(via Crooks and Liars: Fox News Tells Striking Workers to Get Two Jobs and ‘Expect to Get Paid the Minimum Wage’)
The hosts of Fox & Friends on Friday suggested that fast food workers should stop striking for higher pay and get a second job because the minimum wage “was never meant to be a career wage.”
On Thursday, hundreds of restaurant workers in New York City went on strike to demand a wage of at least $15 an hour. The current median wage of $9 an hour puts workers at about $4,500 lower that the poverty threshold of $23,000 for a family of four. The current minimum wage in New York City is $7.25.
“Here’s the deal, you’re a minimum wage worker, that’s an entry-level salary,” Fox News host Brian Kilmeade opined on Friday. “If you’re good, you’ll get a raise.”
“Minimum wage was never meant to be a career wage. If you work hard you will get higher — you will get more money. Here’s the other thing, as hard as it is in some cases, because you are a single mom or a single dad, you’ve got to get another job. You’ve got to get another job on top of that so you have two incomes.”
“Brian you hit on the nose, I think, the key thing,” co-host Steve Doocy remarked. “If it is a minimum wage job, expect to get paid the minimum wage.”
(Source: liberalsarecool)
Elizabeth Warren Debunks GOP Talking Points on Minimum Wage
Warren also noted that wages have not been keeping up with productivity, and if they had, the minimum wage would be about $22 today. That’s $14.75 higher than the actual federal minimum wage.
(Source: azspot)
How Workers Survive on $7.25 Per Hour
About 3.6 million Americans were earning at or below the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour in 2012, and those weren’t all high school students flipping burgers.
About half of them were 25 or older, a little more than one-third were working full time and a little less than three-fourths had graduated from high school, according to the most recent government data.
A person working full time for minimum wage would take home an annual salary of $15,080. That’s a shade higher than the poverty threshold for a household containing two adults, and about $8,000 less than the poverty line for a family of four.
These are the workers who answer your customer service calls, deliver your pizzas, take care of your children, bag your groceries and serve your food. […]
Matt Wuerker/Politico (03/08/2013)
(via thepoliticalfreakshow)
The fast food industry grosses $200 billion annually.
The average fast food worker in New York City earns $11,000 per year.
The average fast food CEO earns $25,000 for a single day.
Workers earn only 25 percent of the money they need to survive.
Source: Ben Crowther.
Want to eliminate poverty? Want a stimulus? How about paying these same workers a livable wage?
New Jersey Republicans Use Hurricane Sandy To Oppose Minimum Wage Hike
The New Jersey State Senate voted yesterday to increase the Garden State’s minimum wage to $8.50 per hour, a $1.50 raise that would be effective March 1st. Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) has threatened to veto the bill, due to a provision that would automatically increase the minimum wage according to inflation.
Several New Jersey Republicans tried to use the recent Hurricane Sandy — which decimated Jersey’s shoreline — as justification for opposing the increase:
The aftermath of Sandy, which changed so much about the state, was ever-present in Thursday’s two-hour debate on the Senate floor, giving another wrinkle to a debate that’s largely a moral and philosophical battle. It was still that on the Senate floor Thursday, with Republicans saying a minimum wage increase would hurt businesses and could force layoffs, and Democrats asserting that it’s wrong for New Jerseyans to be paid so little in a place where it’s expensive to live. […]
“GET A JOB”: DIALOGUE BETWEEN A CONSERVATIVE CONGRESSMAN AND A VOTER ON THE MINIMUM WAGE
VOTER TO REP. C.W. BILL YOUNG (R-FLA.): Jesse Jackson Jr. is passing around a bill to increase the minimum wage to $10 an hour. Would you support that?
REP. YOUNG: “Probably not.”
VOTER: “It’s $10 bucks an hour. It would give us a living wage.”
YOUNG: “How about getting a job. Why do you want that benefit? Get a job.”
VOTER: “I have a job, but it’s not enough to get by on.”
(YOUNG WALKS AWAY)
(via recall-all-republicans)
