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Amaros -> RE: Who Pays Our Taxes (1/24/2007 6:10:58 AM)
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ORIGINAL: Archer
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ORIGINAL: Amaros
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ORIGINAL: Archer
Last figurees I saw for minimum wage had just over 500,000 people in the entire US being paid at the minimum wage $5.15 an hour, out of how many million working folks, I forget. Of those 500,000 over half were students or those fresh out of high school. Most of the rest of the jobs at that same pay ar held as second jobs etc.
You're not supposed to be trying to support a family on minimum wage in the first place minimum wage is for those unable to do anything more than walk and chew gum. If you are in a job that pays minimum and can't get a raise within 3-6 months then odds are you are a pretty bad employee. Labor responds to supply and demand as well, and for the most part the fact that we had 500,000 or so folks out of the tens of millions of employed people in this nation tells me supply and demand in employement is working. The problem is the labor market is shifting faster than the attitudes workers have about the jobs.
It would also include most of Wal-Marts full time employees, since they typically find a reason to fire people jsut before they have five years in and are fully vested in the benfits program, most convenience stores/gas stations, most part time jobs period, i.e., the kind that are availalable to single mothers, etc. - and if you've never worked in a convenience store, take my word, it's the most underpaid job in America, it oughta come with combat pay.
CITE your source that it includes them because the BLS statistics say you are full of it as far as "Most Walmart Employees"
They might start at minimum but they don't stay there long, not saying theraise they get is huge but it isn't minimum
BLS Characteristics of minimum wage workers - Minimum wage workers tend to be young. About half of workers earning $5.15 or less were under age 25, and about one-fourth of workers earning at or below the minimum wage were age 16-19. Among employed teenagers, about 9 percent earned $5.15 or less. About 2 percent of workers age 25 and over earned the minimum wage or less. Among those age 65 and over, the proportion was about 3 percent.
- Among hourly-paid workers age 16 and over, 2 percent of those who had a high school diploma but had not gone on to college earned the minimum wage or less.
- The industry with the highest proportion of workers with reported hourly wages at or below $5.15 was leisure and hospitality (about 14 percent). About three-fifths of all workers paid at or below the Federal minimum wage were employed in this industry, primarily in the food services and drinking places component. For many of these workers, tips and commissions supplement the hourly wages received.
- The proportion of hourly-paid workers earning the prevailing Federal minimum wage or less has trended downward since 1979, when data first began to be collected on a regular basis.
I am citing BLS data http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2005.htm
Sure, food services too - another job that will also never give you 40 hours. As for who is or isn't making minimum wage, and trying to raise a family on it, just go ask them.
I do know people making 6.00 and even 7.00 an hour which is still less than minimum in adjusted dollars - much of it depends on where you live, wages tend to be higher in cites where competition for workers is greater - rural areas are often hit the hardest, particularly in popular areas when combined with gentrification from wealthy people relocating from the cities, it's happened a lot in Northern NM and Southern CO - first thing that happens is property taxes go up and people start losing their homes, they tend to end up 20 miles out of town in a trailer park, commuting to their minimum wage jobs.
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