Reply With QuoteCypress (07-06-2019)
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Diversity Makes Greatness
Conservative Myth: "Minimum Wage Was Never Meant To Be A Living Wage" FDR Said It Was
"In his 1933 address following the passage of the National Industrial Recovery Act, President Franklin D. Roosevelt noted that “no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.”
“By ‘business’ I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level — I mean the wages of decent living,” he stated."
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It Was Always Supposed To Be A Living Wage
Where do conservatives GET all these strange myths?
What would be the POINT of having a minimum wage that a worker cannot LIVE ON???
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Cypress (07-06-2019)
Diversity Makes Greatness
"“All but the hopelessly reactionary will agree that to conserve our primary resources of man power, government must have some control over maximum hours, minimum wages, the evil of child labor and the exploitation of unorganized labor.” (1937, [FDR] Message to Congress upon introduction of the Fair Labor Standards Act)"
The New York Times quotes FDR in the case for a living minimum wage.
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Verified User
Living wage? Why would someone work their ass off and not get paid enough for rent, gas, food, and necessities of life? It costs money to go to work.
PoliTalker (07-02-2019)
Rationalist
Our whole immigration "crisis" is due to Republican businesses' desire for cheap labor.Originally Posted by Gonzomin
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RINO is the term for that rare Republican who puts country above party.
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PoliTalker (07-02-2019)
Diversity Makes Greatness
Hello Gonzomin,
Precisely.
We are eventually going to have a Universal Basic Income because AI automation is going to eliminate so many jobs there just won't be enough jobs to go around. Wealth inequality will continue to become more and more extreme until the situation is just ridiculous. A few people are going to have most of the wealth, a few more will have jobs that pay OK, and most people will not be able to find work. The only way we can have a functioning country and a vibrant economy is for the government to just give people a regular income check for doing nothing at all. And guess who is going to pay for that. You got it, the rich! We are going to have to tax the rich to give everybody free money. That is the only logical way our economy will be able to work.
And by the time that happens, the rich will be so rich they will totally have the money to do that. And they will STILL be rich after paying enough taxes to support that.
Now, in the meantime, until that happens, and it will happen gradually, we are going to have to address the fact that jobs are being downsized, and people are making less and less money. Sure, there are plenty of jobs, but most jobs don't pay very much. Here is an example. A long time ago doctors did all the treatments. They actually fought the idea of having nurses when it was first proposed. They lost that fight. So now it is accepted that nursing is a job. But they wanted nurses to have a lot of education.
Well, that's fine, but it wasn't cost effective to have nurses doing all the busy work. Instead of hiring two nurses to do all the chores doctors once did, it is more cost effective to have just one nurse and break out the nurse's duties into more menial chores, and hire a lower paid worker for that. That way, the rich who own all the big businesses make more money by cutting expenses such as the cost of labor. So now we have doctors and nurses and lots of other more specialized jobs that nurses once did. Such as phlebotomy, for example. If you get blood drawn, that's probably not going to be a nurse doing that. It is a lower paid position, somebody who is trained only to draw blood, and doesn't have to pass all the schooling and certifications that a higher paid nurse does.
That process of breaking out the more mundane tasks of a job is going on in every industry. Not just medical. The result is fewer well-paid positions, and more lower-paid positions. The rich make more money, and on down the food chain, those at the bottom don't make very much. So people can go to a one or two year program and qualify for one of these specialized jobs, and they get paid 25K - 30K, and not much benefits. They don't need a degree to do that. But these jobs are not something that makes it very easy to buy a home or save for retirement. We get lots of people working, but the difference in income level gets larger and larger. And with it, so does wealth inequality.
The people who make these decisions to do this kind of thing sit on corporate boards, own most of the stock and make LOTS of money, but those in the lower echelon work decades just to pay off their education, and then they can try to save for a down payment on a low priced home. This is occurring later and later in life. Home ownership is down. More homes are owned by big corporations and rented out. Without home ownership, workers don't have much wealth to hand down to the next generation.
Government needs to step in and establish a base line to help working people achieve home ownership. That is the key to minimal wealth and the American Dream.
You ain't got no home, you ain't got nuthin.
That's why the minimum wage must be set at a certain level, so that higher trained positions get paid more, and are more able to achieve the American Dream. Otherwise, capitalism is totally in the very slow process of separating the haves from the have nots. Wealth inequality will become too extreme, and we will have a system which resembles the lords and the serfs, where the lords own everything, the serfs own nothing, and are at their mercy. This does not meet the concept of the United States, promoting the general welfare and promoting tranquility.
We have to raise the minimum wage, and understand it is really only a temporary measure, which will eventually become a UBI.
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Verified User
What FDR intended is his opinion. That is not necessarily the intention of a majority of Congress that had to pass the bill.
The first minimum wage in 1938 was 25 cents. I wonder if that was a living wage?
If that wage was increased annually to keep up with inflation it would have increased 1716.3%, or to $4.54 in 2019. Is that a living wage?
I wonder where this strange myth comes from that says FDR dictated policy or that the 25 cents FDR accepted as the first minimum wage lived up to his intention that it be a living wage?
PoliTalker (07-03-2019)
Diversity Makes Greatness
Hello Flash,
That's a good argument. Makes it sound like we should drop the Minimum Wage to 4.54. Is that a position you're prepared to take?
FDR took what he could get, even though it may not have been what he wanted. Nobody is going to pay rent, transportation, food and health care on $4.54.
President Obama wanted affordable universal health care. What he could get was a far cry less.
We start off with whatever we can get, and then we make it better.
That's the human way. We began as hunter gatherers. Now we have air conditioning, food stores, airliners and computers.
We started off with what we could get, and then we made it better.
Cavemen had no wage at all. There was no money. Our economic system is not fixed in stone. It is something we created and something we can change; something we MUST change.
We cannot look back and claim: "That's the way we always did it."
We must look forward and say: "What can we do to make it better?"
$15 minimum wage. That's what we can do.
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Verified User
It wasn't intended as an argument but to refute your point that what FDR intended has nothing to do with the actual minimum wage. His intentions do not bind future policy-makers. If FDR got what he could take he knew the minimum wage would not really be a living wage at the time. And, it would be an unwise policy to follow.
The minimum wage is not intended to be a living wage because people should not expect to have a family and pay bills without getting the necessary experience, skills or education to earn more. A worker has to offer some value to an employer and not be expected to earn more if all they can do is janitorial work. Anyone can be a janitor with no skills or education, but not everybody can weld, nurse, teach, or do brain surgery without offering greater value.
Minimum wage workers are only 5% of the workforce and mostly under 25 years of age. They are the part-time college and high school students and are not the primary wage earner in the household. They are also the high school drop-outs that had children and now need a job or high school graduates who went to work at fast food places because they chose not to learn additional skills (even when given the opportunity). There is no incentive to offer any value to an employer if they have to pay you a living wage without any value on your part.
The employer does not owe you a living wage and many cannot afford to pay it. The minimum wage is a starter salary until people have acquired the experience to earn more. It also serves the purpose of filling low wage jobs until those workers have gained skills and then the next wave of students, immigrants, or drop-outs will take their place.
Diversity Makes Greatness
Hello Flash,
You keep talking about what was intended, and as the architect of the New Deal, I think FDR is the most credible voice on what was intended.
We was intended is one thing; What we have is another.
Republicans usually argue about what the minimum wage was intended to be, and their vision is quite different from what FDR said. When Republicans imagine what the minimum wage was intended to be, they do not have FDR's intentions in mind at all. They are not respecting people who simply perform simple work. FDR was pretty clear when he said: "I mean the wages of decent living."
Is there something which is unclear about: "I mean the wages of decent living?"
Is there some part of that which could possibly be construed to mean: "The minimum wage is not intended to be a living wage?"
NO! That's the exact OPPOSITE!
That doesn't sound like "the wages of decent living" to me at all. That sounds like trying to rewrite history and change it to what the rich owners of business want it to say. And it should not go unsaid that most owners of large corporations whose workers are forced to rely upon government assistance also make the same wrong Republican kinds of statements which are just not true.
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Verified User
The point is that what FDR intended is irrelevant. Saying he did not intend it to be a living wage is of little concern to conservatives. It is a decision to make today without regard to FDR. I know small business owners who have to reduce worker hours even at or near the minimum wage. They could not afford to pay $15 per hour and the government should not force them and their employees out of a job; then, none of them would be receiving any wages.
Which conservative(s) said FDR never intended the minimum wage to be a living wage?
Diversity Makes Greatness
Hello Flash,
I don't recall making any such claim.
The claim we here with regularity is that the minimum wage was never intended to be a living wage. That is a false claim.
Conservatives are really good at repeating lies so often that they take them as truths. The fact is that repeating a lie many times does not make it any less of a lie.
The minimum wage was definitely intended to be a living wage. That was the whole idea.
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Verified User
Could you provide link in which conservatives claimed the minimum wage was never intended to be a living wage.
I do not remember hearing this, but I'm not sure they are repeating a lie or myth. The minimum wage was not intended to be a living wage just because FDR said so in a speech. Is there any other evidence it was intended to be a living wage?
So, I'm not sure it is a false claim. It is only false to say FDR did not say it should not be a living wage in a speech he made.
Diversity Makes Greatness
Hello Flash,
It has been bandied about for YEARS in the media, the internet and chat rooms. Here is a comment from JPP:
"Minimum wage jobs allow people to acquire skills and experience. I'm for increasing it to somewhere around $11 - $13/hour, but it shouldn't be a "living wage," as the whole point of entry-level positions is to allow inexperienced workers to expand their skills and receive promotions accordingly. "
https://www.justplainpolitics.com/sh...ht=living+wage
I'm not sure what kind of double talk that last was, but FDR definitely said the minimum wage should be a living wage. And it matters that he said it because the minimum wage is to FDR what Obamacare is to Obama, OK? It was his platform, part of The New Deal, that he advocated for and finally got. If anybody's intent should be referenced about what the minimum wage was intended to be, it should be FDR's.
Last edited by PoliTalker; 07-05-2019 at 04:45 PM.
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Verified User
I think your quote from JPP illustrates the point I am trying to make.
JPP: "Minimum wage jobs allow people to acquire skills and experience. I'm for increasing it to somewhere around $11 - $13/hour, but it shouldn't be a "living wage...."
The poster is expressing his opinion that the minimum wage should not be a living wage. He said nothing about whether it was intended to be. Therefore, he is not repeating a myth or lie about the original intention of the minimum wage.
And, as we established earlier, that the original minimum wage of 25 cents was not a living wage; so, despite FDR's intentions, it has never been a living wage and current politicians are in no way bound to follow any original intentions.
I have not seen any claim by conservatives that the minimum wage was never intended to be a living wage--only your claim that they are repeating a myth by saying it. Although I'm sure some conservative(s) have said it, I think it is more of a strawman on your part.
Diversity Makes Greatness
Hello Flash,
Seriously?
You are drawing a distinction between 'should be' and 'intended to be?'
And using that to argue that minimum wage needs to stay at a fixed point, as inflation makes it irrelevant?
Why don't you simply advocate for no minimum wage at all.
So when big corporations say to workers:
'We would pay you less, but it's against the law.'
You want to LET THEM?
What is the intended result?
Making wealth inequality more extreme?
How, exactly, does that promote the general welfare and tranquility?
Well, I guess people who can't earn enough to eat, despite working all day, will die.
Dead people are VERY tranquil.
Is THAT it?
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