Can someone tell me if I have this correct about a 'living wage'?

[jdman13]

For awhile now I have asked exactly how much is a living wage. Well it seems MIT has answered that question for me with a county by county list of 'living wage'.

http://livingwage.mit.edu/

Here's the problem, do liberals really believe that me as a single guy with no children should get paid 9 dollars an hour. While the guy who does the same exact job as I do right beside me should get 28 dollars an hour because he has three kids? Is this liberals idea of fair pay?

Or should we both get 28 dollars an hour, my pay being based on the most kids on the list. So then McDonalds employees, most are kids in school, should get 28 dollars an hour?? Wow, imagine what a big mac would cost then.

[The Solution]

Genius, shear genius.

I wish more people could present points like this in the same respectful, honest, factual, reasonable manner.

You are right....there is nothing "Fair or Equal" in the demands of the Liberal Left.

It is Government induced discrimination and playing favorites....that causes all of our problems.

[Bill Lumbergh]

This is one of the biggest problems in America as the years go by. People only think about what they can get from an employment situation, without consideration of what they have to offer the employer.

[ioerr]

Well I certainly don't think it's a good social policy to pay people for having more kids, unless you have a serious underpopulation problem. Which we do not.

Better to pay everybody some median of those extremes and let them sell any unnecessary children on the open market. There is a demand for them at the moment anyway. And think of the organ market.

Abortion would also need to be an option of course. You can't reasonably expect a random newborn to be worth much in trade in every conceivable economy.

[Misty]

It's not the employer's job to provide a living wage. It's the employee's job to gain the skills to be able to do a job that provides a living wage.

A single guy can be less motivated, and accept a lower pay. A guy with children better be studying, and thinking about gaining skills and moving up to provide for his family.

P.S. -- Thanks for the link, I emailed it to my kids to motivate them. I don't want them to become losers like the 47%.

[mollyblue55]

Living wage has nothing to do with the number of children you have. It is the amount of money required to provide 1 adult with housing, food and basic necessities. Period.

[Beau Nobo]

Why are you asking here? Do you think this is where the creators of that calculator take questions?

I suggest asking the people who made it what they meant by it.
.

[BOBO]

The term "living wage" puts the concept of wage in the wrong category. Wages should not be based on the needs of the wage earner. Wages should be based on the free market ability of the employer to pay the wage earner. The more qualified workers in the pool, the less the wages will be. Just as the number of employees with specific qualifications goes down, the wages go up. It is not incumbent upon the employer to fill the salary needs of his employees, his job is to satisfy the needs of his customers.

[mommanuke]

First, most McDonald's workers are no longer students in school. Because of unemployment in this country, they have been replaced by adults who are working two or three jobs.

Now, back when Henry Ford first started his auto company, he decided that he should pay his workers enough that they could be able to buy his cars. (BTW, it wasn't a free market even then, since he had to fight a cartel that would deny people permission to sell cars without their permission.) Most corporate bottom liners today completely ignore this principle, to their own harm! They have made it so that most in what used to be the middle class can no longer buy anything but survival items.

What suggestions do YOU have to fix the problem - just keep paying a minimum wage that won't support people so you can have cheap hamburgers?

[Lee K]

I'm guessing that when people refer to a wage as a "living wage", it means paying an individual enough money per hour/week/month so that he can sustain himself with adequate housing, clothing, food, and medical care.
This underlines how many people do not understand what money represents. Money is the PHYSICAL symbol for something you cannot see: the power of your thinking/ideas and the labor of your muscles. Since pouring a cup of coffee requires very little physical skill and mental power, the money garnered for this activity is low. However, if you can figure out how to turn lead into gold or whack a baseball out of the park anytime it comes at you, the money you get for this is very high. That is the representative VALUE of money. It has NOTHING to do with what you DO with the money once it is earned.