Comments on: Minimum-wage law’s opt-out provision unlikely to be used by governor

By: Queeg

Queeg — Sun, 10 Apr 2016 17:02:54 +0000

Comrades

Freebies are legend to pacify the masses of piker Visgoths in urban jungles.

Now the “command” unlinking of productivity from wages infuriates the lower manager and skilled technican classes….salaried workers getting sacked or not getting government mandated wage gains.

No end well-

By: skj1191

skj1191 — Sun, 10 Apr 2016 04:10:41 +0000

In reply to Rex the Wonder Dog!.

Well that’s truly a sad state of affairs because my mother has been a 6th grade teacher for over 35 years, she’s acquired every possible extra teaching credential that qualifies for a pay-raise that is available in CA and is earning the highest tier wage rate that a public elementary school teacher can earn in CA, and… guess what? Still only $42k per year which, living in Sacramento, is not enough to ever be able to buy her own house.
So yeah… don’t make it sound like CA teachers live high on the hog or something because they really don’t. They’re barely making it in the ranks of the upper lower-class or lower middle-class, at best, regardless of how much worse off teachers in other states are.

By: Rex the Wonder Dog!

Rex the Wonder Dog! — Fri, 08 Apr 2016 23:09:03 +0000

In reply to phood. School teachers often fall way behind small business owners or engineers and other positions in salary. Cops and firemen often choose to live far from the cities they serve just to find good housing and safe schools Well, you are clearly not talking about CA, where we have the highest paid, and compensated, school teachers in the nation, and LE and FF in this state are 1%-5%ers, so please, make sure you're qualifying your comment to the South or Mid-West...

By: phood

phood — Fri, 08 Apr 2016 14:47:30 +0000

I applaud some basic minimum wage increases. However, the problem of inadequate wages for a segment of the population is a challenge with multiple causes. One law or initiative won’t solve the problem.
I grew up in North Carolina in the 1950s and 1960s. It was a place and time in which schoolteachers, dry cleaning managers, policemen, and engineers could all own similar homes based on their incomes. That is not true today. In many urban areas, there’s hardly housing at all for the poor. School teachers often fall way behind small business owners or engineers and other positions in salary. Cops and firemen often choose to live far from the cities they serve just to find good housing and safe schools.
The causes for these changes can’t be addressed just by raising minimum wage. These are issues driven by globalization, changing culture in the US, the evolution of the economy toward services rather than manufacturing jobs, overpopulation, immigration and other changes that are only tangentially related to legislative decisions. If we want to make real headway we need to think and talk much more about what kind of world we want for ourselves and our children and then look at what personal behavioral changes, or systemic changes to capitalis, might be necessary to achieve a world in which economic stresses are relieved or more equally distributed.

By: Ronald

Ronald — Fri, 08 Apr 2016 13:10:29 +0000

With one stroke of the pen, the do-something Legislature has bought the votes of the high wage earners and the financially challenged. Higher wage earners are rejoicing as the impact on their wages will be fantastic in the next 10 to 20 years. Because our elected officials never look at the unintended consequences that higher wages for everyone will benefit the rich more than those on minimum wage via those annual Cost of Living Adjustments in the years ahead. The separation of the rich from the financially challenged continues to be perpetuated with the “traditional” COLA wage adjustments.

Cost Of Living Adjustments (COLA) to wages favors the well paid: A 3% COLA adjustment for someone making $100K will result in their compensation being almost $135K in 10 years, but for someone making $30K, their compensation will be $40K in 10 years. The differential being $24K more for the well compensated as the financially challenged continue to fall further behind.

The new minimum wage crusade will result in ALL wages increasing. The crusade to put a “band aid” on the wound of these ever increasing costs, is to raise the minimum wage. The better solution would be to HEAL the wound by DECREASING the over regulations, over taxation, and uncontrollable “fees” on businesses that are slight inconveniences to those making the big bucks but the California financially challenged will continue to disproportionally pick up the costs “camouflaged” at businesses.

Throwing money as a band aid to cover the rising costs for everyone buys votes for reelection, but does not heal the wound of why the costs are rising.