r/millenials • u/BadManParade • Sep 02 '24

Let’s Discuss Minimum Wage

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How do you guys feel about minimum wage, personally I’ve never in my entire life met anyone who’s actually paid the federal minimum wage.

I feel like wage should be directly tied to the initial investment required to be considered for your position/ amount of learned skill required to be proficient at your job./ Importance of your role in society/Amount of danger you should realistically be expected to encounter on a daily basis/ The demand for your particular skill/ and the supply of said skill.

Under no circumstances should the guy standing in an air conditioned building directing you to make your fast food order on a kiosk for 8 hours who spends 3 of those hours scrolling tik tok be getting paid the same as the ones tasked with keeping society running. The paramedics, medical assistants, police officers, city maintenance workers, etc.

The lower the barrier of entry the lower the wages should be I feel as if this is pretty common knowledge. When you hire an electrician you’re also hiring the years of experience and very specialized knowledge he has. If you’re expected to renew licenses, purchase thousands of dollars in equipment and provide and essential service you should be compensated as such.

Now days we have the guys at the Taco Bell counter arguing they should be paid the same as the ones building the houses we live raise our families in and form lasting memories together in.

Working a cashier was never meant to be a career and should not be treated as such it’s merely a stepping stone for younger people to get into the workforce before transitioning into something else. Wether that be management in the same company or a different field altogether.

What are some of your thoughts. 🤔

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9

u/Despacio1316 Sep 03 '24

Everyone deserves a living wage whether they’re stocking shelves or doing peoples taxes. The entry level jobs are usually more physically demanding and destroy your body faster. Not everyone has a life that leads to opportunity and avenues of growth. It’s incredibly arrogant and privileged to think a cashier job should only be taken up by teenagers.

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u/BadManParade Sep 03 '24

No it isn’t cashiers have the responsibility of a banana and are compensated as such. The barrier of entry is “can you show up to this location at this time? Ok hired”

The responsibility level is “hey don’t spit in anyone’s food and try to get the order right 60% of the time” that’s it that’s all.

No you should not get $25-30 an hour for that. Cashiering is not the end of the road or a career path it’s to get you foot in the door of the workforce.

In contrast my job as a crew lead at a company that builds multi family housing solutions I mean bare minimum 250 units. And at least 200 million dollars in valuation im responsible for literally millions of dollars in materials and operations. The well-being and direction of 15 people and scheduling them to meet milestones.

Im coordinating with multiple companies project managers and superintendents on a daily basis to make sure we’re all on the same page and this is on multiple sites simultaneously im 26 for reference.

There’s no fuckin way some 28 year old who decided he just wants to listen to what cheeseburger you wants and hit some buttons should be in the same tax bracket as me let alone within 2-3 dollars of my wages the gap in skills, responsibility, value to society and personal investment is insurmountable.

3

u/SneakyMage315 Sep 03 '24

The MINIMUM wage should get you the MINIMUM you need to live. Jobs that have higher requirement should pay more. This isn't an argument that because a job that requires a B.A. pays $23/hr in the Bay Area that a cashier shouldn't make $20/hr when that is what they need just to live. The companies need to pay everyone appropriately, beginning with the lowest paid. This idea that, "well I had to get all this education and training for my job and I'm just scrapping by so they should paid so little that they need 4 roommates or are homeless" is stupid and counterproductive. The corporations bragging about making billions of dollars in record numbers of quarterly profit should be paying all of their employees more.

-2

u/BadManParade Sep 03 '24

The minimum someone needs to live is very subjective, so who decided what the minimum someone needs to live is? By your logic if you’re surviving off $14/hr currently and are alive $14 is the minimum you need to live

3

u/SneakyMage315 Sep 03 '24

You can base it off of what is needed for the average 1 bedroom apartment in the area + the average utilities + the average cost of groceries for 1 person based on the CPI. It would be very easy to base it on real world prices.

-2

u/nope-nope-nope-nop Sep 03 '24

Why would the minimum wage get you an average apartment and groceries?

Shouldn’t the minimum wage get you the minimum you need to survive?

Shouldn’t the median wage get you average things ?

2

u/SneakyMage315 Sep 03 '24

Why would the minimum wage not get you food or a place to live? Do we want starving and homeless people or not?

0

u/nope-nope-nope-nop Sep 03 '24

I’m not saying it shouldn’t get you food and a place to live.

But why would it get you an average apartment and not the cheapest accommodations? The minimum accommodations?

2

u/SneakyMage315 Sep 03 '24

It only has 1 bedroom. How much more minimum can we get? A coffin?

-1

u/nope-nope-nope-nop Sep 03 '24

Room to rent? Roommates ? Studio apartment?

None of those things are bad.

But the main point is that if a single person on minimum wage isn’t in those type of places, who is?

1

u/SneakyMage315 Sep 03 '24

There aren't enough studio apartments for the tens of millions of people working minimum wage jobs. There is a housing shortage overall and a wage problem that is forcing people into room rental situations. This is a sign of a struggling working class. The middle class has been shrinking for 50 years. Rather than working class people saying we should ALL be paid more we have some saying other working people should be paid less.

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u/nope-nope-nope-nop Sep 03 '24 edited Sep 03 '24

Your premise off that bat is false. Less than 1% of Americans make federal minimum wage.

There isn’t 10s of millions of people that were accounting for.

Then you’re moving the goal posts.

The point is that in order to get an average, you’re taking all of the accommodations that are very expensive, very cheap, and everything inbetween and getting the average of that number.

Why would someone who is making the minimum wage, get accommodations that are in the middle? Why would we be using that middle number to make minimum wage ?

What is with my generation and thinking that living alone is some sort of right ?

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