Hellobee Boards

@HLK208: $15? Wow! What is minimum wage currently? Maryland is an expensive state (as far as real estate) and it's only $7.25 here. Although, the governor is trying to raise it to $10.10.

minimum wage here is 7.25! I cant believe how high it is on the west coast!! Although raising minimum wage doesn't do much to help in the long run because the cost of living will just go up and your back to where you started!

At minimum 10 but ideally more.

It's corporate welfare to have the minimum wage so low. Companies that make big profits have full time employees on public assistance. That's just not right for it to be necessary for federal tax dollars go to support full time workers families, it's not fair to the workers either to have to be dependent on the govt despite working.

I'm not sure because I'm not an economist. It definitely needs to be raised but I don't really feel qualified to say the number. In addition to minimum wage increase though, I think there should be reforms that help prevent companies from pulling the crap they do where they cut hours to keep people under the threshold from getting benefits. It isn'e enough that minimum wage be increased to a livable amount, people also have to be able to get enough hours to work!

In Ontario it's 10.50 I think? It has been pretty steadily rising.

When minimum wage goes up, the price of everything goes up. I don't think it's the right way to spur the economy. Minimum wage should go up when the value of minimum wage jobs do.

@HLK208: The thing is… how badly do you need coffee? Obviously the idea of anyone's standard of living decreasing sucks. But I think America has sort of been living in this weird inflated standard of living bubble where the cost of EVERYTHING is so cheap and most people have much more than they need-- but the flip side of that is that there is a subset of people who can't even make rent or keep their kids fed because they're working $7.25 so that we can have 3 TVs.

@HLK208: I would love to see something like the lowest wage a full-time worker can earn is 2% of the CEO or whoever is highest paid salary. But I know that would never happen.

While I agree that small businesses need to be accounted for when adjusting the minimum wage I think if you're employing people full time then there are certain expectations that should be met.

Oh, I wanted to add that I lived in a country where the minimum wage was the equivalent of $22 an hour.

This might be unpopular... but I think minimum wage should be whatever price a person is willing to take for the job they do.

Be that 2 dollars or 20 dollars.

@Raindrop: Eeeehhh, I think something in the middle is best. I do think we need some government intervention here.

@loveisstrange: what article is that information from?

@MsLipGloss: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/raising-the-minimum-wage-_b_2750336.html

@loveisstrange: I agree. The part about inflation is especially important, I think.

I think it definitely needs to be raised – I think $10/hour everywhere would be a healthy start, although it really should be higher than that in many places.

The cost doesn’t necessarily have to be passed to consumers – at least not directly (i.e., one day a burger costs $5, the next it costs $7 because the minimum wage went up); though I’m sure a fair amount of business owners will choose to do that (similar to the suddenly raising insurance premiums that have nothing to do with the ACA, except that the timing is ripe to increase rates with an easy scapegoat).

A higher minimum wage would also mean less people qualifying for, and needing to utilize “welfare” (whether that be TANF, SNAP, Section 8, etc.) in order to pay basic living expenses, which isn’t always addressed when talking about minimum wage but is certainly a taxpayer savings.

It needs to be higher but not at the expense of removing jobs from the economy. At a point where it is not profitable for a business owner to continue, you will lose many jobs which doesn't benefit anyone. I don't have a number but I suspect that $15 isn't going to work right now.

@HLK208: I think you can think of it in reverse because prices of things have gone up but wages haven't gone up at the same rate.
I am also pretty sure they wouldn't hike it within 1 year; usually there's a plan to gradually get it to $15/hour.

Well in order to pay teachers and military more, wouldn't it require higher taxes? I know nothing about how they are paid, I am a private sector employee and I get paid based on the revenues my firm generates.

Aren't there soft benefits included in their comp packages?

@TemperanceBrennan: something like that was actually voted down in Switzerland recently.

It sounds good in theory, but it goes against the free market. If you put a cap on earnings, the thought is the best talent will go elsewhere.