Quote from: Shelma1 on April 03, 2015, 12:06

Quote from: robhainer on April 03, 2015, 10:08

Your facts are little more than spin. They're assumptions based on a biased viewpoint. I was not a privileged person like you were. I had to do military service to pay for my education. But you don't even have to do that. You can apply for grants or use scholarships to go to technical school to learn a useful trade that will guarantee that you will never have to work for minimum wage. In the state where I live, all you need to do is graduate from high school with a C average and you get to go to technical school for FREE.

Those are facts. Minimum wage is not supposed to be a living wage. If it were, every lazy person out there would just go flip burgers and our economy would go in the toilet.

"According to Bloomberg, college tuition and fees have increased 1,120 percent since records began in 1978.

Using this chart to explain its findings, Bloomberg reports that the rate of increase in college costs has been 'four times faster than the increase in the consumer price index.' It also notes that 'medical expenses have climbed 601 percent, while the price of food has increased 244 percent over the same period.'"

The cost of a college education has increased more than 1,000% since 1978, while the minimum wage has increased about 275%.

You can apply for grants or scholarships, but there's no guarantee you'll get them. And everyone can't serve in the military. You can't even get a student loan unless you qualify�I couldn't.

I'm not sure why you are so adamantly opposed to the minimum wage simply keeping pace with the economy.

Because it makes no sense to have the same minimum wage in areas of the country with vastly different costs of living. City leaders in San Francisco can thump their chests all they want about raising the minimum wage there to $15 an hour, but that amount has less spending potential than $7.25 an hour where I live.

All I've seen from people with views similar to yours is demagoguery about sticking it to corporations and the "oligarchs" who run small pizza shops. It's garbage.

Did you try to serve in the military to pay for school? Did you make that effort? I doubt it. Fact is, people who think they're stuck earning minimum wage haven't made the effort needed to get a job that pays more than minimum wage. If they did, fewer people would be available for those jobs and the demand would increase the pay.

No, I have no interest in serving in the military. But since I didn't do EXACTLY what you did, I didn't make an effort. Working 40 hours a week and taking 18 credits a semester in two majors is not making an effort, to you. Amazing.

And I don't understand how requiring companies to pay a minimum wage that simply keeps pace with inflation is "sticking it" to corporations. CEOs make higher and ever higher salaries while wages for workers have stagnated. The gulf between them grows every day. Corporations are raking in record profits off the backs of their workforce. They're sticking it to workers and have been for decades�not the other way around. Yet you feel sorry for them. 

Pizza shop guy will just have to raise prices. How much is a pizza where you live? You think people can't afford to pay a buck more? Move to a place with lower rent, then.

Your facts are little more than spin. They're assumptions based on a biased viewpoint. I was not a privileged person like you were. I had to do military service to pay for my education. But you don't even have to do that. You can apply for grants or use scholarships to go to technical school to learn a useful trade that will guarantee that you will never have to work for minimum wage. In the state where I live, all you need to do is graduate from high school with a C average and you get to go to technical school for FREE.

Those are facts. Minimum wage is not supposed to be a living wage. If it were, every lazy person out there would just go flip burgers and our economy would go in the toilet.

"According to Bloomberg, college tuition and fees have increased 1,120 percent since records began in 1978.

Using this chart to explain its findings, Bloomberg reports that the rate of increase in college costs has been 'four times faster than the increase in the consumer price index.' It also notes that 'medical expenses have climbed 601 percent, while the price of food has increased 244 percent over the same period.'"

The cost of a college education has increased more than 1,000% since 1978, while the minimum wage has increased about 275%.

You can apply for grants or scholarships, but there's no guarantee you'll get them. And everyone can't serve in the military. You can't even get a student loan unless you qualify�I couldn't.

I'm not sure why you are so adamantly opposed to the minimum wage simply keeping pace with the economy.

Quote from: Shelma1 on April 02, 2015, 08:19

In Utopia, $8/hour jobs are held by high school kids who are on their way to college and making a better living.

In America, the oligarchs buy government representation and lobby to pass laws that benefits themselves and their business interests, which has led to increasing disparity between rich and poor. The U.S. now has the largest gap between rich and poor of any industrialized nation. They also cut spending on education, making it more difficult for people to get ahead. This leads to adult heads of households struggling to feed their families on minimum wage salaries. It's more difficult to be upwardly mobile in the U.S. than in many other comparable economies.

Yes, business owners take risks�but one of the challenges of starting a business is being able to make that business profitable while paying a living wage to your employees. Insurance, equipment and other associated costs have not been kept artificially low while inflation marches on. The minimum wage has remained stagnant for decades while businesses are making record profits. Paying your employees is a business expense, and it should be an expense that keeps up with the cost of living. If you can't operate a successful business paying what you need for the assets required to run that business, employees included, you deserve to have to declare bankruptcy.

Sorry. I'm not buying it. It is so easy in this country to get the education and skills needed to make more than minimum wage. There are grants and scholarships all over the place. You don't need a four year degree to have good job skills. In fact, technical school training can sometimes gain you a lot more than a philosophy degree. You can be an auto mechanic or a long haul truck drive and still make a good living.

The problem is people aren't willing to put in the time and effort it takes to make a living wage anymore. If the best you can do is stock shelves at Wal-Mart at age 40, you need to rethink your plan and go back to school.

And I'd hardly consider the owner of a pizza shop an "oligarch." Without people like him, willing to take risks and work hard to get their businesses off the ground, there'd be no jobs at all.

Well, I'm not particularly concerned whether you "buy it" or not. I've stated facts. The cost of living and the cost of education have both risen significantly over the past few decades, and minimum wage has not kept pace. Business owners have therefore been paying less to workers than they should have for the past couple of decades. Even if the minimum wage was increased to $15, it would only bring it up to the level which it should be to keep pace with inflation, and that would not make up for all the wages people have lost over the past couple of decades while they were being underpaid.

When I was college-aged it was possible to work full-time at a minimum wage job and pay your way through college, which is what I did, without student loans, scholarships or financial aid. I took a full course load with a double major and worked 40 hours a week at a convenience store. That's just not possible any more, because the minimum wage has not kept pace with the cost of living or the cost of education.

And of course, it was also possible for me to get into college because I'm a relatively privileged person in this country. I'm white and grew up with two parents in a middle-class town with an excellent public school system near a major metropolitan area (New York). I was born in a big city (New York) so was not intimidated by it.

And no, a pizza shop owner is not an oligarch, but if the business is unsustainable because the owner can't afford to pay his workers, then he "deserves" to go out of business. Does he stiff the pizza oven manufacturers? The furniture manufacturers? His suppliers? His landlord? He pays all those costs despite the fact that they've risen with inflation, and he raises his prices along with inflation. His employees are also a business expense, and paying them should also keep pace with inflation.

Quote from: Shelma1 on April 01, 2015, 12:35

So the salmon house will now rake in what used to be tips, and pay their servers what is probably substantially less per hour than they made with those before. There's no way they'd change their policy if it was better for their employees than it is for them.

.....

Ivars has always been one of the most progressive employers in the Seattle area

"pay their servers what is probably substantially less per hour than they made with those before"  ?  they RAISED their pay to $15 per hour

from the ivars website

Quote

�Insurance � We like to make sure that our staff members lead healthy lives outside of work by offering insurance packages based on their position and length of service, including: ◦Medical, dental, and vision insurance
◦Disability and life insurance
◦Supplemental health insurance

�Opportunities for Advancement � At Ivar's, we believe in the potential of all of our employees and do everything we can to help them achieve their career goals. We provide comprehensive training and development and promote from within whenever possible.
�Financial Planning � Many of our employees are not only looking ahead to their workplace future, but also to their financial future. To help with this planning, Ivar's offers a 401(k) Plan, investment planning services, and a Home Ownership Assistance Program

The basics of Ivar�s new policy will go like this: All employees, both tipped waitstaff and non-tipped back-of-house staff, will earn $15 an hour. (Currently, waitstaff make the state minimum wage of $9.47 plus tips, while back-of-house wages range from $12 to $15 without tips, according to Donegan.) Discretionary tipping by customers will be taken away, and instead all waitstaff will receive an 8 percent commission on sales, while back-of-house staffers will receive 9 percent of sales.
...
 Ivar�s will not make any changes to employees� other compensations. The company will continue to offer full benefits to full- and part-time employees, as well as match contributions to 401(k) plans at 50 percent
http://www.thestranger.com/food-and-drink/feature/2015/03/30/21976753/ivars-salmon-house-is-going-tipless

The article you link to points out that servers are now uncertain about their wages there -- and whether they will even continue to make the same amount, not more, remains to be seen.

Also, the restaurant owner helped fund the anti-$15 initiative. And he's not interested in talking to his employees about their wages. "he�s also fine with the possibility that staff may leave because of the new policy: 'If you as a server don�t like the uncertainty of this system and you think you can do better, by earning all of the tips that you�ve earned in the past, and you want to be on your own, that�s okay.'"

In Utopia, $8/hour jobs are held by high school kids who are on their way to college and making a better living.

In America, the oligarchs buy government representation and lobby to pass laws that benefits themselves and their business interests, which has led to increasing disparity between rich and poor. The U.S. now has the largest gap between rich and poor of any industrialized nation. They also cut spending on education, making it more difficult for people to get ahead. This leads to adult heads of households struggling to feed their families on minimum wage salaries. It's more difficult to be upwardly mobile in the U.S. than in many other comparable economies.

Yes, business owners take risks�but one of the challenges of starting a business is being able to make that business profitable while paying a living wage to your employees. Insurance, equipment and other associated costs have not been kept artificially low while inflation marches on. The minimum wage has remained stagnant for decades while businesses are making record profits. Paying your employees is a business expense, and it should be an expense that keeps up with the cost of living. If you can't operate a successful business paying what you need for the assets required to run that business, employees included, you deserve to have to declare bankruptcy.

It is frozen. Got stuck around Valentine's Day a couple of years ago.

I got a bunch of 80� ones too. Weird....I never saw that amount before.

You can't really sign contracts with minors with few exceptions. Google is your friend.

Yes! Absolutely. Thanks for pointing it out. Typo fixed.

It could be you, it could be them. People have been having uploading issues there on and off.

Don't know if they sent it to everyone, but there are a couple of threads about it on the iS forums, so I think they expect everyone to do it.

The third time I got an error that the EPS was missing the JPG. And the 4th time the vector went through and then I had all 4 showing in the editor. Had to delete 3 of them.

Certainly not working as it should.

Yes, this has been happening on and off. If you wait a bit the files will usually show up. PITA, though.