I live on my own, off minimum wage just fine. I even have money to activly collect toys and building up a small music studio in my apartment.
If I recall correctly, my countries minimum wage is $13.50 per hour. Which equals $11 USD per hour. And McDonalds thrives on selling it's burgers here. There's certainly no shortage of restaurants, and to get a cheeseburger is about $2.50 ($2 USD). There are few people who genuine want to work at McDonalds (or any other fast food joint). I just find the mindset of some people really quite aggressive toward the less fortunate, which is quite depressing really. How do you think society is supposed to try and rid itself of poverty if you try and remove peoples chance to earn a better wage to support their families/themselves better?
I think the issue is that the people's chance to earn a better wage shouldn't be to piss and moan and protest about it but to get an education and get a better job.
Which isn't possible if you're earning jack shit and need to keep working 70 hours a week just to keep the rent paid and your family fed. They're not pissing and moaning they are trying to get a reasonable wage the reflects the real cost of living. Not everyone who is poor is lazy.
Making a big ole stink about it is how there's a minimum wage in the first place. There aren't enough better paying jobs, anyway, for every single fast food worker to switch to. As a solution to the systemic problem of those who work full time but are still poor, "get another job" simply doesn't cut it.
^^^^ Don't you guys know that bitching and moaning for more money is only OK for athletes and sitcom stars? You know.. the people who really need it.
Well yeah. They need more botox, nip tucks, skin treatments, salon appointments, the latest and greatest in clothes, cars, electronics, etc. They'd die without it and then we'd have no more movies or tv shows to watch.....no football.....no concerts.....no songs...
so I would have to ask how they got into that minimum wage job in the first place? Did you graduate high school? Did you go to college? Did you try for financial aid? Grants? Scholarships by getting good grades in high school? Of course there aren't enough well paying jobs for every minimum wage person but there are enough for those who are willing to work for it.
Are you seriously going to blame people for being unable to graduate high school or being unable to afford college? Have you ever heard that the single greatest indicator of a child doing well in school is the parents being well-educated? Would you really claim that there are enough scholarships for every single child who wants to go on to higher education but doesn't have a family that could afford it and that it's somehow the child's fault for not getting one of them? Do you understand that this is a systemic problem? This is nonsense because the implication is that for every living wage position available there exists exactly one person "willing to work for it".
I have taught high school for 12 years. I have seen the kids that get good grades in high school unable to afford college but make it work whether it is going to community/junior college first, getting grants and scholarships, whatever they need. (There is financial aid out there than I think you realize). Then there are kids who are flunking everything have no desire to go to college and think they will just be taken care of. Unfortunately this is becoming the majority of kids in high school and it kills me. These are the kids that end up working at fast food jobs and then bitch about it. There is always something I tell my students. Be careful the decisions you make today because they will effect you tomorrow, the next day, and the rest of your life. Meaning, study for this test, this major test because if you don't (and I realize this is a dramatization so forgive me), but if you don't study for this major test you will fail the test. Fail the test you fail the class, fail the class you risk not graduating high school, don't graduate high school you don't go to college, you don't go to college you don't make a lot of money. And please don't use the oh my parents weren't educated therefore I'm not educated. that's an excuse. My husband was the only one in his family to graduate high school then after military service went to college. Junior college and he didn't graduate and that is why he doesn't make as much money as me. But he takes responsibility for it. He knows he screwed up, he knows had he finished college he could get a better higher paying job. He doesn't blame his parents, he doesn't blame society, he takes responsibility. You could say the opposite is true that all children of educated parents therefore are also educated? My parents were also a mixture. My mother went to junior college but didn't graduate. My father however has two BA, a master's and later on received a doctorate in education. So what does that mean for me and my two siblings? that we must all be as educated as my father? I am. I have two BA degrees and a Master's. However, as of right now I have no desire for a doctorate. My sister is like my mother. She went to some junior college but did not graduate. She works part time as head of the County 4H. She is 30 and lives with my father. She has never left home. She has never earned enough money to move out. My brother now is a complicated one. He started out high school straight A student, All state wrestler then junior year and senior he flunked everything and ended up not graduating high school. For years he moved from this person's house to that person's house and sometimes back to my dad's house. He also wasn't able to find a job that earns enough to live on his own. So he finally figured it out. He got his GED and went to junior college and got his AA degree in business while interning at a friend's business. He earned so many credits at the junior college and worked so hard that he was able to finish his Bachelor's degree in business in one year. Yes he got financial aid. Yes he got grants. But he went out there and looked for them. He couldn't get scholarships because of his high school grades. But he still made it work. He now just bought his very own car a new one and him and his girlfriend just moved into their condo. I am very proud of him. It is education for the better paying job. Are you saying someone that drops out of high school should earn just as much as someone with a master's degree that worked damn hard for it??? I am NOT saying it is easy!! You have to work for it, you have to earn it, you have to find the ways to get scholarships or grants or whatever. I put myself through college. I received good grades through high school, grades I worked hard for. So I received several scholarships. I filled out the lengthy applications. I wrote the essays. I received enough scholarships for two years of tuition and room and board. I got a job, actually I got two jobs (one of which was minimum wage). Those helped me pay for the remaining two years of college but for my teaching credential year I wasn't able to work full time. So I researched and got a partial grant and a partial financial aid. After I received my teaching credential I even found a way to have my loan paid off through an APLE grant. You have to look for things, you have to work for things. I'm sorry but I am a believer that it is possible if you work for it. If you blame your parents not having an education, that there was drama in your life at the time (hello there was drama in my life at the time), that it is too late for me (My brother is 33 and just did it). If you put up excuses in your life you are only going to get excuses as to why you can't earn more money. Sorry the company can't afford to pay you more. Sorry the company is downsizing so I can't promote you. Sorry you don't have the education or skills we are looking for in this position. If you just take the first no you get and give up then don't cry about it later because you will get 40,000 no's before you get that one yes.
Are you crazy woman? Talking about doing what you have to do..... This keeps up around here it might make people realize that if you want it you have to be willing to *gasp* work for it. I agree with everything said above completely.
I'm gonna talk about this as a Canadian. In Nova Scotia minimum wage has been inflated on a yearly basis past a sustainable level. Jobs disappear, businesses close, and people go work in Alberta, because that's where the jobs are. Guess which province has the lowest minimum wage? Seriously, it's a bad thing. You get things like managers and employees making the same amount of money. If a promotion doesn't come with a pay increase, then what's the motivation to stay at a job? It's foolishness. If you wanna break the glass ceiling of minimum wage you have to quit whining about it and REALLY make a change. I'm a single dad with Crohns disease. I have full custody of my son. His mom is a deadbeat who's been out of the picture forever. I'm in school now getting my engineering degree and I'm gonna give him a way better life than I was every capable of before. There are grants and loans you can get for this stuff. Sure I'll have some debt to pay when I'm done, but it'll be worth it. There's a reason why people who go to school make more money for sitting in offices. Sure unskilled labor is manually "harder" in a lot of cases, but anyone can do it. I did for years. You cannot do the job of an educated professional without years of training, and those jobs are a lot more necessary in the real world than burger-flipping.
my generation is so damn spoiled... nobody wants to work hard anymore. physical labor? boo that... call of black ops or whatever is all i hear any more.... after my little debacle this summer i told myself i'd work my hardest in every thing i do from now on.... no short cuts for me. i don't want to be a statistic.
Thank you TransAm! Whew I was hoping I wasn't the only one out there who gets it. Please see my earlier response, it is rather lengthy but it's all there. If you get good enough grades in high school then people for some reason tend to throw money at you. Now if you chose to not get good grades in high school (Which is why I tell my students make good decisions now they will effect you the rest of your life) then you have to go a different avenue, it may be a little more difficult and you may need to "work" to get the money but it's out there you need to research, look, work. There are grants, loans, financial aid. Every person that I know that is going back to school has found a way to afford it. My husband received a fed loan, I received financial aid (I want to go back and get a third credential in special education better job security with education cuts should I go back to work), and my brother received a grant. It is work to find it you can't sit back and wait for it to come to you. You go Toma! I wish you the best in getting your degree! Thanks Black Magnus! Fallout, so true, also with the students I have taught is that they think they know it all and have it all figured out. Some of them even told me they would just "go on welfare" It's sad. I was talking with one student who was a fifth year senior and still failing everything. He was a out of juvie on probation and I rarely see him. I sat down and was curious of his response of what he planned to do with his life. I asked him how he planned to support himself and he said his uncle owned a car garage and he was going to go work with him. I said great so are you going to a trade school to learn how to service cars. He said no his uncle was just going to teach him. I told David that he had to have a certificate for that and he shrugged saying his uncle didn't care. I then said with this economy what if his uncle's shop should close where would he go then? He said he would know what to do to the cars then so he would just go work in another car garage and I said great and when they ask for your certificate what are you going to do then? He had no response. I realize college isn't for every student. I implore them to look at trade schools for being a mechanic. Beauty or cosmetic school. Medic assistance courses (they could easily be transferrable to nursing school later on). There are options out there a lot more then I flip a burger give me more money. Just because you want doesn't mean you get.
and that... is a giiiant problem with society. it's full of entitlement and people too prideful to admit they're poor but not prideful enough to swallow their pills and work for what they want so hard working people have to cover their asses... i'll admit i'm not a book smarts person and college isn't my thing, at least not straight out of high school... i'm going military as soon as i graduate, then when i retire from that, junior college so i have some form of higher education.
People in North Dakota are being hired for more than $15/hour to work part-time entry level positions which includes fast food. And if you work for oil companies that are fracking for oil, you can make 6 figures with no prior work experience. My cousin works out there and says there is more work than workers and more people than homes. So you would have to rent / buy a camper to live out of near the area of production. How is that for a living wage?
Why not go to school while you're in the military. There are and have been plenty of people who have done it
