The mentality of 'I don't want to see someone doing well for themselves' regarding wages and healthcare in USA is disturbing...

Why are so many americans against anything that could give their fellow citizens a decent life? Minimum wage and "free" healthcare. Why is it so bad to have?

A $15/hr minimum means teenagers could afford college more easily. Wow, that's a tragedy... Oh wait, yes, for some people, it is. Wouldn't want the kiddos learning how to think and get an education, would they? (Yes, I'm in favor of the living wage. Alawys have been. Why? Because I've had to live at the so-called "it's fine" wage. If you need three jobs to afford a rathole apartment with ramen noodle dinners... Something is wrong, but it's not your work ethic!)

You can have an opinion about the societal division of welfare, but before you make economic arguments get a basic understanding how macroeconomics work. Besides, societies with a low gini coefficient (measuring income inequality, lower is more equal) tend to be much happier. This includes those at the top end of the income!

The teen argument never makes sense to me because on one hand you're complaining about a type of worker that a large majority of the time isn't working 40 hours a week, so they're not getting a career out of it in that moment. Secondly, you don't want teens to make a livable wage, but you also don't want college to be free or at least dramatically cheaper because it's our fault for being victims to predatory loans. Thus, you want nothing to change, you want everything to stay as is, wherein people live in poverty in one of the richest countries in the world, and the college debt crisis continues because no one can outright afford it if they aren't at least somewhat wealthy. Yeah, remind me to never pick you to lead anything as you clearly have zero leaderships skills.

America has done a number on you people who don't want to see others get "more" money. It appears that the greedy corporate mindset has settled in and no one wants to see other people do better--not get rich--but do better. Weird and deeply disturbing.

I have a great real-world example for you: My employer purchases a wire assembly for use in our products. We pay the assembler $1.64/ea. The components for this assembly cost $0.54/ea. I figure that with the right tools, someone who is experienced and has good muscle-memory for the task could assemble 180pcs/hr. Assuming they make $9/hr, the labor cost is $0.05/ea. The rest is overhead, shipping, taxes, scrap %, and profit margin for the company. If that worker were suddenly paid $15/hr instead, the labor cost would rise to an unfathomable $0.083/ea. Meaning my wire assembly would cost $1.68. Four cents will not break the bank for us.

Too bad these asshats will probably never see the excellent comments from all you BPs.

People are talking about it like it was "free money". Those people are working. They deserve to be paid for it. "But people with degrees earn less". They are sub paid too.

I think the biggest takeaway from this is that people don't understand basic economics.

packing boxes is skilled labour????????????? lol! was it a 2 yr or 4 yr degree? stupid git!!!!

The rich bitches at the top want us lower/middle class peons to bicker over a few dollars. It is very hard for my husband and I to have a place and raise our son properly, and we have well paying jobs. I cannot even imagine how others have to do this on minimum wage. If I have to pay more for my burgers and groceries to help a fellow human, I am all for it.

Don't take a minimum wage paying job if you don't want minimum wage. When I was 16, minimum wage was $3.35. I made $6. If you are worth it, you can get better money.

And this is how you create a large population of serfs for the ruling oligarchs. You divide the peasants into "us" then "them". If the people are busy fighting for scraps and cannot align themselves for mutually beneficial change, at the expense of the overlords, then those changes will never come to pass.

ALL government workers should be at this "minimum wage" level -- democrats, republicans, president, treasury . . . EVERYONE! It's easy for anyone earning more to deny someone else. Isn't this also tied to "Full time/40 hr work week"? That means anyone working 39 1/2 hours is considered "Part Time" and is not included in this American Ideal. For all the perks of being a government worker, they should only have what they have offered others. And while we're at it -- take away their parking spaces and private offices. And there better be a report accounting for their time and what they do, posted on the internet for EVERYONE to see, including their fellow employees. In this day and age of communication, there should be NO SECRETS between American Citizens and their elected government!

I think we should reduce the cost of things and then let’s see how that goes first before we just jump on the give everyone more money bandwagon. I know I have an unpopular opinion on this matter, but simply economics state if the cost of labor goes up then that means the cost of everything else goes up too. I just don’t think it’s a good solution. Even at $15 an hour affording a house is next to impossible unless you have no debt at all.