Nope. The cause of the 2008 recession was due to deregulating the banking industry and the banks' lending money to people to purchase homes that they could not truly afford. That resulted in homes going into foreclosure, which in turn caused the recession.

The bottomline is: The government should not be dictating to businesses how much they should be paying people. If someone is worth $12/hour, then let them go get that job.

Companies need employees to stay in business.

true. but they don't need US employees

If everyone is finding jobs elsewhere that pay more, then that business will need to meet those pay rates if they want to stay in business. The reason they are paying $7.00/hour, or whatever the minimum wage is, is because that's how much their employees are worth. If some employee feels they are worth more, then let them go find that job that is willing to pay more in order to get them.

you are just not getting it. if $7 is not enough to feed your family, then the government is going to be paying it in food stamps. therefore, you are SOCIALIZING costs that businesses are unwilling to meet.

Macro, this is an extremely important point that I find many don't understand and usually is it those that complain about both the minimum wage and food stamps.

that's right. they are missing the point. it is staring them right there in the face.

it takes $9.38/hr to meet the federal poverty standard for a family of (3). if babydaddy is making $7, you are getting food stamps. if he is getting $10/hr, he is NOT. you want to stop food stamps? EASY!

RAISE
MINIMUM
WAGE

will it all go away? of course not. but it will bring down those "record numbers" that Mitt & Co are constantly spouting off about.

honestly? this is really simple stuff. we used to KNOW it, as a nation. but we have been listening to Reagan and Laffer for so long now, it no longer sounds correct.

Exactly. Robert Reich talks about this a lot.

Now we see Republicans cutting food stamps and opposing minimum wage increases.

one can only wonder (2) things witnessing this:

1) are they really trying to bring back the kind of poverty we saw in the 30's?
2) or are they totally ignorant?

i honestly don't know. but i do know this: it is REALLY BAD politically to do what they are doing.

I don't either.

What bothers and worries me is that there are too many telling people these are the right things to do. A good number seem to believe it.

Reich is a lot more optimistic than I tend to be. He thinks eventually citizens will get fed up enough to demand changes comparing it to how unions were formed when workers were tired of the conditions. I hope he's right.

Nope. The cause of the 2008 recession was due to deregulating the banking industry and the banks' lending money to people to purchase homes that they could not truly afford. That resulted in homes going into foreclosure, which in turn caused the recession.

The bottomline is: The government should not be dictating to businesses how much they should be paying people. If someone is worth $12/hour, then let them go get that job. If they're truly worth it, then some business will pay it.

Companies need employees to stay in business. If everyone is finding jobs elsewhere that pay more, then that business will need to meet those pay rates if they want to stay in business. The reason they are paying $7.00/hour, or whatever the minimum wage is, is because that's how much their employees are worth. If some employee feels they are worth more, then let them go find that job that is willing to pay more in order to get them.