I can assure you that you will never find 2-3 white guys that will spend 3 hours doing yardwork for 60 bucks. They would want 120-150. But in reality, 10 dollars/hr is all that kind of work is really worth, IMO.
Last summer someone that lives by me made the statement, 'you can tell times are tough when the landscaping crews are all white guys.' I didnt think twice about it until I started to notice that almost every landscaping crew I saw was all 30 and 40 something white guys. So there are some white guys that will take the pay to do landscaping.
minimum wage was during the workers right act. what it did was enforce the a minimum standard of pay at a factory. when it was first enacted minimum wage was set at 5 cents an hour. It was never meant to be a living wage or anything else.
minimum wage is set for the least skill required to work at a job.
People are meant to move beyond minimum wage pay during their lifetime. Most of those jobs there require higher education.
Problem is, in this economy we have highly educated people out of work fighting for those unskilled jobs. The fast food joint in town puts out an add for 2 positions open and they get 100's of people that show up. from high schoolers to college grads to 40 and 50 year olds put out of work due to comapny moves or down sizing. It use to be you worked your way up and out of the minimum wage bracket, now alot of unemployed are fighting for those jobs they should have moved on from long ago.
Why do you think this? Gains produced by minimum wage are quickly erroded by inflation. The only reason our food isn't much higher is because workers pick fields for way below minimum wage because farms are largely exempt. A local grocery store just agreed to pay 1c more per lb of tomatoes which nearly doubled the salary of the picker. Crazy?
Think about it. If you work at McJob for 7.25 and you buy food from McGrocier who pays workers $7.25 if you both get a raise to $8.00 then McGrocier has to increase his prices and your prices went up. You get no attributable benefit from your increased purchasing power.
Hidden inflation actually increases the divide between the haves and have nots. By raising your costs the ultra rich gain more control over the means of production. Just think about how much it costs to start a business. Adding more red tape and regulation makes it only viable for the big boys and cuts out competition. Why do you think insurance companies don't want doctors to dictate prices directly to paitents?
Do you know who really gets hurt when minimum wage goes up? That guy who has been working at McJob for 5 years and now makes $8.50. McJob doesn't automatically pass that $0.50 to him, so his purchasing power actually goes down.
Minimum Wage like most "help people" policies sound good, but thier effects are not fully felt or understood. Collective barganing for instance is usually used to raise the minimum wage for a group or industry, however since they don't control the prices at which goods are produced they don't control the margins. Owners desire profit so they raise prices up to what the market will bear. When the market gets weak those prices are nonelastic. When was the last time you saw the "new model" of car selling for less than the old one?
Production suffers. Then either people have to loose work, or the factory no longer becomes profitable. Next thing you know people are asking for a government bailout to save those jobs.
I dont know where you live but that $.50 was never passed on to the employee. The employee got maybe $.05 of the $.50 and they expected you to be happy about it. The companies that passed on the profits to the employees are far and few between.
Its funny how everyone just assumes only people without degrees are unemployed.
As for minimum wage. If there wasnt a minimum wage, companies would be paying pennys on the dollar for employment. The gap between the haves and have nots would be huge if it was not for minimum wage. The problem is people will sell themselves short and swallow their pride for very little in terms of money. I expect the employment situation to get worse before it gets any better. Since people are not use to living without, most will do whatever it takes to keep their level of living.
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Last summer someone that lives by me made the statement, 'you can tell times are tough when the landscaping crews are all white guys.' I didnt think twice about it until I started to notice that almost every landscaping crew I saw was all 30 and 40 something white guys. So there are some white guys that will take the pay to do landscaping.
Problem is, in this economy we have highly educated people out of work fighting for those unskilled jobs. The fast food joint in town puts out an add for 2 positions open and they get 100's of people that show up. from high schoolers to college grads to 40 and 50 year olds put out of work due to comapny moves or down sizing. It use to be you worked your way up and out of the minimum wage bracket, now alot of unemployed are fighting for those jobs they should have moved on from long ago.
I dont know where you live but that $.50 was never passed on to the employee. The employee got maybe $.05 of the $.50 and they expected you to be happy about it. The companies that passed on the profits to the employees are far and few between.
As for minimum wage. If there wasnt a minimum wage, companies would be paying pennys on the dollar for employment. The gap between the haves and have nots would be huge if it was not for minimum wage. The problem is people will sell themselves short and swallow their pride for very little in terms of money. I expect the employment situation to get worse before it gets any better. Since people are not use to living without, most will do whatever it takes to keep their level of living.