Not paid enough? Thank the republicans.

[Nixon]

Sad (http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/03/05/minimum.wage.ap/index.html)

Not one minimum wage hike in nearly ten years. $5.15 an hour is a joke. Most people cannot live on that sort of income, even working 40 hours a week.

I would love to hear from anyone who gets paid minimum wage, works full time and still votes republican.

[Vonwert]

Yeah, I heard the news today.

I was asked by one of my co-workers before the election, on who would increase the minium pay and I of course said Kerry would, since he would focus on the stuff in the states, instead of focusing on crappy desert.

Of course...my co-worker ingored my common sense advice and voted for Bush...

What is the use of asking if you don't give a **** about what happens to your paycheck?

[Fushigi na Renamon]

That's disgusting.

I can't speak for the US, obviously, but I know what that's like. The province of Alberta has the lowest minimum wage in the country, and the provincial government has no intention of raising it. We happen to be the richest province, too.

This is a horrible world. The rich keep getting richer, and the poor keep getting poorer.

*sits and waits for Terr to come and make an enormous post regarding politics and the economy* :D

[The Toecutter]

Not one minimum wage hike in nearly ten years. $5.15 an hour is a joke. Most people cannot live on that sort of income, even working 40 hours a week.

One thing to note, in 1968 the minimum wage was $1.60/hour. Adjusted for inflation, this is $8.77/hour in 2005 dollars according to the consumer price index. Not only that, in 1968, you could buy a brand new Pontiac GTO for $3078 in 1968 dollars, or about $16,867 in 2005 dollars. That same brand of car for the 2005 model is about $35,000 today. So prices more than double, and wages almost halve since then. What the hell's up with that!? Since 1970, productivity per capita has doubled, yet wages still go down and prices go up!? Wages should have doubled in the event prices stayed the same, or quadrupled in the case prices doubled relative to inflation. Otherwise, real money earned goes down. You get paid about half as much as you did in 1968, and prices are double what they were in 1968. Effectively, you earn 1/4 as much purchasing power per hour worked despite productivity doubling.

Per hour worked, other countries like Finland and Denmark, you get paid double than you do in Aemrica. People there regularly work 20-30 hours per week and have more than enough to get by on.



I'd like to see something called a living wage passed in this country. Any incorporated entity will have to pay a minimum wage relative to cost of living by area. So as to not affect small businesses that cannot afford it, the unincorporated businesses keep the $5.15 an hour wage. The corporations, say in a rural area, might have to pay a living wage to each individual worker of $11 an hour, while in a city like San Franscisco, the living wage might be $19 an hour. Peg it to inflation, so that it changes every three months.

Our corporations certainly can afford to do this. They just need to take a hit in their oversized profit margins. They don't like it? If I ran the country, they could get the **** out and be barred from doing any business with or in America.

Here's a few interesting statistics on American companies, the amount employed, and their profits:

Year: 2001

The table is arranged as follows:

Company: The comapny's name
Revenue: Total income brought in to or used or exchanged within company or owned by company
Profit: Total profit after wages, any expenses associated with maintenance and expansion paid, advertising, any taxes are accounted for are subtracted, ect. Basically, this is all the extra money left over that can either be stored or distributed among the investors/ upper management, ect. This is the money remaining after ALL expenditures, including purchases by the company of items outside the company and yes, R&D, for the year 2001.
Employees: Total number of employees in the company, including CEOs and upper management and also including production workers; everyone employed by the company.


Company: General Motors
Revenue: $177 billion
Profits: $6 billion
Employees: 388,000

Company: Citigroup
Revenue: $82 billion
Profits: $9.8 billion
Employees: 177,000

Comapny: Walmart
Revenue: $167 billion
Profits: $5.4 billion
Employees: 1,140,000

Company: General Electric
Revenue: $112 billion
Profits: $10.7 billion
Employees: 340,000

Company: Ford Motors
Revenue: $163 billion
Profits: $7.3 billion
Employees: 365,000

Company: IBM
Revenue: $88 billion
Profits: $7.7 billion
Employees: 307,000

Company: Exxon Mobil
Revenue: $164 billion
Profits: $7.9 billion
Employees: 106,000

Source: Kahn 2001, printed in "Sociology: A Down to Earth Approach, 6th Edition" by James M. Henslin, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

These figures were taken from page 424.

Lets analyze this for a minute and see if we could add enough money to pay people a living wage if we dipped into profits a little bit.

If we divided one-half of the after-everything profits(to account for doubled productivity) among the lowest paid half of General Motors employees, they'd have an extra $15464 to spend each year.

If we did the same with Citigroup, each employee in the lowest paid half of the company would have an extra $55367 per year in income.

If we did the same with Wal Mart, each employee lowest paid half of the company would have an extra $4737 per year in extra income.

If we did the same with General Electric, each employee lowest paid half of the company would have $31471 per year extra.

If we did the same with Ford, $20000 per year.

If we did the same with IBM, $25081 per year extra.

And if we did the same with Exxon Mobil, a whopping $74528 per year extra could be paid to every employee in the lowest paid half.


Keep in mind, all of these companies have some sort of cheap labor being employed in places like Mexico, China, Thailand, ect. where they pay people PENNIES per hour worked. Hence I figured the lowest half of paid employees figure was more appropriate.

Since 2001, profits of these companies have increased a LOT more. 2001 was their 'bad' year where 9-11 is said to have had some effect(I don't think it was very significant, as out economy was in the crapper anyway being prepared to maximize the profit of execs at everyone else's expense. I have a news article complaining about the economy on 9/10/01 if anyone wants it.).

[Nixon]

Very interesting figures, Terrorist.

One thing to note, in 1968 the minimum wage was $1.60/hour. Adjusted for inflation, this is $8.77/hour in 2005 dollars according to the consumer price index.

I was curious about that as well. Just cements the fact that our government is giving us the Joan Collins special.

I'd like to see something called a living wage passed in this country. Any incorporated entity will have to pay a minimum wage relative to cost of living by area.

That seems like a decent idea. There is a huge difference in cost of living expenses between my home town of SA and Austin. SA sucks, so I'm willing to suffer a bit just to live here. It would be great if I could make a little more to cover the rising costs of housing and food.

[KingSpoom]

I always thought the problem was with the people at the top of the food chain. The ones making more money than they work for. China seems to want to do something about that:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/FAE877C3-BAEE-4F2C-938C-49C7101B5A7D.htm
I don't like the idea of other people creating fortune empires that ensures the success of their families for generation. I don't mind people saving up and giving a better life to their kids, but when entire generations of a family don't have to work and end up with more money than they started with, something seems wrong. If you don't read the article, they are saying "The initial standard is likely to be set at no more than 14 times the average salary of ordinary employees,". So if the average salary was $20,000, the upper guys would be capped at $280,000.

[The Toecutter]

In America, CEOs earn 600 times more than their workers do. I like the idea of capping CEO incomes. It leaves unincorporated small businesses unaffected since they obviously don't have CEOs. I'd like to see a constitutional amendment passed allowing such things and with provisions for such things.

[Karr Lord of Chaos]

i think we get paid crap too but please keep these unreported factors in mind.

some of the profit goes to the investors who put tons of money into buying stock, the dividends of profits often fall to them, as that is their reward for buying a sucessful stock.

other profits are rolled back into the company to promote growth, such as exspanding the store base, or increasing production, maybe even exspanding into new markets.

of course there is a a major amount of cash that goes to charaties and other orginizations. its not a a huge amount of cash, but it is signifigant.


please keep in mind that the profits are based upon the final figures of what the company made, vs what it spent (all its assets, exspenditues, shrink, ect). there is alot of profit still available, but its not entirely that much.

in a world of capitalism, money is the power, if we raised min wage, then im sure the company would hike up its product prices to cover the damage. you realy cannot get ahead, that seams to be the general message.

[The Toecutter]

Thing is, the execs often own the majority of the company's shares. The people that own 2 or 3 shares really don't get much.

Charities? If what they gave was significant enough, there'd be much less need for raising the minimum wage. That's for damn sure. A lot of companies donate strategically to improve their image, and nothing more.

As for them raising prices if the minimum wage goes up, that's why the minimum wage needs to be pegged to the inflation rate. Raising prices will then be rendered useless as a means to get profit margins back up.

[Valkysas]

this is why next fall, I'm saying "screw it" and starting my own damn business.

[The Toecutter]

this is why next fall, I'm saying "screw it" and starting my own damn business.

And that's the attitude I like.

[WilliamKirk]

It varies, but barely anyone ever would buy 2 or 3 shares of a stock. There are exhange fees that people have to recognize that would make buying 2 or 3 shares 99% of the time result in a loss of money (to the stock trading company they use, online or in person). Companies always try to cut their share sizes down (usually buy halves) so more people can afford to buy shares of their stock (say like $50 is more affordable to people than $100, or whatever). And, big dividends rule. Right now my money's making roughly $60 a month. (I know this stuff 'cause my dad's a retired stockbroker)

It's double-sided too. Because the rich people can get richer in America than elsewhere a lot of the smart, well educated people come and work in America, and in turn our technology, medicine, etc. advance faster. It'd be nice if all this could be fixed, but there isn't anything that can be done since the politicians rely on money from corporations and corporations rely on rules from politicians and all the 'little guys' are outnumbered by media-brainwashed buffoons and overpowered by the politicians and corporations. I do agree that the Republicans are ruining the nation, and wanted Kerry to win real badly.