Fish Wrap: A Pay Raise For Fast Food But Cut Military Pay

It was just a week ago that the NY Times editorial board recommended put military compensation and perks on the chopping block. Now…

(NY Times) Unfortunately, job creation remains concentrated in low-income work, including in retail, restaurants and bars. It is little surprise that fast-food workers have been organizing and agitating for better pay. Their employers are adding jobs and earning profits, but pay is stuck around $9 an hour. A recent study found that more than half of fast-food workers rely on public assistance. A wage increase — the strikers are asking for $15 an hour — would clearly help them, and everyone else, because the public aid they require costs taxpayers an estimated $7 billion a year.

While they don’t specifically call for an increased minimum wage (though, interestingly, they mention Dems want to kick it to $10.10, which still isn’t a “living wage” according to libs and burger slumbers), we can all read between the lines. These folks deserve the money, cause, well, um, ah, they simply want the increase for no extra work. And they just want it.

The Times also wants to make sure there are no cuts in unemployment compensation, especially for all those who continue to be long term unemployed. Sure seems to be quite a few folks who are long term unemployed in the Obama economy, wouldn’t you say? The Times also wants an increase.in federal spending for all the typically all stuff, like infrastructure and job training.

Yet, they want to put military pay on the chopping block. The one thing that actually appears in the Constitution as a federal job duty.

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14 Responses to “Fish Wrap: A Pay Raise For Fast Food But Cut Military Pay”

  1. Frozen_Now_Gumballs says:

    Why not just pay everyone $40/hour? Make it fair, right? Right J?

    and as J will say, screw the military – we dont need them anyway, right J?

  2. Yahtahei says:

    A raise in the minimum wage is an automatic pay increase for Union members. THAT is what this is about, NOT to give anyone a “living wage”…

  3. Jeffery says:

    The NYT article on military pay concluded thus, with the qualifier: “Soldiers must be adequately compensated. But when programs across the government are being slashed, including those affecting the most vulnerable Americans, no budget account can be immune from reductions and reforms. It is a difficult balance to get right.”

    Their point is that if conservatives want to slash spending on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Education, infrastructure, food stamps… in fact, every program except defense… we have to consider cutting compensation to soldiers. I disagree with the Times. We can reduce defense spending by reducing the number of soldiers by attrition.

    This has absolutely nothing to do with the Federal minimum wage, so it’s just another example of misdirection by Jane Lynch, er, The Pirate. Why can’t you argue the merits of your position without resorting to trickery?

    Labor productivity goes up even more steadily than the global temperature yet you maintain that all the rewards should go to the wealthy. The Waltons make more ($17 billion last year) every year for “no extra work”, McDonalds makes more ($6 billion last year) for “no extra work”, yet their workers make so little that many are impoverished and rely on taxpayer subsidies to live. Why do you think the American taxpayer should subsidize the billionaire owners of Walmart and McDonalds?

    Not only do you want us to subsidize billionaires, you insist that they pay lower taxes on the cash we give them!

    Is it any wonder the rich get richer and the poor poorer?

  4. Frozen_Now_Gumballs says:

    I’m done arguing the fancies of your mind. No where in this post is anything supporting anything you’ve said. As usual.

    And we’ve already proved, and you’ve stated yourself, that you hate women, hate jews, hate blacks, hate the military, hate job creators, and the American idea. So, .. go away.

  5. Jeffery says:

    rushballs,

    $40 would be too high and would distort the market. The rule of thumb is that the minimum wage increase effect 10% of the workforce or less. I wouldn’t expect you to be aware of this, but economists have studied this for a long time.

    If you’re interested in understanding please read:

    http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/min-wage-2013-02.pdf

    They concluded, in part, “Economists have conducted hundreds of studies of the employment impact of the minimum wage. Summarizing those studies is a daunting task, but two recent meta-studies analyzing the research conducted since the early 1990s concludes that the minimum wage has little or no discernible effect on the employment prospects of low-wage workers.”

    or a readable summary at:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jared-bernstein/minimum-wage-increase_b_1259880.html

  6. Jeffery says:

    I won’t go away, but I understand your frustration in having the flaws of your worldview continually exposed. That in itself explains why you never wish to engage on the issues.

    You should just quit responding. Or go away.

  7. Jeffery says:

    goomba,

    And why would my opinion of Jews, Blacks, women, job creators (I am one!) or the military be relevant to a debate on the minimum wage?

    This is what I try to point out repeatedly to The Pirate. You avoid discussing the topic and immediately stoop to using flawed debate tactics to win the argument.

    Since most conservatives hate Jews, Blacks, women, Mexicans, Muslims, Atheists etc, does this mean that no conservative argument should be considered?

  8. gitarcarver says:

    Jeffy’s source for his “authoritative” study is a progressive economic think tank. This same group advocated the health care mess because in their opinion, the ACA would not add to the deficit.

    (In other words, their track records ain’t the greatest.)

    But since Jeffy likes to talk about the poor….

    The counter is the American Enterprise Institute:

    “A higher minimum wage has the biggest impact on those with the least experience or the fewest skills. That means in particular those looking for entry-level jobs, especially teenagers. And sure enough, as nearly all economic models predict, the higher minimum has wreaked havoc with teenage job seekers, well beyond what you would expect even in a recession.”

    And that’s exactly what happened when the minimum wage rose by 41% between 2007 and 2009 – it had a disastrous effect on teenagers. The jobless rate for 16-19 year olds increased by ten percentage points, from about 16% in 2007 to more than 26% in 2009. Of course, the overall US jobless rate was increasing at the same time, from about 5% to 10%. Therefore, the graph attempts to better isolate the effects of the minimum wage increases between 2007 and 2009 on teenagers by plotting the difference between the teenage jobless rate and the overall jobless rate, i.e. “excess teen unemployment,” and the minimum wage.

    source: http://www.aei-ideas.org/2013/02/lets-review-the-adverse-effects-of-raising-the-minimum-wage-on-teenagers-when-it-increased-41-between-2007-and-2009/

    It should also be noted that the country where the poorest and teens have the greatest employment rate is Germany where there is no minimum wage.

    From the heritage Group:

    Studies also find higher minimum wages do not reduce poverty rates. Despite the best of intentions, the minimum wage has proved an ineffective—and often counterproductive—policy in the war on poverty.

    Congress could do more to help low-income families by restructuring and coordinating welfare programs and their associated phase-out rates. No one in American—and especially not low-income workers—should face tax rates in excess of 50 percent.

    From the CATO Group:

    There is no “free lunch” when the government mandates a minimum wage. If the government requires that certain workers be paid higher wages, then businesses make adjustments to pay for the added costs, such as reducing hiring, cutting employee work hours, reducing benefits, and charging higher prices. Some policymakers may believe that companies simply absorb the costs of minimum wage increases through reduced profits, but that’s rarely the case. Instead, businesses rationally respond to such mandates by cutting employment and making other decisions to maintain their net earnings. These behavioral responses usually offset the positive labor market results that policymakers are hoping for.

    source: http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/negative-effects-minimum-wage-laws

    The fact of the matter is that minimum wages increases hurt the very people Jeffy says he wants to support. That is not surprising as liberals like Jeffy hate freedom and want to keep people in economic slavery.

  9. Frozen_Now_Gumballs says:

    Good finds GC. Yeah, wonder how our teen unemployment rate has gone over the last 10 years or so? I’d say.. up.

    ALso, since conservatives love everyone, and with everyone to be treated equally, then J is obviously not a conservative.

    And, it is funny how J is talking about a measley 10% increase… when his party is talking bout setting the min wage to $10 to $15/hour.

    My point was, why stop with $10 or $15/hour? WHy not make it a true living wage? Why not make it $40 so that everyone can enjoy the fruits of middle class?

    And J, if the gov’t paid you $50K per year, how would you be able to be a job creator like you say you are now? How would you be able to build a business, hire contractors, hire employees, etc?

  10. gitarcarver says:

    Yeah, wonder how our teen unemployment rate has gone over the last 10 years or so? I’d say.. up.

    This article from the Huffington Post (which Jiffy likes to cite all the time) from 2012 shows how bad it is:

    Just 54 percent of Americans ages 18 to 24 currently have jobs, according to a study released Thursday by the Pew Research Center. That’s the lowest employment rate for this age group since the government began keeping track in 1948. And it’s a sharp drop from the 62 percent who had jobs in 2007 — suggesting the recession is crippling career prospects for a broad swath of young people who were still in high school or college when the downturn began.

    In their heart of hearts liberal know the effects of raising minimum wages as last year the uber liberals in DC tried to raise the minimum wages but only on “big box stores.” If the minimum wage helps everyone and the economy, why not pass the increase for everyone?

    The DC liberals, like Jiffy, know they are spewing pablum which hurts the poor and the economy.

    But that is their ultimate goal anyway.

  11. jl says:

    J- “most conservatives hate Jews, blacks, women, Mexicans, Muslims, Atheists..” Really? Data, please. Or did you get that data from the same computer model that’s always putting out the false global warming data? “Why should taxpayers subsidize the billionaire owners of Walmart and McDonalds?” How are the taxpayers subsidizing those two companies, professor Jeffery? Anything illegal going on that you’d care to tell us about? Didn’t these people make their money by people voluntarily walking into their establishments and buying their products?

  12. jl says:

    J-If one has minimum skills, minimum education and minimum motivation, why should someone be forced to pay you more?

  13. hockeydad says:

    Sorry late to the game on this but seeing as I still have my dirty calendar from my years in Germany with my workdays/hours listed I’d have been over joyed with a $10 an hour pay rate.

    On average a soldier puts in a 12 hour day. Figuring if they only worked 5 days a week that’s 240 hours a month or $2400. Seeing that a E-5 with over 3 years of service only makes $2,415.78, I’m betting the E-1’s would love this deal. Plus after you figure in all the extra hours/weekends (this isn’t counting those hours as overtime or double time) many soldier’s would gladly take this non-living wage.

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