"Ricardo Jackson said he’s been struggling the whole six years he’s worked in the fast-food industry"

Did he really think fast food was a career? 6 years and he hasn't gotten a promotion? What does this say about Ricardo?

This whole thing is a classic example of Liberalism *Bigotry of Low Expectations*.

The Liberal Elites looking down their noses at "the little people" who just can't make it on their own; who can never, ever lift themselves up beyond minimum wage because, you know...well LOOK at them... "What do you expect from *them*?" saith the Liberal as he reaches in to your pocket...

While I'm not in favor of a minimum wage, you're both (unsurprisingly) framing this entirely wrong. There have been enormous structural changes in the American economy. The kind of middle-class and working-class jobs with no or a very minor minimum entry requirement -- school or license or something like that -- that used to exist in the post-war USA have changed or gone away. They either haven't been replaced or have been replaced by minimum wage-ish service jobs.

Minimum wage used to be for teenagers or part-timers. Now, increasing numbers of Americans work these kinds of jobs as their primary employment. How the United States responds to that is going to be one of the defining questions for the 21st century.

I don't understand what you two are talking about, could you tell me in simple terms?

"There have been enormous structural changes in the American economy. "

Bullshit. There was a recession, from which we are stil waiting to recover because our jackass President and his thugs in the Senate are keeping the economy down with atrocious policy.

All this sheep bleating that things are different now, will never be the same, blah blah blah…yeah, ask anyone who lived through Jimmy Carter if they thought the time of American greatness was over? What you silly, sad, chicken-little doom-and-gloomer Liberals don’t understand is…well…anything I think sometimes. Get the government out of the way, free the free market by lowering the burden of taxes and regulation and we’ll be laughing in a couple years at all you sad sacks that think minimum wage is the new rich. Been there, did that…this is a temporary malaise, to be solved when the immature little man-child leaves the White House..

"Minimum wage used to be for teenagers or part-timers. Now, increasing numbers of Americans work these kinds of jobs as their primary employment. How the United States responds to that is going to be one of the defining questions for the 21st century. "

The sky is falling! The sky is falling!! And it'll never get back up!!!

I still don't understand. Krellin do you oppose a minimum wage or something?

He opposes the possibility that people working minimum wage jobs nowadays are working those jobs for lack of options rather than just their own inability to succeed.

Does it matter?

Great. Fan-fucking-tastic. Now the fast food industry is going to try and unionize. God held us.

krellin, your inability to understand fairly simple concepts remains as impressive as ever.

Do you think the economy has not changed, or that job opportunities are all the same now as they were before? Do you think minimum wage is the only government regulation influencing business, or that only liberals support government policies which make it difficult for the less educated or economically mobile?

Also, I am not a liberal, much less a Liberal, but I literally believe that you do not really understand what a liberal is, nor do you have much of a grasp of what most basic terms relating to political ideological actually mean, so it doesn't matter.

Did I say that? I'll let you interpret my statements as you please -- that's what generally happens anyway, isn't it? I say, "The sky is blue" and the reactionaries say, "Krellin wants to eat your babies!!!" so I decline to clarify my position. :P

The ultra liberal would say no, help both. The conservative say no, screw both. The moderates say yes and want to find ways to help those that are in unfortunate situations due to factors largely outside of their control.

ckroberts - your ability to react as a doom-and-gloom liberal remains as impressive as ever.

YES OR NO: Did you live through Jimmy Carter?

If not, go open up a history book and shut the fuck up until you understand economic cycles.

@GF - let 'em Unionize - if they do, I predict a great number of cheap restaurant real estate will soon be available.

Good, I'll make more money if fast food goes under...

(/s)

How can you deny structural change? There is no economist who would say that the economy today is structurally the same as 20 years ago let alone the classic post war 1960-1980's economy.

High wage manufacturing jobs in light, medium and even high tech engineering have largely left the country, classic starter jobs in the private sector bureaucracy, like travel secretaries, travel agents, bank tellers, and general human to human costumer service have also been outsourced or replaced by new technology and automation. The jobs that have replaced these have largely been in the service sector and retail, which are traditionally low paging jobs. Because of the increase of low paying jobs relative to other jobs, median wage job wages have been brought lower by decreased availability and glut of supply.

This is an entirely new type of economy

If people can't survive on the minimum wage, then it needs to be increased.

I don't know what concepts like "deserve" have anything to do with it.

The idea that people are having to live on the mimimum wage is the problem, not the minimum wage itself.

krellin, nothing I have said is either doom and gloom or liberal. I do appreciate the recommendation to open a history book, though. For all of your accusations that someone else is liberal or not, you do seem curiously wedded to the notion of an imperial presidency who can command the economy at a glance, the way ancient Romans thought the emperor could influence how well their crops grew.

Puddle's excellent brief description of some of the changes of the American economy makes the point much better than I did.

I disagree y2k. There will always be a lowest or minimum wage....That's the whole idea of it. It should be a living wage though

If the minimum wage were able to support a person comfortably, there would be much less incentive to work for a better job paying more than that, and the middle class will really disappear with companies receiving little pressure to pay more than the minimum wage. You'll have executives making the profits and workers making minimum wage.

So your position is that minimum wage jobs are socially undesirable? If the population that constitutes the middle class transitions to traditionally low wage jobs and we want to retain a consumer capitalist economy, those wages are going to have to go up. That's the real problem here.

Minimum wage jobs are socially undesirable. No one wants to go around telling people that their son has worked at McDonald's for 16 years. No one wants to put that on their internet dating profile.

y2k hit it on the head. Minimum wage, if it exists, should be a safety net. It should be, as others have said, livable, it should put food on the table, but it should not be a comfortable job that anyone wants to keep. For the most part, they aren't. There are just a ton of people forced into them anyway.

@ck - your reading skills are quite deficient. Where did I mention an imperial presidency? I mentioned the Presidency AND the Senate. If you are truly stupid enough to think that government tax and regulation policies don't impact businesses, then there is *zero* point in having any conversation with you.


"The idea that people are having to live on the mimimum wage is the problem, not the minimum wage itself. "
I tell you what....get *at least* decent grades in high school, aspire to MORE than flipping burgers at minimum wage, maybe even (gasp!!) get further education and/or skills training, and you won't "have" to work minimum wage. Any moron who actually aspires to work as a McDonald's burger flipper and is pissed because this ***entry level job*** isn't supporting their life's expectations is a moron, and *deserves* whatever dim fate awaits them...

Right now, with wages at mimum wage, I've all but stopped giong to McDonalds because I can't escape for under $30 with a family of four. I could go to Kroger and buy fucking filet mignon and fresh vegetables for what it costs to get an unhealthy, shitty, poorly-constructed burger served to me by some whinging, bitching teenager with a chip on his/her shoulder.

I'll tell you why these punks can't get past minimum wage...but you won't like the answer.

Should minimum wage jobs be socially desirable? That's setting the bar pretty low for socially desirable conditions in my mind. I get that we want people to have the money and means they need to survive and keep our economy running, but you can't give that money to them at the expense of an incentive to work hard and succeed. There's a fine line, as there always is with tough economic issues like these.

Minimum wage, if it exists, should be a safety net. It should be, as others have said, livable, it should put food on the table,

NO...it shoudl not be enough for you to pay rent and put food on the table. If you are at minimum wage, you had better be still living at home and splitting expenses with others. This *idiotic* notion that you should be able to live your entire life at ENTRY LEVEL JOB wages is fucking stupid. Then again...I look at who supports the notion, and I guess I understand why.

Those supporting it are the under achieving beggars of society, and the Elitest Liberals who look down their nose at "those people" and say they are incapable to doing better on their own. Insufferable bigotry from the left is what it is.

No one with half a brain would want to live their entire life with enough to "pay rent and put food on the table," krellin. Not in this country.

krellin, here is what you said: "this is a temporary malaise, to be solved when the immature little man-child leaves the White House." That is a very statist approach to the economy.

But, smarter people have explained to you that minimum wage jobs in service industries like fast food have replaced the kinds of entry-level jobs which had higher pay and more opportunities for promotion in the past. I genuinely don't know how to explain it to you any more clearly.