Living Wage Debate Heads To Arlington [VA]

Arlington Sun Gazette ^ | 7/16/02 | Ryan Self

[Orangedog]

The businesses there need to take a cue from Home Depot and stop doing business with any government agency who requires these practices. I switched most of my home improvement purchases from Lowes to Home Depot after they slammed the door on the feds.

[chemainus]

This was begun in Virginia by Dr. Nelson Lichtenstein from UVA. It was successful at UVA. They gave huge raises to the bottom entry levels and left those who had worked for higher positions in the dirt. And in Katie Couric lalaland, no one dared utter a word of protest; not at the University of Virginia; there are severe penalties, all quiet, all legal in their Inquisitorial subtlety, and all deadly to a dissenter, in the true tradition of Honor and Jeffersonian Democracy (sarcasm). Isn't this the freedom the liberals want? Go along with them or suffer? Anyone hear faint strains of ;;;;deutschland deutschland uber alles...uber alles ....

[bandlength]

"living wage"

"affordable housing"

"decentralize the concentration of poverty"

"diversity and multi-culturalism"

RUN don't walk when you hear these phrases batted about in your town!

[tal hajus]

I've always had a "liveable wage". I lived within my wages. What's so new about that?

[LetsRok]

Zimmerman said a living wage was a matter of “social justice” and called the federal minimum wage “essentially meaningless.”

Nuff said already. Some areas price their housing to keep poor people out. Now the government wants to pay a janitor so that he can live there also.

[69ConvertibleFirebird]

“Even high school kids are getting more than that,” he said.

And so goes the point. Minimum wage is what the high school kids make. Few, if any, people working to support their families make minimum wage. If they do it's because that's what their work is worth. They need to find another job. The market wil take care of itself. As people flee minimum wage jobs the wages for those jobs wil go up in order to bring people back.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Ditto. They can all go jump in a lake for all I care. It would cost you MUCH more than whatever profits you squeeze from a job or sale after federal income tax, state income tax, local income tax, social security, medicare tax, unemployment tax, employee wages, benefits, insurance, overhead.....

[Puddleglum]

Now the government wants to pay a janitor so that he can live there also.

From what I've read New York school system janitors already can.

[Puddleglum]

As people flee minimum wage jobs the wages for those jobs will go up in order to bring people back.

Or those jobs will be filled by incompetent bozos and then the government will haul in a high-dollar consultant to figure out why nothing works anymore. The consultant will spend millions of dollars, sell the government a "solution" that doesn't work because the government won't hire people smart enough to implement it, and the cycle repeats itself.

This also applies to the private sector. Corporate officers try to balance the bottom line on the backs of the lowest-paid employees then hire a high-dollar consultant to figure out why performance and morale are in the toilet.

[Eagle Eye]

Corporate officers try to balance the bottom line on the backs of the lowest-paid employees then hire a high-dollar consultant to figure out why performance and morale are in the toilet.

No doubt. Try telling a company owner taht one way to resove turnover, unemploment insurance, workers' comp, and other losses is to pay enogh t hire better people. Those who complain about those cycles just don't seem bright enought to break them, even when given concrete evidence.

In most cities, one would have to diligently seek a minimum wage job because they don't exist. In the real world, entry level wages may be low, but they still need to be high enough to attract workers that the boss is willing to hire.

Government inspired wage inflation will do more harm than good in the long run.

[Corin Stormhands]

More than 80 U.S. communities have living wages in place, including Richmond and Charlottesville.

Yeah, those are two fine examples... /sarcasm

[Alberta's Child]

I bet at least 75% of the municipalities that have this kind of ordinance are college towns. "Sound economics" hasn't meant anything to these places in a long time.

[Lysander]

$10 an hour, that peanuts! Why be a piker?

I have an idea, why not get from each their abilities and give to each their needs? After all wouldn't it be an ideal world if everybody could work to their fullest potential and live to an equal outcome....

They just don?t get it.

[Mudboy Slim]

What NONSENSE!! Northern Virginia needs to get a clue or become a part of DeeCee because the region doesn't deserve to call itself part of The Old Dominion!!

SHEEEESH...just like "Minority-Owned" and "Women-Owned" companies getting privileged treatment in the Contracting World, the folks who feel like scamming the system just set up their wife as Principle-in-Charge and get the work. I see it occurring all the time. This "Living Wage" will be successfully-scammed by the low-bidder each and every time or else Arlingtonians will be unable to afford the increased cost of municipal services.

MUD

[KantianBurke]

how can one fight this?

[Myrddin]

I have an idea, why not get from each their abilities and give to each their needs?

I have always laughed at the inanity of this concept. People expect to be rewarded in direct proportion to the value of the work they produce. If the reward is less, that is a disincentive to work. If the government decides what you "need", then you are inclined to work only in fair proportion to what the government allows in compensation. If the government compels work whose value exceeds the compensation for that work...you have tyranny and involuntary servitude.

The socialists like to push this "living wage" and "social justice" baloney. It doesn't play in a free society. Mao and Stalin killed 50 million people who refused to submit to their communist agenda. Those who survived live in abject poverty in a totalitarian state.

[Charles H. (The_r0nin)]

No kidding! Richmond City is in a slow (but increasing) spiral of decay and destitution. The idea that any other community would look at this cesspool and say, "We want to be like that!" is astonishing. This is why everyone in fleeing to the suburbs. The state is spending tons of money to create roads to once isolated and outlying areas (like Short Pump) because the middle class is stampeding from the city so fast. What a joke...