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New wage boost puts squeeze on teenage workers across Arizona

Posted on 02/11/2007 3:26:33 PM PST by zendari

Oh, for the days when Arizona's high school students could roll pizza dough, sweep up sticky floors in theaters or scoop ice cream without worrying about ballot initiatives affecting their earning power.

That's certainly not the case under the state's new minimum-wage law that went into effect last month.

Some Valley employers, especially those in the food industry, say payroll budgets have risen so much that they're cutting hours, instituting hiring freezes and laying off employees.

And teens are among the first workers to go.

Companies maintain the new wage was raised to $6.75 per hour from $5.15 per hour to help the breadwinners in working-poor families. Teens typically have other means of support.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; US: Arizona
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Buh buh buh no unemployment right?

What a shame. Teenage jobs are as much about responsibility and teaching as they are about money, and that opportunity is lost to parents.

1 posted on 02/11/2007 3:26:35 PM PST by zendari
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To: zendari

Why not make it $100.00 an hour ?


2 posted on 02/11/2007 3:28:14 PM PST by kinoxi
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To: zendari

Not to worry. The employers will just hire illegals and pay them under the table.


3 posted on 02/11/2007 3:28:32 PM PST by ladyjane
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To: zendari

On the other hand, increases in the minmum wage have been positively correlated to increased male dropout rates from high school.


4 posted on 02/11/2007 3:28:40 PM PST by Paleo Conservative
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To: zendari

Employers only can afford so much payroll. People are going to have to work smarter. The most productive (whether teen or adult) will be the ones that keep their jobs. IMO


5 posted on 02/11/2007 3:35:04 PM PST by CindyDawg
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To: zendari

"Companies maintain the new wage was raised to $6.75 per hour from $5.15 per hour to help the breadwinners in working-poor families. Teens typically have other means of support.

What baloney. They'll keep the ones who can do the most work. Teenagers could compete at that, if they got into it.


6 posted on 02/11/2007 3:35:12 PM PST by proxy_user
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To: zendari

white teenagers to suffer most.
(sounds like a dem-wit idea to me)


7 posted on 02/11/2007 3:35:18 PM PST by xcamel (Press to Test, Release to Detonate)
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To: zendari

But Bush said these are jobs no American is willing to do...


8 posted on 02/11/2007 3:39:06 PM PST by DTogo (I haven't left the GOP, the GOP left me.)
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To: zendari
"Teenage jobs are as much about responsibility and teaching as they are about money"

You are so right on this. The learning of self-dependence, work ethic, discipline, and even working skills are lost to the intervention in the free market of the government, and leads to the socialism that is the agenda intended: dependence on the government to survive.

Where the "old days" of part-time jobs, then military service, then college taught us the discipline needed to lead a productive, responsible, and morally-principled, and fulfilling life, we have taken the opportunity away for this evolving, maturing experience, for the sake of political motivation (buying of votes from the bottom of the payroll).

When you see those bloviating millionaires in Congress extolling their elitist socialism using the rhetoric of the "poor families, poverty-stricken, single parents, etc." and how they're going to "give tax relief" and "provide a LIVING WAGE" as if they're the only ones who can save the irresponsible self-destructive low-end lifestylers from their own destruction, you could puke......

9 posted on 02/11/2007 3:39:21 PM PST by traditional1
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To: zendari

Let's hear this again. Clinton increased minimum wages in 1993 and US unemployment went down in the years that followed. Minimum wage does not affect employment as much as an expanding economy that produces jobs in the US. Granted excesses in anything will kill its good intentions. Example $ 100 per hour minimum wage. You can keep the old minimum wage, but outsource jobs overseas, import H-1B workers willing to work for half of US tech workers, and hire illegal immigrants due to US open borders policy, and most Americans will face job insecurity and wage depression no matter what the minimum wage is. Furthermore it is hard for employers in general to complain, consider the fact many corporations have record profits and the CEO's salaries have doubled or tripled in the last 12 years while most working people just kept up with inflation and went up and down as companies hire and fire them, and they had to network to find the next temporary job after losing the last one to cheap overseas labor and mergers.


10 posted on 02/11/2007 3:41:19 PM PST by Fee
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To: zendari
Minimum wage rises. Teens and minorities hit hardest.
11 posted on 02/11/2007 3:42:03 PM PST by TigersEye (Ego chatters endlessly on. Mind speaks in great silence.)
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To: zendari

Forget something?

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0210biz-teenwork0210.html


12 posted on 02/11/2007 3:44:31 PM PST by savedbygrace (u)
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To: Fee

I put that out there. ($100.00 minimum wage) What do you think it should be?


13 posted on 02/11/2007 3:46:20 PM PST by kinoxi
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To: zendari
Some Valley employers, especially those in the food industry, say payroll budgets have risen so much that they're cutting hours, instituting hiring freezes and laying off employees.

And this is surprising...how?

14 posted on 02/11/2007 3:46:36 PM PST by Domandred
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To: proxy_user
Teenagers could compete at that, if they got into it.

If they quit school to compete with an illegal alien desparate for it, you mean? One willing to work for less than minimum, take it in cash and shut up about it?

15 posted on 02/11/2007 3:50:08 PM PST by LexBaird (98% satisfaction guaranteed. There's just no pleasing some people.)
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To: zendari

bttt


16 posted on 02/11/2007 3:52:14 PM PST by MovementConservative (The US will win in Iraq. Thank you all US troops.)
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To: Fee
I have never asked how much profit a company made or how much the CEO was paid, when quoted a salary. I figured it was none of my business. I was either ok with the wages offered or I went elsewhere.
17 posted on 02/11/2007 3:54:44 PM PST by CindyDawg
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To: LexBaird

"If they quit school to compete with an illegal alien desparate for it, you mean? One willing to work for less than minimum, take it in cash and shut up about it?

I mean, working after school at a fast-food place, they could be more productive than an illegal alien. At a sit-down restaurant, they would do even better. They would cover more tables, take the orders correctly in English, interact better with the customers.


18 posted on 02/11/2007 3:58:33 PM PST by proxy_user
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To: zendari
Liberalism is all about flouting and trying to cheat reality. If someone's labor is only worth five dollars an hour government decree cannot make it worth six or seven dollars. Jim Quinn is a local (Pittsburgh) talk show host who has been moving into other markets and has been on XM for the past year. Quinn's First Law is that liberalism always generates the exact opposite of its stated intent.
Minimum wage laws leave people worse off rather than better. I can think of at least three ways that this applies to minimum wage. People who would be employed are not because not feasible to hire them. Remember we used to have ushers in movie theaters and people to pump our gas? Second rather than applying themselves to improve there lot in life and rise up to a higher level through working harder and/or getting more education people can just wait around for minimum wage increases and stay at a rather base level of existence. And then, of course, we are all poorer because entrepreneurs are hampered by this artificial impediment created by our masters.
19 posted on 02/11/2007 4:00:49 PM PST by all the best
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To: kinoxi

That's exactly the point I make everytime I discuss the issue. If a taco bell worker is suddenly "worth" $100 per hour, everyone else will be "worth" more and the cost to live will increase by the same multiple.


20 posted on 02/11/2007 4:18:25 PM PST by ItisaReligionofPeace
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