Vote to Lower Your Wages
RIP American middle-class
A lot of folks are voting Republican this November in frustration with stalled wage growth.
Yet Democrats voted for — and Republicans voted against:
- Projects to build and repair roads, bridges and schools — which create good-paying jobs
- Raising the minimum wage
- Equal pay for women
- Union-friendly bills — which pressure nonunion companies to raise wages, too
But a Democratic President can’t sign a bill that a Republican House won’t pass. And that a Democratic Senate can’t pass either, because they need 60 votes to avert a Republican filibuster.
Why vote to lower your wages?
So why do people vote against their interests?
1) Politics are boring
You’d rather watch “Modern Family” than “Washington Week,” right? Who wouldn’t?
So you figure, just vote out the President’s party. Even though you actually need MORE Dems, not less, to raise wages.
2) The rich talk you into voting for the rich
But also, wealthy interests like Koch Industries fund think tanks that create messages — funneled through Rush Limbaugh and FOXNews — like this:
The wealthy are the job creators. Take money from them, and you take away jobs.
Yet we’ve been giving money to the rich for years, and the middle-class is shrinking.
And that’s because, to quote Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor and current UC Berkeley professor:
The job creators are America’s vast middle-class.
When the middle-class have good paying jobs, they spend more at the movies, Macy’s, and Olive Garden. And then Olive Garden hires workers. And so does Macy’s and the local theater. And then the new hires spend more money. And businesses do more hiring…
…And the economy spirals upward.
Robin Hood in reverse
But we’ve taken the opposite track, giving to the rich and taking from the middle — aided by corporate campaign contributions (aka legalized bribery).
CEOs know that more money in worker pockets leaves less in their own.
Over the years, wealth has redistributed away from the middle-class up to the rich:
Top 1% income versus the rest of us
Most of us think some inequality is good to reward hard work. But check out the graph below.
The bottom line shows what people think IDEAL wealth distribution would be.
The next line up shows what people THINK IS REALITY.
And the top line shows actual REALITY.
Wealth distribution: the ideal, what we think, and actual reality
Still, plenty of folks will vote to lower their wages next Tuesday.
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Posted on October 31, 2014, in politics/class inequality, psychology and tagged class inequality, Election 2014, Midterms, psychology, US income distribution. Bookmark the permalink. 43 Comments.
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That’s why this isn’t going to work because rich owners or coporations and franchises aren;t going to want to spend more on employees and if they have to, then they will raise prices of their products to make up for it. So that would hurt consumers buying things. My issue isn’t with big companies, as like you said, they can get by and its probably greed.
But small businesses are very important for our economy and this is where it can hurt our economy as these companies and businesses and the owners aren;t making money where they can be find having give a big increase to the workers. They would then have to increase the prices of food and products to make up for extra money spent on employees to make a profit. Your local restaurants, shops, not the franchises but these small companies. I could see these businesses going down or hurting from it which well hurt workers losing jobs and the economy. They need to figure a way to do this without hurting the small companies and its effect, because right now this would hurt them and as a result hurt regular people.
I’d like to see more research on the effects of small versus big companies.
Yeah but I felt this before fox. It sounds like only the minimum wage will be raised. You need everybody’s wage to increase or else, everyone else will essentially be taking a pay cut. The problem in doing this is I don’t think other people’s wages will increase bvut just minimum wage. So you’ll have people not making much more than mimimum wage from other jobs, but yet food, gas and other prices increased so more financial burden on everyone. Restaurants and other business with people making more money will have to increase the price of products, to make up or get profit from the extra money they are paying their employees. So higher prices, They need to fix it all the way around, but they won’t, as they haven’t before and this can crush small businesses.
When you raise the minimum wage it puts pressure on businesses to raise everyone else’s wages, too. That’s a lot of the reason why business is against it. If you look at the first graph in this post you see that as productivity has increased business owners and managers haven’t shared the increased profits with the workers who helped create them. A minimum-wage – and the pressure it would put on business is to raise everyone’s wages – would cut into The salaries of owners and managers. Money they don’t even need, but use to compete with other owners and managers in terms of ego: I’m better than you because I make more money.
Last week I was in Washington DC lobbying members of Congress on poverty issues. One of our speakers was the head of nuns on the bus. She had talk to a successful business owner who’s salary was going from $11,000,000 to $12,000,000. She asked, “why, $11 million wasn’t enough to help you get by?” The business owner responded, “no, I can get by just fine. But we are very competitive and our salaries are what we compete with each other on.”
So these owners and managers inflate their egos at the cost of basically degrading wages for The people who work for them.
A minimum wage, and the pressure it puts on everyone’s wages, The people who work for them.
A minimum wage, and the pressure it puts on everyone’s wages, that’s into their game. That’s why they were against it. cuts into their game. That’s why they were against it.
I remember you talked about the $15 per hour increase and help with poor people and I said how this would only cause more problems. Well looks like they are trying to raise it eventually in the US. This is going to fuck things up.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/07/22/seattle-sees-fallout-from-15-minimum-wage-as-other-cities-follow-suit/
Here’s an example of how some states are doing. EVerybody basically is going to take a paycut, and people who have worked hard or have a degree to get 15 dollars or 20 per hr, they now are minimuma wage or just a little over despite their status as supervisor or working up through the years. Not only that, but then inflation and costs will go up to make up for it and small businesses could close down and be hurt. This will crush the economy. Stupid idiots crying about the minimum wage to be raised are hurting everything, because there is no way everyone elses wage will increase accordingly, but yet prices will increase and it actually hurts people at mcdonalds even more, becausw now such places like mcdonalds which have kiosks now and automated machines. They will hire less people and just have a few people hired and the prices being raised and inflation will actually cause things to be pricier for people with 15 dollars an hour than prices now for people at minimum wage at current wage. Everyone will be taking a pay cut.
FoxNews is so full of shit.
They find ways to convince the lower classes to vote in the interests of the rich. I have a post I’ll be doing soon. Raising min wage causes all wages to rise and the economy to improve
I see one of the major problems is the fact that it is Democrats or Republicans. You are either one or the other and if you’re not either they don’t want to hear from you. I grew up in a Republican household but I do my research on the candidates/issues and then make my decision. I have to say that the great majority of registered voters just vote D or R. If this party tells me to vote one way I will and if the other says to vote the other then that’s what I’ll do. On the minimum wage issue I believe that people need to be able to support themselves. The top 1% sees huge increases in their income while the rest of us see a minimal increase, or depending on where you live maybe a decrease because of inflation and increase in rent. Having said this, when I grew up I worked at McDonalds and made $5.00 an hour. I knew a job like that was not going to be something I can live on and went to college to get an education to make more money. I don’t see how this has changed. Jobs like this are not meant to live on especially with a family. I understand it is going to happen but that is not the point of these entry level jobs. My main reasoning for not wanting the minimum wage raised is what’s going to happen to the people who are making $15.00/hour who went to school and are starting a new career? Are they going to get raises? NO. So a person flipping burgers which takes no skill makes the same as a college educated person? I see more people then deciding not to go to college if they are going to make the same amount of money as a college graduate, especially not having to pay back student loans. It’s a tough issue and there needs to be something done but just throwing money at unskilled labor is not the answer.
Actually, when the poorest paid workers get more money it puts pressure to raise the wages for everyone else.
If the minimum wage had kept up with inflation, Workers would be getting around $21 an hour today. And when the wage was first instituted, America did great.
More recently, San Francisco and San Jose both increased their minimum wages and their local economies are doing better than the surrounding areas.
It ends up being good for businesses and America, Generally, when people have money to spend. The lack of spending-money is largely what created the Great depression.
Even the Wall Street Journal is beginning to post articles on how Americans are losing the ability to spend, Which will end up hurting the economy. See these for instance:
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/how-a-two-tier-economy-is-reshaping-the-u-s-marketplace-1422502201-lMyQjAxMTI1MDI0OTUyMzkwWj
The above article from the Wall Street Journal says that the construction sector is worried that middle class people can no longer afford to buy a home. That sector doesn’t know if they can survive with only a high-end market. And that has effects throughout the economy because then you’ll have less sales of: House paint, carpeting, other flooring, furniture, drapery, ovens, stoves, refrigerators, Washers and dryers, And assorted other appliances, gardening supplies…
I find it funny that you deleted my last comment. Is it because you could not refute it?
See my comment policy. I don’t post comments that are repetitive because I feel like the person I’m talking to isn’t listening, and that just wastes my time.
Yeah I already posted the summary of the Republican solution from the Washington Post.
“Prevents Retaliation Against Employees: Prohibits retaliation against employees who inquire about, discuss or disclose their salaries. Exempts those employees, such as human resources officers, whose responsibilities include keeping salary information confidential.
• Bans Discrimination and Requires Notification of Rights: Reinforces current law prohibiting pay discrimination based on gender and establishing the principle of equal pay for equal work; requires employers to post a notice to employees as to their rights under both the EPA and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
• Addresses Opportunity Gap: Consolidates duplicative job training programs and provides federal grants to states for the creation of industry-led partnerships. This program is meant to provide women and men underrepresented in industries that report worker shortages with the skills they need to grow and compete. Such industries include manufacturing, energy, transportation and logistics, information technology, and health care. No new spending is appropriated.”
Of course you didn’t hear much about it. Why would Democrats want anyone to know? Leaving out this solution makes the lie that Republicans are against equal pay easier to believe. (The Republicans do the same thing to the Dems too).
I hardly think a difference of 5% is enough to force divorced mothers into poverty. There are other factors at work. Being a single parent is one of the hardest things in the world to do. You can’t work without childcare and childcare is ridiculously expensive.
What is your solution though? How do we force more families to have the dad stay home while the mom works? I don’t see a viable solution to that.
Right, women shouldn’t HAVE to stay home but we also need to understand that it’s fine if they really want to. No demonizing of SAHMs (or dads).
Personally, I haven’t internalized anything. My wife CHOSE to stay home and raise our kids. I have a business I run that made far more money than her teaching job. Financially it made the most sense and it was what she wanted anyways. We would’ve been insane to flip things so I stayed home. I wonder how many others are in the same boat as my wife and I with this choice?
That’s sad about your conservative relatives. Terrible to hear.
“And you don’t have increased cost with worse coverage with Obamacare.”
Sorry but you’re way out of line here. You do not know how much my health insurance used to cost and you do not know how much it costs now.
Let me break it down for you:
PCP visit was $15 now $20
Phys. Exam – still $0
Sp. office – was $15 now $35
ER – was $75 now $100
Same-day surgery – was $0 now $150
Inpatient – was $250 now $300
Prescriptions was $10/20/35 – now $10/20/50
Deductible was $0 now $2,000
Premium was $220/person now $385/person
The difference is nearly $500/month more for my family and our deductibles are so sky high that I end up paying for everything anyways. All said and done, Obamacare will cost us $6,000+ this year.
So yes I do have increased cost and worse coverage.
“I’m still wondering what you think about the article I linked to.”
Which article is that? The Blinded by the Right one? Trust me. I’m no Republican so you’re preaching to the choir on that one.
I don’t adhere to extreme Libertarianism or automatically agree with everything they do. My beliefs just happen to align closest with Libertarian since my only other options are D and R. I am fiscally conservative and socially liberal at heart.
I believe in:
1) Small, limited government
2) Low taxes that support a middle class
3) Personal & fiscal responsibility
4) A unified America (not a divided one)
5) Freedom of choice
6) Social equality
#1-4 are why I’ll never vote Democrat and #6 is why I don’t like voting Republican. I also completely reject Political Correctness and other forms of mind/though control as well as the Republicans stupid idea of “Trickle Down Economics”.
The 1000 page summary?
If the Republicans wanted people to know about their bill, They could have talked about it.
But the democratic bill was specifically addressing the Supreme Court decision. Doesn’t sound like the Republican alternative did that.
And it’s not a 5% difference. The 77 cents is a real number. The reason you have that number is because women are more likely than men to drop out of the workforce and rejoin it after several years, or downsize their job to take care kids. And many don’t return to the workforce. Also, Women choosing family-friendly jobs like school teaching. Plus, Women who aren’t in their 20s face more pay discrimination. That’s why with the divorce a huge amount of women and up in poverty.
I’m not interested in forcing anyone to stay home or go to work. I’m interested in educating people so that they can have more freedom in the choices they make. So that a dad who wants to stay home with his kids will feel like he can do that, for instance. Not everyone does everything because they have internalized it. The many do. And then they lose the ability to make a real choice.
I have a number of friends who were not able to get insurance until Obamacare.
I’m much more concerned that they can get insurance and get the medical care they need and not going to bankruptcy with medical bills than I am with your extra costs.
You need to try to find some tax subsidies for your insurance. My insurance wasn’t affected very much. And if anything happened to my husband, I would be able to get insurance — whereas I wouldn’t be able to without Obamacare. A lot of people aren’t aware of the help that is out there.
Libertarian governments tend to be bad for everyone. The gap between rich and poor grows, which means businesses lose sales because people don’t have money to spend. You tend toward third world countries. Pakistan fits 1-3 really well.
And you have no problem with poor children having no chance in life because you don’t want government to make sure they get enough to eat and medical attention so that their brains develop properly and they can focus in school. And grow up to be tax payers instead of a drain on society? Which is far less expensive for your average tax payer than paying for more police, courts and jails.
I believe in personal and financial responsibility. But it’s not the child’s fault that they’re born into poverty. How are they supposed to be responsible to get a decent education an adequate brain development? That’s their own fault if they don’t?
I have no idea what number four has to do with not voting Democratic.
Well that’s good you think it did a lot. I mean the Democrats – namely Joe Biden – admitted that it didn’t but hey if it means a lot to you, great.
“And the gender pay gap was not climbing when Obama signed the law.”
Every report and study on the subject shows that the pay gap has been steadily climbing since the equal pay act. Women will pass men sooner than later. Urban women with degrees already make 8% more than men(1) and so do childless twenty-something women(2).
1) http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/apr/09/genevieve-wood/what-pay-gap-young-women-out-earn-men-cities-gop-p/
2) http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2014/02/24/childless-women-in-their-twenties-out-earn-men-so/
I don’t really care if women make a little more. I do care that liberals keep citing the phony 77 cent number as the current wage gap (including Obama) in order to make women out to be victims. The real gap has repeatedly proven to be closer to 95 cents and some reports have it even smaller than that like this one below.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christina-hoff-sommers/wage-gap_b_2073804.html
If working better to you means more coverage for those who need it, then I suppose you’re right. To me “working better” means cheaper coverage for working and middle class families which is why I take the stance that it is not working better at all.
Whether or not it affects a lot of women, It has huge effects on those it does affect.
And I can see no good reason not to ensure that all women will be free from legal discrimination.
On your other number I thought you were saying that Women were increasingly being paid less and less compared with men. Which isn’t true.
But you are only looking at young women — who these days are more likely to go to college than men. Men could help themselves by deciding to go to college. You aren’t looking at all women.
And there are nondiscrimination reasons why Women end up getting paid less such as internalizing the notion that they are the ones who should stay home and take care kids. I interviewed parents of young children and many women that they had quit their job to take care kids — and a lot of them wouldn’t even think of asking their husbands to do that because it would emasculate them. But then women lose a lot of money as a result of feeling like they must be the ones to make that choice.
In the long run Obamacare shouldn’t cost more, it should cost less for reasons I’ve described above:
. Maintenance health is way less expensive than emergency room and hospital care — which is where people end up when they don’t have maintenance care:
[healthcare costs should go down because it’s much cheaper to do maintenance care — vaccines, antibiotics for a bladder infection or insulin for diabetics — compared to what happens when they don’t get that maintenance: hospitalization for double pneumonia, kidney disease, a leg must be cut off from diabetes…]
But you will also be safer because:
. you can’t be denied insurance due to a pre-existing condition,
. you can’t be thrown off of your insurance because you got sick,
. Insurance companies can’t find loopholes allowing them to refuse payment after you have been paying in
And when I look at the overall Harm created, way less harm is created by raising some peoples Insurance rates in the short run so that other people can be insured and not risk bankruptcy, serious illness, or death.
I grew up Republican. Here’s why I quit and eventually became a Democrat (after a sojourn as an independent because I couldn’t bring myself to be a Democrat for a while):
No Longer Blinded by the Right
Yeah we definitely agree on that part trust me. The Republican solution could’ve just as easily granted women protection from legal discrimination was my only point here.
No, I’ve only been saying their pay has been increasing.
Right, those links use young women as their study and that’s important because they represent the progress that has been made toward equal pay. Gaps are more likely to appear for older women who were paid less decades ago. To your point, Lily Ledbetter helps older women but it’s good to see that young women are being paid nearly the same.
The 95 cent figure includes all women though.
Well there’s nothing wrong with more women raising families. We as a society do not need there to be a 50/50 split of men and women raising children. There just needs to be an option for people to do whatever they want. If these women can’t even talk to their husbands out of fear, they married the wrong guy and those men definitely need to step it up as well.
The other side of this is that men don’t have a choice. Their job is part of their sex appeal in attracting a women. Until women are willing to date, marry, and have sex with jobless men over men with good jobs, this is going to be tough to change. Nobody ever talks about this part though.
Trust me, I understand what Obamacare did and didn’t do for America. I just don’t like the increased cost with worse coverage.
That’s funny you were Republican and became Democrat. People change their views a lot I suppose. I was a Democrat in college who became Republican in the real world who then became a Libertarian shortly after.
I just haven’t seen anything that talks about the alternative Republican solution. The link you sent me was so long I didn’t bother to read it. You need to send me something that is short and credible.
Sure, there’s nothing wrong with women raising families. There’s nothing wrong with men raising families, either. But whoever makes the sacrifice to do that and up losing a lot of money. It’s not that the women were afraid of their husbands and didn’t ask them to consider being a stay-at-home dad’s for that reason. Rather, they had internalized the culture so that the thought never occurred to them. But women on average make less money than men for that reason. And it does disadvantage women in that way. If there is a divorce many women end up in poverty, for instance. So pay disadvantages come from culture as well as discrimination. And when way to deal with that is to have more equal parenting — which is also good for kids to have their dads more involved.
The issue about doing whatever you want is related. If you have internalized the idea that Women must be the primary caretakers, Then you are not really doing whatever you want. You’re doing what society tells you to do.
And it’s a problem that men don’t have a choice, as well. I have conservative relatives where the guy would rather stay home with the kids and the girl would rather go to work. But they feel like they don’t have that option. The culture is strongly internalized in their heads. I think people should be free to do what feels most authentic to them.
And you don’t have increased cost with worse coverage with Obamacare.
I’m still wondering what you think about the article I linked to.
If we have a libertarian world then you will have a lot of kids who, Through no fault of their own, are not going to be able to do well in school because hunger pains make it impossible for them to focus, or an untreated medical condition makes it impossible to concentrate or even attend school. Maybe they don’t have glasses that allow them to see or they need a hearing aid. When young children don’t get enough food their brain stem develop properly and they can never learn, their entire lives.
These kids are more likely to drop out of school because they can’t succeed there. And then they are more likely to enter crime we’re get pregnant at a young age — and their kids may end up entering a life of crime. Which cost a lot of money in the long-term because they aren’t paying taxes and they create costs: police, prisons, courts. It’s cheaper to give them resources early on so that they can succeed.
But the only way you can give these kids support is to finance their healthcare and nutrition by taxing people who have money. So a rich person may not be able to buy by hamburger with gold in it (as some Wall Street types of done) so that a child can have a chance at life. Not to mention, lives will also be saved when kids don’t die from untreated medical problems.
If we had true equal opportunity then libertarianism would make sense to me. But we don’t have an even playing field.
“So you say that we don’t need equal pay legislation even as you admit that women are still paid less than men?”
No. I’m saying the current legislation we have is already enough. As I said, at the current pace, women will pass men. 95% and rising. More and more women graduating with bachelors leaving men behind. Even the leftists at Time admit this.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2109140,00.html?pcd=pw-op
The Republican solution you asked for:
Click to access s.2199-fischer-collins-04.08.14.pdf
Or maybe it’s because the Republicans are right that Obamacare will be a disaster like it has been so far?
That’s great that more people have coverage that couldn’t get it. I mean I’m all for that. I just don’t think middle class families like mine should have to pay more. My premiums, co-pays, and deductibles soared while my coverage became less. This isn’t “conservative spin”, it’s just reality.
I hope with all my heart that Obamacare works out and my costs go down to something reasonable. I really do. It’s just not looking good right now and I’m not going to pretend it’s wonderful and great when it’s not.
Sure, the current legislation is enough. But it wasn’t enough before the Lily Ledbetter Act. Otherwise Lily Ledbetter would not have ended up making way less money than men in the same job.
And and really? “The Republican solution you asked for:”
Click to access s.2199-fischer-collins-04.08.14.pdf
You give me a 1000 page thing to get through? Surely you can find something from a credible source that makes the case more plainly and succinctly.
Otherwise, Obamacare it’s working great in California and many other states where the governors instituted properly.
It was also working just fine in Massachusetts as Mitt Romney instituted it — the precursor to Obamacare.
And you know that the whole idea came out of the conservative think tank — Heritage — don’t you?
Lily Ledbetter did very little for women. It just extended the time women can sue for discrimination by 6 months. The gap was already at 95% and climbing when Obama made that law. For the record, I don’t have a problem with the Dems solution on this. Just your spin on it.
Summary:
“Prevents Retaliation Against Employees: Prohibits retaliation against employees who inquire about, discuss or disclose their salaries. Exempts those employees, such as human resources officers, whose responsibilities include keeping salary information confidential.
• Bans Discrimination and Requires Notification of Rights: Reinforces current law prohibiting pay discrimination based on gender and establishing the principle of equal pay for equal work; requires employers to post a notice to employees as to their rights under both the EPA and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
• Addresses Opportunity Gap: Consolidates duplicative job training programs and provides federal grants to states for the creation of industry-led partnerships. This program is meant to provide women and men underrepresented in industries that report worker shortages with the skills they need to grow and compete. Such industries include manufacturing, energy, transportation and logistics, information technology, and health care. No new spending is appropriated.”
HAHAHA I live in Mass. Obamacare is a disaster here. I don’t care where this awful insurance idea came from. All I know is my premiums soared and apparently the majority of US families saw increases as well. Enough said.
It was actually huge for women. If Lilly Ledbetter had been able to recoup all of the money she had lost from all of the years she’d been underpaidcat Goodyear that would’ve been a huge amount. But the Supreme Court wouldn’t allow that, which is why this law was passed.
And the gender pay gap was not climbing when Obama signed the law.
Obamacare isn’t really necessary in Massachusetts because they already had Romneycare — which is the same thing with a different name. And it has been working really well in Massachusetts.
I like your quote. I think most people vote for what their environment encouraged them to vote for . And nothing is more dangerous than an blind voting .I mean in most cases you might not even be really aware of what each side is promote but because your family , environment have always been in one side you don’t really consider the other. I am not actually american , but I have been in this country for a couple years and I truly feel like republicans keep finding ways to minimize women’s right and trying to make it look clever and normal than it wil ever but again I might be wrong. I love this article it helps me to have a glimpse of the different political views .
I am worried about the shrinking middle class, and not just because I am part of it (it’s also bad for the country). I like your Robert Reich quote. His documentary, Inequality for All, is eye opening.
Yes, I’ve seen it. It’s a great video.
Yes I am well aware of Lilly Ledbetter’s story. Thanks.
It’s sad that you feel that “Republicans tend to vote with powerful business interests who want to save money by doing things like discriminating against women.” I’d hardly call disagreeing with the Democrats solution and offering a different one “discrimination”.
Also not sure I’d call a +0.3% increase in growth “so much better”. Especially since that table leaves out things like price increases. Unless you’re going to tell me those kind, benevolent (and no doubt Republican) business owners won’t raise prices to offset their increased labor costs?
Thank you for that Obamacare link. It’s good to know that others are feeling the hurt as much as my wife and I are because that means they to will make their voices heard during future elections.
Well, if you are aware of Lily Ledbetter’s story, why did you think that the problem of pay discrimination has been solved?
There are only two explanations for why Republicans would vote against equal pay for women:
1) they make business interests a priority. The less money in female employees pockets, the more money goes into the pockets of management and owners
2) cultural conservatives don’t want women to be empowered
Pretty much every Republican voted against equal pay for women in the Lilly Ledbetter case.
I gave you more than one example of economies that improved with an increase in minimum wage. And the longer term you look at the higher the improvement goes because more and more people are hired and spend money over time. That graph you’re referring to is showing a very short timeframe. And the thing is, economies have been consistently better. And even if it were by small amount, it’s still better to help people have a living wage, as the economy is improved even a small amount, than to have people who are working hard living in poverty as the economy is slightly worse.
I provided that Obamacare link because it shows that your perspective on it depends on where you are. You say that your experience reflects everyone’s experience. Well, it doesn’t. Some people may be a bit worse off, like you perhaps, but most people are better off.
OBAMACARE (AFFORDABLE CARE ACT) PROVIDES THE FOLLOWING:
. people are no longer disallowed insurance because they have a pre-existing condition
. people are no longer thrown off the rolls after they get sick
. insurance companies can’t try to find excuses to not pay your coverage after you have been paying in for years
. people who couldn’t afford insurance in the past now can
. parents can keep their college-age children insured
. people needn’t go bankrupt because they can’t afford their medical bills — the biggest cause of bankruptcy for American families
. healthcare costs should go down because it’s much cheaper to do maintenance care — vaccines, antibiotics for a bladder infection or insulin for diabetics — compared to what happens when they don’t get that maintenance: hospitalization for double pneumonia, kidney disease, a leg must be cut off from diabetes…
I already stated that. Women’s pay is 95% of men’s and rising. Women will pass men sooner than later. Most of the discrimination exists with older women when pay discrimination was a real thing. It’s more rare now.
And Republicans did not vote against equal pay. I’ve said this like 6 times now. They voted against the Democratic SOLUTION to equal pay and came up with one of their own.
That is some serious liberal spin you are trying there.
Well your links say one thing and mine say another. Let’s agree to disagree.
The overall net effect of Obamacare is that people have to pay more $$$ for health insurance. Your own link even shows this. Yes there were some winners but there were obviously far more losers because the net effect is an increase.
So you say that we don’t need equal pay legislation even as you admit that women are still paid less than men?
What was the Republican alternative to the Lilly Ledbetter law? And why would it be better if they actually have an alternative?
The reason Republicans are so afraid of Obamacare is because they know how popular it will be once it’s really gotten going. I know several people who were not able to be insured before it’s institution.
And if you don’t get this, you are just speaking from conservative ideology/spin:
OBAMACARE (AFFORDABLE CARE ACT) PROVIDES THE FOLLOWING:
. people are no longer disallowed insurance because they have a pre-existing condition
. people are no longer thrown off the rolls after they get sick
. insurance companies can’t try to find excuses to not pay your coverage after you have been paying in for years
. people who couldn’t afford insurance in the past now can
. parents can keep their college-age children insured
. people needn’t go bankrupt because they can’t afford their medical bills — the biggest cause of bankruptcy for American families
. healthcare costs should go down because it’s much cheaper to do maintenance care — vaccines, antibiotics for a bladder infection or insulin for diabetics — compared to what happens when they don’t get that maintenance: hospitalization for double pneumonia, kidney disease, a leg must be cut off from diabetes…
I believe alot of people just go with the crowd and dont even realize what they are doing or even saying once itcomes to politics shoot sometimes i dont even know whats going on this world is so mind bottleing us with all this information and tech savy stuff we dont even know whats the real prolbelms
Sounds about right. That probably is another thing that’s happening. People tend to vote like those in the community around them.
Links to any of that to back it up? So few household breadwinners make only the minimum wage so raising it only helps a few while hurting many in terms of job loss. This is according to the CBO by the way.
Creating jobs to build ships and warplanes is not the same as creating jobs flipping burgers and working a cash register. Raising the minimum wage isn’t going to create “good” jobs. It’s the Democrats playing politics as usual. They know it’s a loser to be against raising the minimum wage but they don’t care.
Your history is a bit off there, Democrats & Republicans alike overwhelmingly passed the Equal Pay Act. Sure, 54 Democrats and 17 Republicans didn’t vote for it (9 Democrats voted against it, while 0 Republicans did likewise) but to say all Republicans voted against it is just plain wrong.
1) Funny. I guess everyone I know must be in that “few” you speak of.
2) Of course we did. I have the nerve to run my own small business though so nobody cares about helping us.
FAIR PAY ACT
Yes, Republicans and Democrats alike passed the equal pay act of 1963. But this is not your fathers Republican Party. In fact, if you look at the legislative record Obama governs very much like an Eisenhower Republican — or a Nixon Republican.
I’m talking about the Lily Ledbetter fair pay act of 2009, Which was introduced because the conservatives on the Supreme Court allowed gender discrimination. Very few republicans voted to pass this bill — and it wouldn’t have passed except that it was introduced during the window during which democrats how do filibuster proof majority in the Senate:
The Lily Ledbetter fair pay act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilly_Ledbetter_Fair_Pay_Act_of_2009
The bill (H.R. 2831 and S. 1843) was defeated in April 2008 by Republicans in the Senate who cited the possibility of frivolous lawsuits in their opposition of the bill[14] and criticized Democrats for refusing to allow compromises.[15]
The bill was re-introduced in the 111th Congress (as H.R. 11 and S. 181) in January 2009. It passed in the House of Representatives with 250 votes in support and 177 against.[16] The vote was split along party lines, with three Republicans voting in favor (Ed Whitfield of Kentucky, and Leonard Lance and Chris Smith both of New Jersey) and five Democrats voting against (Travis Childers of Mississippi, Dan Boren of Oklahoma, Allen Boyd of Florida, Parker Griffith of Alabama, and Bobby Bright of Alabama). The Senate voted 72 to 23 to invoke cloture on S. 181 on January 15, 2009.[17] The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act passed the Senate, 61-36, on January 22, 2009. Those in favor included every Democratic senator (except Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, who was absent from the vote because of health issues), two independents who caucused with Democrats, and five Republican senators – Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.[18] Specter later switched to the Democrats; the others include all female Republican Senators.
Be posting on this soon, but below are some links on how an increased minimum wage helps the economy:
1st, By way of explanation, conservatives often argue that an increase in minimum wage causes job loss. And that can happen in the short-term in that some businesses may need to fire some people. But most businesses don’t fire anyone, so in the long-term, more people are making more money, Which they spend, Which means other businesses need to hire to meet the increased demand, and then those workers have more money to spend, Demand for products increases, so companies need to hire more workers… and the economy spirals upward.
Here are some links:
http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2014/10/09/minimum-wage-hikes-work/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SociologicalImagesSeeingIsBelieving+%28Sociological+Images%3A+Seeing+Is+Believing%29
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/raising-the-minimum-wage-_b_2750336.html
Here’s an article from my hometown, San Jose:
http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_25315215/san-jose-minimum-wage-year-old-success-story
Raising the minimum wage isn’t going to create “good” jobs?
You’re right. But it still helps the economy.
What does create good jobs are union jobs, building and repairing roads, bridges and schools. And paying police officers, firefighters, And teachers decent wages — all things that Democrats have supported and Republicans have fought against.
Nobel Laurette in economics, Paul Krugman, has written a book that describes how the American middle-class was created in the 1950s partly from government spending during the war and partly from things like the G.I. Bill.
And here is a short article that kind of gets to some of the same points:
Austerity leads to depression. Krugman http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/30/opinion/krugman-the-austerity-debacle.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
Keep in mind that Paul Krugman has been right on most economic predictions, Like forecasting the housing bubble — and it’s burst, and what would happen with Obama’s economic stimulus 2009. Whereas plenty of conservatives have been blinded by their ideology, including passed said chair, Greenspan, Who eventually admitted he had been wrong — and that his ideology had blinded him.
Here’s more:
How got out of Great Depression http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/business/economy/from-world-war-ii-economic-lessons-for-today.html?scp=1&sq=romer&st=cse&src=ISMR_AP_LI_LST_FB
Everyone I know must be in that “few” you speak of
Maybe that’s because everyone you know refuses to look into the government subsidies to make insurance affordable.
Everyone I know has been helped by Obamacare.
Do some research on actual statistics.
Not sure what 2) refers to.
The Lily Ledbetter fair pay act of 2009 is not about equal pay because EQUAL PAY IS ALREADY A LAW AND HAS BEEN FOR 50 YEARS!
Republican opposition to this bill had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with preventing women from getting equal pay (because equal pay is already a law). That is Democratic nonsense. You even mentioned the “frivolous lawsuits” the Republicans were concerned about which could cost small businesses obscene amounts of money just to defend themselves (i.e. they’re innocent but still go bankrupt).
The Republicans posed their own solution but of course both sides could not come to an agreement. You could just as easily say the Democrats were against equal pay since it was BOTH sides who could not agree.
Click to access s.2199-fischer-collins-04.08.14.pdf
Saying the Republicans do not want equal pay is silly. They simply didn’t agree with the Democratic solution.
Another thing, despite what Obama, feminists, and others on the radical left might say, Women currently make 95% of what men make and are closing the gap more and more every year.
Even CNN admits the real gap is 5% when accounting for all factors
(From 3:45 to 4:45)
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/cnn-fact-checks-rachel-maddow-alex-castellanos-feud-over-gender-pay-gap-determines-maddow-right/
As for the Minimum Wage increase, I obviously hope you’re right.
If the federal wage is increased to $10.10, we will lose 500,000 jobs to help 900,000 workers. We will not even decrease the poverty rate by 1 percent. It’s hard to believe the left on this one that putting 500,000 people out of work will be offset by the gains made to minimum wage workers.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffreydorfman/2014/02/22/the-minimum-wage-debate-should-be-about-poverty-not-jobs/
This doesn’t even take into account the increase in prices which will obviously hurt everyone.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-02-25/when-minimum-wage-goes-up-the-menu-price-also-rises
The subsidies you speak of are only available if you don’t already get health insurance through your job and you make less than $46,000 for an individual. So once again, the middle class is screwed.
“2)” refers to the fact that of course I looked for ways to reduce the enormous cost of Obamacare but we did not qualify for anything. 😦
That law wasn’t enough to end discrimination.
In 1979, Lilly Ledbetter was hired by Goodyear; she retired from Goodyear in 1998 and then sued the company for paying her significantly less than her male counterparts.[6] The lawsuit eventually reached the Supreme Court, which denied her claim because she did not file suit 180 days from her first pay check even though she said she didn’t know it at the time.[7][8][8][9] In dissent, United States Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote:
Lilly Ledbetter was a supervisor at Goodyear Tire and Rubber’s plant in Gadsden, Alabama, from 1979 until her retirement in 1998. For most of those years, she worked as an area manager, a position largely occupied by men. Initially, Ledbetter’s salary was in line with the salaries of men performing substantially similar work. Over time, however, her pay slipped in comparison to the pay of male area managers with equal or less seniority. By the end of 1997, Ledbetter was the only woman working as an area manager and the pay discrepancy between Ledbetter and her 15 male counterparts was stark: Ledbetter was paid $3,727 per month; the lowest paid male area manager received $4,286 per month, the highest paid, $5,236.[8]
Subsequently, the 111th United States Congress passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in 2009 to loosen the timeliness requirements for the filing of a discrimination suit so long as any act of discrimination, including receipt of a paycheck that reflects a past act of discrimination, occurs within the 180 day period of limitations.
Republicans tend to vote with powerful business interests who want to save money by doing things like discriminating against women.
Why are the economies who increased the minimum wage doing so much better than those that haven’t increasing minimum wage? Because the links you give aren’t accurate in terms of what really happens.
On Obamacare I know plenty of people who couldn’t get insured until the affordable care act. I know plenty of people whose premiums have gone down with that act. I know people who could not get insurance because of pre-existing conditions before this act.
And read this:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102141158
And take this quiz:
http://op-talk.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/03/a-midterm-election-eve-quiz-testing-our-political-assumptions/?ref=opinion
LOL, sure the Republicans are useless but voting Democrat will only lower your wages even more.
“Projects to build and repair roads, bridges and schools — which create good-paying jobs”
^All of which cost money (i.e. more taxes on the middle class that we can’t afford)
“Raising the minimum wage”
^which would help a mere 2 million households while costing 500 million jobs and raising the cost of living for all
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffreydorfman/2014/02/22/the-minimum-wage-debate-should-be-about-poverty-not-jobs/
“Equal pay for women”
^Is already a law and women will soon close that remaining 5% gap anyways
As a member of the working class, Democrats have done nothing but tax me more and raise my cost of living year after year. As one example, Obamacare cost my family an additional $2,800 this year alone ($80 more per person per month) and we can no longer even afford to go to the doctor because our co-pays soared to ridiculous levels.
Actually, in communities where the minimum wage was raised, the local economies did better than surrounding economies. I’ll be posting on that later. But it works for the reason I gave. When you paying people more money they have more money to spend. So demand for products goes up. So business is have to hire. The new hires then spend more money, and other businesses spend more money hiring workers. I plan to post on this pretty soon.
That’s how the we got out of the Great Depression. The war forced us to pay money to built warplanes, Ships, vehicles, uniforms, bullets… And it lifted us out of the depression.
Yes we do have a law that women must have equal pay. But all the Republicans in Congress voted against that bill. The bill was passed when we had Democratic majorities in both houses.
If Obamacare cost your family more money then 1) you are one of the few families for whom that was true and 2) you probably didn’t make an effort to get the government subsidies for the price increase.
True that it could be as simple as people thinking politics are boring and therefore not looking at exactly what they’re voting for or against. Insightful post!
Thanks. Voters don’t seem to be well-informed, and routinely swing against presidents party, so it makes some sense to me.
Such a good point. A lot of people just don’t pay attention- it’s like not reading the fine print. Makes me think that reading up on the issues is almost a civic duty, even.
Yes. My understanding is that the reason the founding fathers cared about public education is they needed an educated citizenry to have a democracy. So we need our education to help us understand the political issues. Unfortunately, a lot of American citizens don’t take that next step.
I’ve been thinking about it and I also think that people often vote according to “The home team.” I grew up Republican and wanted Republicans to win, until I had a high school class which was taught by a left leaving Democrat and a right-leaning Republican — who were best friends. I could hear each of their perspectives on what was good and bad about their own side and the other side.
The class was disillusioning, in the best sense of the word: I had always thought that people were poor because it was their own fault — they were just lazy. And sure, sometimes that’s why people are poor. But I came to understand that we don’t have an even playing field. People who are poor don’t have equal opportunity to the middle class. And the middle class doesn’t have equal opportunity compared with the rich.
Now that was a real education!
I talk about it a bit in this post:
No Longer Blinded by the Right
The biggest problem is Americans fail to realize that both of these political parties are equally worthless.
We have a very very unsophisticated electorate who consistently support our political duopoly. Dems take as much $$$$ from corporations and Wall Street as the Repubicans. If Dems are whole milk, Republicans are 2%
But, this is what happens when our citizens know more about Kim Kardashian than how their government really works. Sad and pathetic.
That’s true and not.
Money buys both parties — must get big $ out of politics.
But the Dems $ supports the people more. So voting for the Dems really helps the working person.
interesting and deep!
Thank you.