Not again! No $15.00/hr. minimum wage? This is wrong! This is shameful! This is harmful, bad, and uncalled for!!! What a boo boo. Like Daffy Duck would say, “This is Despicable!” And why wouldn’t they want to pass this bill? Just why? The $15.00 min. wage is needed, it’s important, and it’s something that would help us get back on our feet, and really get the economy back.
I am glad that I have a friend, Rick Ellis, a person with status, who supports me most of the times, who I confide with, but who also disagrees with me some other times, feels that I am right to say something about this $15.00 minimum wage increase. Thanks, buddy.
Our civil workers, be they in the County, the State, but more so, in the Congressional levels, are paid very well. They have the best health care coverages, the best vacations and sick leaves, the best days off, and the very best jobs ever. They hardly do anything for the people, and if they do, those times are minimal
Have they already forgotten why they were elected and why they were all there in the first place? Have they also forgotten that they are supposedly be our voices and our representatives to help us get what we really and truly need, which would and could make our lives better and easier? Have they also forgotten that they work for us, and not us, working for them? What kinds of people are we sending to Washington to help us? If that’s what they are supposed to do. Do they truthfully believe that we can survive with $7.25/hr. Wages? They, of course, have no worries, because they are not in that category of being in the so -called substandard, mediocre, low class, middle class bracket. Phooey to them, and boo-hoo to us. They need to get off their stupid, aah, butts, and start working for us. Pass that $15.00 minimum wage, and stop thinking what you’ll get out of it. You are all a bunch of hypocrites.
And the thing that really gets me is the fact that we sit around grumbling what our congressional delegates do, what they have done, or what they should be doing, but instead, rather than to kick them out and look, choose and vote for other people who would probably and hopefully work and do something positive for us, we still elect those unproductive people into office. And honestly speaking, are they really there to help us, or are they there for their own personal gains? Take one guess., two, three, or four. Really, think about it. We’re really the ones to be blame for what they do, and why they do what they do. We reelect them time after time, again and again, and yet, we still grumble about them. How smart are we? Grumble, grumble, grumble, but go ahead, reelect them, anyway.
Have you people gone to the parks and beaches, the see those people there? I know some of them who work,but are living there in those pitiful kinds of ways only because they cannot afford the luxury of paying for rents, for the essentials, electricity, gas, and maybe, hot water to bathe, or even to flush toilets .They making $7.25/hr, or just a bit more, but not the $15.00/hr. Minimum that they should be getting. Those people just could not and would not be able to pay for anything.
Those in Washington are saying that the economy is getting better. Really? Did you listened to the lies Mitch McConnell said? How much more lies can they tell and think they can get away with them.
I’m hurting, and I believe there are a bunch of people who are in the same predicaments as I am. So, you well-to-do Washington people, get off your fricking, aah, what’s the word(?), and get something good for us. We deserve something good. $15 per hour minimum wages is what we need.
Am I right, or wrong?
•••
Ray Domingo is a resident of Lihu‘e.
Hawaii is a hard place to hire. Health insurance typically costs employers $3-6 per hour. An older woman’s employee mandatory insurance can cost the employer well over $10 an hour. Then there’s the Workers Compensation Insurance, Temporary Disability Insurance, Unemployment Insurance, Social Security contributions, Medicare contributions and sometimes Drug, Vision and Dental insurance.
In extreme cases someone making $7 and hour can cost the employer well over $25 an hour.
These expenses make it difficult for employers not to discriminate and hire people with limitations or avoid paying these expenses and pay “cash”. Ray, I hope this helps you to see the other side.
$25/hr and you’re whining? That’s dirt cheap! If you can’t make a business viable paying $25/hr, you’re not competent to be in business.
At least we now know who elects these no doers right Ray! Stop trying to raise the minimum wage. We have many reasons for a minimum wage. It takes a good education to make a decent wage. When you have limited experience or no experience you start with minimum wage. Hooser and Ray think that we should give more money to people who qualify for minimum wage. These people you speak of will never be any more productive a $15 than they are at $10.10. Minimum wage should never be considered as a way to get by. Education is the answer for decent wage period. If our government stayed out of the business of dictating who makes what with a minimum wage, those in that situation would have more power with an employer for negotiating a decent wage.
I’m too tired to address this ridiculousness.
Minimum pay for minimum talent. Get more certification, training, and make yourself marketable. It’s an entry level rate. You don’t do 40 years at minimum wage…..you start there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ7SbcEqpgs
I remember starting my first job at $4.25 an hour. I am now at over $25 an hour, and it has nothing to do with free handouts or begging for wage increases. I owe every single bit of my income to ME. I work hard, changed jobs a few times as there was no “moving up” at some points and I did and still do what I need to do to keep this life. Increased minimum wages are easy money for the lazy and unmotivated.
Like employer said. Short answer – wrong.
For any individual earning less than $15.00 per hour, it is best to get an education and job training for a long term employment and future. The minimum wage must remain at $10.10 as incentive for all individuals to seek completing High School and enrolling into a training program for the long term future of the individual. Becoming a member of a Union is also a long term plan for employment of current union wages and benefits, but you must earn your pay and benefits to be successful. For some, the U.S. Military is an excellent option. Increasing the minimum wage does nothing, zero, for the individual. Go For Broke.
Ray,
Raising the minimum wage will lift some people out of poverty. However, many low wage jobs will be replaced with automation, or the jobs simply terminated. See how the grocery stores deal with checkout services? We deal with it ourselves. Those used to be peoples jobs. Next it will be trucking, inventory, restocking, baking, butcher, fish monger, then produce management. There is a certain price point where automation makes more sense than paying a premium price for low skill labor.
Watch McDonald’s this year, it will be a machine that starts to take orders. Next a machine will take your payment. Sometimes this transition goes smoothly, but more often than not it is frustrating, as the machines have no flexibility or empathy.
I have worked these jobs when I was younger. Many of them. Now my job is small cog in the big system that will lead to the automation of the 21st century. It’s the world we live in.
Google the economics of raising the minimum wage. It’s not black and white. Economics is elastic and this cannot be done without some repercussions. For example, what if 60% of minimum wage employees get a raise, but 40% lose their job because small businesses cannot afford to take the hit?
touchy situation, but hawaii is already around number 48 in the nation as one of the worst places to do business;
part of the reason the lines are so long at Safeway and other businesses, they cannot afford to hire more workers… therefore there may only be one or two registers running, out of 10;
More people will just work for cash, this is not rocket science, basic math and supply and demand
randy Kansas…..the reason lines are long is because more workers than none are now taking advantage of the unemployment and don’t want to go back to work. Unfortunately it will come to a screeming halt and the money will dry up. Until then many businesses are having staffing problems especially the tourist industry.
When you get your 15 an hour I’ll just be raising rent, so get ready.