Mar
18
Post #9- Nick Djamalidinov
March 18, 2015 | Leave a Comment
The minimum wage debate continues for this class as the article examine the living wage and tipped income Americans. One article attempted to shed some light on common myths about income inequality. Overall, we see both sides of the debate have merit which is why this topic so heated. After last class, I was leaning towards opposing minimum wage increases because I did not see much benefit for people who are actually poor. But these article brought to my attention different aspects of the minimum wage like people who work for tips. Also the one article that was more in line with my view alienated me and I began to dislike that side of the argument.
The first article is called Living Wage Inflation. The article talks about the problems wage increases bring when targeting corporations like McDonald’s. They force problems on the franchisees who are like small business owners. It winds up targeting the wrong people, especially because franchise agreement are not always easily amended. That means a wage increase will put a strain on the franchisees and they cannot re-negotiate their contracts. There was an argument though that it would be possible to do so and adjust the contracts. Personally, I did not think of franchisees when thinking of corporations. Also the title of the article made me think of the concept of increasing prices to make up for the increased costs in wages. Inflation made it sound like the currency would lose value and it would if corporations are hell-bent on squeezing every dollar out of customers. I also somewhat agree with the statement by Liz Krueger that it is insulting to work full-time at a large, successful corporation and still be scraping by. But then again, if you are doing a menial, unskilled job then I am not sure if you should be paid much. After all, working at McDonald’s is the butt of some jokes about people who do not go to college.
The Forbes article was about the five myths about income inequality. While I agreed with most of them, I particularly took issue with myth #2. I understand his overall point but it sounded like the people who blame poor people for being poor. Having taken an Anthropology class and learning about structural racism, people in the lower economic classes are stuck in a cycle of poor decisions because of a lack of education which leads to further poverty. I particularly disliked the way he seemingly mocked single mothers. It’s very obvious that single moms do not have kids without the father’s support for fun. There are factors out of their control like the father leaving them. I do not believe in blaming the poor people for situations like that. I got a very condescending, arrogant tone from that myth so not only do I disagree with his point, I really dislike the way he presented it.
Also I was not very clear on Myth #4 in the Forbes article. It said that lower income Americans consume almost twice as much as their money income which means that income does not measure our capacity to enjoy life. I agree with his conclusion but I do not see the connection there. In fact, it sounds like the lower economic classes are living beyond their means and are in debt which is one the most crippling factors on people’s lives. The feeling of a debt accumulating when you do not have the means to repay it at the moment is a terrible stress that could take years off your life. And sometimes there are just are people who accumulate massive debt to fund a lavish lifestyle they cannot afford. But I feel like most of the lower income Americans who are consuming more than they are making are doing it because their income does not cover their living expenses and they have to borrow or get aid to enjoy the necessities that rich people have no problem satisfying.
The third article talked about tipped income Americans and how their income instability excludes people from those jobs and creates huge headaches for people working there. The way I understood it, having service workers like waiters rely on tips, which they get from customers for good service, motivates them to give the best service possible. But the article pointed out an important point: tips fluctuate frequently but rent does not. I would not be able to live a consistently decent life on tipped income much less support a family. There is also a noticeable gender gap between higher level positions, with men dominating management jobs. I wonder why that is. I would personally attribute it to women just not seeing the leadership positions as achievable for them. Sexist ideals still prevail in our society and it seems like women get discouraged from management positions that pay well and take tipped income jobs that are volatile and put themselves and any children they have in peril.
