Posted on 02/12/2006 11:53:29 AM PST by NormsRevenge
YUBA CITY, Calif. (AP) - It's been almost two years since Kimberly Ward moved from North Carolina to California with her husband, yet finding a job that pays well enough to keep pace with the state's high cost of living continues to be a struggle.
She's had several jobs that paid $9 an hour - well above the state's minimum wage of $6.75 an hour - but each was temporary. The sales jobs she has been seeking at a local mall in this suburb north of Sacramento aren't likely to pay much more than the minimum.
"They should raise the minimum wage; they should raise it a lot," Ward said. "The cost of living here, compared to where I'm from - it's ten times more."
Ward could get at least part of her wish. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in one of the political moves he announced after voters resoundingly rejected his special election agenda last fall, has proposed a $1-an-hour increase in the state's minimum wage over two years.
Some Democrats have said it's not enough. Others within the governor's own party are angered that he proposed the increase at all, fearing it will hurt businesses. Whatever the proposal's ultimate fate, the modest increase is likely to provide only a slight improvement to those living on the margins in the nation's costliest state.
Schwarzenegger vetoed legislation last fall that would have boosted the minimum wage $1 an hour by July 2007 but also provided automatic increases to keep up with inflation. The governor said he opposes a minimum wage deal that provides automatic bumps.
In his State of the State speech in January, however, he said the economy has improved enough that the state's minimum wage needed to be increased over the next two years.
His office is trying to negotiate a compromise with the Legislature's Democratic leaders. Meanwhile, a coalition of social service and labor groups is collecting signatures for an initiative that asks voters to increase the minimum wage $2 by 2009. They're targeting the November election.
The last boost came in 2002, when California's minimum wage was increased by 50 cents an hour. The state's businesses already are required to pay their employees more than the federal rate of $5.15 per hour but less than other West Coast states. Oregon's minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, while Washington's is $7.35.
About 60 percent of workers earning within a dollar of the minimum wage in California are between the ages of 25 and 64 and work 35 or more hours a week, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
Among those is 26-year-old Jessica Sangston, who is on her own for the first time and finding it hard to make ends meet while earning just above minimum wage at a local grocery store.
"My boyfriend and I are living together and sharing expenses, but we are barely making it," said Sangston, who stopped into a Yuba County job center recently to look for a better-paying job. "It's impossible to even think about going back to school because I have to work all the time. How do you get ahead? That's the problem."
As an example of the state's high costs, the median home price in California is about $460,000, nearly twice the national average of about $237,000.
Business owners such as Victor Vosburgh, manager of the Oasis Car Wash and Lube in Sacramento, worry about pushing the wage up too far in a short period of time.
"I don't have anyone working for me at minimum wage - people can't live on that," he said.
But if the minimum wage does goes up, he said he probably will be forced to give everyone a pay increase. When that happens, it will pressure him to raise prices on customers.
"What will happen is that we will raise our prices by a dollar and then our volume will go down," Vosburgh said. "That's what happened last time."
Raising the minimum wage should not lead to job losses or inflation because the increase would be relatively small and all businesses will be affected equally, said Michael Reich, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley's Institute of Industrial Relations.
"Individual business owners are looking at their books and their bottom-line. They are not thinking about this as across-the-board," he said. "All of their competitors will be covered, too. These are increases, small increases in cost, but they will be the same for everyone."
Reich studied the effects of San Francisco's boost in the minimum wage to $8.82 an hour two years ago. He found that restaurants in the city increased prices just 2.8 percent, while the number of servers actually grew.
Some restaurant owners, however, say a boost in the minimum wage is unnecessary because many of their employees already earn significantly more with tips.
"The tipped employees are the people making the most money," said Jot Condie, president and chief executive of the California Restaurant Association, which opposes a minimum wage hike. "They are the ones that are earning minimum wage, but it's the tips that they are actually working for. Many of them are already earning $20 per hour."
Condie said most of his members don't think it's fair to give those workers such a boost when state law prohibits the tips from being shared with other workers who do not serve customers, such as cooks and dishwashers.
Whatever its final form, the minimum wage proposal is not likely to have a dramatic effect for workers or businesses in California, said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.
"This issue has actually taken on a bigger profile than it really warrants," he said. "It's really a very small part of the work force that earns the minimum. And let's face it, it's time to raise it some."
Re: post 17, in my case it was not in California. There is no way that I would even attempt to live in that out-of-control state.
I forgot...Paul Krugman is an economics professor...I guess I know what they're teaching these days.
Who told Ms Mensa that the jobs she holds were designed to support anyone other than a college student? Some jobs aren't designed to support someone.
What? How about the local baker, the start-up machine shop, the neighborhood day care, the dog walker, the laundry mat, the small motel, the local dirty spoon, the newly formed print shop and on and on. Yeah, evil Corporate America can afford it (NOT) but what about the rest of us?
I'd suggest they leave. Seriously.
Everybody eats out. Rare to find people that cook their own meals.
I bet they'll be surprised when California's teenage unemployment rate -- already the highest in the country -- goes up this summer.
I mooched off my parents and drank beer FULL TIME....
So lets raise the minimum wage to $35 and hour. That will bring in $1,400 a week or $5,600 a month.
The average person that's only qualified to work a minimum wage job should be able to get by on that.
So what's your take on how high it should be?
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
I SAID I worked FULL Time....NOT Part time....and no, I did it in WA state in the 80's.....and I had a young son, also, and got NO child support.
Why? What do you pay your newly-hired unskilled employees? Do you provide them with family medical insurance? Do you pay for their retirement accounts? Do you expect them to show up to work on time and work a full day?
Come on, tell us how the real world works ...
Well, that depends...is that less than 10 times the pay of the company CEO?
Hey, let's quite beating around the bush.
Lets raise it to $100 per hour. That way every body can be rich. After all it's no big deal. Only the rich people employ anybody, they can spare that much at least.
D@mn straight.
The real world, you say?
In what is called the "Bay Area", of this state (that I live in), the going rate for casual labor (which includes the non-english speaking immigrant types) was $10 per hour---about ten years ago! What the rate is now, I don't know, but seriously doubt it's less.
Is that real enough for you, jacka$$?
Anybody that's considering a move to California is clearly smoking crack.
Just what I suspected. You can crawl back under your rock now.
Business decisions take many forms, in that biz...
I understand how fish boat owner/operator's are said to have some of the most stressful occupations, in the country, since I was an operator for many years, and a # 1 guy on a few other boats, previous to that.
My own small boat, isn't near as stressful as things can be for guys trying to meet loan payments, crewshare settlements, and all the rest, while raising a family. It's no wonder some of them can be real "screamers", hehe...
Presently self-employed, using my own, much smaller boat, without "payroll" employees. Not even 1099...
Just small-time hook & line, no more bottom trawl gear that weighs tons...no more crew to deal with (hurrah!), no more big stress.
Peddle my catch to white -tablecloth type restaraunts, some in a couple of swap meet/farmers markets. Also run a small pollination service (if I could call it that, with only 14 hives presently of any real use). The hives are in the avocado orchards, as we speak, though it's too early yet, where I'm at, for them to be needed yet.
I also own a piece of another business, entirely different than catching fish, or wrangling honeybees. Helped start "part of" it, actually.
In that business, very few are paid "minumum" wage, but some are.
Only one is paid the amount I offered as the going wage for casual labor in the Bay Area.
The day-to-day operation of the various phases, I'm not reponsible for, though I do lend a hand regularly, in most aspects---except for hiring, or directly firing.
At times, I've even filled in temporarily, as bookkeeper (which isn't my strong point) using "QuickBooks", to reconcile cash bank deposits, make billing invoices, print checks to pay bills owed, etc...when the majority partner was on much needed vacation time.
But that's the easy part. Actually ending up with a profit, is much harder. As it is right now, that business is barely holding it's own, (if that!) due to decisions made the majority partner... I was in opposition to the course of action he chose, thinking it wouldn't work. I have been proven correct. As far as the cost of doing business, the ebb & flow of cash---
I glance over the amounts, occasionaly, what & roughly how much, is going where. We are behind on our bills, have been ever since the bad move, that I was against. It's hamstrung the entire outfit...
But I don't look to employeees to take paycuts to balance the books!!!
This business (in which I'm only a minor partner) employs almost thirty people, but only a few of them, fulltime. Payroll taxes are real bitch (to pay) but the computer program, when currently updated, does the "figuring".
All one needs do, is enter the proper amounts, in the proper places. So much for your assuptions. Incorrect, as usual.
Your list of questions, to determine what I may "know", or not know, are worthless, except to your own pathetic ego. That rock you tell me to crawl under? How 'bout you getting it up side your fat head, instead?
I certainly hope you screw up, and encounter personally, in the flesh, those whom have no patience for your rudeness. I'd get in your face, high volume, in a hot second, and you'd have to deal with it, {or shrink back}. Too bad it most likely won't be me...
I used to enjoy a good barroom brawl. Won most of 'em, hehehe, but then again I'm smart enough to have avoided the few whom really are "bad-a$$es", instead of the ones who just thought they were.
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