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Bill Maher’s New Rules on the plea to raise the minimum wage is on point. It is hard to understand anyone’s objection to it. A country cannot frown on citizen’s using public assistance if it does not create an economy that pays a living wage to all its citizens that are working.
The following snippet with the most relevant bullets from his New Rules segment on the minimum wage is on point.
Bill Maher’s New Rules Snippet On The Minimum Wage
When it comes to raising the minimum wage Conservatives always say it is a non-starter because it cuts into profits. … You might think that paying people enough to live is so self-evident that even crazy people could understand it. But you would be wrong. …
Michele Bachmann is not only against raising the minimum wage, she is against having one at all. She wants said “… if we took away the minimum wage … we could … virtually wipe out unemployment … because we would be able to offer jobs at whatever level.” …
And naturally Ted Cruz agrees. Ted Cruz thinks it’s a good thing that when his Cuban father came to America he was paid fifty cents an hour to work as a dishwasher. …
When did the American dream become this pathway to indentured servitude, this economic death spiral where workers get paid next to nothing, so they can only afford to buy next to nothing, so businesses are forced to sell cheaper and cheaper shit?
Consider the fact that most fast food workers whose average age by the way is 29 … are on some form of public assistance which is not surprising. When even working people can’t make enough to live they take money from the government.
This is the question the Right has to answer. Do you want smaller government with less handouts or do you want do you want a low minimum wage because you cannot have both. If Coronel Sanders isn’t going to pay the lady behind the counter enough to live on, then Uncle Sam has to. And I for one is getting a little tired of helping highly profitable companies pay their workers.
Bill Maher makes a very important statement. The average American citizens are subsidizing McDonald’s. Americans are subsidizing all companies that are paying below subsistence level wages.
The viral story of a McDonald’s employee calling a McDonald’s help line is probative. McDonald’s gave her information necessary to get government assistance and charity. This was a full time worker. What she really needs is an increase in the minimum wage. What she needs is the dignity of pay she can live on.
Bill Maher is late to the party. George Carlin figured out long time ago that the American Dream had become a pathway to indentured servitude. He laid it out in his “The American Dream” standup skit. The minimum wage is part of the problem. However, the problem of the poor and working middle class is much deeper.
The problem is income and wealth disparity that is getting worse. Income and growth is extracted from the poor and the middle class with policies to ensure the incessant steady growth of the wealth and income of a very few.
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TKList says
The government subsidizing workers is the problem.
If they did not do this the market would naturally pay higher wages or prices would decrease or a combination of both would happen.
The Tax Code, excessive regulations and the Federal Reserve are the major causes of the widening inequality gap.
papa says
Seriously? That is how you see it? So if the government cut all food stamps, housing subsidies, and whatever other programs the working poor rely on to get by, the market, out of the generousness of their hearts would raise all these peoples pay to a living wage? The reason these programs are in place is because these employers WILL NOT pay a decent living wage and their employees must receive assistance while the CEO’s and other upper level people give themselves outrageous bonuses and draw wages the are ridiculous. Do you really think that if these government subsidies ended, that the people at the top in their ivory towers would give a rats ass about their workers and whether or not they can get by on what they are paying?
TKList says
It is about supply and demand.
If you have an easy time filling your employee needs, you offer lower wages, if you have a hard time filling your employee needs, you offer higher wages; because if you do not your competition will and you will be out of business.
Unless of course the Government decides to subsides your workers, then you will last much longer.
blarky says
Your logic is sound tk but you’re forgetting that few if any people WANT to work for places like that and no one wants to work for minimum wage. The people who work there do it because it’s available. If they removed govt. wage support those people would still work there because they have limited options, so the supply of workers isn’t gonna disappear they’re just gonna end up working 2-3 jobs to pay the bills and never have time or finances for an education to get out of that hellish rut.