starting wage for anyone who actually shows up every day is around 10/hour\
my daughter who is totally unskilled recently looked for work; got three job offers within 10 days, starting at around 8.50 with raises after 3 months
so - at least where i live - in the rust belt - there are alot of low paying jobs. but realistically, no one works for minimum wage. if that is what you offer, you get applicants that have serious problems. not to say we dont need to find a place for those people. but they are not "mainstream" people that can read, write and show up every day.
my employees start at about $12/hour and we have a hard time finding people. some of them cannot read particularly well, but they work. this economy is a jobs machine. \ our task as a policy matter is to create better jobs. but you are way off base if you think alot of reliable people are getting minimum wage. it is not so. even illegals won't work for that; and why should they. there is plenty of work.
talk to employers. it is impossible to find people at minimum wage that anyone would want to hire. and employers don't expect to hire at that rate. even temp services have to pay more, and do. and they also often drive people to work.
you are way off base if you think alot of reliable people are getting minimum wage
If you read what I wrote, you'll see that's not what I'm saying.
First of all, I'm looking at official statistics, not entering into considerations about the skills, reliability, and "employability" of different individuals. That's for employers to judge. I'm glad to hear your business starts people at $12 an hour.
As to the federal minimum of $5.15, I quote the BLS figures that show nearly 2 million workers are paid at or under that rate. I also noted a lot of youth, feminine, part-time work in there, so I was not making out the fed minimum was widespread.
But the main thrust of what I studied was the lower levels of pay in the OES survey - above the fed minimum, but still very low. There are all the same, whatever you say, at least 15 million jobs that pay under $8.35, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And these jobs are not confined to one sector (farming isn't even included in the numbers), they are across the board, though mostly in service activities.
So - your local experience says one thing, but national statistics say another.
It's an interesting exercise to attempt to imagine managing a non-starvation existence on the real minimum wage, --or even on $10 an hour.
In 1960, fresh out of high school, I poured beer in a High street bar for more than the minimum wage. Capitalism searches out the darkest corners of human potential, and mainlines them.
