Have you ever argued with someone who's against raising the minimum wage?

[Orrex]

It's like banging your head against a brick wall made of stupid people.

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[bettyellen]

1. Everyone I know who feels this way is a Florida man. They were smarter when they lived up north.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

20. No, plenty of them were just as ignorant up North as they are when they've moved down here.

Trust me. Geography has nothing to do with it.

[bettyellen]

29. I think the dudes I am thinking of just got more conservative as they got older.

Or they were quieter about being conservative when up north.

[randys1]

2. Yes. The idiots think that the MW is a horrible thing that destroys capitalism.

Most of those who say this are themselves two or three paychecks away from poverty and applying for a MW job.

ALEC/CATO and the rest have worked wonders (Heritage Foundation) convincing them that up is down.

Then you ask them about unions, and you want your head to explode hearing them tell you what is wrong with unions.

[PatrickforO]

3. The corporate snow job has truly been

masterful.

Worthy of Goebbels himself.

Seriously, some of these people must be feeling pretty smug because they have successfully gotten millions of people to be so proud of their ignorance they vote against their own economic and social interests.

Yep. A real capitalist utopia. Predatory lending practices, debtors prison, illegal search and seizure, illegal surveillance, rationed healthcare, high debt loads in the face of credit-friendly bankruptcy, children with HUGE student loan debt...great, eh?

MUCH better than pesky ol' unions!

[randys1]

6. GReat recap...gonna use that somewhere. But, when you say this to them, it is like

a tennis ball hitting the wall in your bedroom, bounces right back at you.

[Wellstone ruled]

7. Amazing how the Corporate Media

convinces the average Joe and Jane Doe's to formulate their negative opinions of what really would benefit them as a whole. Geobbels was one of the masters as you say. Today's real time Masters would be Roger Ailes,Karl Rove and Frank Luntz,all trained and groomed by H.Lee Attwater.

[hifiguy]

17. Agreed.

When you can brainwash/propagandize so many millions of people into self-negating zero-hood even Goebbels would be astonished.

Sheeple who demand to be led into the slaughterhouse. That's an achievement. Of some dubious and sinister kind.

[MADem]

4. The only people I know who really hate it are business owners.

And I don't know a lot of those, just a few. They crab that payroll will sink them.

Most people think that a pay rise is LONG overdue. I certainly do.

[Kalidurga]

5. Yep

I got a whole lot of stupid family members.

[jeff47]

8. Sure.

Here's someone who's arguing that minimum wage hikes will all disappear into higher taxes.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=787176

[Orrex]

9. Thanks for the replies!

When having this discussion, I usually go with one of two approaches:

1. Any argument against raising the minimum wage is an argument that one's own salary should be lower.

2. If some random job is so easy that it doesn't "deserve" a higher minimum wage, why don't you go work that job instead of your current one?


Amazingly, the most passionate opponents of a higher minimum wage tend, in my experience, to be making little more than the minimum wage themselves! You'd think they could see how they would benefit from the increase, but all they can hear is that Big Macs will cost $6.00, and their freshly washed brains shut down.


Frustrating.

[AOR]

14. This little slogan is really all you need when dealing with minimum wage arguments...

especially since Lincoln was a capitalist and you're most likely discussing the issue with devout capitalists.

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."

-- Abraham Lincoln

[hifiguy]

18. The single wisest thing Lincoln ever said.

One of my favorite quotes from the ol' Marxist.

And here's some Teddy Roosevelt to go with it:

“The essence of any struggle for healthy liberty has always been . . . to take from some one man or class of men the right to enjoy power, or wealth, or position, or immunity, which has not been earned by service to his or their fellows.

The Constitution guarantees protections to property, and we must make that promise good. But it does not give the right of suffrage to any corporation. The true friend of property, the true conservative, is he who insists that property shall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth, who insists that the creature is of man's making shall be the servant and not the master of the man who made it. The citizens of the United States must effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have themselves called into being.

(The people must insist on) complete and effective publicity of corporate affairs

I rank dividends below human character. If our political institutions were perfect, they would absolutely prevent the political domination of money in any part of our affairs We need to make our political representatives more quickly and sensitively responsive to the people whose servants they are . . . It is particularly important that all moneys received or expended for campaign purposes, not only after election, but before election as well . . .”

Theodore Roosevelt, The “New Nationalism” speech, Denver, Colorado, 29 August, 1910

One of the principle features of TR's New Nationalism was a call for “a judiciary that favored individual over property rights.” Edmund Morris, Colonel Roosevelt, p, 109 (2010) (emphasis added).

[AOR]

21. Honesty in discussion is best Hifi...

In the spirit of that...we are not anywhere close to on the same page when it comes to the myths of Teddy and the constitution as right and benevolent forces in shaping human social relations. Lincoln had plenty of baggage to critique also. I think there is some common ground to be had in the struggle of labor and workers though. Cheers

[Xolodno]

16. Thats pretty much the ignorance.

Higher wages = higher prices. Sure, they "might" go up if the business is running a very lean operation. But lets just say they do, the shear volume of Big Macs being sold is going to make any price increase rather negligible. And the pay increase would certainly allow you to buy a lot more Big Macs.

And the whole idea that the business is going jack prices up immediately is naive at best. If I'm Jack in the Box and McD's jacks up the price immediately...I just gained market share. I can take short term reduction in profits by keeping prices on hold, but in the long term, the increase in market share increases those profits and makes up lost short term profits.

Because this is more complex to explain and understand, people shy away from it. But higher wages=higher prices, is simple, so they accept it.

[0rganism]

19. right here you're close to the underlying rationale, as i see it

> the most passionate opponents of a higher minimum wage tend, in my experience, to be making little more than the minimum wage themselves
(emphasis added)

this is the #1 factor. it's a long established tradition in this country that earning potential = virtue, so even if they're only earning $0.10/hr over minimum, in their minds they've proved themselves superior to anyone making a minimum wage.

if the minimum wage rises, even if it pushes their salaries up nearly as much, it also pushes up the salaries of those to whom they used to be able to think of themselves as superior. suddenly they're stuck earning minimum wage too, and are no longer able to find evidence of their superiority in their hourly wages.

you can argue absolute benefits of raising everyone's wages until you're blue in the face, the problem is they see themselves losing a relative benefit, tiny and illusory as it may be -- the ability to see themselves as "better" than someone else. this is a barely conscious self-deception rooted in alienation and a lack of true self-esteem.

naturally, none of them will ever admit to it straight up, but watch the vigor with which they cling to their self-deceit, and the put-downs they rain upon those earning slightly less than them. it is this phenomenon which makes worker solidarity in this country so very difficult.

[mac56]

31. ^ THIS ^

[Hekate]

10. Yes: Libertarian *holes. I just don't bother. nt

[Kingofalldems]

11. Right here on DU.

[Hekate]

25. After my earlier post I realized the same thing. I had a knock-down drag-out fight with someone here

Couldn't believe it. Guy claimed to be a union man and was against minimum wage increases. He acted as though the economy was a zero-sum game and whatever anyone else got was going to come out of his paycheck. Also didn't seem to grasp that the cost of living is waaaay different than it was 40+ years ago.

Came away with the impression that he was neither a union man nor a Democrat, but probably just another Libertarian *hole posing on this board.

[Kingofalldems]

26. Yep. I can think of at least 3 right here.

[Omaha Steve]

12. Yes

Some R's don't think there should be a minimum at all.

[hunter]

13. No.

They hide from me.

[Ilsa]

15. Yep. Said it wasn't fair to others that had to wait to earn

$10/hr. Their excuse for not paying people better was that it was unfair to those already making the new wage. I guess some people are competitive.

[Jon Luc Picard]

22. There is a middle ground

I don't believe moving the minimum wage up to $15 an hour across the board is sound policy. A candidate needs to come out with a plan on a slow steady wage hike tied to market indicators such as inflation going forward. That would be real change and good for not only for the American worker but for business owners who would be able to plan for the rising wages.

[Wounded Bear]

23. Minimum wage increases have alway been incremental...

Spouting fears of an instantaneous increase to $15 is RW group speak. Most plans I've seen show a 3-5 year span of incremental increases until the target rate is achieved.

Personally I think that the national rate should be around $12/hr, with higher rates in high priced urban areas. That would be now, but indexing for inflation should definitely be addressed, too.

[Jon Luc Picard]

24. Nobody

And nobody comes out with any policy besides kicking the can down the road by raising it another couple bucks. The economy might serve the workers interests temporarily but within another 10 years it's back to the same debate. Nobody is willing to tackle the issue because it takes political capitol to do anything on a grand scale (such as Obamacare) and I guess the status quo is safer for these politicians.

[Starry Messenger]

27. I've learned to not engage.

The worst are those who are against raising it, because their own pay is flat, and they feel people who came after them will get something they didn't earn, when you raise the wage.

[ion_theory]

28. My favorite is when they say...

"If they raise the minimum wage, guess what happens. All those cashiers at McDonalds will be out of the job because because it will become automated. And everyone else's job will be gone over seas."

Most of the time it is a 'I make $17/hr doing secretarial work, so why should that stock boy get $15 to move boxes." This is the true genius of how the Right has been able to make ppl think a certain way. It's using Caesarian tactics of divide and concur. Have the middle class blame the poor so they can feel like the upper class. Shameful shit...

[PowerToThePeople]

30. I am against a caste society in general.

Minimum wage workers in the states are treated similar to the "untouchable" classes in other countries. I am against expanding the number of people placed in this position.

It may be a good answer for the fucked up system we currently have, that does not make it a good solution to the inequality problems we face.

[Recursion]

32. No, it's not remotely close to how scheduled castes are treated

That said, I'd love a minimum wage about double what it is now...