There's no shame in asking for help; there are plenty of well-off people who would voluntarily help provide your children with necessities they need but to push it onto society and say that society owes you higher wages just because you had children is wrong.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

If the system were to change, there would be people who were able to support the children before but cannot now, that is not irresponsible. If you didn't have children and couldn't afford to feed yourself, that's still not irresponsible. If you're saying society doesn't owe you higher wages because you have children, then I agree. I thought this was about min. wage laws.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

All I'm saying is that in the long run, minimum wage does nothing but move everything to a different price. People (who still have jobs) get paid more but prices of everything else also rise until eventually, everything evens out as though there is no minimum wage at all. $7.25 becomes the new $0 [inflation]. Then of course we have to factor in all sorts of other variables going on at the same time. The economy is a very sensitive natural process and when a government starts tweaking with it, it doesn't properly function. So of course any sudden change in regulation will cause a serious disruption.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

So what you're saying is what people get payed should depend on the economy which would determine the amount of pay they deserve, like the price/value of everything else?

by Anonymous 11 years ago

What people get paid is (or should be) determined by what rate they're willing to work. The reason employers would pay $5/hour to say, sweep a floor, is because there would be someone willing to do it for that price. It's a piece of cake job.. who wouldn't? If I come along and tell the employer I'll do it for $2.50/hour, then the employer will lower the wage for that specific job. But of course, I have skills beyond floor sweeping so why would I do that when I could make more doing a higher skilled job? People don't think business owners recognize hard workers but they do. Employers want the very best employees and they'll do what they can to keep the best. Like I said, the economy is a natural process. It's not just about money, it's about how humans interact with one another. It applies to all human activity and desire to live. Take the people you're friends with for example... Why are you friends with them? Probably because they provide you with something you need: acceptance, laughter, conversations, the list goes on. They provide you with something good and you do the same to them. This is considered a fair trade and it requires no government involvement to work.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Hm. This. This could work.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

It's an employee's responsibility to make himself employable. BUT it is an employer's responsibility to ensure that his workers can live solely off the money they are paid if it's a full-time job, that is, he doens't have the time for an alternative source.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

No, it's an employer's responsibility to provide a product to his customers at the cheapest price possible so he can stay competitive. That is it. The employer doesn't have to hire anyone at all if the employer doesn't want to [but he can produce and sell more products if he does]. The employer also doesn't have to have a business, but that wouldn't make him an employer would it? The employer is also not responsible for the employee's cost of living. Ideally, the employer puts out an offer to pay potential employees such and such amount to do such and such tasks. If nobody wants to work for the amount he offered then they don't have to apply. If nobody applies, the employer will realize his offer is too low and will raise it to a price that people will be willing to work. Government regulation steps in and tells the employer he must give a "minimum wage". This minimum wage forces the employer to lay off employees and combine tasks to current employees, making their jobs more stressful.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

strictly speaking semantics, a business person has to provide a product. An employer to run a profitable business with low employee turnover should pay their employee a reasonable salary in order for them to remain happy and remain loyal good business = ethical business also under the declaration of human rights they kind of have to Article 3. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person. Article 23. (1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. (2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work. (3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection. (4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

In an ideal world, no minimum wage would work. However, you are saying if an employer offers too low of an amount, no one will work for him an that's not the case because people who need money will work for any money if they HAVE to. And if there was no minimum wage, thu wouldn't just be one employer, it would be a vast majority, causing people to have to work for a wage they can't live on.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

It's a pretty big assumption that people would be forced to work for low wages but let's go by your example and assume that everyone did make low wages. **What that means for the business:** Less labor costs, therefore cheaper overall costs of the product. It also means labor is allocated more efficiently because the business wouldn't have to pay someone $7 for a task that's worth $4. **What that means for the employees:** First, remember that employees are also consumers. Low wages means an overall low income among consumers. Low income means that consumers can't afford high priced goods (like how I can't afford a yacht). **Back to the business side:** Businesses have to offer a price that people can afford to pay for the product. Since people's incomes are lower, the price of products would be lower. Therefore the "cost of living" would decrease along with working wages. It's basic economics. I put quotes around the cost of living because it varies. What is the 'cost of living' to you?

by Anonymous 11 years ago

There are services that exist that need unskilled workers, people working in amusement parks, fast food places, garbage men. People would take these jobs even if they paid less than that needed to live just to have some sort of income, to be able to help themselves at all. These are the people that deserve to be able to support a family and what they would be paid without minimum wage laws wouldn't be enough to do so.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

I would hope that these people would be glad to be making an income at all and while they're doing it, they can search for higher paying jobs when they become available. Like I asked in my comment above, what determines the cost of living? I don't want to generalize here, but some people are willing to give up the conveniences and luxuries that society tells people they need (when they don't) and live off of the bare minimum. There are tons of options out there to saving money. Perhaps instead of trying to raise the minimum wage, we should put efforts into educating people on how they can live cheaper lifestyles; we should educate people on only buying what they need because I know an outrageous number of people who are struggling with money yet they're living completely out of their means. Give up eating out. Give up the 3 bed, 2 bath home. Parents and kids can share a one bedroom home with one bathroom, believe it or not. The problem is people don't want to give up these luxuries. People aren't willing to add a little inconvenience and discomfort to their lives in order to save money.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

And why should they have to? Don't wish anything on someone else that you don't want for yourself? Why would we continue to lower the quality of living when we can ultimately raise it for everyone? The problem with your model of thinking is that's when the wealthy can really create monopolies in everything and that's when it can get dangerous

by Anonymous 11 years ago

//Why should they have to?// **Because they can’t afford it.** And personally, I don’t ever //want// a big house or a bunch of material possessions that will supposedly enhance my life and make me happier. If the occasion comes along that I do want something, I set a goal and find a way to obtain it. Standard of living varies from person to person but one fact remains the same: If you want more, you have to work more. If you’re not willing to work more, then lower your standard of living. And I don’t mean work as in how many more hours you spend at your job. I mean work as in figure out what you need to do to achieve your standard of living. If it means finding a higher paying job, then find a higher paying job. If you don’t have the skills for a higher paying job then find a way to obtain them. Stop telling yourself you can’t because if you try your whole life trying to obtain a higher standard of living but never get there, then **at least you died trying**. At least you made an effort and didn’t sit around like a pathetic piece of crap, crying because some people have more stuff than you. Successful people aren’t successful because they gave up.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

The reason I have this //model of thinking// (something I consider to be a good attitude) is because I have a strong work ethic. I’m satisfied with any job I do no matter what it is or how much it pays because it makes me a productive member of society. I am also confident in my ability to prove to my employers that I am worth more than the minimum wage that they offer. If they fail to realize it, I’ll take my time and skills and move on to somebody who can see what I’m worth. It seems that your idea is that businesses consist of some lowly workers commanded by a fat guy in a suit who smokes cigars and tries to think of ways to take advantage of other people. Sure there are unethical businesses out there just as there are unethical people, but it's up to the people who support the business (**the consumers**) to regulate. Boycotting is the biggest threat to any business and **it works**!

by Anonymous 11 years ago

It's a mentality like yours—the mentality that people can't do anything for themselves is what creates this stigma that there's always some rich guy bringing everybody down. Instead of striving to create a better standard of living for themselves, people lobby big brother government to redistribute the wealth from those awful greedy bastards into the hands of the poor who are sad because someone else has more useless material possessions than them. Don’t even start talking about monopolies. Do you realize the government creates monopolies and prevents private companies from competing?

by Anonymous 11 years ago

I'm coming from this mindset from business that I learn at school where ultimately you wanna make the most amount of money, which is the bottom number. I have no problem with a strong work ethic and I support that, but by saying that those who do well for themselves do so through hard work is great, but then we tend to assume those who don't do well is because they don't work hard which is false. Poverty is not a failure of the individual it is a failure of society not providing resources for everyone to succeed. And statistically speaking you tend to stay in the socio-economic class you grew up in because you are given a certain amount of resources to reach "x destination". And again the point of a job is to provide for yourself and to provide a means for who you deem family and/or are financially rely on you. I'm not talking about luxuries, you can live as luxurious or modest as you choose to, but how you personally feel shouldn't determine how everyone else should live. and I'll reiterate I am a big fan of working hard and trying to achieve the best version of you that you can and be as successful as you can but that said, it is unfair to compare me who has....

by Anonymous 11 years ago

the resources to be able to complete my goal and someone who is struggling to get a fraction of the resources and benefits that have been provided to me because of my socio-economic class. Ideally in a perfect world no one tries to screw everyone over and that hard work equals good paying job, but realistically with the economic mindset we currently have it is unable to achieve this because some people don't even have food, let alone education or job opportunities that will help them overcome poverty. It is an unfair evaluation of a person to say too bad for you, live on the bare minimums because you haven't worked hard enough. The job of a company is to provide widgets for its consumer, however it should not be at the expense of the employee. When you continue to sacrifice wages, benefits, working conditions, minimum expectation... etc. then we teeter awfully close to slave labor, which I disagree with and I'd imagine you do to.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

As I stated in a different comment below, if employers want high quality labor, then they will pay higher wages and benefits. You're completely missing the point. Also, slave labor is when someone forces you to work, not when you're "forced" to work because you need money. If you want to talk about slave labor, why not argue about how the government forces people to fork over a portion of their pay checks?

by Anonymous 11 years ago

And people receive benefits from those taxes, everybody uses social security.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

So when a poor person gives 24% of their earnings to let the government reallocated it according to how they see fit, why couldn't the poor person just use that 24% in the first place?

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Because their 24% might not stretch all the way to cover what they are legally entitled to. Since there is an unequal distribution of wealth some people are unable to cover their "share" and others are able to give more then their "share", taxes are supposed to be an equalizer. Also I'd like to reiterate that everyone uses social security, including yourself.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

As you are entitled to under your constitution

by Anonymous 11 years ago

You're generalizing, I could just as easily say, People are living in exactly the way you described and still struggling to survive. There are people who live in mobile homes, spending frugally, and still can't support their family.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Are they really out of options? Is there absolutely nothing else they can do to possibly save any more money or do they simply not have the education to help them save money and get back on their feet? After all, (according to the stereotype) poor people are usually the least educated, right? Like I already stated, perhaps we should put more effort into educating people on how to have better control over their money. Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime. Redistribute the wealth and you give poor people money until they spend it. Teach the lower class how to achieve success, give them the freedom to move up, and they will be wealthy according to 1) their definition of wealth/success and 2) their desire to meet their definition. And of course I'm generalizing just as everyone does. It would take the rest of my life to dissect every single individual situation.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

You were generalizing in such a way that made your point seem more valid. Which it wasn't really but whatever.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Especially without getting in depth about the logistics of such a claim, it's really saddening that people are downvoting the simple principle

by Anonymous 11 years ago

I agree with this post, but only to a certain extent. Without any government regulation, we might still have children working in sweatshops.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Why do children work in sweatshops in the first place?

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Why did they? For multiple reasons I'm sure. One is that there was a large demand for "unskilled" labor during the industrial revolution. Also, children worked because their parents got paid so little that families needed the additional income to survive. And finally, because they were usually cheaper than adults... that is, until the supply drove adult wages down to that of the children.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

I wouldn't call it unskilled labor, but //low// skilled labor. Not to call children stupid, but if a 5 year old (the age some children began working in sweatshops) can do a job, then it probably doesn't take much skill. It's kind of the same with jobs like flipping burgers and bagging groceries; two very low skilled jobs. I'm not suggesting a child should be put to work but such low wage jobs are ideal for teenagers who are slowly gaining independence from their parents and also want to achieve work experience for their future careers. So families needed their children to work because the parents couldn't afford to feed themselves and their children at the same time. In other words, the children were forced to chip in on their own food. This falls back on the parents. The employer did not ask or force them to have children.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Well like I said, I agree with this post up to a point. I am all for people owning their own actions. However, with pure, unregulated capitalism, I believe wealth will become extremely concentrated to a small few, while the rest will be born into poverty, and there they would stay. These people did nothing to deserve to live in poverty.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Hey there ;)

by Anonymous 11 years ago

I think you should have a little more faith in humanity. But then again, if people are too stupid to regulate themselves, maybe we do need a government to do it.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

But many times the parents had children BECAUSE they needed the extra income. It wasn't as simple as 'don't have children then.'

by Anonymous 11 years ago

They work there because their parents don't get high enough wages to take care of the entire family forcing children into labour.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

So it's the family who forces the children into labor, not the business. If a couple can't afford to feed extra mouths, then they should not have children. That is the point of my post.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

How do you think populations continue to grow if people don't have kids? Lets take Egypt for example 40% of them live on less then 2 dollars a day, are you saying 40% of people should not have kids? Which is a right that people had. Are you forgetting that you were once a kid and that people need children to repopulate and keep the economy going

by Anonymous 11 years ago

If 40% of Egyptians can live off of less than $2/day, why can't Americans? Perhaps we could learn something from them. Overpopulation doesn't really help the economy. It increases the demand for food and shelter in which the supply cannot always be provided very easily, therefore the prices of food and shelter increase. People require land to live (and to grow food). More people means more land is used. Since habitable land doesn't just magically appear over night, land is considered a scarce resource. This is one of the reasons the cost of living in a city is much higher than the cost of living in a remote, rural area. This is also why cities build skyscrapers. The demand for land is increasing with the population while the supply of land remains the same. Since there isn't any room to spread out, cities build up. I didn't say that people can't have kids but that those who can't afford to have kids should simply not have them (at least until they can afford them). I'm not saying we should impose laws on poor people so they can't have kids but if they do have them, it is //their// responsibility to care for them.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

They can't. Also I understand your sentiment that we should only have enough children to accommodate for our resources however, everyone has the right to have children and it is unfair to take that away from them. It is again back to the principle that we shouldn't be lowering the standard of living, rather we should be raising people up the the standard of living we have currently. What you said before of a company lower its prices to reflect how much people are making but what ends up happening is that ultimately the company has a product that the person wants and when their labor and cost to make the product becomes cheaper then they keep the price the same and increase the margin so that they can make more profit off each widget. So ideally people would lower their prices but they won't, and they don't and it's wishful thinking to hope that a business man will take into account the average joe trying to live life. Under the declaration of children's rights their well-being must be provided for, if not by the individual family then the state that fosters the child http://www.un.org/cyberschoolbus/humanrights/resources/child.asp

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Once again, the reason a business wants to lower the cost of its product is because it wants to lower the selling price of that product. A lower selling price means more customers can afford it. Think about it... If nobody can afford its widgets, why on Earth would they keep the price the same? A company will make more profit by selling more products at a lower price rather than keeping the price up and selling less products. They //will// lower their price if they want to stay in business. It's not just wishful thinking. You are incredibly ignorant and presumptuous if you think otherwise. It's supply and demand in its very basic form: Price goes down, consumption goes up. Price goes up, consumption goes down. Please, take an economics course or study it online from a non-biased source before you continue to argue. Here's a good place to start and it's not some poorly constructed website like the link you gave me: http://www.investopedia.com/university/economics/ "if not by the individual family then the state that fosters the child"... still not the responsibility of the employer.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

I'm taking business in school :S read between the lines: if you want a happy employee you make sure his needs are met, if that includes having children/raising children then you give them the resources to do that. So being an employer it is an expectation that you take care of the employee and if he/she chooses to have children that they can be taken care of as well so that they employee can put in hardwork and not be distracted from his/her job. I understand how the economy works, and if that was truly happening where the cost of items is lowered then, then it would have already happened. And that is not true for all products, take for example quinoa, it is a wheat based protein source that can be grown in latin america when it became popular in the western world the prices sky-rocketed to the point that the farmers who farmed the quinoa are now unable to buy it themselves. in this case spending goes up = prices go up. Costco vs. Walmart In Walmart where they do not interest themselves in the personal lives of the employees and do not give them benefits they work a shitty job, don't care about it and they have high employee turnover...

by Anonymous 11 years ago

In costco they give benefits and have excellent incomes from costco and they manage to still make very good profits and have low employee turnover + they have customer loyalty and generally speaking shopping in costco is a much more pleasant experience then shopping in walmart. If you want a successful business then your employees must be happy to help carry out the company's vision and to keep the employees happy that includes providing them with what they need to support a family if they chose to have/raise one. If you are forced to buy a product from a business then they can damn well charge whatever they want for it, because they know you are desperate enough to buy it. So if you are a business you're gonna jack up your price the highest you can to get the most profit and you don't really care about the consumer, because at the end of the day you've made a revenue.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

You're whole Costco vs. Walmart argument just proves my point that companies will pay their workers good wages/benefits if they want to receive good quality work. Even though I want to end this argument, I have to ask, what are you currently //forced// to buy?

by Anonymous 11 years ago

So much fail in your logic, that I don't know how you can stand typing out your opinion.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Nice argument, Anon.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

The price of quinoa went up because the demand went up not because the spending went up. Spending and demand aren't exactly the same thing. Blame the Western World for making it popular and increasing demand. Remember, price goes up, consumption goes down. They raised the price to decrease consumption. You also have to factor in that two different economies have crossed paths. Something to help you remember the economic term 'Utility': Leaving a comment is currently free so you leave as many as you want. Let’s say they start charging 1 cent for each comment. It’s not much but you might consider whether the comment is worth leaving or not. If they raised it to 10 cents per comment you’d decrease your commenting, not increase it. 50 cents and you might stop commenting completely. It’s all about how much commenting is worth to you. I sure as hell wouldn't pay 50 cents to comment. That'd be $8.50 so far for the comments on this post. But if people were willing to pay $10 per comment, then that’s what Amirite would charge them. But in all likeliness, people wouldn’t pay anything, not even a penny and that is why it’s free to comment.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

More like, the prospect of starvation forces the children into labor.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Provided by the fact that the parents had them.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Back in child labor days, often time the parents had children BECAUSE they needed the extra income. In history, it has always been the poor that had the most children. Would that trend still be seen if children were the thing causing them to be poorer? If that were the case, I think the poor would stop having so many children. Problem solved, right? No. It is more likely the case that they depended on the children to help them stay afloat. Also, more children means more hands to tend to the crops to make more profits. I think "don't have children then" would have worsened the situation in those days. You also say, 'if you can't find a good job, lower your standards of living.' What if someone has to lower their standards of living so much that they must resort to starving, prostitution,etc? Is it just, 'too bad for them'? You might say, 'get a better education,' but with what money, what if they are not academically gifted, what if they can't work three jobs and go to school at the same time, etc? These are all hindrances when dealing with something like generation poverty.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Well, now days people can't put their children to work, but they can have children to receive government handouts, which is unethical no matter how poor you are. This is where we apply basic concepts of life. If two pandas or tortoises won't mate to save their own species, let them die. If a person doesn't want to put forth the effort it takes to stay alive, then well... let them die. I'll probably get a lot of shit for that but it's true. The fact that I wake up and go to work so I can live is up to me. You're assuming that there's absolutely nothing out there for people to do to get money and minimize expense; that there's absolutely nobody out there who would volunteer to help them when there is. You don't have to have school to be educated on saving money or finding motivation and success.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

So free school lunches are unethical? I never said it was impossible to find motivation or income, but sometimes it's not enough to get people off the streets. If you're born in poverty and get no education it's way harder then you make it seem in statements that seem like oversimplications to me.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

I didn't say it was easy. I apologize if it seems I'm oversimplifying it.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Then again, life is as simple as you make it.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

I would agree, but after seeinging your comments, I see that you don't understand how the economy works while telling someone who does that they need to take classes. Oh and that your reasoning is full of "in a perfect world" senarios.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Obviously there are many different variables to consider; too many to cover in my already lengthy comments above. It may never be perfect but there are ways to make it better and getting the government to take over isn't the way to do it.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Well StickCaveman, I'd like to commend you. Living in an overly entitled society, it is refreshing to see someone else of my generation believing in personal responsibility.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Of course a person can't help the situation they were born in, but as long as we strive to create freedom and promote equal opportunity, a person can go from poverty to riches according to how bad they want it (and it's not a myth like some would suggest because it's happened many times).

by Anonymous 11 years ago

The thing I don't get about all your above comments is that they're all based on what should happen, and not what actually happens. What actually happens, with a few exceptions, is that employers care more about profit than they do about the service they provide or the people they employ. I think even low skill workers should make enough to live off of while only having one full time job. Minimum wage is for low skilled workers. There is no minimum wage for an engineer or a teacher because people expect to make more in these higher skilled positions. Instead of expecting employees to lower their standard of living, why can't employers lower their profit to provide fair wages? Who chooses who should sacrifice? Is it worse to expect the man who cleans the floors to lower his standard of living or is it worse to expect the employer to lower his profit while still maintaining a relatively high standard of living?

by Anonymous 11 years ago

The employer is in essence an employee of the customer and the employees are employers of the business. If the people, the workers, the customers, think the employer should pay higher amounts, then they should //all// demand it. As long as there are people willing to work these amounts, the employer will continue to pay them. If angry customers and angry workers don't get the employer's attention then certainly a boycott will. As I've mentioned, a business will want to satisfy customers or else they won't have any. It lies within the people who support the business to do something about it. If the people continue to let the low wage worker suffer, then perhaps the people don't care as much as they'd like you to believe. They might care enough to throw the problem onto someone else (like the government), but if they aren't willing to inconvenience themselves by boycotting, then they really don't care. It's the same with these internet protests. Nothing ever gets accomplished by them because people aren't willing to get out of their homes to do something. Clicking a few buttons is easy but if it involves doing work, people probably aren't going to go out and protest it.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

One of my professors brought up the wages for waitresses the other day... it's like $2.something. Why? Because people who serve at restaurants don't usually intend on working at that restaurant for the rest of their life. Most of them are in school and a job with flexible hours that pays enough for them to get by suits them perfectly. Of course that's not the case of every individual working these jobs, but it is for most and that is one of the reasons why the wage stays the same.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

That's the thing though. People //don't// care enough to do anything. That's why we have minimum wage laws. People don't do the right thing even though they should. Waitresses get paid 2-something an hour because tips are supposed to make up the difference so it amounts to minimum wage. At the end of every week tips are added to the amount on the paycheck and if it doesn't add up to what the waitress would have made had they been working for 7.25 an hour then the restaurant owner pays them the difference. A lot of waitresses are working to pay bills and end up staying a waitress for a very long time. I don't know statistics or anything, but I personally know plenty of people who have been a waitress for as long as I can remember.

by Anonymous 11 years ago