weirdchemgirl (Anonymous) says…

At $7.50/hour, 40 hrs a week, 52 weeks/year, you would make a whopping $15K a year. Try living on that.

jonas (Anonymous) says…

I have. You can do it.

SettingTheRecordStraight (Anonymous) says…

Why is $0 per hour not an option? That is the wage which benefits the most low-income workers. Someone needs to enlighten the creator of this poll.

RonBurgandy (Anonymous) says…

Jonas - when you did, did you have children? A family? Just curious.

newsreader (Anonymous) says…

How about getting rid of the minimum wage and letting the free market decide wages?

gogoplata (Anonymous) says…

I 2nd what newsreader said.

jonas (Anonymous) says…

Ronburgandy: Of course not. That would be very difficult. You shouldn't have a family if you have to work a minimum wage job.

jonas (Anonymous) says…

Or, you should try very hard to get a better job if you have a family. I should bring that in too.

Mkh (Anonymous) says…

jonas (Anonymous) says…

“Ronburgandy: Of course not. That would be very difficult. You shouldn't have a family if you have to work a minimum wage job”
–––––––––––––––-

Are you suggesting eugenics? This is disturbing jonas.

Mkh (Anonymous) says…

Repeal taxes on tips!

wlove1 (Anonymous) says…

I agree that the market should decide what hourly wages are. In cities like Overland Park and Olathe the minimum wage is not a factor when deciding what to pay an employee, the market decides.

Mkh (Anonymous) says…

cool (Anonymous) says…

“how about repeal tax on food and prescription drugs !”
–––––—

I'll go with that, but what we are really talking about needing to do is get rid of the 'inflation tax'…in order to that however we are going to have to get sound money back and stop the Fed from destroying our currency.

pisafromthewest (Anonymous) says…

RonBurgandy (Anonymous) says…

“Jonas - when you did, did you have children? A family? Just curious.”

When you look at the history of the minimum wage, it has never, ever been sufficient to bring a family above the poverty rate as a single-earner income. The minimum wage was never intended to be able to raise a family and children, own a car and a house, etc. When did we get he idea in our heads that the dream of the little house with the white picket fence and a car in the garage with 2.3 kids playing in the yard was supposed to be affordable to high school dropouts serving burgers at McD's?

BABBOY (Anonymous) says…

I will not work for less then $250.00 an hour. But, thats me.

jonas (Anonymous) says…

“Are you suggesting eugenics? This is disturbing jonas.”

Yes, that is exactly what I was suggesting. Certainly it didn't have anything to do with responsible family planning, or attempting to find methods in which to better yourself. Definitely it was about killing off errant genetic branches through controlled extermination.

You must live in such a colorful plain of reality.

Mkh (Anonymous) says…

And you must be too dumb to take a joke…how sad.

jonas (Anonymous) says…

Or… . your jokes just aren't very funny. Either that or its so very difficult to tell when you're joking and when you're serious because what you say doesn't actually sound very different. I can't figure it out.

imastinker (Anonymous) says…

First, this whole business of tipping is ridiculous. Restaurants should just pay them what they are worth and charge more for the food.

Anyway, where I work we start pay at $11/hour for a completely unskilled high school dropout. It's hard work, but with overtime it's pretty easy to make decent money. Also, we usually train employees, so they have plenty of earning potential. That waid, we are always looking for help.

The minimum wage doesn't mean a thing. There are some people that are so lazy that minimum wage is too much to pay them.

Lee42 (Anonymous) says…

Minimum wage is entry level pay—not meant to support a family. One should have entry level pay when in high school, college or when just beginning in a field. At that time you should be living at home or in a tiny apartment, learning to budget and living on almost nothing (it is good for you and builds character). You should advance in your job/career before you marry and have children. California increased their minimum wage some time ago and have had lots of problems because of it.

RonBurgandy (Anonymous) says…

The best part of this conversation is people telling others what they “should” do before they start having a family. Pretty black and white there.

Sometimes things happen that weren't planned. Sometimes both people were responsible, but preventative measures didn't work. What do you suggest then?

Sometimes people make bad choices before they mature enough to realized what they were doing was stupid.

Some of those people might have minimum wage paying jobs because they had to drop out of high school so they could take care of their kid and they don't have the support around them from family or friends. Everything is not so easy to figure out all the time.

pisafromthewest (Anonymous) says…

RonBurgandy (Anonymous) says…

“Sometimes people make bad choices before they mature enough to realized what they were doing was stupid.”

“Some of those people might have minimum wage paying jobs because they had to drop out of high school so they could take care of their kid and they don't have the support around them from family or friends. Everything is not so easy to figure out all the time.”

So your solution is to reward them for making bad choices rather than allowing them to deal with the consequences? Great idea.

subbob (Anonymous) says…

Completely agree with those advocating letting the market forces determine the wages.

I have never been to any area, be it large metropolitan or small rural, where there was not jobs available in the classified section of the newspaper.

An increased minimum wage does not help anyone in the long term, it is merely a method of political appeasement to the poorly educated masses.

jonas (Anonymous) says…

“RonBurgandy (Anonymous) says…

The best part of this conversation is people telling others what they “should” do before they start having a family. Pretty black and white there.”

I think that you can reasonably look at various results of life choices and make a good read on what someone should or should not do with the level of life-comfort that they strive for. If you find yourself in a position that you have a family to care for and you're only capable of working minimum wage jobs, then your life is going to suck by most practical measures. It is a circumstance that, I believe, you “should” try very hard and avoid. I'd like to think that huge numbers of anecdotal and opinion viewpoints back me up on that observation.

“Sometimes things happen that weren't planned. Sometimes both people were responsible, but preventative measures didn't work. What do you suggest then?”

My son was born a week before I graduated high-school. He, truthfully, was a much greater burden on his mom than on me, but both of us have bettered ourselves substantially while dealing with varying burdens of being a parent. I can't say my situation was very impressive, but his mom did extraordinarily well.

jonas (Anonymous) says…

“Sometimes people make bad choices before they mature enough to realized what they were doing was stupid.”

See above.

“Some of those people might have minimum wage paying jobs because they had to drop out of high school so they could take care of their kid and they don't have the support around them from family or friends. Everything is not so easy to figure out all the time.”

No, but I have no sympathy, or at least minimal sympathy, for people who whine about the way the system is set up and focus so hard on the obstacles put in their way rather than the possible opportunities they could utilize to improve their circumstances. There are enough government support programs available, be they student loans or other forms of assistance, to enable someone, with hard work, to get to where they don't have to rely on a governmental mandated bottom-line wage to save them from their own decisions. I so think it is very important that we maintain some of those institutions that enable them to do that.

jonas (Anonymous) says…

errr… .I ALso think that it is… .

Stain (Anonymous) says…

The minimum wage should be $10 and the employer should not have to provide health insurance. The federal government needs to provide health insurance. There should be no profit-making insurance companies involved. And yes I would pay higher taxes for the kind of freedom that would give everyone. You could work where you want - not where they offered you the right kind of insurance your family needed.

pisafromthewest (Anonymous) says…

Stain (Anonymous) says…

“The minimum wage should be $10 and the employer should not have to provide health insurance. The federal government needs to provide health insurance. There should be no profit-making insurance companies involved. And yes I would pay higher taxes for the kind of freedom that would give everyone.”

And now, back to reality.

If the federal government was paying almost $2 trillion per year for our healthcare through taxes, how much of that $10/hr do you think would be left over?

Oh, let me guess, you're a Democrat - you aren't going to tax those people, just get the “rich” to pay for everything, right?

By the way, how much buying power do you think that $10/hr would have when the people sacking your groceries, serving your fries, and saying “Welcome to Wal-mart” are all making at least $10/hr, too?

Mkh (Anonymous) says…

jonas (Anonymous) says…
“I can't figure it out.”
––––––-

That is obvious.

notajayhawk (Anonymous) says…

Stain (Anonymous) says…

“The minimum wage should be $10 and the employer should not have to provide health insurance. The federal government needs to provide health insurance. … You could work where you want - not where they offered you the right kind of insurance your family needed.”

Is this a “living wage” argument? I didn't think that's what the minimum wage was supposed to be for.

simplifying (Anonymous) says…

I agree with notajayhawk.

I am out of sync with my colleagues in my profession where I pay a living wage, even for parttimers for my clerical support over age of 18. I cannot afford health insurance but I do allow paid sickleave. I get by .on less income myself but that is a moral decision I have made.

Like many things in Kansas, we remain far behind the rest of the country, what a disgrace. All I can do personally is speak with my actions and advocate in my own way for change.

RonBurgandy (Anonymous) says…

pisafromthewest (Anonymous) says…

So your solution is to reward them for making bad choices rather than allowing them to deal with the consequences? Great idea.

It is not a reward for making bad choices. It's helping to provide an opportunity to those children that are a result of those bad choices. It is a great idea. So you suggest that these children are just stuck with a crappy life because of those previous bad choices. It's more of a “I made good choices so I don't care” stance your taking. I am thinking more of the results of those consequences than the people who made the bad choices.

Jonas - I am glad that you were able to grow from your situation. That doesn't necessarily mean everyone has your level of intelligence to be able to rise out of that situation. Especially when a parent is not around to help.

It is just sickening to me that people can just not care about others in these situations.

jonas (Anonymous) says…

“RonBurgandy: It is just sickening to me that people can just not care about others in these situations.”

Perhaps, but I can't see why that should be some form of blanket acceptance. Just cutting the knot through the middle by changing some benchmark or another ignores the necessity of looking at individual situations… . well… individually.

jonas (Anonymous) says…

mkh: Good, then. I'm glad we agree that it's virtually impossible to tell when you're joking and when you're trying to be serious.