Heller Poll: Should Michigan raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour?
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da, SOONER!!! I worked for the Post Office most of my years at UMFlint in the 70s, paid on a car, tuition, rent, eating, etc. At 3.75 an hour!!!?? Equated for inflation, blah, blah, that’s way less than $15/hr now. My life can’t be regained today. It’s so wrong…
it was so MORE than what that amount equated to today can deliver…
If you want a better paying joy please stay in school and receive as many degrees as possible. We did it and we did it by the skin of our teeth.
A living wage should not be reserved for those who can afford to attend university.
Worked. three part-time jobs and was very frugal. Anyone can afford it even on line
It’s sad that people that are not smart enough to go to college are penalized to only earning minimum-wage. Unless they are born into money.
Raise the minimum wage. But not to $15. I’d think if you started out at $8.50 and you kept the job for 90 days, you get a raise, say to $9. Yearly performance based raises after that if you plan on staying in your starting job.
By 2022, the minimum wage will likely have gone up a couple of times anyway. I’m torn on this topic. While many employees deserve $15 an hour, I’m thinking of one fast food restaurant we have frequented in Fenton at least once or twice a month for the last 25 years. I can count on one hand how many times our order was actually correct. For them, I say no, $15 is too much. The other issue is the cost to live in California is astronomically higher than it is in Michigan. Pick up any real estate magazine in the Los Angeles area and see more than one small, one-story, two-bedroom bungalow with one bathroom for a mere $500,000.
Raise it but maybe to ten. Lots of people out there that have a college degree and don’t make that much.
Jim, Right on. Two people in a family at $10 per hour, full time, could make $40,000 per year. This would equal the minimum wage back in 1976, forty years ago, adjusted for inflation. Now, two such people at minimum wage only would make $29,000 per year. Yikes!
Absolutely, yes!!!!
No way! Minimum wage jobs are no-skill jobs. They’re not intended to support a family or put one through college. Educate/train yourself if you want more than the minimum out of life.
You are wrong.. FDR:
http://www.chucklasker.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/FDRQuoteChuck.jpg
As a former small business owner I could not afford to pay $15. Many other small business are in the same boat. This will force them to use “casual labor” (read “subcontractors”) who receive NOTHING in benefits.
Kewl! I can now stop tipping those correctly paid waiters and waitresses. Saves me 20% of my bill which is what I used to tip. Now, regardless of service I can pay the owner and he pays the wait staff. One less step in my dining out. After all the price of restaurant food is sure to rise. The money for the wait staff has to come from somewhere. In the end there is no free lunch (no pun intended).
A quick shot at this topic: The median household income in the USA is $53,657. Two people (mom and dad) working full time would make that much if they each made $13.41 per hour. Let’s make $13.41 the national minimum wage.
We need “minimum” standards for all Americans. Not just in wages, but in health care, education, services, protection…
Andrew, You are a deep thinker and a wonderful statesman, but your blogging schtik is Professional Smart Alec. You have a gift, but is is hard to remain in the Ha-Ha World when you get into these sorts of issues? The sorts that reveal how sort we fall from the American stuff we learned as kids?
I think of myself – and always have – as a sweet and salty mix. Human beings can be serious and light-hearted. Why can’t I?
People who have at least a high school diploma and a job history of working ought to be able to earn a living wage. Companies, especially big corporations, who have benefited from the US economy ought to be willing to support that. Otherwise, there will be few left to buy their products – hence, the current stagnant economy.
Wise up billionaires!
Many people choose not to go to college because they prefer to work with their hands, etc. Jobs like trash collector and plumber will always be there (not outsourced) – we need these folks.
People who wasted their “educational years” and want to live off the government (you and me) when they could work need help in taking responsibility for their own lives, not money for nothing.
If you raise the minimum wage to $15.00 dollars and hour, then prices on everything will go up.
It is a basic law of enconomics.
Your gallon of milk would cost around $10.00 to $12.00 a gallon.
A happy meal could easily cost about $9.00 per meal.
I could go on and on about how prices on everything would go up.
I remember the 1970’s when GM negotiated a new contract with unions and the workers got a $0.50 a one dollar an hour in pay raises.
As soon as the new pay rate was announced the price of food and a lot of other stuff went u.
Andrew Heller made be a decent columnist, but it is apparent that he must have slept through economics during his college years.
I also found it interesting that the unions in California that wanted the $15.00 minimum wage also wanted some of the union worker exempt from the proposal.
Gee, could it be that they understood if if went that high that some of their workers would be put out of work.