$15 Minimum Wage increases are expected to hit our nation, coast to coast, in the near future. I am concerned that my financial sacrifices & years of educational investments to become a nurse will be highly devalued once minimum wages are doubled around the country.
I am predicting that the higher $15 minimum wages will cause costs of everything else to increase (food, rent, services). Salary earners (RNs) making above minimum wage, will not get raises, yet our cost of living will dramatically increase (eventually by double in most cases, in order to offset the higher cost of minimum wage employees). This all will be fine for minimum wage workers, but I fear that because I make above minimum wage, I will see my budget cost of living budget increase by 1/3 or more and will no longer be able to afford to pay back my student loans once all this happens.
Then comes the bad credit debt & never owning a home & never being able to retire & this snowballs into my college career has been self-destructive, God help us all ...
I would like to hear other nurses input and opinion on the matter, if nothing else but to help me from catastrophizing this ~ Thank You
We do not make ourselves great by oppressing the poorest while moving the profits to the wealthiest.
Actually, this nation was built on the backs of dirt poor people. From the sweatshops of NY, to the sharecroppers of the South, to Chinese coolies working on the railroad, not to mentioned Slaves from Africa.
Give me your tired, your poor, your desperate, and I can make a fortune with cheap labor. If the workers get too uppity, I can bring new ones, or ship my operations overseas, under the banner of 'Free Trade'.
you are not suppose to work for minimum wage your whole life, those jobs are not for raising a family. Minimal skills = minimal wage. If the people at fast food restaurants want more money they should go to school and learn a trade, then they will get more money. I should know, a little over 3 years ago I was making $9 an hour doing security and I was struggling to survive. I then made a decision to start school for LPN and finished and past the NCLEX. Now I make more money then I ever have and I did not have to wait for the government to force my employer to give me more money. Some people are lazy and dont want to go to school to earn more money, they want government handouts. I do not agree with increasing the MW, if people want more money go to school and get an education
TBH if you want to buy a 3Bd/2b home in a safe neighborhood, afford a horse, help your kids through college, etc., you cannot do that on a nurse's income alone in California. I could do some of those things if I was married to someone who made equal or more as me, but I definitely could not do that on my own. I don't even know how I can afford to survive on my own without taking roommates. After taxes, I get like $1500 biweekly, or approx. $3000 a month. When rent for a studio costs like $1600 a month and for a 2-bedroom apartment over $2000 a month, I would barely be getting by if I had a family and just getting by if I lived by myself. And I make a good income.
I wouldn't live in the SF bay on a 100k income. You couldn't afford to buy a house on that much less the horse and kid in college. My brothers rent alone is $2300 for a 1br + office (kids room). He tells me he's lucky to have this place that cheap. 100k doesn't go a long way when housing runs 30k a year(w/utilities), taxes say 20k+, 401k 18k. Kid in college and a horse, student loans, good luck.
To the OP, how will an increase on min wage impact me, I'm sure we will have less CNA's available (already short) and pt care will lessen.
Specializes in Nephrology Home Therapies, Wound Care, Foot Care..
Do your research. In the areas in the country where this has gone into effect, there has been NO inflation, the economy has improved. Period. There is no downside to being paid a halfway decent wage. Not everyone has to have a college degree, and. Many more are working grunt jobs in order to go to college, and have no choice but to be exploited by student loans. Look-bottom line, somebody else's good fortune isn't a blight on you.
Companies shouldn't exploit their staff, whether that is McCoronary-in-a-bag or Genearly Hospital. It's not as if $15. an hr is a princely wage. But hopefully it means kids have decent food in their bellies going to bed and school. Maybe it means a few less people working 2 minimum wage jobs with latch key kids, just to make rent. Hoping your soul motivation in becoming a nurse isn't to lord over the woman at Starbucks that you're salary is better than hers. And seriously, if you have a real concern, do your research.
Bottom line is both federal and local governments are using tools from decades if not ages ago to deal with a totally different 21st century economy including labor market.
Yes, you can mandate an increase in MW but between technology already in place and or to come in future employers still have the upper hand. The United States is not like European countries and large parts are covered by at will employment doctrine.
The reason we have not had runaway inflation is because the rest of the world is doing worse than us and the dollar is strong because of it. I do not want to play Russian Roulette with our economy betting that we can keep spending like this based off the rest of the world falling apart. From your post I think you are aware of what causes inflation. And to your point of some inflation is needed, tell that to 1920's Germany when a loaf of bread cost a million marks.
If you want low skilled people to make more money than make a demand for low skilled labor. You can think what you like on a humanitarian level on illegal immigration, but if you clear out 12 million people from the country, you just raised the wages of every Mcdonald's employee. I am willing to bet if 12 million illegal nurses were added to our workforce many people here would be singing a different tune when they saw their wages drop.
Beyond that, you need to give people a reason to work. Our welfare system is set up so that in many cases it is better not to work. My step daughter has special needs, and has a job at Burger King. We were told that she would not be eligible for benefits if she worked. Not caring about that, she needed to work like every other 27 year old. The fun fact with this is that she would get more money from the government if she stayed home and did nothing. Much more in fact, because when you factor in the transportation she pays, she is paying them to work there.
That is the government trap, and it is deliberate.
The other part of this is the idea that if one person has something, and another person does not that means that the guy w/o got taken advantage of. In MOST cases poor people are poor because of bad life decisions. Do you think the powerball gets up to a billion bucks because Mark Zukerberg bought a billion tickets? I installed cable for years, and what I have learned is that if you live in poverty... you probably shouldn't be getting cable. 98% of the people in this country have cell phones. While many of you younger people may think they are essential, I grew up in the 80's and let me assure you they are not.
Doogoodthango,
You have this idea that a company has an obligation to an employee to give them "X". The only obligation that company has to that employee is the contractual obligation they came to when the employee decided to work there. The profit that company makes is not the employees, it is the shareholders. If that employee wants part of that money I suggest they buy the stock.
When my wife and I bought our home we decided that we would buy a home that we could afford on just one of our salaries. So if there was an emergency we could survive off of one income, and if there was not an emergency we would use the extra income to pay our home off. Thankfully there were no emergencies and we got our home paid off in 8 years. Since than we have invested in the stock market and have done quite well. A month ago we made a few thousand dollars in the course of 2 days (and not a finger was lifted for us to get it). We are also looking into buying some real estate to rent out; and as evil as we are, we are considering it to make a profit. I fail to see why the decisions my wife and I have made are wrong compared to the guy who blew his check on powerball; or to understand exactly what her and I owe him.
People are always talking about MW increase and like I said before its easy to increase your worth, GET AN EDUCATION. I was dirt poor, I was in the struggle but I said no more and I went to school and became an LPN and I am still in school for my BSN. Why should a company be forced to pay more money to a minimal non skilled worker???????
Specializes in Huntingtons, LTC, Ortho, Acute Care.
In my mind minimum wage= minimum skill. Why should people that choose not to become an educated person be paid more to do a job anyone with some functioning brain cells can do? These jobs weren't meant for people to be lifers in.
I was raised in a household where my father barely graduated high school was a self made business man and was luckily successful. My mother went to a hospital school of nursing to become an LPN.
Both of my parents told me every year since I started working as a teen, if you get an education you can double or triple or even more depending on what career you want. If you want a house, a car, and to have a family and live comfortably you need an education so you get paid better.
were living in a time where a lot of people feel entitled and I'm sorry but I just don't feel these minimum wage jobs are a 15.00/HR value. If people want more money they should rise to the occasion and get an education or a trade, we shouldn't further devalue our dollars because people can't or don't want to push themselves to be more.
1. This boils down to pure selfishness...not looking at any economic principals....corps have more than enough to raise min wage...PP state they wouldn't choose nursing if it meant they were getting $5 or more then min wage (that' 800+ a month more)...choosing a career based on pay is why so many nurses complain....there's some RN/BSN that make more money then peple with Masters or higher...i dont see anyone saying nurses should take a pay cut...everyone has the right to live comfortably...small business owners would be affected the most...
2. I agree that if min. wage is increased then other pay grades should increase as well..but even if it didnt you would still be making more money then a person working min. wage and that should be suffice...
3. The fact that some posters feel that min wage=min skill is disheartening...what about a teen aging out of foster care and forced to live on their own? Or single mother/father? There are several reasons why individuals work min wage jobs...kuddos to those whose parents were blessed to have their own businesses but this isn't the case for everyone and not all min wage workers are 'burger flippers'
There is nothing wrong with being a burger flipper. I was a pizza maker when I was 16. Had I stuck with that job, and I could not elevate myself past pizza maker in 30 years it is not the evil Domino's Pizza that has kept me down. I would also like to see where in the Constitution that it states that people have the right to live comfortably. In another document it states that you can pursue happiness, and if happiness to someone is buying powerball tickets than by all means buy them. Your decisions are your own, and Bill Gates did not make you poor if you just spent your paycheck betting on your lucky number.
Your second point could almost be pulled out of the dictionary as far as "What is inflation".
Playing the "I am a victim" card gets really tiresome. My uncle grew up in one of the worst parts of Chicago where he had to be in a gang to survive. He never got a college education, and drove a tow truck for a substantial amount of his life. Because of the decisions he made, despite his upbringing, he now lives in a million dollar home. If you would like to swap sob stories, everyone has them. My sister died at 20, 4 months after giving birth, and 1 month before she was going to be married. The day before her funeral my mother got a call from the wedding dress people asking questions about my sister's dress. Life isn't fair, but that is not an excuse not to live.
I share the same concerns. I think the attempt is to get the rich more generous, but it always seems to fail. Middle class (hello, health care workers) will continue to shrink, rich will get richer, farther above and away from us here on earth having to contend with the concequences of their incompetence, ignorance, and greed.
I've already had non-working smart allecs sneer at me, implying they're the smart ones who get to live a good life on the dole.
Basically, your question is about socialism. And will it work for you? Hillarina is much more well-spoken, but leans left...
Donaldo Trumpez sounds like a fool who will for SURE cause more disparity between wealthy and poor, and also WW3.
When I weigh my less than ideal options, I think I'm going to be WITH HER for 2016.
3. The fact that some posters feel that min wage=min skill is disheartening...what about a teen aging out of foster care and forced to live on their own? Or single mother/father? There are several reasons why individuals work min wage jobs...kuddos to those whose parents were blessed to have their own businesses but this isn't the case for everyone and not all min wage workers are 'burger flippers'
Minimum wage does equal minimal skill, all other things aside. Name me one minimum wage job that requires five years of experience in the field and/or a master's degree and I will admit that I am wrong.
Being a single parent is no excuse to not try to do well. I have a nurse coworker who got pregnant and dropped out of school at 14. She studied and passed her GED at 16, and graduated with an associates in nursing at 19. By 23, she had paid off all her student loans through careful budgeting. Being a single parent sure didn't stop her from doing something with her life. I would argue she did a heck of a lot better than most of the people I know who weren't single teenage parents.
Also for the record, I got a $6/hr job when I was sixteen. I worked my butt off, and got a dollar raise to be a shift lead at 17 and made assistant manager by the time I was 18, which got me a raise to $8.50/hr. I was just graduating high school at this time, so I had no fancy degrees to speak of. $8.50/hr was enough for me to start paying my own bills. I moved into my own apartment and was paying my own rent, electric bills, and car payment on $8.50/hr with no government assistance.
It was not easy - I brought home less than $1000/month after taxes. It requires some personal responsibility and some willingness to deprive yourself of things you want instead of things you need to get your bills paid, but I assure you it's possible to live off of that amount. I ate a lot of beans and rice, and I set my AC to 65 degrees in the winter time and lived entirely in the living room, putting weather stripping around my bedroom door so the cold couldn't come in, because of how poorly insulated my apartment was. It is possible to live off of minimum wage or slightly above minimum wage, and it is also entirely possible to move up the ladder at a minimum wage job to make more money based on hard work alone if you are determined enough. I am not at all convinced that people that were in the situation I was in deserve to make $15/hr. I was a hard worker, but I had no skills and no upper level education, and I survived on the amount of money I was making without going hungry and without having my car repossessed or my electricity turned off. I don't believe an unskilled laborer deserves to have much more than that.
Emergent, RN
4,300 Posts
Actually, this nation was built on the backs of dirt poor people. From the sweatshops of NY, to the sharecroppers of the South, to Chinese coolies working on the railroad, not to mentioned Slaves from Africa.
Give me your tired, your poor, your desperate, and I can make a fortune with cheap labor. If the workers get too uppity, I can bring new ones, or ship my operations overseas, under the banner of 'Free Trade'.
Call me patriotic!