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I'm guessing you're a proponent of increasing the minimum wage?
Minimum-wage jobs are meant to be the first rung on a career ladder, a chance for entry-level workers to prove themselves before earning a promotion or moving on to other, better-paying jobs. But a growing number of Americans are getting stuck on that first rung for years, if they ever move up at all.
Anthony Kemp is one of them. In 2006, he took a job as a cook at a Kentucky Fried Chicken in Oak Park, Illinois. The job paid the state minimum wage, $6.50 an hour at the time, but Kemp figured he could work his way up.
“Normally, a good cook would make $14, $15, $17 an hour,” Kemp said. “I thought that of course I’d make a better wage.”
He never did; nine years later, the only raises Kemp, 44, has seen have been the ones required by state law. He earns $8.25, the state’s current minimum wage.
Stories like Kemp’s are becoming more common. During the strong labor market of the mid-1990s, only 1 in 5 minimum-wage workers was still earning minimum wage a year later.1 Today, that number is nearly 1 in 3, according to my analysis of government survey data.2 There has been a similar rise in the number of people staying in minimum-wage jobs for three years or longer. (For a more detailed explanation of how I conducted this analysis, see the footnote below.)3
Even those who do get a raise often don’t get much of one: Two-thirds of minimum-wage workers in 2013 were still earning within 10 percent of the minimum wage a year later, up from about half in the 1990s. And two-fifths of Americans earning the minimum wage in 2008 were still in near-minimum-wage jobs five years later, despite the economy steadily improving during much of that time.4
The trend partly reflects the recession and slow recovery, which has brought weak wage growth for nearly all workers. But it also likely reflects longer-run shifts in the economy that have eroded workers’ bargaining power, particularly for the less-educated. That sense of stagnation may be part of what is fueling the nationwide push for a higher minimum wage, which has gained significant momentum in recent years. Voters in five states, including Illinois, approved minimum-wage increases last November,5 and several cities, including Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles, have passed significant wage hikes. Kemp has joined fast-food workers across the country in demonstrations demanding higher pay as part of the union-backed “Fight for $15” movement.6
“They’re saying that because of the cost of labor and the operating costs they can’t afford to give anyone any raises, but I don’t quite believe that,” Kemp said.
Kemp is representative of the changing minimum-wage workforce in another way as well: At 44 years old, he is one of a growing number of middle-aged minimum-wage workers. Nearly a quarter of the 3.2 million minimum-wage workers in 2014 were over 40; half were 25 or older, up from about 40 percent two decades earlier.7 The face of the minimum wage has changed significantly in recent decades. As a group, today’s minimum-wage workers are far more educated than in the 1980s or 1990s. They are also more likely to be men and more likely to have children. More than half of low-wage workers — significantly more than in past decades — are trying to support themselves, not living with their parents or supplementing a spouse’s income.
That profile runs counter to the popular image of minimum-wage workers as mostly teenagers, less-educated immigrants or others trying to break into the workforce. Opponents of a higher minimum wage often warn that setting the wage floor too high could close off opportunities for people looking to gain a foothold in the working world. “Let’s not lock millions of people out of entry-level employment by raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour,” conservative commentator Reihan Salam wrote in Slate earlier this year.
That idea of the minimum wage as a stepping stone hasn’t entirely disappeared. A large, though shrinking, percentage of minimum-wage earners are teenagers, and most of them do move on to better-paying jobs relatively quickly.8 But even young people are finding it harder to escape the minimum wage: More than a quarter of minimum-wage earners under 25 are still making minimum wage a year later, compared with about a sixth in the mid-1990s.
Older minimum-wage workers, perhaps unsurprisingly, face an even tougher time. More than 30 percent of those ages 25 or older are still working for minimum wage after a year. And more than 20 percent of those working for the minimum wage in 2008 were still in such jobs after about three years. Even those who did get raises often didn’t get big ones: Nearly 70 percent were earning within 10 percent of the minimum wage after three years. That suggests that workers who are forced to take low-wage jobs later in life have a particularly hard time escaping them.
(see the rest at:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/...imum-wage-job/
I'm guessing you're a proponent of increasing the minimum wage?
Repugs LIE that minimum wage jobs are only for kids who worthless anyway.
Having a college degree seems to be pretty important in avoiding a minimum wage job.
about 1/3 of recent college grads are in jobs that don't require a college degree.
And many of them choose majors that were almost certainly not going to land them a desired job.
vocational schools, colleges are different from academic colleges.
It's actually completely up to the owner of the business. I don't fear my employees leaving for better pay, frankly - the job market is that week. It took a while to get to the point where I COULD give raises (the downturn, and then Obamacare-my business is in health insurance), but now we have given global raises to our employees. Felt bad we couldn't for so long. (I am still at '07 wage level, btw; hoping to increase my salary in the next year).Minimum-wage jobs are meant to be the first rung on a career ladder, a chance for entry-level workers to prove themselves before earning a promotion or moving on to other, better-paying jobs. But a growing number of Americans are getting stuck on that first rung for years, if they ever move up at all.
Anthony Kemp is one of them. In 2006, he took a job as a cook at a Kentucky Fried Chicken in Oak Park, Illinois. The job paid the state minimum wage, $6.50 an hour at the time, but Kemp figured he could work his way up.
“Normally, a good cook would make $14, $15, $17 an hour,” Kemp said. “I thought that of course I’d make a better wage.”
He never did; nine years later, the only raises Kemp, 44, has seen have been the ones required by state law. He earns $8.25, the state’s current minimum wage.
Stories like Kemp’s are becoming more common. During the strong labor market of the mid-1990s, only 1 in 5 minimum-wage workers was still earning minimum wage a year later.1 Today, that number is nearly 1 in 3, according to my analysis of government survey data.2 There has been a similar rise in the number of people staying in minimum-wage jobs for three years or longer. (For a more detailed explanation of how I conducted this analysis, see the footnote below.)3
Even those who do get a raise often don’t get much of one: Two-thirds of minimum-wage workers in 2013 were still earning within 10 percent of the minimum wage a year later, up from about half in the 1990s. And two-fifths of Americans earning the minimum wage in 2008 were still in near-minimum-wage jobs five years later, despite the economy steadily improving during much of that time.4
The trend partly reflects the recession and slow recovery, which has brought weak wage growth for nearly all workers. But it also likely reflects longer-run shifts in the economy that have eroded workers’ bargaining power, particularly for the less-educated. That sense of stagnation may be part of what is fueling the nationwide push for a higher minimum wage, which has gained significant momentum in recent years. Voters in five states, including Illinois, approved minimum-wage increases last November,5 and several cities, including Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles, have passed significant wage hikes. Kemp has joined fast-food workers across the country in demonstrations demanding higher pay as part of the union-backed “Fight for $15” movement.6
“They’re saying that because of the cost of labor and the operating costs they can’t afford to give anyone any raises, but I don’t quite believe that,” Kemp said.
Kemp is representative of the changing minimum-wage workforce in another way as well: At 44 years old, he is one of a growing number of middle-aged minimum-wage workers. Nearly a quarter of the 3.2 million minimum-wage workers in 2014 were over 40; half were 25 or older, up from about 40 percent two decades earlier.7 The face of the minimum wage has changed significantly in recent decades. As a group, today’s minimum-wage workers are far more educated than in the 1980s or 1990s. They are also more likely to be men and more likely to have children. More than half of low-wage workers — significantly more than in past decades — are trying to support themselves, not living with their parents or supplementing a spouse’s income.
That profile runs counter to the popular image of minimum-wage workers as mostly teenagers, less-educated immigrants or others trying to break into the workforce. Opponents of a higher minimum wage often warn that setting the wage floor too high could close off opportunities for people looking to gain a foothold in the working world. “Let’s not lock millions of people out of entry-level employment by raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour,” conservative commentator Reihan Salam wrote in Slate earlier this year.
That idea of the minimum wage as a stepping stone hasn’t entirely disappeared. A large, though shrinking, percentage of minimum-wage earners are teenagers, and most of them do move on to better-paying jobs relatively quickly.8 But even young people are finding it harder to escape the minimum wage: More than a quarter of minimum-wage earners under 25 are still making minimum wage a year later, compared with about a sixth in the mid-1990s.
Older minimum-wage workers, perhaps unsurprisingly, face an even tougher time. More than 30 percent of those ages 25 or older are still working for minimum wage after a year. And more than 20 percent of those working for the minimum wage in 2008 were still in such jobs after about three years. Even those who did get raises often didn’t get big ones: Nearly 70 percent were earning within 10 percent of the minimum wage after three years. That suggests that workers who are forced to take low-wage jobs later in life have a particularly hard time escaping them.
(see the rest at:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/...imum-wage-job/
But employers who don't feel that guilt or responsibility don't have to give raises; the market just isn't there.
Minimum wage increase is only a temporary fix; it would probably suppress the market - minimum wage, although higher, would still suck and those people would be even MORE stuck. $15 an hour would, frankly, bump up against some of my lower paid employees - all of a sudden they would be comparable in pay to a burger flipper. Don't know how that dynamic would work. If they all demanded more money to not be equivalent, and I STILL want a raise myself? Maybe outsourcing to India becomes more attractive.
"the job market is that week."
the "quit rate" is up in the last few months so some employees are moving on to better pay, but overall, BigCorp/VRWC has totally busted employees, won the War on Employees, so real income household income has been stagnant for 35+ years, and some employment segments have actually lost real income since 2000.
America (of the 99%) is ed and un able.
btw, several economic indicators are flat or declining, so a recession, or stagnation, is probable.
Repugs will certainly do everything they can to kill jobs and the economy, at every level of govt.
cant move beyond a minimum wage job?
liberal solution = increase minimum wage
this. gots should stop majoring in art history, anthropology, and philosophy if they're expecting a job. or at least prepared to go to grad school.
In RG's defense, he has not suggested raising the MW - we have assumed that.
But you can add to your equation:
Stuck in Minimum Wage Job = Raise Minimum Wage = More people Stuck at Minimum wage looking to the government to raise their pay = More who vote for more government = ultimate goal
A $15 minimum wage is clearly ridiculous in most parts of the country, but it would be nice to raise it a bit so taxpayers could stop having to subsidize Wal-Mart and other McEmployers with food stamps for their employees. Let McDonalds have to raise their prices so their customers would be paying the workers instead of making taxpayers chip in too.
Fair enough.
The real question is what do we do to get the economy cooking (and not just in DC and NY).
Fundamentally, get more money in the hands of people who spend it instead of those who save it or send it overseas.
I think the idea of a $15 across-the-board federal minimum wage is lazy marketing-politics, but more can be done to ensure that full-time workers are paid a living wage depending on where they live.
I repeat: if your business depends on paying poverty wages, then you don't have a serious business.
You people have been eating for so long, are so accustomed to the ty job market and its low, stagnant, declining compensation, that you can't see how we got here, and even less imagine realistically how to fight back against the War on Employees.
My solution is to return middle class manufacturing jobs to America.
Stop buying foreign goods for so little.
Tariff the out of them to where they cost slightly more than USA equivalents.
btw, NO HELP for the lower, middle classes AT ALL, nothing for the 90%, because the Repugs will obstruct ALL progress, while enriching/protecting BigCorp/VRWC/1%.
If Ryan is elected, he will make sure the above will happen, and worse.
And who is the Republican you want as Speaker?
I've been considering looking into a h2a? For next year. I've ran through a at least a few different guys the last few falls for seasonal farm labor. $17 in a rural area is a lot of money. I can't keep someone that wants to put the time in. All in a truck/ tractor with A/'c nice can. The people around here asking for jobs are the ones that are minimum wage material. Some of those do have a four year degree also.
Both parties suck. Why don't you realize the democrats are probably worse? Their tax and regulation mantra scares good paying jobs off shore.
Two thoughts.
The real economy (not the wall street one) is still despite the "recovery," and it has nothing to do with republicans or democrats but our central banking overlords who rule no matter who is in power.
The guy in the article seems to think there's this magical pot of gold his boss has. The left is all about "science" when it comes to everything but economics and math.“They’re saying that because of the cost of labor and the operating costs they can’t afford to give anyone any raises, but I don’t quite believe that,” Kemp said.
If I don't go the route of a south African ( seems that is the route some guys are going around here) I'm going to do $20-$25/hr. With that I plan on just pulling away from some other business with a long established employee. One guy we had this year I let him go after 3 weeks. We provide food , fridge is always stocked, let him use my pickup, etc. It's always easier to get someone to work in am environment where they are around co workers all day. I offer help to anyone if they want to get a CDL. no cdl is required for farm use though. I would do full time but not without part time first.
The guy I let go started showing up whenever even though he was talking my pickup home ever y night. Fired him after he showed up at noon and ran my pickup through a fence. Blamed it on a turkey. Found out later he was borrowing my pickup out and one time he stopped with the semi to get a 6 pack. I don't have compassion for any healthy person that can't get out of minimum wage.
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