[Behind Liberal Lines]

The critical difference between employment and slavery obviously hinges on whether the pay can support basic survival.

No, moron, the critical difference hinges on whether it is entered into voluntarily or involuntarily, whether it is based upon the free market value of the labor or whether it is based on a basic denial of human rights.

Next this idiot Ithacite will probably demand reparations for anyone who has a minimum wage job.

Ithaca is the City of Evil.

[camle]

I gots a better idee:

who are YOU to tell another person how much to pay a third person for work done for that person?

[Behind Liberal Lines]

Bump.

Apparently, Leary is has run for the City Council, meaning she could have enacted (or may still enact) her bizarre "anti slavery minimum wage" theories at some point.

And, perhaps even more bizarrely, she is employed at the as Publications Manager at Cornell's "Johnson Graduate School of Management", which should make one pause to question what sort of business management one would learn if they were to matriculate there.

Ithaca is the City of Evil.

[miner89]

By this definition, all volunteer work is slavery.

I do support a minimum wage, because I think there are unethical businessmen that would figure out ways to abuse people by paying them much less if they could.

HOWEVER, the minimum wage should not be a living wage for the simple reason that many people who desire work do not wish to do so in order to have living wages. The housewife trying to supplement the family income or the teenager trying to save for his first car do not need a full living wage

Incidently, let's think through the ramifications of this from the liberal view point. A family of four all work at a "living wage" minimum wage job, the kids half time. This equals 3 living wages for one family. This qualifies the family as rich and as such we should tax them more, correct?

[from occupied ga]

Ithaca is the City of Evil.

Not to mention stupidity and ignorance as well - but of course you can't be a leftist and have the ability to reason intact.

[Zon]

Politicians and bureaucrats create and implement about 3,000 new laws each year -- year after year they do that and the number of new laws each year increases on average. They claim each year's new laws are must have laws that people and society can't live without.

Question: How is it that people and society have survived and increased prosperity for years and decades despite not having the supposed benefit of those laws. And actually increased prosperity in spite of the burdening laws that are in effect at the time.

If it were not for the hundreds-of-thousand of laws and regulations that parasitical elites in government have foisted on people and especially businesses that bear the biggest burden, a person making five dollars and hour would probably live as prosperously as if they were making twenty dollars an hour with the leviathan government on their back. Not to mention who knows how many valuable products and services would have come to market without those laws and regulations hindering creativity and productivity. But we will never begin to know what we should have rightfully earned until we throw the parasites off our backs.

The only people that need 3,000 new laws each year are politicians and bureaucrats so that they can justify their unearned paychecks.

Wake up! They are the parasites. We are the host. We don't need them. They need us.

[Phantom Lord]

The correct wages for a job is where what a qualified candidate will do it for and what the employer will pay meet.

[Phantom Lord]

Ever notice that all the lefties that cry foul and demand a living wage NEVER open a business and put their demands on others into practice themselves.

[governsleastgovernsbest]

"the minimum wage was supposed to be the minimum livable wage, ie., what one needed to live on, to meet basic needs without charity or government assistance"

What is a minimum wage LAW if not government assistance (in the form of a mandate instead of direct funding)? And what is a "wage" that is higher than a true market wage if not charity? Minimum wage laws are state-mandated private charity.

[Mr. Bird]

would restore the original intent of the law

I think coffee just came out of my nose....

[Constitutional Patriot]

Another cry for social justice from the "intellectual elite". These people know nothing of how the real world operates. This is demonstrated by the overwhelming success of economies and societies that foster these utopian ideas.

[thatsnotnice]

Oddly, and I don’t know how the Ithaca Journal operates, newspapers and radio/tv often use a number of unpaid interns. Someone should look into that and bring it to their attention if it is the case with them. I’m sure they’d be willing to pay a living wage to interns.

[goldstategop]

Ithaca: Home Of The Empire Strikes Back.

[Soaring Feather]

Ithaca is the City of Evil. bump