This seems like a very vilified opinion. The notion that most minimum wage jobs are not meant to raise a family or support a moderately affluent lifestyle is a controversial one.

Liberals tend to respond by saying there should be more welfare options (including minimum wage increases and other regulation). Conservatives respond by suggesting a negative income tax or some other minimum living wage program.

What do you think?

Entry level jobs aren't  meant to support family, they're more to support very young adults and teens

I honestly think people should be taking more individual responsibility instead of automatically expecting the state to intervene.

Don't want to put in the effort for an affluent lifestyle and just want to live a moderately comfortable existence? That's fine. Just don't expect an exuberant standard of living for yourself, and if it wasn't blindingly obvious for anyone else, don't have children if you don't think you can adequately support them.

The idea that you can work for 40 hours a week or more and still not afford to live is indicative that the system is designed to exploit the poor and needs revision. Who cares if it doesn't require education or anyone could do it given a day or two of training, the person is working and they are doing something productive, that alone should afford them at least the ability to not worry about their ability to keep up with rent and living expenses.

I guess the appeal to emotions argument was bound to occur at some point ITT.

Minimum wage can't even sustain one person enough to afford rent, car payments, food, other bills, etc. without any form of other financial support i.e. Food stamps, a second job, etc...

I honestly think people should be taking more individual responsibility instead of automatically expecting the state to intervene.

Don't want to put in the effort for an affluent lifestyle and just want to live a moderately comfortable existence? That's fine. Just don't expect an exuberant standard of living for yourself, and if it wasn't blindingly obvious for anyone else, don't have children if you don't think you can adequately support them.

The people are the state. They can hope the state will automatically intervene but the state (i.e. the people) has to want it. It's not irrational to expect the state to do something about it when it CAN do something about it.

Consider that the ultimate form of personal responsibility for one's state derives from a perfectly equal society in which the beginning states of all people are equivalent and only their choices determine where they end up. The polar opposite is one in which anarchy/hypercapitalism/feudalism/autocracy reigns and a "natural system" with some sort of aggressive hierarchy emerges that puts certain people at a disadvantage from the beginning.

The sentiments of the people that draw us away from such systems are themselves natural responses to having so many people being poorly educated and miserable while the affluent make the big decisions that influence everybody at the bottom.

Quote from: A E S T H E T I C S on September 27, 2015, 12:47:44 PM

I guess the appeal to emotions argument was bound to occur at some point ITT.

Funnily enough, emotions matter. Workers aren't slaves. They're not robots. They're people with families and lives, pride and dreams. You don't treat people like a statistic as if their well being doesn't matter.

People working minimum wage jobs are overworked and underpaid. They're treated like garbage, and their hard work is very, very rarely appreciated. They work a shit ton of hours a week and can barely afford rent. Decent, hard working people. And how are they treated when they want a little more money for their hard work? Like they're greedy scum. When the REAL greedy scum are the ones making hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars and on top of it getting bonuses, are treated as gods.

Fact is you'd rather look after the interests of the ones screwing you than help your brothers live better. Raising the minimum wage needs to come with checks to the welfare system so people don't exploit shit. But that doesn't mean people shouldn't earn more money.

I mean, people like you are the type to say "don't live in such an expensive city". Rent for a place in Crenshaw boulevard (a fucking shithole) was $1,000. I saw that recently on the Internet. This is a place where you hear gun shots every night. How is somebody from the ghetto supposed to save money and go to another city or even state? Why should he? It's the same for middle class people. Why should they leave behind everything they know and leave because it's too expensive?

You people have no regard for anybody, come up with ridiculous "solutions" that show just how ignorant and detached you are, and you shill for the people fucking everything up.

First off, I never denied there was a contemporary social mobility issue.

Second, you really think hiking the minimum wage is a viable solution? Where is the reason, where is the evidence? Demonstrate to us why increasing the MW works, don't just whine about the oh-so-poor, oppressed working class. Time and time again astronomically high MW laws have exemplified their ineffectiveness in alleviating poverty, and has instead, created a disemployment due to its damaging effects on small businesses struggling to maintain costs just so they can stay afloat.

It's all very nice championing this valiant cause for the poor, but when push comes to shove, implementing actual policies to combat the issue is a very different story. Unless you've got this wonderful magical solution to the problem at hand that doesn't involve bullying businesses into inflating their labour costs, I really don't know what you can bring to the table besides muh poor people need to be paid more.

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21591593-moderate-minimum-wages-do-more-good-harm-they-should-be-set-technocrats-not
Before I get more narratives flung at me about how much the poor are constantly shafted by the uber wealthy, I'd like to direct you all to an article that dispels the current myths surrounding minimum wage and poverty.

FACT: High minimum wages in rigid labour markets categorically damages employment. France has the rich world’s highest wage floor, which subsequently explains the colossally high unemployment rate for young people seeking to enter the world of work.

FACT: Artificially raising the minimum wage curtails demand for labour, impacting the people that it allegedly attempts to help.

It's fairly evident that the minimum wage itself isn't necessarily a particularly pernicious thing, it's arbitrarily raising it in a haphazard attempt to solve the issue of poverty which is the problem. It's a self inflicted issue, and simply enforcing businesses to shovel out more money for labour is precisely why the labour market is finding it increasingly difficult to land stable employment.

Do any of you realize just how many human beings there are on this planet? Not everybody can work at Walmart then become a fucking scientist.

The job market is flooded with people as is and your grand solution is to say "well you're not supposed to live off these jobs." Why not? Who's going to work these jobs if everybody and their grandmother become computer scientists after working a minimum wage job for a few months?

You people are so detached from reality it's depressing. These jobs need better pay, because they're jobs we're SUPPOSED to respect. You shouldn't have the life quality of a Brazilian slum working minimum wage. It should pay decent enough for people to live a little. To be able to enjoy life.

It's easy for those of you fortunate enough to go to college and have parents and a house and stable income to say this because you've never struggled. You've never really starved or been desperate enough to constantly contemplate robbing and selling drugs because you either can't get a job, or if you do it's not enough money for shit. But then, of course, we have people who say "well I was poor and worked hard and yada yada". Not everybody's circumstances are the same. Some people can dig themselves out of that hole, most can't.

But go ahead and try to come up with whatever pathetic counter arguments you guys want to. There's no argument to be had. The status quo is fucked, the middle class that decent people have worked so hard for is slowly becoming peasantry again, and you guys are shilling for the people doing this. Fuck you. You fucking house slave.

I think that's the sanest thing I've ever heard from ya.

Top shelf,  5 👌👌👌👌👌s

Quote from: A E S T H E T I C S on September 27, 2015, 01:11:32 PM

First off, I never denied there was a contemporary social mobility issue.

Second, you really think hiking the minimum wage is a viable solution? Where is the reason, where is the evidence? Demonstrate to us why increasing the MW works, don't just whine about the oh-so-poor, oppressed working class. Time and time again astronomically high MW laws have exemplified their ineffectiveness in alleviating poverty, and has instead, created a disemployment due to its damaging effects on small businesses struggling to maintain costs just so they can stay afloat.

It's all very nice championing this valiant cause for the poor, but when push comes to shove, implementing actual policies to combat the issue is a very different story. Unless you've got this wonderful magical solution to the problem at hand that doesn't involve bullying businesses into inflating their labour costs, I really don't know what you can bring to the table besides muh poor people need to be paid more.

"stop bullying the poor business owners"

"muh small businesses"

Your shilling is legendary.

So you don't have an argument backed by empirical evidence then, gotcha.

Quote from: A E S T H E T I C S on September 27, 2015, 01:59:35 PM

Quote from: challengerX on September 27, 2015, 01:58:51 PM

Quote from: A E S T H E T I C S on September 27, 2015, 01:11:32 PM

First off, I never denied there was a contemporary social mobility issue.

Second, you really think hiking the minimum wage is a viable solution? Where is the reason, where is the evidence? Demonstrate to us why increasing the MW works, don't just whine about the oh-so-poor, oppressed working class. Time and time again astronomically high MW laws have exemplified their ineffectiveness in alleviating poverty, and has instead, created a disemployment due to its damaging effects on small businesses struggling to maintain costs just so they can stay afloat.

It's all very nice championing this valiant cause for the poor, but when push comes to shove, implementing actual policies to combat the issue is a very different story. Unless you've got this wonderful magical solution to the problem at hand that doesn't involve bullying businesses into inflating their labour costs, I really don't know what you can bring to the table besides muh poor people need to be paid more.

"stop bullying the poor business owners"

"muh small businesses"

Your shilling is legendary.

So you don't have an argument backed by empirical evidence then, gotcha.

This isn't a Harvard debate, it's a forum. Your constant appeal to macroeconomics and raw data statistics has absolutely NOTHING to do with a high cost of living and extremely shitty pay. Frankly, people earning minimum wage shouldn't be taxed at all.

Please, explain to me how the status quo is acceptable.

"evidence doesn't work on a forum lol i'm right once again"

Is this what constitutes a rational argument for you?

Quote from: Tsirist on September 27, 2015, 01:05:02 PM

The people are the state.

I'm not really sure what you mean by this presupposition.

I just kinda meant it as a nebulous observation that oftentimes the people are said to have power over the state. Sometimes it's the other way around, and the abstractions used are sometimes conflicting/overlapping, but I just mean that in the case of America (which I assumed was the state in question), it is often said that the people give the state power. Although I guess this is not often the perspective on the conservative side where the fear is that the state is constantly trying to gain a better position over the people.

Nevertheless, I mean that the population at large, especially these days, often has a great deal of sway over the arrangement of the hierarchy. Papers and theories and social structures aside, if the masses want something to change, it will be made to change.