On Minimum Wage

Minimum wage is kind of misleading. One would think, by its name, that it is the very least you could make and survive, but that's just over $17,000 before taxes in Connecticut, and ours is higher than the rest of the country's. I can't think of a single place you could live in Connecticut on that. Maybe you could hope to find a couch to sleep on at someone else's home, and hope they don't charge you rent?

I understand the argument people will make; minimum wage isn't meant to live on, it's for 16-year olds who are working their first job. Maybe that's true, but I believe there's a better way to go about it. Technically, for the first forty-five days (give or take, I'm not an HR person) they don't even have to pay minimum wage.

So how about we make the minimum wage something a person could actually survive on? Connecticut is expensive. Our taxes are high (we have the third highest tax burden of the country, go us!), homes cost a fortune, and land is exorbitant. So make the minimum wage something like $20/hour. Don't think I don't understand what that means though. Believe me, I know that people would argue that that wage would crush small businesses, but I think those people are wrong.

I realize that that is a lot of money; it's a bit over $41,000 before taxes, and I understand that costs three times more per employee than it does now. I can add up the numbers and figure what that would do to our local grocery store (who pays minimum wage) and realize the costs that would add on. I do realize that this would cost billions of dollars across the country and cost large companies like Target and Wal*Mart millions. But that's okay. I don't mind.

For what it's worth, if I ever employ someone, I am going to pay them a fair wage, not minimum wage, and here's why. Do I want someone doing the bare minimum for me? Say I owned a grocery store, does paying my employees minimum wage inspire them to care? There are a lot of theories in running a business, and I don't know any of them, but I know how I'd run mine: I want everyone to care. When I see school pictures from Lifetouch (or any of the other studios) I can tell the photographer doesn't care. The entire process is filled with people who don't care.

Lifetouch could actually use a pre-school photographer right now; let's look at what they want:

Requirements
• High school diploma or equivalent
• Customer service experience strongly preferred
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
• Previous experience working with children preferred
• Ability to work with minimal supervision as well as in a team environment
• Willing to work a varied seasonal schedule, including early mornings
• Demonstrate a positive and professional image
• Ability to effectively interact with preschool age children and adults
• Accessibility to reliable insured transportation to reach assigned locations. Vehicle insurance must be current and in compliance with state law.
• Must have a valid driver’s license
• Ability to operate camera equipment
• Ability to travel up to 75 mile radius

First and foremost, they want someone who graduated high school, fair enough. They want someone who has customer service experience. I can see that being useful, but for pre-school kids? I kind of don't think customer service helps you deal with pre-schoolers. Communication and interpersonal skills are great, too, but four and five year olds require far different approaches with regard to interpersonal skills than, say, teenagers or adults. Just sayin'. Finally, they get to working with children. I think this is more important, personally. Children are very fickle, and can see right through you; knowing how to approach them and deal with them is paramount, in my opinion. The next few make sense and are basically par for the course with any job. Eighth on the list is the ability to interact with teachers and students, really? Again, I'd suggest this would be more appropriate at number two or so, certainly not eight. Astonishingly, though, is that second to last is the ability to operate a camera, which unto itself is incredibly vague.

If you think about it, though, you realize what their priorities are. Lifetouch doesn't want to hire photographers. No, photographers are expensive. They want someone who can take a picture the way they tell them to. Notice, they don't look for photography experience, just the ability to operate a camera. My niece is four and can operate a camera; alas, she doesn't have a high school diploma though, their number one priority. It doesn't talk about pay, but I'm going to assume it's not a lot; they're looking for, arguably, the bare minimum.

Think about when you go to retail stores and how unhelpful people are. Sure, you get that one really helpful kid that you always look for (that was me!), but most of the people seem like they could care less, right? Well, why should they? These kids generally get treated like garbage (I've seen it, and it's been me), they need to do the jobs of three people, and they have to deal with customers who are usually upset for a reasons that aren't their fault. So for $8.25 an hour, how much do you think they are going to care? Not much, they just want their shift to end.

Imagine if they were paid $20 an hour though. Yes, it's a lot of money, but I think it's worth it. Consider how expensive training employees is; companies hate having to hire people because of that cost. Most of the time they have to go through the pain that is hiring someone because someone quit or was fired. If a business owner needs to hire someone new because business is going so well, I doubt they'd be unhappy. I bet business owners would treat that process better if it cost them $20 an hour, but more importantly, they'd put more effort in because the quicker their employee can work, the better.

Anywhere I have ever worked, training has been an afterthought. They stick you in front of a computer, or have you listen to a CD, or watch a video. That's hardly effective training. It's like going to college. Book knowledge is great, but the real learning is the first six months on the job (from what I hear, I wouldn't know). You had better believe anyone I hire, will be trained by me. I want to know them and I want to trust them. An employee for your company represents you; would you want that person to honestly care, or be there for spending money, because that's what minimum wage is at its current rate.

At this point, I've discussed why I would pay someone a fair wage, but am I right? Moral obligations to your fellow man aside, what about financially? It is awfully expensive to be a human being sometimes, you know. Maybe I am a dreamer, and what I envision in my mind is utterly wrong, but this is how I see it.

I live in Woodbury, it is a small, but affluent town. We have a lot of elderly people here and probably more antique shops than I can count. But let's pretend it's your town. Think of all the business and workers in your town, think of the people spending money. Imagine they all made $40,000 minimum. Most who retail jobs shop where they work. It's convenient because they are there all the time and they know where everything is. Plus, I bet if they were paid well, they'd like the store more (and care about being there more). There are a lot of little shops here in Woodbury. We have a really awesome indie toy store, Geppetto's, but it's expensive. That is, I can't afford it, unless I really think the recipient will appreciate the gift. But I'd rather shop there than K-Mart. Actually, I wouldn't buy a toy from another store (unless it was similar in style). I do this because their toys are well constructed and will last, unlike those from most stores.

There's a grocery store here too. It's different than your average grocery store, though. There are two checkout lanes, they use a wood stick for an order divider. They offer local produce, and local handmade items. I can buy chocolate goat milk there (yum!), along with all kinds of spices and baking goodies I've not found elsewhere. But I can't afford it, although I really wish I could. I want to give them my money (and indeed I sometimes do), but just not enough of it.

I could do a lot with $40,000 a year, though. Combined with Krissy, we'd make no less than $80,000 pre-tax. That's a number I like, and it's just above the number surveys have shown is what it takes to make people happy. (Technically the survey is $75,000 a year per person). We could do a lot with that money, we could, you know, actually live a life. We could, and would, spend money at local businesses. We would buy handmade crafts from local (and not-so-local, thank you Etsy) crafters. We might go out to eat at one of the few nice local places once a week instead of cooking. Ayla's is good for lunch, too. What I'm trying to say is that we would inject a lot more money into the economy, specifically, the local economy. So while it may cost businesses more to pay $20 per hour, in the long run they will reap the benefits.

I wonder what's better for the economy, money circulating or sitting in stocks. Does it really help small businesses when people own billions of dollars in stock? I'm pretty sure if we all had more money, we'd be likely to spend it, no?

Good For Youth?

Something that I think might be even more important, though, is for the younger workers. Teaching kids financial sense aside, a higher minimum wage is common sense. There's no denying that we've become indebted to credit card companies. But what might surprise you is that student loan debt has surpassed that of credit card debt.

Americans owe some $826.5 billion in revolving credit, according to June 2010 figures from the Federal Reserve. (Most of revolving credit is credit-card debt.) Student loans outstanding today -- both federal and private -- total some $829.785 billion

Yeah, we have a combined $1,656,285,000,000 (that is, one trillion, six hundred fifty six billion dollars) in debt between the two. Considering also that 84% of students had credit cards in 2009 with an average debt of $3,173, maybe having the option of saving is a viable one. I figure even working part-time, a student could feasibly save quite a bit before school, and work some during school part-time as well. I don't see how slapping graduating college students with anywhere from $50,000 to $400,000 in debt is a good idea. Perhaps a better, more honest, minimum wage could alleviate some of that. (The larger problem of tuition costs and banks shelling out awful loans could use a revamp, too).

Good For The Elderly?

I've had the pleasure of working with some amazing older folks. Granted, some were a bit ornery and obnoxious, but most of them were happy people who I'm glad to have worked with. But I don't think we ought to have people working until they die. I'm all in favor of people working because they want to, but they shouldn't have to work to pay bills at seventy or eighty.

Let's face it, the older we get, the more our health, and that of our loved ones, suffers. Healthcare is, regrettably, far too expensive. Social Security isn't exactly an amount one can live on, so we have to use savings. Healthcare can obliterate savings in a matter of months to a few years. Increasingly, people are working longer than they have to just to survive. What if those older people, instead of making a paltry $8 or $9 per hour made over twice that. They are capable, and work harder than most people I've worked with. And, hey, they may even enjoy going to work, too.

Unfortunately, I don't see this ever happening. Minimum wage has stayed the same for fifty five years once adjusted for inflation, but the cost of living has skyrocketed. Minimum wage is supposed to combat poverty, but politicians who decide minimum wage don't have to worry about ever earning such a pitiful wage. Maybe they should.

Perhaps having public service jobs pay minimum wage could make a difference. Public service is, after all, a service, not a career. (FYI: most members of congress are actually millionaires). At minimum wage, politicians wouldn't be doing the job for the money, but for the people they represent. It's hard for me to imagine that a millionaire can understand my plight and where I am coming from on a daily basis.

For what it's worth, poverty, in Connecticut, is defined as $21,027 for a married couple with two children. I'm not even going to address how ridiculously low that is. I actually kind of wrote about it here, with some caveats. First, the numbers I used are for a married couple with no children. Second, I used $40,000 in annual salary, almost double the poverty level. My question is, if a married couple in Connecticut can't survive on $40,000 a year, then how can we expect a family of four to survive on $21,027?

Be Kind.