Comments on: The Living Wage Folly

By: James Fitzgerald

James Fitzgerald — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 13:24:58 +0000

I think the article makes some points but it like many anti-union articles, always also distort the facts. Another thing I think is a shame is the author thinks it’s fine for a couple to work. When I first started out me and my ex-wife worked, it’s true we both made at least minimum wage, but when my son was born we faced a dilemma, how to raise our son and still bring in enough money to live. We decided to struggle with me only working. I made below the poverty level every year I have worked(14yrs old til today)until I joined a Union at 23. The first year I made the poverty level of earning was an easier year, an they just got easier. The author also tells us high school drop outs an grads get the wrong message with living wages, he says they’ll learn they don’t have to complete high school and that high school grads completing high school there worth less. The real threat is this, as a high school grad that has worked with drops, if the drop out was getting paid the same wage as me with the same amount of experience, I always demanded more money because I’m more educated then he, there for deserve more an that is what the true problem is living wages increase just that wages. Check this stat out a local non-union contractor campaigned that union labor just cost the taxpayer more money and wanted the common wages laws repealed, it later came out that most of his contracts where for government jobs where he routinely charge the same labor rate as the Union contractor but only paid his workers routinely 50% less than Union workers, but when the common wages laws took effect he had to pay his workers the same wage. So he was really campaigning to put more money back in his own pocket not the taxpayers. As a union worker Socialism isn’t the answer but neither is rampant unchecked free market capitalism.

By: Bob

Bob — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 02:51:26 +0000

Having owned a technical business and having worked for government and private industry, I have experienced working for almost nothing, $.50 per hour in the early ’50s. Then working later for minimum wage. After college, of course my earnings increased. But whether I worked for other my self or paid someone to work for me, I’ve always agreed that any job worth doing is worth a livable wage. The writer speaks of “free market” there is no such thing. There is always price fixing by several companies joining forces to control prices of products, or there are government subsidies, or tax breaks to companies.
The problem with the elitist advocating “free market” is to get it to market at slave labor wages, then get the highest price the market will bear. Then once the laborer has spent his life working for these miserly wages, with no benefits, no health care, no retirement, when he can no longer work, s/he is disposable.

By: Libertarian Loon

Libertarian Loon — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 17:29:51 +0000

Jane, I disagree that this is rubbish. True, if nothing else in the economy or culture were changed, then the living wage or minimum wage laws make some sense. But what you may not have considered in your assessment of the article is the underlying, unspoken philosophy of free market economics. If there was truly a free market economy in this country (it isn’t now) then the entire face of the economy would be unrecognizable to you. Money would be worth something and people would be rewarded more adequately for their labor because the great burden of supporting a tyrannical government would be gone. In a free market economy, if the economy threatened to ‘sputter to a halt’ as you say, the market would self-adjust. You have never seen this happen in your lifetime because, unless you are over 100 years old, you’ve never lived in an economy that wasn’t managed (poorly) by the government. The very fact that there are large sections of the population who make minimum wage is due to you government’s involvement.

By: jane

jane — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 02:33:34 +0000

This article is rubish. Without a living wage paid to the very people that are esential to our economy the economy sputters to a halt. There are too few at the top holding all the money!!
We all deserve to be a part of the economic picture no matter how “stupid our job is”–in fact those who spend their lives at stupid jobs deserve much more than to be treated simply as an insignificant consequence of stupidity!!