The minimum wage should be at least $10 an hour. People who are so fired up that minimum wage should be $6.50 an hour have never had to work for that low hourly rate and they have never found themselves unemployed. No one can make it on $6.50 an hour except for a teenager.

I don't know what's so hard to understand about this....if minimum wage were that high, the price of everything is going to go up. Jobs will be cut to make up for the new expense. As someone else pointed out, jobs will be outsourced and the hiring of illegals will soar. How does this help anyone? It hurts people!!! If you start making $14/hr at your job, you will have to pay more for every service you use. The grocery store will have to charge more as they will have to pay higher prices for product and pay cashiers more, their utilities and other operating expenses will increase. Same goes for every other company and person. Your phone bill will increase. Your cable, internet, rent, utilities....it will all go up. It will be the same situation. You will make more money, but things will ultimately increase in cost the at the same rate. It will be even harder to find and keep a job. More people will be totally jobless instead of having a job that may not be great. More people will then need gov. assistance, and who's going to pay for that? I've seen in your other posts, RedMoon, that you feel it's difficult for people to find and keep a job. How hard do you think it will become if you min. wage fantasy became a reality? Let me add, I've had minimum wage work so I do know what it's like.

Let's be for real, Regardless of how much money you make your bills will continue to increase and demand more of your life savings. If Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, can pay their workers more, and their GNP can't match the rich old USA. American workers need to wake up, and face ther reality that our salaries, and minimum wage has not kept up with the high cost of energy,food, shelter, cars,insurance, Cialis type performance drugs,IRS Penalties, and court litigations!

AMEN to bradmans, KittKatt, and abbracadabbra, and kiki0730! Query to RedMoons, EagleWinds, tmcadams, and the rest of you who think you are entitled to the same standard of living that most of the ?upper echelon? have acquired by working 10 times as hard as the norm in order to better themselves: Communication skills are THE fundamental requirement for successfully navigating a job search, not to mention being of value to your employer once you?ve landed a job. If you can?t speak or spell English in an English-speaking world, you can?t communicate effectively. Why would anyone with a business more sophisticated than a burger joint or a gas station hire someone to represent them who appears uneducated? Your lifetime work ethic ? how hard you?ve been willing to work from an early age ? is clear to those of us in a position to employ you. We HAVE taken menial, low paying jobs when we were young - and later, too, when we?ve had to; and we?ve worked hard enough to be given raises and promotions. Most of us worked our way through school, and studied hard while we did it, too. WE have been putting in eighty to a hundred hours a week since we?ve been old enough to work! That?s WHY we?re in a position to do the hiring, and why we?re inclined to hire someone who represents him/herself well, and really WORKS when they?re at work!

Thank you for stating the reasons to NOT raise it. I get so tired of repeating myself.

I believe the minimum wage should be higher. I have a degree but I am not using it. There are no jobs in the area I live that require or use my degree. Im am working in a job with no formal training such as school. I was trained on site and I am making $18 an hour. So no... you do not have to have a skill that makes you worth what you are getting paid. Basic computer programs could take over my job any day! My degree gave me no extra edge. Mean while, I have a family member who brings home $2600 dollara a month and only has $150 dollars left after paying basic bills to buy groceries, pay for gas, and all other casual expenses. Did I mention he spends almost 15 dollars a day just driving to and from work, because he lives in a small town that has nothing but mom and pop stores and gas stations?

That would be nice if that  happened.  I wouldn't worry so much about our adult children trying to make it out in that big world!

You are so right about this issue. And those that use to make the minimum wage has forgoten what it is like to have to live on it. Also want to add, the cost of living should not go up just because minimum wage does, then there would be no point in trying to make more money, one would be back to square one.

What you need to do is read up on simple Economics 101, and realize the serious economic damages that by raising the minimum wage to $14.00 per hour would crumble the U.S. economy in hyperinflation and maybe even cause stagflation. It was a clear mistake of Congress to raise the minimum wage recently to $6.25 in 2009 and $7.00 in 2010 or 2011. Only if life was that easy and the minimum wage could go up, but unforunately, it doesn't work that way. It was just reported a 4.7% increase in inflation over the last year. The most in 11 years. If you raise lowest or minimum wage high, then the prices must go even higher to account for the big disparities in revenues and expenses.

Greetings

I do agree with both of you, the bottom line it is that who ever is at top doen't want anyone else to climb up neither to where they are at this point in (the breeze). You know what I mean?  Believe you me, we will have to get the jack pot in order to make it up these times in other words or World, who knows?  No good Balance.  Alrigth good luck to all.

Regards

Bitup50

You need to throw away all of your old 101 Economic textbooks written before 9-11 made the USA into a beaten, and poverty stricken  nation, forced to give every single citizen "USA Welfare Checks," to keep the stock market from crashing harder than it did in the great crash of 1929. Poor Americans are hurting and starving, while the rich continue to gain more power and more influence. The working middle class Americans were the one's who won World War II, be sacrificing over 2 million American lives, and forcing their wives and daughters to work in factories producing tanks, airplanes, and war supplies. We need for the minimum wage to go up to $25 an hour, instead of the $14 per hour, because of high taxes, gas, education, housing, clothes and rising food cost. Don't tell me we can't afford it, because if America can pay Pakistan $90 million dollars a month, and give all former Soviet Union citizens $250 in cash and food stamps for every member in their family, plus free housing and education. Then I know damn well that America can afford to provide permanent good paying jobs for her citizens.

Then I know damn well that America can afford to provide permanent good paying jobs for her citizens.

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Perhaps if you work hard in school and get a good education, you can go out and get a job that pays you a decent salary to live on. Min. wage jobs should be left to high school kids.

If McDonalds were to pay their workers the $25 an hour, who do you think will absorb the cost....the customer will and your $1.00 menu will turn into a $10,00 menu. Of course no one would then eat there and pay those high prices for drive thru junk food, so then McDonalds would go belly up! Great Job! Now you have more worker unemployed!

I cannot believe an increase in the minimum wage would hurt our economy near as much as the cost of education, gasoline, housing, food, health care.  No one could reasonably survive on the minimum wage in this country.  Look at all the waste in health care alone via duplicative non-patient care services, eg. credentialing, paper billing as opposed to electronic.  You cannot look at one economic aspect and blame it, economics is dynamic, and we all need to ask if we are better off today than we were 7 years ago---prior to big business.  Clearly, big business is separating the haves from the have nots more than anything else in this county.

so if your hourly rate goes up 40-50% does mine go up as well? Or are you suggesting that only people making minimum wage should get a "raise" and come closer to making what others who have education and / or training are making? Why should that be when we made sacrifices and didn't take the easy way out?

I heard somewhere, forgive me, I forgot the source, that the minimum wage, if it had kept pace with the rise in CEO salaries, it would be at $23.00/hr.  I believe business is about making profit and money, however, sometimes I think we forget the reason why a business is successful.  A good product, a good service, the tenacity of the originators.  I believe everyone has entrepreneurial spirit- the minute you start letting other people's success, problems, indifference, and lives start affecting yours, you are doing yourself a dis-service.  It seems we are questioning philosophically the idea of capitalism in our society today.  Everyone has a story to tell, and it's the unbelievable stories that become popularized as they make the best news.  Yet, for every "struck it rich" story, there are thousands who made it through intelligent, hard work, largely un-noticed, or worse yet, another taking credit for the work.  Notice what's largely un-noticed-it's not glamourous, it's not trendy, and it certainly doesn't have scandal tied to it-it's the average american.  We all have a story to tell, some just have found a larger audience.  Post

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?

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People with money certainly DO eat at McDonald's.  And, what about In-N-Out?  All kinds of rich people eat at those places.  It's not just for "lower and middle class". 

Thanks for spelling that our for the $14 per hr question so I don't have to.

It must have come from a Democrat.

The US doesn't do that for Russia, nor does it pay out as much as you think it does.

 

A CEO of a company is usually the founder and they deserve to write themselves a fat paycheck for giving the laborers jobs.

I would personally love to see Americans make more money. A good job pays at least $16.50/hr, has health insurance, sick leave, a pension plan, and other benefits. A big problem in the US is people often are unwilling to continue with their education. A high school drop out has almost no chance of having a good life. A strong young man may go into construction work, but he will be old fast doing this kind of work. And when the job breaks him he will be tossed aside and replaced with another younger, strong man. I can not stress this enough...give your children the support they need to get an education. We are at a point where it now requires a masters or better. Yes, I know that all people are not college material. In these cases we have community colleges and trade schools. There will always be a need for plumbers, mechanics and other trades.