would be enough to make one person ineligible for government assistance, without lowering those thresholds from where they are now.

Employers are hiring more part time and temporary employees in order to avoid paying benefits or living wages. They can't be driven with incentives or laws - not so far anyway. So realistically one can probably only hope to raise wages to be equivalent to what they were in the 70s.

Interesting chart: Federal Minimum Wage Rates, 1955–2012

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0774473.html

I know a lot of people getting more than 40 for two jobs, and still qualify for aid.

-Laelth

Rensi tried to hammer "Obamacare" and generally not let Chris keep him on topic. But in the end Rensi ventured a recommendation of a minimum wage of $12 an hour in "Hollywood" and $9 somewhere that I couldn't hear through my laughter. He's thinking it should be regional and state to state - which probably is realistic given the cost of living variances region by region.

What I wanted to jump in with is his criticizing the demand of $15 from $7 as being outrageous. Those wages have been sliding backwards for decades and can't be corrected for inflation with a simple 2 buck raise!!!

Feb 12, 2013 - In his State of the Union address tonight, President Obama calls for raising the minimum wage to $9 per hour....

While raising it increases business across the board, it temporarily costs those businesses a little more in paychecks. They don't like this.

The proof that business has increased beyond the cost of that increased payroll amount is that no one ever clamors for a minimum wage rollback once their business has increased.

we have to convince the stupid bastards to vote for it.

have they filibustered much lately?

Profits go down temporarily and investors who only think in the short term sell the stock. Of course, Warren Buffet got rich by doing precisely the opposite. He advises people to invest with a long term mentality.

and stockholders find their dividends going up. Again, even the big corporations don't clamor for a rollback in the minimum wage after it goes up against their howls of protest.

Nervous short term investors always manage to screw themselves unless they're fat enough to be able to use HFT.

Keeping wages depressed has done one thing (besides making 99% of us poorer and sicker), it has kept the inflation built into fiat currency artificially low. That has been the aim of both parties for decades and it's worked. The cost to labor has been appalling.

The public is wants this. McDonald's doesn't. Big surprise. The idea of regional wage increases is interesting because it makes people think about the differences.

What is the median price of a home where you live? It's $612,000 in my neighborhood. In Dallas, TX it's $250,000. Seems that a minimum wage variation would be prudent. So why not jump on that and promote it?

Here's how to find it: http://www.zillow.com/local-info/

nt

have to pay their thousands of foreign visa workers based on the minimum wage.

Those foreign workers are cheap, cheap, labor, no American employer paid benefits (like unemployment, ss) for them. They're easy to replace and they won't come back in future for any job caused health problems.

Corporate America doesn't want to raise it for many reasons. But an overwhelming majority of Americans across the aisle do. It takes a political push to do so. I don't understand why people here would get behind OWS, but not for fighting to raise the minimum wage. It's as though that one failed effort was all we had in us. Believe me, the opposition to raising the minimum wage can fight all day and all night. We'd better get active or go home to our ever shrinking bank accounts.

Watch how fast the republicans let President Obama raise the federal to 9 an hour, as he asked for in his state of the union address last year.

Republicans would let Pres. Os, $9 policy pass today- so Ds couldn't use that to win 2014.

As a small business owner I can't take that hit if the city passes that law right now. As a small business owner I can't afford to pay that wage right now. In the short term. In the long term I would benefit because the business I run depends on people having disposable income.

I am hoping that if the Seattle minimum wage does get increased that the city will consider that small businesses need a big tax relief to subsidize the hit of raising the current wage by almost $6/hr. if they do that I will support it.

Here is link about proposal:

http://mynorthwest.com/646/2311314/The-Seattle-push-to-increase-the-minimum-wage-to-15-an-hour