• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

How about a sliding-scale federal minimum wage?

BSM1

What? Me worry?
a better idea might be for the federal govt. to mandate a minimum wage that may vary from state to state and city to city based on one's buying power in a particular location, the local cost of living index

a sliding scale minimum wage based on local economies nationwide

A full-time janitor living and working in San Francisco should have the same buying power on his wages than a full-time janitor living and working in Muskogee, Oklahoma has in that town.

The janitor living and working in San Francisco is going to need a considerably higher wage than an Oklahoma janitor.

As rich as San Francisco is, I don't think those bank executives in the financial district on Market Street want dirty office buildings there and certainly the college-educated there aren't going to push brooms or floor waxing machines.

Still, the mandate should be for a doable living wage that fully satisfies all human living needs no matter what we do for a living, and where we live and work whether we push brooms, paint curbs, read parking meters, perform brain surgery, flip Big Macs or swing carpenter hammers clad in bib overalls.

Why do you think we need a mandated minimum wage to begin with?
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
How bad are the flash floods and tornadoes in Indiana?
The tornadoes dont get as big, but they still wreck cities and communities in Indiana. The flash flooding isnt as bad, but when it does on occasikn get bad the flooding is really bad (it was worse before the Mississenewa Dam). As for the cost of living, its rural Indiana where I lived is overall very similar to Bakersfield. Rent and gas are more, but grocieries are pretty much the same, electricity is pretty much the same, but junk food does cost more. And in Indiana, 420/month will get you something, but it may not be better than what you have, and its likely no one can hold you accountable for not wanting to live there. Or nkt wanting to live in the state at all. It sucks there. The weather sucks, the people are nosey ********, and trolling Klansmen, meth, church, and bars are pretty much all there is to do. You made the better choice by not going there. Fort Wayne isnt as bad, but its surrounded by Conservatives so red they make the Conservative Red of Bakersfield look like a pretty shade of cerulean blue. And the wages and job market isnt really the best either, though better than the rest of the state.
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
Personally I would probably go for a percentage based wage, that runs parallel with the CEOs wage. Basically a tether from the highest paid to the lowest.

When you hear CEOs make an 300 to 400 times the amount of the employee I think it's time for some tethering to be instituted to make sure everybody who makes the company run gets their fair share of the work they put in with their Blood Sweat and Tears.

I think exceptions like sole proprietorships obviously would be exempt or small family-run businesses. Wages are usually within a scope where the owner isn't making 300 to 400 times the amount over an employee.

What I'm talking about is primarily large corporations where the bulk goes to the executives and the CEOs and everyone else gets crumbs that they can barely live on.
That would be an interesting idea, and it would drive home the point that rich fat cats got rich and fat by the labor of others, allowing them to prosper but not share the wealth.
 

Jonathan Bailey

Well-Known Member
Do you mean OK doesn't use as much salt?

Apr 22, 2019 The Oklahoma Department of Transportation is fully stocked for winter weather, keeping on average 220,000 tons of salt and/or salt/sand mix on hand in strategic locations statewide. ... ODOT has 128,381 gallons of salt brine stored.

Oklahoma Department of Transportation - Did You Know
or maybe they don't use rock salt....maybe its the rock salt that eats cars up fast
 

Jonathan Bailey

Well-Known Member
The tornadoes dont get as big, but they still wreck cities and communities in Indiana. The flash flooding isnt as bad, but when it does on occasikn get bad the flooding is really bad (it was worse before the Mississenewa Dam). As for the cost of living, its rural Indiana where I lived is overall very similar to Bakersfield. Rent and gas are more, but grocieries are pretty much the same, electricity is pretty much the same, but junk food does cost more. And in Indiana, 420/month will get you something, but it may not be better than what you have, and its likely no one can hold you accountable for not wanting to live there. Or nkt wanting to live in the state at all. It sucks there. The weather sucks, the people are nosey ********, and trolling Klansmen, meth, church, and bars are pretty much all there is to do. You made the better choice by not going there. Fort Wayne isnt as bad, but its surrounded by Conservatives so red they make the Conservative Red of Bakersfield look like a pretty shade of cerulean blue. And the wages and job market isnt really the best either, though better than the rest of the state.

I'm on the verge of becoming a national freight-carrier truck driver. Of course, the employment opportunities should good for the trucking industry even in the bum-f_ck Sooner and Hoosier states. Trucks and redneck hicks seem to go hand in hand. Upon becoming a veteran OTR driver after about five years behind the wheel, I then want to have a stationary job as dispatcher or manager and then migrate back to my boyhood state of California or maybe settle up in Oregon where my maternal great-grandfather had a sheep ranch.

In spite of the high cost of living, nothing beats the quality of the Western states in America. I would prefer to live in Sacramento, Redding or Yuba City than Bakersfield, Fresno, Modesto or Stockton.

I lived in Sacto County from 2008 through 2016 and enjoyed the cool Delta breeze. I got sick of renting rooms there from crotchety old landlords and came to the Heartland last month to get rent cheap enough to be rent-free. I spent the last three years renting a room in downtown Boise, Idaho near BSU on a separate lease from my roomate in a 2BR unit but the high altitude (which aggravated my asthma in the cold winters there) and the rising rent there drove me out. idaho is lovely but Bosie is now too expensive for poor man to leave roommate-free unless he has one of those rare Section 8 voucher. I like the low altitude of Sacramento and its close proximity to the sea. Salem, Eugene or Portland Oregon might work for me well too. Lovely forests nearness to the ocean and mother nature outdoors divine up in the Beaver state. High rent and real estate values but not as high as California plus electricity and taxes are supposed to be lower there too.
 
Last edited:

Jonathan Bailey

Well-Known Member
Basically, salt is salt. And Indiana uses a mixture of sand and salt.

According to this map, California and Idaho use winter salt as well. In California I only drove my 1995 Corolla twice in the Sierras during snow season and never sustained rust. I've been through three snowy winters of Boise, ID and never sustained rust on my car there either.

I don't know if the streets of Lawton, Oklahoma where I now live and where I was stationed as soldier at nearby Fort Sill 30 years ago will use salt. i rarely leave town or drive on the highway in my car. In the army, 1989-1991, my car never got rusted from driving two Oklahoma winters all over the state as well as in Texas.

map of states that salt roads - - Image Search Results
 

Enoch07

It's all a sick freaking joke.
Premium Member
a better idea might be for the federal govt. to mandate a minimum wage that may vary from state to state and city to city based on one's buying power in a particular location, the local cost of living index

a sliding scale minimum wage based on local economies nationwide

A full-time janitor living and working in San Francisco should have the same buying power on his wages than a full-time janitor living and working in Muskogee, Oklahoma has in that town.

The janitor living and working in San Francisco is going to need a considerably higher wage than an Oklahoma janitor.

As rich as San Francisco is, I don't think those bank executives in the financial district on Market Street want dirty office buildings there and certainly the college-educated there aren't going to push brooms or floor waxing machines.

Still, the mandate should be for a doable living wage that fully satisfies all human living needs no matter what we do for a living, and where we live and work whether we push brooms, paint curbs, read parking meters, perform brain surgery, flip Big Macs or swing carpenter hammers clad in bib overalls.


Well its already that way to some extent. If you work for the govt that is.

So my job. Pays a certain amount (legally I can't disclose it). I can earn about $10,000 more per year by switching to a private business, or moving to a larger city/county/parish/municipality which receives more tax money due to larger populations and higher property taxes etc.

A good example is, let's say in the windy city of Chicago it pays roughly $100,000 per year for someone with my education, experience, and qualifications.

Though I would have to leave my beloved fresh streams, wilderness and beautiful mountain areas, to go live near a giant polluted city with a huge population. I'd rather have the freedom to work out in the wilderness tbh. But I digress.

The biggest payoff is Govt work has more job security. Private corporations that would employ me, have an extremely high turnover rate. That's not something I'm interested in. But it's worth the gamble for some folks.
 

Jonathan Bailey

Well-Known Member
Well its already that way to some extent. If you work for the govt that is.

So my job. Pays a certain amount (legally I can't disclose it). I can earn about $10,000 more per year by switching to a private business, or moving to a larger city/county/parish/municipality which receives more tax money due to larger populations and higher property taxes etc.

A good example is, let's say in the windy city of Chicago it pays roughly $100,000 per year for someone with my education, experience, and qualifications.

Though I would have to leave my beloved fresh streams, wilderness and beautiful mountain areas, to go live near a giant polluted city with a huge population. I'd rather have the freedom to work out in the wilderness tbh. But I digress.

The biggest payoff is Govt work has more job security. Private corporations that would employ me, have an extremely high turnover rate. That's not something I'm interested in. But it's worth the gamble for some folks.

I would rather forgo an extra $10,000/year to enjoy my cougars, bears, foxes, hunting dogs, boating lakes, fly-fishing tackle, clean air, rivers, forests, mountains and Mother Nature. The quality of human life is not always measured by the dollar.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
That already happens.

California's minimum wage is $12. per hour. Individual counties and cities can go higher: San Francisco's minimum wage is $15.00 per hour. Los Angeles Minimum wage is $14.25 per hour.

The Federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour.

As a matter of fact, only 18 of the 50 states pay the Federal level of minimum wage. Everybody else requires more. In fact, raising the Federal minimum wage isn't going to affect things very much; the feds have quite a way to go to match what most states are already doing.
All of these minimums are still way too low relative to what one human needs to earn to live in a modern inter-dependent society.
 

dianaiad

Well-Known Member
I think the federal minimum wage only covers federal employees. There's a big difference between a minimum wage and a living wage.

You would be wrong about how the federal minimum wage only covers federal employees.

And you are right that there is a difference between a minimum wage and a 'living' wage, depending upon a bunch of different factors, including...and probably most importantly...the expectations of the standard of living of the worker.

Which, in THIS country, are very, very high. We here in the USA don't really have any idea what true poverty is. I have a hint, from my childhood, but even what my mother and I remember doesn't come close to what truly poverty stricken people elsewhere in the world deal with.

Employers are not supposed to see to it that their employees are paid well enough to live in their own homes with 60 inch flat screen TV's, a car, internet access, cell phones and all the bells and whistles. They are supposed to pay their employees what their work is worth.

And their work is worth what their productivity does for the employer. That's it. Are you going to tell me that a kid whose job is "Do you want fries with that?" is producing enough profit for his employer to pay for all the above? How about the greeter at Walmart (who gets $15 an hour where I live)? Does s/he produce enough profit for WalMart to justify that 'living wage' you want?

Here's how you get that 'living wage." You enter the work force at the beginning, at a beginner's pay. You prove your worth, and get raises, or you take your experience and find another job with better pay. Or you use that beginning pay (and living with your parents or roommates) to further your education, and you take THAT and get a better job with more pay. As you become more valuable to the folks you work for, you get paid better, until you can afford that house, the TV, the car and all the bells and whistles.

That's how it's done.

And, since slavery has been abolished for a rather long time, if your employer doesn't pay you what you are worth, you are quite free to go find someone who will. And your employer, knowing this, is either going to say 'good riddance because you weren't worth your paycheck' or else he'll give you a raise.

And if he says 'good riddance,' he will have to find someone who WILL work for what he is willing to pay. Good luck with that. Especially now, when the unemployment rate is at 3.6%...meaning that there are more jobs out there than there are people to fill them.

As it turns out, the jobs going begging are the ones that pay the best, too.
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Maybe we should key the minimum wage to the rental price of a one bedroom apartment.
 

Enoch07

It's all a sick freaking joke.
Premium Member
I would rather forgo an extra $10,000/year to enjoy my cougars, bears, foxes, hunting dogs, boating lakes, fly-fishing tackle, clean air, rivers, forests, mountains and Mother Nature. The quality of human life is not always measured by the dollar.

Oh I agree!
 

pearl

Well-Known Member
Employers are not supposed to see to it that their employees are paid well enough to live in their own homes with 60 inch flat screen TV's, a car, internet access, cell phones and all the bells and whistles. They are supposed to pay their employees what their work is worth.

That has nothing to do with a living or just wage which ought to provide shelter, food, clothing, health care, education etc. When one has to work 2 or 3 jobs to meet these they are not paid enough. Some employers are simply greedy and consider the employees nothing but liabilities, others consider them assets and have no problem with paying a living wage.
 

dianaiad

Well-Known Member
That has nothing to do with a living or just wage which ought to provide shelter, food, clothing, health care, education etc. When one has to work 2 or 3 jobs to meet these they are not paid enough. Some employers are simply greedy and consider the employees nothing but liabilities, others consider them assets and have no problem with paying a living wage.

It has everything to do with it. I am not an employer, but if I were one, and the government forced me to pay someone a 'living wage' (as defined by you...) when what they do for me isn't WORTH that much, then I simply won't hire anybody.

However, now I have to ask what you think a 'living wage,' IS. According to all the guidelines the USA puts out regarding the poverty level and such, California's minimum wage certainly provides that 'living wage' according to ASPE...the government reporting group responsible for letting us know where the poverty line is.

What do YOU think the minimum wage should be?
 
Top