We have to raise the minimum wage.
Most arguments for instituting or raising a minimum wage are based on fairness and redistribution. Even if workers are getting a competitive wage, many of us are deeply disturbed that some hard-working families still have very little.
The most important lesson to take away from allowing the minimum wage and unemployment benefit data to talk is that abstract notions of what is right, good and just should be examined from a concrete, operational point of view. A dose of reality is most edifying.
In the 1960s, a minimum wage job would keep a family of three afloat.
You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
I’d love to have our trains, our subway cars and our taxis built right here in New York City. You can create 40,000 living wage jobs… the city’s contracting power is huge.
I thought in this country, the best social program was a job. Yet minimum wage jobs aren’t paying enough to keep families out of poverty.
House Republican leadership have refused to allow a clean minimum wage vote. Close to 15 million Americans will be affected if we did this. Do Republicans really expect a family to live on less than $11,000 a year?
When Atletico wanted to sell me, I was told that I earned too much money and they wanted me off the wage bill. I liked that honesty.
In terms of emerging economies, we absolutely believe that the prescription is social protection and a minimum wage on which people can live.
There are few things more dangerous in a democracy than allowing a President to wage secret wars without the knowledge of the country.
When men and women, boys and girls, are denied the right to education, the right to own land, the access to basic services like healthcare and clean water, a fair price for the crops they grow, a fair wage for the work they do, or the right to be part of making decisions that affect them, the result is poverty.
We are a retailer – we are a merchant. That is our business. But we look for places to make a positive difference. There is such a thing as a double bottom line, whether it is the wage increase or what we do with environmental sustainability to limit waste.
I have no issue with raising minimum wage, but then the customer can’t say to us, ‘Why are you raising your prices?’
I’m fighting to make childcare more affordable for working parents so they can continue working and advancing their careers, closing wage gaps that for too long have held women back from the fair economic opportunities they need.
The bottom line is that five million low-income Americans working full time for minimum wage, deserve a raise.
I can tell you what people on minimum wage want: They want a career. They don’t want a minimum wage.
Wage concessions are difficult to quantify, since their magnitude depends on many operating variables.
In a perfect world, people don’t have to move to another country to get a higher wage. Ultimately, they need only be able to participate in producing output that is sold internationally.
NAFTA recognizes the reality of today’s economy – globalization and technology. Our future is not in competing at the low-level wage job; it is in creating high-wage, new technology jobs based on our skills and our productivity.
It is true that rich people can spend more money than middle class people, but there’s this upper limit on what we can spend. I drive a very nice car, but it’s only one car. I don’t own a thousand, even though I earn a thousand times the median wage. I have a few jackets, not a few thousand.
The federal government was created to defend the United States, not to wage war upon it.
Radical thought has inspired many of the great political and social reform movements in American history, from ending slavery to establishing the minimum wage.
Folks, you’re the reason that the automobile industry is back. Whether it was the wage freezes, the plant closures, folks, you sacrificed to keep your companies open. Because of your productivity, the combined auto companies have committed to invest another $23 billion in expansion in America.
Raising the minimum wage seems to all economists to, at the very least, fail to ‘raise’ employment, and we’d all like to see better inclusion of low-skilled workers into good-paying jobs.
Dad didn’t earn a big wage but even if he was really ill he’d go to work.
One in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a wage.
Leftists wage the war on Christmas using their traditional methods – government fiat and the court system. They never win voting, and they certainly don’t win in the free market, so they bravely fight their battles through big government.
My politics are food-related – food banks, the living wage, zero hour contracts – and my food is political.
I wrote a script – a script about a guy working on the automobile assembly line; I never could get money for that. I did a pilot about minimum wage workers for HBO that didn’t get picked up; they thought it was depressing, even though it was a comedy.
Let us wage a moral and political war against the billionaires and corporate leaders, on Wall Street and elsewhere, whose policies and greed are destroying the middle class of America.
It is an uphill fight to persuade workers that the minimum wage is not in their interest.
Like how on earth can you make 180 grand as a senator with luxe health care and sit there and be like Nero, thumbs up or down, on paying someone a living wage? I don’t understand that.
I think we’ve got to be competitive here in Illinois. It’s critical we’re competitive. We’re hurting our economy by having the minimum wage above the national. We’ve got to move back to the national.
The last three decades have seen the collapse of the family wage system.
When I started in the business, the minimum wage was $1.25. I’ve seen an enormous number of wage increases. Basically, it applies evenly to everyone in the business.
To reward work, to grow the middle class and strengthen the economy, to give millions of Americans the respect they deserve… It’s time to raise the minimum wage.
We will never have real safety and security for wage earners unless we provide for safety and security for the wage payers and wage savers.
Especially for the young and the lowest-skilled, minimum wage becomes a toll that prevents many from entering the work force and gaining the skills that can make a low income or middle class worker a high income worker. This is so obvious that one wonders why liberals keep championing the minimum wage cause.
Minimum wage laws have never worked in terms of having the middle class attain more prosperity.
In my view, nothing would do more to reduce violence in American cities than genuine full employment – a job at a decent wage for every person who wants to work. Numerous studies have shown that violence increases with unemployment.
Raising the minimum wage represents a substantial financial burden for employers, particularly start-ups, early stage companies, and family-owned businesses. In response, business owners would be forced to either lay off workers or raise prices to offset the rise in labor costs.
We have to get very militant with some of these employers to say there’s no shortcuts, our people have a right to a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s pay, and we’ve got to get that done. And that’s going to happen.
The wage for most musicians is a modest amount, and that includes me some of the time.
War is so unjust and ugly that all who wage it must try to stifle the voice of conscience within themselves.
I was unaware of the dispute in Brooklyn. I would never knowingly wear any clothes or support any company who produced clothing with alleged wage and labor violations.
Raising the minimum wage would be a positive step in reducing poverty, the humiliation of living in poverty, and dependence on public assistance.
People have almost been lulled into complacency because there are no signs over the water fountains. But the signs have been in the policies. There’s still housing discrimination and wage discrimination.
By raising the minimum wage in California, 700,000 people are going to lose their jobs. There are a lot of opportunities for companies to prosper in Florida and compete here, and that’s what I’m going after.
Discriminatory wage practices undermine women’s ability to provide for their families and survive on a decent retirement income.
Economists argue about the relative impact of immigrants versus robots on wage stagnation – voters don’t care much. They blame immigrants. It’s easier to get mad at a person from Macedonia or Mexico, taking your job than it is to get mad at a piece of technology from Silicon Valley.
When I was young, my dad, a veteran who attended college on the GI Bill, lost his job at age 55 when the company he worked for was sold. My entire family pitched in – my mom took in sewing, and I got a minimum wage job after school.
Cleaning companies often pay their employees less than a living wage and offer no sick days or health insurance. My years of working for them still made me grimace every time I saw a little yellow car with ‘Merry Maids’ written on the side.
