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1) Consequences [by Anonymous Citizen on February 24, 2008]Let's face it, stuff happens and most people will never make enough money to be free of financial worries. It seems like a quick fix just to raise minimum wage and start paying people more money, but at what cost to the general public?
If you raise the minimum wage you are costing every establishment more money. They, in turn, are going to do what they can to cut costs. They have to watch the bottom line or there will be no business. So, they start laying people off, they cut hours, they stop offering benefits and they lower the quality of their products. Not to mention a price increase to help cover costs. These are only a few of the possibilities and none of them seem desirable.
Now we have a few people making all the money and the majority looking for work, drawing unemployment. The cost of living would soon rise and now what do we do? We are paying out more money, working less and the poverty level has risen.
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Increasing the minimum wage hurts everyone because the price of everything else goes up too. They raise the price of food twenty cents when the minimum wage goes up fifteen cents. It costs a dollar more to rent a movie and so on. The people who make more than min wage do not get an increase so they actually make less because everything else goes up. We need to put a cap on everything and then let everyone make 14 or more an hour for a couple of years just so people can get caught up on all their bills and actually be able to put it back into the economy by spending more. I live in Oregon and every year the min wage goes up. It is getting harder to stay in Oregon the average price of buying a house here is 250,000 for a two bed shack on no property. Electric is sky high and we pay 3to4 dollars for a gallon of milk or bread. I have a family of five and we can not survive on our own. We bought a house with my parents because we could not afford to buy one on our own. I make 10 dollars and hour and my husband 15 and we have to borrow gas money just to make it week to week. We have thought about moving to Tennessee because the housing market is better but because of your min wage we are having second thoughts. I have a bachelors degree my husband no degree. But he has always thankfully had a decent paying job. We moved from another town in Oregon because my husband made to much and we were owing the government 2000 every year we made to much so we moved to the coast to make less so we wouln't get hit by the government every year but now we barely survive. The government hurts the middle class americans the worse. Poverty gets help, the rich get right offs the rest of us are being pushed down. Soon there will only be the wealthy and the poverty. That's what they want. Only the rich will be able to drive their cars and afford health care and to eat healthy.
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Oh my where should I start? I have a bachelor's degree and am a social worker. My take home salary after taxes is $1200. My husband is a construction worker who brings home $1800. Looks good on paper because we are not eligible for any type of assitance for us or our 2 small children. We pay $207 per week in daycare, rent $750, car payment $300, insurance, gas, groceries, utilities, and 2 in diapers. You do the math. I work for health insurance. We do not have any money to put back for an emergency like my husband's $1000 deductible for his sinus surgery. But we make to much. We get a 2% raise yearly which is gone by the rising costs of health insurance and costs of living but we make too much to get any help. We will end up losing what we have worked to earn all because we are middle class and can't get ahead. One medical illness resulting in either of us being off work would be the end. The child care assistance suggested another child or 2 would make us eligible for everything. If I were to quit work we would be eligible for foodstamps, K-chip, the whole nine yards but I feel I am being punished to work. There is no incentive to work hard unless you are the one making the big bucks.
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