[Coach]

Originally Posted by Zarley

A) Intelligence has value. This is why smart lazy people get paid more to work less. The fact that you were allegedly required to have a degree is indicative of inefficient processes in place at that company rather than some type of discrimination against the uneducated.

I agree intelligence has value. Being able to speak knowledgeably about the products certainly helps, but a degree is not required to learn that information. A degree was not a job requirement, but it is obviously a leg up on those who don't have one (more of a path to higher levels if I had wanted to take those steps). I'm not talking about discrimination against uneducated, but there seems to be this notion that people who are in low-income jobs are not intelligent or hardworking people, and that is of course wrong. As noted, pretty much standard competence is all that is needed to do the job that I was doing, not much different than a minimum wage job.

B) The vast majority of minimum wage workers are students and young people, not people in the situation you discuss (also, most mailroom workers earn a significant premium over minimum wage so your example isn't really applicable).

I'm pretty sure your first line (vast majority) is incorrect. The vast majority of students have minimum wage jobs, that doesn't mean the vast majority of minimum wage jobs are held by students. Maybe the ones you see most often (likely fast food and service industry). But the janitors, night cleaners, window washers, security guards of the world certainly aren't mostly students.

If mailroom workers are paid a premium on top of minimum wage (which I would agree is the case) yet they still need two jobs to support a family, what does that say about minimum wage? When my parents were my age, being a bank teller would have you able to support a family. That's not the case anymore. Costs of living have inflated at a much faster rate than average wages. No one that works at one of the country's largest banks, and the supposed best employer in Canada, should have to work two jobs to support a family. It just shouldn't be the case. IMO, no one that works any job for the standard working week should need a second job just to support themselves. We may call them menial jobs, it's still most of these people's day being pissed away only so they can be more behind than they were when the day started. Whether I sit at a desk filling out account documents, or they stand at a till taking your food orders, it's work. And it's obviously valuable work because these large companies wouldn't employ them if they didn't have too.

C) Even those earning minimum wage should be able to get by with cash to spare assuming they live a frugal lifestyle (shared accommodation, preparing own meals, etc.). It's really only the kids that throw a wrench into things, although I'd argue that one should consider their ability to provide for offspring before making the decision to bring a child into the world.

I guess that depends on what you consider frugal. Personally I think having a phone and/or computer is a necessity within our current society. How many people are hiring you if you can't be reached on a cell phone? Or have your schedule emailed to you? Internet access is, IMO a necessity. Many minimum wage jobs are part of a corporate structure that only allows for online applications. Can you apply for an apartment, or rent any room, without a phone? References? These are the types of new costs that have inflated the cost of living over the wage inflation. Things that didn't exist before but are now fundamental to how our social structure works.

And I would agree with the point about children, that said, I get asked to step outside my "socialist utopian" mindset to deal with reality, so I ask the other side to do the same. Just like paying your workers as low as humanly possible is "good business" (which I personally disagree with), people wanting and needing children is "being of human biology". Not only that, accidents happen, and education in that area is still very lacking, especially for people from hard backgrounds.


All this said, I actually don't think the minimum wage thing works. I would rather see people at the very top end (and corporations) paying more back into the system (which they profit from greatly, and no, it's not all off the sweat of the brow of their big-time founders and CEOs. Anyone who thinks they build and maintain companies on their own is more delusional that I could ever be accused of), and using that to provide proper education and services to people while theyre young (like small children), so they weren't behind before they even start.

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

No, actually if you read his post again you'll see he makes the claim that lower paying jobs that are easy will be done by more people which will decrease profits as a result. He's essentially saying since working at Walmart is easy and there is a demand for the service more people will open up stores like that and the profits will shrink.

I had to read it a few times, because I initially thought that too, but it seems to be referring to profits for the employee (ie, their wage). The availability of labor for those positions is high which drives their profit (wage) down.

It's still not an excuse for multi-billion dollar companies to have people on their payroll that can't live off what they're being paid. Business can't be amoral IMO.