You can't live off of a $6.50 per hour job, unless you are in college, and your parents are giving you extra money, or you have two $6.50 per hour jobs. So I say that the minimum wage should be $14.00 per hour, and not a meager $7.50 per hour! Over 60 million Americans are starving and can't afford low cost housing, or pay their utility bills, credit cards, student loans, child support, and the high cost of food and clothes. A country which can waste over a million dollars a day in civil war torn Iraq, should be able to provide good jobs for their citizens!

Perhaps you need to start a business and then you could pay your employees $14.00 an hour! Oh heck! why not! Make them happier and pay them $20.00 per hour. While your at it, give them 6 weeks vacation.

....A country which can waste over a million dollars a day in civil war torn Iraq, should be able to provide good jobs for their citizens! Did you ever think that is why so many people are struggling? If our tax burden wasn't so high, more money would be available for higher paying jobs. You are looking at the problem in reverse. The free market works by employers paying employees what they are worth, not by some artificial mandate by the government. If you want to make $14/hr, I suggest you acquire some skills that makes you worth $14/hr.

I agree with you, Brad. Artificial government mandates on wages impede growth. If our workers can't acquire the skills needed to compete in a global economy, no government mandate will provide them support for very long. I don't know about you, but I sure couldn't support a family on $14 an hour, either. Think about it - $14/hr x 40 hrs/wk = $560/week. Multiply that times 52 weeks a year, and you get $29,120 per year. For a family of four, that's poverty level.

There are over 20 million uenmployed college graduates in the USA, so skills are about as useful as having a 1960 US Stee Mill labor union card. Because who determines your "Net Worth?" How much education does the founders of Microsoft and Dell Computer gianst have? No matter how much education and skills that non-whites have, they will be racism and discrimination to keep them from being corporate Presidents, CIO,CFO, and Vice Presidents.

No matter how much education and skills that non-whites have, they will be racism and discrimination to keep them from being corporate Presidents, CIO,CFO, and Vice Presidents. .................................................... The post was about raising min. wage to $14.00 per hour. You need skills if you wish to make more than min. wage.

No matter how many skills that a worker has, they can't force the corporation or company to hire them, or determine the amount of the starting salary. The minimum raise can be raised to $14 per hour with the support of the majority of unemployed, underemployed, and unemployable workers demanding a change backed up with massive protest and political pressure.

How did you arrive at $14/hr? Why stop there? Why not $20/hr.? Why not 30/hr? (it is a trick question)

RedMoons, this is Economics 101. When expenses increase, businesses are forced to pass those increases on to consumers in terms of price hikes, whether they are the result of higher prices for goods and services, higher taxes, or increased labor costs. A significant raise in the minimum wage would result in significantly increased business expenses across the board, leading to significant price hikes in goods and services nationwide. Furthermore, since businesses are also consumers of goods and services, those increases would continue to spiral upward exponentially. When prices go up across the board, your dollar doesn't buy the same amount of stuff it used to. So, in essence, it's not worth as much. Congratulations on your wage increase to $14 an hour, but your $14 is now only worth what your former wage was worth, if that. So what have you accomplished? You certainly haven't improved your standard of living. But I bet you moved into a higher tax bracket, at least temporarily. Now that the dollar is no longer worth what it used to be worth, ALL the workers are clammoring for pay increases because it costs more to maintain their standard of living. Who do you think is going to get those pay increases first? If you guessed the upper echelon, you'd be guessing correctly. So significantly increasing wages along the bottom tier of income earners, will ultimately result in making the rich richer, and the poor poorer. It's called inflation.

As a side note- Did you know that during WWII the government actually put restrictions on how much employers could pay employees, (the opposite thing you are advocating). Therefore, companies decided to offer health care insurance as an incentive to attract employees. I don't think I have to tell you the disastrous result of this which is becoming very evident lately.

Good point, Bradmans. I didn't know about that. Thanks for the info. I believe the insurance companies are responsible for the upwardly spiraling increases in the cost of health care. But that's the topic of another conversation, that might not be germane to this board. However, I have a question for you that is germane to this board. I know you strongly advocate against government restrictions on businesses. I wonder if there are any government restrictions on businesses that you think are worthwhile? I wonder about your view of OSHA health and safety requirements, child labor laws, FMLA, and equal opportunity laws. What are your thoughts?

RedMoons, this is Economics 101. When expenses increase, businesses are forced to pass those increases on to consumers in terms of price hikes, whether they are the result of higher prices for goods and services, higher taxes, or increased labor costs. If you are evaluating your position on basic economic philosophies, then you are assumming..."Ceteris Paribus". But that is not the case with regard to wages and labor in the US market. Wages and skills would indeed equal themselves out in the long term but it is assumed that the gov't would ensure that all US jobs would go to legal US employees. If you argue supply and demand equilibrium WRT setting a minimum wage simply based on the aforementioned supply and demand assumptions, you are ignoring the artificial propping up of the Supply axis by the importation of illegal labor and/or exportation of wage earning jobs. Ultimately, you end up throwing the supply and demand scheme off. If you increase the minimum wage by twenty-five cents, then it may not be worth it to an employer to seek undocumented lower wage earners. But if you increase the min wage by ten dollars per hour, then you have just increased the value of hiring illegal labor or exporting jobs outside of the US by one-hundred fold. At that point, "Cheater's Rule" applies and competing companies are in a fight for survival, so they follow suit. My point being this, by raising the minimum wage to any degree without the government removing the incentives for companies to artificially prop up the labor supply variable (illegal influx of labor or exportation of jobs), that is akin to having a toothache and going to a proctologist for relief...It just doesn't make "cents".

Hey, Buddah - great to see you! It's been quite a while. :) Excellent post. As always, you make perfect "cents".

The American middle and lower classes are facing extreme hardships, and the rich keep get richer. If America is to survive in the 21st century, it must increase the minimum wage to $14 per hour. So it is time to make the super rich, USA Elites pay real income taxes.

The McDonalds or Burger King that now has to pay $14 an hour will raise their prices. I have news for you...this is where the lower and middle class eat not the rich. So, who do you think will be paying for this raise? I busted my butt to go to college to get a degree to make a good living. I put in time, energy and money to get where i am today. Why should I be responsible to support people who didn't make the same sacrifices and have the same convictions? Why should I be punished?

I think the government should throw out all the tax laws and impose a 10% flat tax on all income anyone makes. No exemptions for anything. The rich go on vacation, say thay worked an hour and write the whole trip off on their taxes. How fair is that! The way the laws work now is the rich pay less taxes than someone making $6.00 an hour. They know how to get around all the laws so they work in their favor. I don't think that sounds so fair. A 10% tax for everyone would mean everyone pays their fair share nomatter how rich or poor you are. This would work in the poor persons favor for once. Think about how much you pay in taxes every payday.

The way the laws work now is the rich pay less taxes than someone making $6.00 an hour. ...................................................... How do you possible figure that? A 10% tax across the board? The goverment would be getting ALOT less money at tax time. It would sure save me money considering my tax bracket is over 30%!

10% tax is nothing. I too pay well over 30%. The rich do not get to deduct their vacations. But, if you own a business, fractions of your home, car, travel, restaurant bills MAY be tax deductable. In order to do this you must be self employed and file under a 1099 (which means that you are paying taxes quarterly instead of annually and do not have some benifits such as the ability to collect unemployment if necessary). Anyone under a W2...including the rich, can only itimize the same as anyone else...mortgage interest, points, some medical costs etc. The people who take the biggest hit on taxes are married people filing jointly.

I am not "rich" but I can assure you that I (and many others like me) pay much more in income for taxes than the "poor" who in many cases receive "earned income credit" and the like. It really gets me steamed when I hear this sort of ignorant argument.

abbra...., I feel honored to answer your question. Lately I've seen insurance companies become far more active in regulating safety standards, and OSHA is never around often enough to even make a difference. Child labor died out on it's own in the early 20th century. Remember, before that, many children toiled on farms for 16 hours a day, and 12 hours in a factory was a relief. Nowadays, I doubt if any American company could operate if they hired children, such companies would most likely be ostracized and find it difficult to sell their goods. I have no problem with those laws, but they probably do little if any practical good. Family leave is interesting. While some people benifit from these laws, it is always at the expense of other employees that may not want them. I believe it is best left up to the contract between the employee and employer, i.e. you could choose to work for someone offering FMLA, or you could choose an employer offering more pay, or more vacation, etc. I'm sure most companies worth working for would allow one to take time off in an emergency. If not, maybe it's not a very good company and one would be better off working for someone else anyway. Equal opportunity is reverse discrimination, which I am against. It hurts business when it is forced to choose a less qualified candidate in order to meet certain criteria. Today, everyone has ample opportunity if they would only take full advantage of it.