What are your thoughts on the "Fight for $15?"
For example, if Pizza Hut increased pizza prices by 75 cents and now Dominoes is cheaper; they will lose customers to Dominoes. Which can be much more expensive than paying from profits in the first place.
This is opposed to Skilled labor, like the Military, Administrative fields (Secretarial), Trades (Plumbing, HVAC, Mechanical), or anything else that requires a specific training or education to perform.
The concept of a "living wage" is frankly asinine. It's in flux, like the market itself. If you raise the base wage, inflation will rear its ugly head and you will end up with a death spiral. This isn't to say people shouldn't be paid fairly. They absolutely should, but Unskilled Labor jobs (aka Minimum Wage Jobs) are not Careers and should be viewed as "stepping stones" to Skilled Labor or Professions.
A 40 year old person demanding to be paid Skilled Labor Rates (like $15/hr) for Unskilled Labor is like a Private demanding General pay.
No it should not...!!!!!!!!! Absolutely the wrong answer!!!!!!!!! We should conserve the value of the dollar as much as possible during fiscal difficulties. If decisions are made to federally raise minimum wage across the country we are exercising the right to pay double or triple the cost of commodities we currently pay for (EUROPE is in this crisis already look at GREECE). Meaning gas will be more expensive and less justified for its cost. Milk and eggs will cost a months pay... you get the idea. We have socially accepted that a gallon of gas costs 3 dollars or more per gallon. That is our fault...shame on us. The war did not raise fuel costs; Americans frightened over conflict did and we never went back to our leaders to confront them and ask why not since the conflicts have reduced or been eliminated we are paying even more than before when the war started. I remember when I paid only 98cents per gallon in 1995. That means whatever the cost in the 20s was it only possibly increased 60%(south Dakota 1923 gas cost about 26.6cents per gallon (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_was_cost_of_gallon_of_gas_in_1920#slide4) in almost 70 years. http://www.randomuseless.info/gasprice/gasprice.html
The problem I have with consumers is not consumers its the inability of consumers to question their own hard earned dollars compensate the cost of daily functioning. That is why the gov't sent a simple message approving all the unemployment. It is cheaper to be on unemployment than actually work and provide a service to the country. There is serious neglect on the part of our gov't considering raising minimum wages. It will be a fiscal CHERNOBYL if something like this gets approved over the long term. I have serious doubts it will change for the better as far as industrial and commercial growth are concerned. I fear that even more efforts will need to be concentrated on those receiving public program support costing working Americans lots of wasted dollars.
WE SHOULD CONCENTRATE ON THE IMPORTANT ISSUES: GETTING OUT OF THE NEXT FISCAL NIGHTMARE (COLLEGE LOANS), MAKE HOMEPURCHASING AND SELLING AFFORDABLE AND REASONABLE FOR YESTERDAYS ECONOMY; AND FOCUS MORE ENERGY INTO HEALTHY LIVING HABITS WHILE RELYING ON LESS TECHNOLGY. Raising a pay scale wont do it. It will make us more reliant on the gov't for support and less resilient. We will just continue down a dark path of laziness and hand out mentalities. Or end up where we are now in the military with new recruits over 35 with multiple profiles probably eventually non deployable because the small (civilian) companies that could have hired them cannot afford too. So now we are stuck with an less trainable force and less expeditionary force short term that won't endure a fight.
The following plots show how much I paid for each gallon of gas I bought over the past 34 years or so. The data has a somewhat varied pedigree. Most of the purchases from 1979-1982 were in the Rio Vi...
This is an amazing video on welath distrobution in America. I promise you that you will be shocked. Im not saying I agree with minimum wage but this is absolutely amazing. Definately worth your time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM
MAJ Miller - agreed to a point. People are forgetting the 2nd/3rd order effects that come with dramatic increases such as a $15/hr minimum wage. Using the professional athlete model - we also pay on average $75 (or more) per ticket to a NFL game, $8+ for hot dog/hamburger, $6+ for a soda, $10+ for a beer, not to mention parking costs, etc... so essentially - one person for a day/night out at a NFL game...you will easilly spend $100+ for a single person to attend a game.
Correlate that to a $15/hr fry cook at McDonald's...you'll see the end of dollar value menu's, overall price increases across the board of the menu items. That's just the fast food industry. I'm not against an increase for minimum wage - but to essentially double minimum wage...that's pure insanity from an economics standpoint.