Well I was thinking about this lately, the UK minimum wage specifically (i think it's £5.93 an hour for grown ups). that's...pretty low, really, isn't it?! i think the US has a similar level of wages and before the £ crashed it was even lower in real terms.

i mean you can live on it, or i can, but i go around town and i see things like COFFEE + PANINI = ONLY 5.50!!! and I just about want to puke. That's an hour of your life for a coffee and a panini. That's that hour gone, now. All gone. It probably wasn't even a good panini. Also, the coffee and the panini costs about 90p to make and serve together. Also you don't want to see how they were storing it before they stuck it on a plate and put it in front of you.

but you don't have to live like that. you don't need to eat out, and if you're working on minimum wage, alone, paying rent and bills for yourself, you don't have the money or time to do it. but you probably do it anyway because these places are all you can find and you've only got 30 minutes for lunch or something.

this is a very small minded post so far. there are a lot of things i want to say about this, but i guess this was bothering me today when i was out looking for something for lunch.

It doesn't immediately make sense to me that minimum wage sets a low bar for companies to aspire to because if wage competitiveness was actually something that had a big effect on what companies paid their employees, wouldn't it just start at that low bar and then rise gradually as companies try to lure employees? Do they even have to lure employees - I mean, every position is inundated with CVs, right? I don't think that sounds like it makes much sense.

I'm sure employers can still pretty easily pay workers less than minimum wage by going cash in hand, and I don't know how much it really helps for things like undocumented workers who will probably take anything they can get anyway. I'm pretty ignorant about this stuff right now, obviously, but I think it's really important to understand so if anybody wants to come in here and take me to school then I would like that.

I think it depends on the cost of living in the place you live in.

Also you don't want to see how they were storing it before they stuck it on a plate and put it in front of you.

grilling a panini in your punani


this is a good point though I hate like stores like Target which isn't that supposed to be on Wal-Mart level but they have like some pasta shit and they just throw some random basil seasoning on it LEAF and suddenly LEAVES make it cost $8.00 or something. Also Wanchai Ferry is there even any RICE in there??? (rice the cheapest thing in the world you can buy it by answering random vocabulary questions online) fuuuuuuuuuu  Wanchai Ferry just add water and meat and rice and seasoning the only thing enclosed in that chinese box is a fortune cookie saying hahaha dumb yuppie americans too lazy to drive a block for Chinese food that costs just as much

isn't 5.93 minimum wage a lot with the exchange rate

End the wage system, overcome the value-form

End the wage system, overcome the value-form

i've forgotten it all. i'm a limp limb.

isn't 5.93 minimum wage a lot with the exchange rate

right now, no, because the pound plummeted a couple of years ago against every currency i've checked. before that i think that comparatively average or above.

for one it irritates me that stuff like this is a subject of conversation (in america anyway) while the real shit gets buried. not that it's not an important subject but idk I'm just so fed up with Political Shit in my own field that something like minimum wage is a chore for me to think about

actually no that's not all of it. it's that there are so many different ways to improve peoples lives, and believe it or not throwin money at em isn't one of them. it's actually kind of absurd

quantifying how much someones work is worth is pretty arbritrary. working a 40 hour week in most jobs will leave you just as spent as in any other job, most differences in pay really aren't 'justified' and it gets really gross when people think that they make more because they work harder.

since there's no upper limit to how much you can earn a minimum wage really just sets inflation levels etc.

There's a federal minimum wage and then it also varies by state because some are higher. I think it's 8.67 in my state but ours is the highest in the country iirc

I don't like it. I can see why it's there, but I'd happily do some little jobs for a pound an hour or whatnot. Minimum wage disallows that freedom, and so gets rid of the hundreds of tinyjobs that people can do while they are otherwise unemployed. I can see how it could be exploited, but it's still silly.

go on mturk then

As I understand it, if you're only selling sweat then you're exempt from paying minimum wage

I don't like it. I can see why it's there, but I'd happily do some little jobs for a pound an hour or whatnot. Minimum wage disallows that freedom, and so gets rid of the hundreds of tinyjobs that people can do while they are otherwise unemployed. I can see how it could be exploited, but it's still silly.

yeah and what's the deal with child labor being illegal??? We're denying the little tykes a chance to pull themselves up by their tiny little bootstraps! It's just plain silly

it'd mean instead of one guy doing several menial tasks you'd have 5 guys doing a menial task each, for a pound an hour or whatnot

it'd mean instead of one guy doing several menial tasks you'd have 5 guys doing a menial task each, for a pound an hour or whatnot

And instead of one guy being able to support himself you've got five guys who can't.