Boortz: Adults earning minimum wage are "incompetent", "ignorant", "stupid", "worthless," and "pathetic"
SUMMARY: Neal Boortz asked his audience, "[H]ow incompetent, how ignorant, how worthless is an adult that can't earn more than the minimum wage?" Boortz also falsely claimed that "most of the people that earn [the] minimum wage are teenagers."
On the August 3 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, host Neal Boortz asked his audience, "[H]ow incompetent, how ignorant, how worthless is an adult that can't earn more than the minimum wage?" Boortz continued: "You have to really, really, really be a pretty pathetic human being to not be able to earn more than ... the minimum wage."
Additionally, Boortz falsely claimed that "most of the people that earn [the] minimum wage are teenagers." In fact, "about one-fourth of workers earning at or below the minimum wage were age 16-19" in 2005, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
From the August 3 broadcast of Cox Radio Syndication's The Neal Boortz Show:
BOORTZ: I want you to think about this, folks. You know, most of the people that earn minimum wage are teenagers. They're in the job market for a short period of time, they're learning some job skills, they're learning workplace skills. Most of the people who aren't teenagers that have a minimum-wage job, it lasts about three to four months, and they're off making more money. I want you to think for think for a moment of how incompetent and stupid and worthless, how -- that's right, I used those words -- how incompetent, how ignorant, how worthless is an adult that can't earn more than the minimum wage? You have to really, really, really be a pretty pathetic human being to not be able to earn more than the human wage. Uh -- human, the minimum wage.
Did you read the statistic provided by MMFA that only 1/4 of minimum wage earners are ages 16-19?
That ought to shut you up for awhile. People like you and AA who spread outright lies about the minimum wage must be held to account for your deception.
Isn't our friend Shannon one of those who espouses the asinine theory that everyone who is poor deserves it because of "bad decisions" or "immoral behavior"?
After all, if God wanted me to be rich, he would have made me that way.
Yes, that is what Shannon believes. On an earlier thread she said that minimum wage earners should get "education/training" to relieve their abject poverty, like it is their fault for making such a low amount of money.
Of course, Shannon is clueless about the real world.
New welfare rules set down by the Department of Health and Human Services in early July establish uniform definitions of what constitutes work or work preparation activities for welfare recipients, limiting states’ ability to make these determinations. For example, the new rules require that a welfare recipient who is in school cannot count their study time towards their work requirement unless it is done in a supervised study hall. States have no leeway in interpreting this rule if, for example, the student has small children and needs to study at home at night after the children go to bed.
I just find it funny that Shannon can so callously and uninformedly proclaim that people who make minimum wage should have just gotten education/training, yet is completley ignorant to the fact that the federal government is making such a possibility IMPOSSIBLE!!
that getting education/training takes a lot of a very precious commodity: time. Something people who are actually trying to live off of minimum wage don't have much of.
Who's Shannon?
haven't encounted Exclamation Mark Shannon? I think she uses them to let you know when she's screaming at you.
I have NOT had the pleasure. Look forward to it ;-)
another soulless conservative who believes poor people are morally inferior to the rest of us.
Jesus was poor, and surrounded himself with poor people.
Most of your listeners are probably unemployed alcoholics who aren't even making minimum wage. Keep talking like this and they might turn you off and start lookin' at teevee or beatin' the dog or the ol' ball and chain.
How many people does Boortz employ at only minimum wage? Or even just $6/hour? At the very least, surely some of his staff members must have held a minimum wage job at one point in his life. And what about interns who earn nothing? Are they even more incompetent, ignorant, etc.?
from what i hear..up here in philly, average phone screener gets $8-$10 an hour on larger stations. Producers, depending on their contracts, won't make that much more per hour if they are not on air talent as well.
again this is just hearsay.
Is a classless piece of crap. These "worthless" minimum wage earners are the backbone of the American economy and are the people who clean bathrooms, make the fast food rich conservatives pick up in their SUVs, stock grocery shelves, pick tomatoes that end up in our burrito at Taco Bell, etc, etc.
There will always be a demand for such positions that will pay minimum wage. And yet Boortx has the audcity to label these necessary workers as "wothless" and "trash"?
I have worked two minimum wage jobs and do not appreciate being denigrated by a punk, out of touch, fat, white male with a microphone.
Boortz can go f*** himself!!!!
These people are to have such hatred and contempt for the weakest among us. Boortz is the antithesis of everything decent about being a human being, he truly embraces his darkness.
are teenagers . . . that must mean 75% of those earning minimum wage aren't teenagers . . . and Boortz clearly is no teenager . . . so - I wonder if Boortz himself is part of that 75%? That would clearly explain the "incompetent", "ignorant", "stupid", "worthless", and "pathetic" . . .
Boortz incredibly rude comments aside, hiking the minimum wage is a job killer.
Employers who can afford to pay five workers $5.15 an hour can’t afford them all at $6.15 an hour, as payroll is the first expense to be cut, ask any employer. Their greed is not the issue, they are the job creators. Somebody will be laid off. So, by raising the minimum wage, four are helped a little and the fifth is on the unemployement line. And any subsequent workers won't even be hired in the first place.
This is basic economics, not a bash on those earning minimum wage. It is reality, unfortunately.
"But new research over the past decade shows that modest hikes to keep the low-paid abreast of inflation will cost few if any jobs. The point has been widely embraced since 1995 studies by University of California at Berkeley economist David Card and Princeton University economist Alan B. Krueger found no employment losses among New Jersey fast food restaurants hit with minimum-wage hikes. Given wide variations in costs around the country, the federal minimum should serve as a floor, which would allow high-cost states such as California or Alaska to set their own minimums higher if they wish. "Indexing doesn't improve conditions for low-wage workers, it just keeps them from deteriorating further as prices rise," says Robert Pollin, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst who led a study of the Florida initiative for its advocates."
[link to www.businessweek.com]
The discussion should be about a living wage
[link to www.responsiblewealth.org]
[link to www.responsiblewealth.org]
Haul out all the economic professors you want to, the same could be done to support my point. The fact is payroll is the most frequent cost cutting method employed by most businesses. That is not a right wing myth. I am not talking about the morality of the decision, that is debatable. I am talking strictly financial reality.
The bottom line is what investors and stockholders look at, that's the way it is. If that is shrinking and labor costs are increasing because of higher wages, then jobs will be cut.
there are smarter alternatives to cutting of low level workers even though it's standard practice it may not be the best practice. Closing the ever increasing gaps between the highest paid and the lowest paid workers would be the fairest thing to do. What should happen is that the astronomical salaries at the very top would/should be reigned in. The executives will remain rich they just won't make 400 x the average company worker(Ok I exagerate). But you know what I mean.
...you are not far off on that.
I have often thought that tying the highest salary in an organization in a ratio to the lowest salary might be the best solution.
It probably would be difficult to enforce and we have to remember that much of the money that put the legislators (from both parties) in office came from just this class of people. It may be naive to think this class would allow such legislation to ever be passed.
It may be the best solution, but I don't think it could work. Remember these people also control the media as well.
If it ever became popular, they would just shout it down by calling it socialism. Over and over and over....
One of the many ways CEO's avoid tax is to pay themselves a fraction of their earnings as W2 income. Much of their income comes from dividends. Stock options are another thing to consider as well. It can get complicated fast.
You would have to make sure if you tied the ratio of the highest to the lowest, you included dividends (or any other compensation) or else you may be surprised how easily the top executives can get away with things.
(Sorry, spelling Nazi.)
Anyway, yeah. The CEOs might have to buy the 30-foot yacht this year instead of the 40-foot.
Tragedy of tragedies.
My sympathy runneth dry.
You will have a great time critiquing my posts because I'm a poor speller. Thank God for spell check and you would be surprised that I'm a pretty good writer when I'm writing formally. I edit my work 50 thousand times before letting the powers that be see it. (smile) At MMFA I just type and submit. Yesterday when meaning to write trash bin and I actually wrote trash bend, but come on cut me some slack.
The problem is that the Hummer of "financial reality" often collides with the Mini Cooper of morality...and regularly drives right over it.
I've always found it confounding that dollar-humping conservatives, with their oh-so-finely-tuned sense of morality, cannot see the inherent immorality in our current economic system.
And to counter your argument about minimum wage:
Workers who are paid more can afford to buy the products that keep your company in business. It's the same logic the Right likes to use when they give avaricious tax breaks to rich corporations. Funny how they are so reticent to apply such logic where it would make the most sense...
There was a recent article in Time magazine about the living wage campaign. They examined the experience of Pittsburg, PA. The businesses adopted the living wage and there was a notable up tick in the economy - goods and services purchased as well as house purchases. . Moreover, it actually drove up wages across the board. Pittsburg's experience with this was very positive.
Gee. Maybe the current min. wage is to high. Why not $1.00/hr. By your basic understanding of Econimics Tommy that would increase employment.
It is possible that minimum wage hikes in areas where the supply of jobs is relatively high compared to the size of the potential workforce may not mean much, because the scarcity of workers has driven up wages naturally.
The results for New Jersey may be skewed by natural supply/demand forces on wages.
To put it another way. Natural market forces may have already raised the wage floor well above minimum wage, thus mitigating any real effect of the minimum wage increase.
I think it would be more interesting to see the effect of a minimum wage increase in states where the wage floor was at or near the minimum wage to begin with.
If an employer is at full production then dropping a worker would reduce that productivity. Also, the precentage of labor cost that make up total production cost is not 100%. So , the precentage increase in wages does not translate to an equal increase in overall production cost.
Of course the percentage of labor costs is not 100% production costs, there are many costs that factor into that. But when you increase labor costs, they either you absorb that in the bottom line, or you don't. If you are maintaining a certain net profit percentage, then you will have to cut costs in order to meet that %. Labor is the most containable cost in any business, where fixed costs cannot be cut.
Bottom line, cut a worker or two, absorb the production costs through management or other ways. Believe me, when costs are high, the first item looked at is payroll.
But another way to make up for the extra cost is to raise prices for goods and services. It is probably the least desirable option, so I don't blame you for not mentioning it.
I am kind of with you on this subject. It is not my most enthusiastic support, but economically, I can't really argue with what you are saying.
Boortz, however, is really trying to egg people on again. He is a pretty smart guy and I think he knows what he is doing. It is all about ratings. He is playing a character and really doesn't care one way or the other what anyone thinks.
You are absolutely correct, prices could be raised. But if it's manufacturing jobs, or one where their customers (not the end user) could go elsewhere for the same service at a cheaper price, then that puts the entire company, and all the workers in jeopardy.
Boortz is, of course, a fool for making such offensive remarks. A person's worth has nothing to do with how much money they make, so for him to berate people who don't earn near what he does is condescending, insensitive and just plain rude.
It plays directly into the cost of running a business and the Republicans continue to drag their feet and stifle any chance of real health care reform that can help people who live off minimum wage and have no health insurance. All we hear from righties is that the solution is healthcare spending accounts. WHAT????
Tommy spouts GOP talking points as facts and then explains that it is just "reality" when in fact it is the furthest thing from it.
Try purveying back to the intergalaxy where your reality lies. Ours is planet earth.
How's your salary/wage been for the last 6 years? (I've seen mine drop by $3k per year)
How's your job security been for the last 6 years? Are the execs secretly planning on shipping it to another state or to India for a tax break? (I've lost my job twice to downsizing)
How's your healthcare cost been for the last 6 years? (My premiums and deductibles have skyrocketed)
How's it feel paying through the nose for gasoline to get to work?
How about those electric bills and heating bills? Are they getting any lower?
Ok, to be fair, not all of this may apply to you, but I thought it would be fun to bring up since you mentioned 'reality'.
(Man, how I long to have the Clinton years back.)
So what if they ARE talking points. Does that mean they aren't really arguments then? Does that automatically invalidate them for that matter?
Does it really matter where the argument originates? It either stands or falls on its own merrit. Am I wrong?
Your post does not adress the arguments at all. If you have problems please address them to the argument and not the person or their supposed motives.
Only if you assume that there is a static amount of money. The reasoning you have would mean that there'd be no inflation or any pay increases for anyone, since it would apply to everyone, not just minimum wage earners. So it's pretty easy to disprove.
Thas all I got.
...don't make minimum wage. They usually get paid piece rates. It's not uncommon for them to end up with less than the minimum wage. That's why you see whole families out in the fields, even the littlest kids, trying to scrape a living.
and I really don't think that they should be raiseing (or trying to raise) a family working at McDonalds. Well at least when I was a kid those jobs were held by HS Kids and Kids working their way through college...i don't mena to sound any particular way but a kid in the SF Bay Area would have a really hard time getting a job at McDonlds these days...you have seen who's working these jobs nowadays. And don't get me started on paper routes either...
I would like to see adults working better jobs too. That's not the reality though.
Would you consider adults who work min wage jobs to be "incompetent", "ignorant", "stupid", "worthless," and "pathetic" ?
What about towns that have lost their industries ? What if a plant closes and the people who have lost their jobs are forced to take min wage jobs at the local Wal Mart ? What do you think about them ?
Don't make to much sense, some people on this board can't handle it. I read about a call center in Oregon a few years ago and everyone there made $8/hr but it was one of the few places to work after the industry left the area. I can't remember which industry it was but many people were making about half of what they made before. Happens all the time.
It does happen all the time, even in big cities. Some major empoyer or facility shuts down, and the workers have such specialized skills and maybe have worked there so long they can't just find the same job elsewhere and make the same kind of pay. Or if another job exists it could be such a difficult commute it isn't workable.
And the Repoops dare label liberals "elitists".
I was laid off a few years ago and no one was hiring in the telecommunications sector in the kind of work I do.
I had the choice of working at a low-wage job or collecting unemployment. I was lucky to find a temp agency that was 1/6th of what I was making previously for 10 months until I caught a lucky break and went back to work in my specialty.
The funny thing is that I almost couldn't take the good job because the gas cost was eating me alive just to go to the interviews that were 3 hours away.
I was making a little more than minimum, but if I hadn't found the temp job, I was looking at the fast-food industry next.
Boortz doesn't know what he is talking about.
the timber industry shut down, the call center came to town, got the city fathers to put out $ for infrastructure and when the lease renewal came around, the company suddenly found they could move their call center south of the border (Central America) and save even more.
If this classless idiot shows up in your resturant, take a full pot of hot water and dump it in his lap. Don't worry, there is nothing there to which you would do any damage! I seriously question if Boortz has ever broken a sweat doing an honest day's work. Taking a crap doesn't count. Another repiglican waste of flesh.
Put a booger on his hamburger.
... is the sound you make just before you hurl.
How fitting.
This is a popular rant of Nealbo:
[link to boortz.com]
In the debate over the minimum wage, we will hear people time and time again say that it is impossible to raise a family on the minimum wage. Well ... duhhhhh! Of course you can't raise a family on the minimum wage! This is a wage that is usually paid to teenagers who are bringing the bare minimum of job skills to their very first job. Beyond that .... losers. Oh yeah, it's insensitive ... and you might even find it offensive. That would be your problem. Face facts. The minimum wage is for losers. Baring some physical or mental disaster ... anyone living in this country who has not managed to acquire enough education and job skills to earn more than the minimum wage is a complete failure ... a loser. These are not the kinds of people who should be having children. Not only can't you raise a family on minimum wage, you shouldn't even be trying to. If our child welfare agencies were really doing their job they would be classifying every child in a household where their parent or guardian can't earn more than the minimum wage as endangered ... and promptly remove them.
[link to boortz.com]
Then there was Edwards talking about poor, poor pitiful families struggling to get by on the minimum wage, another myth. Most minimum wage workers are, for the most part, students and young people in their first jobs. The average minimum wage worker stays at the minimum wage for less than one year. The harsh truth is that someone incapable of earning more than the minimum wage has no business getting pregnant or getting someone else pregnant. Stupid people rely on the minimum wage for extended periods of their lives. Stupid people shouldn't breed, so don't give me this "raising a family on minimum wage" BS. Please tell me you already know why Democrats like to hammer the minimum wage issue. It's for their union pals! Many union contracts are tied to minimum wage. As the minimum wage goes up, so do union wages. Simple as that ... paying off your union supporters.
[link to boortz.com]
If you want to earn more than the minimum wage, or if you want a raise, you earn it. You do something to become more valuable to your employer and then negotiate for the wage you believe you deserve.
And please, people! Let's stop with this crybaby nonsense about raising a family on the minimum wage! I've said this 1000 times, and I'll say it again ... largely because it irritates so many people: If you can't earn more than the minimum wage, you have no business having children. Develop some job skills first, then work on developing an embryo.
Yes, demand of your Wal-Mart manager for that raise you deserve. And then good luck finding another job.
And if you have a better paying job, lost it due to layoff or business closure, and you had to take a min wage job AND you have kids ? Would Neal suggest killing them ?
[link to boortz.com]
Another thing ... and I've said this many times before. Don't whine and moan to me about "minimum-wage families." You have to be an incredible dunce to be limited to earning the minimum wage in this country. Now ... here is a basic truth for you to mull over. If you are incapable of earning more than the minimum wage than you should not have children. You should not have children because you simply cannot afford to raise them. You should not have children because it is irresponsible for you to do so.
There's much more.
[link to www.google.com]
He must not realize that quite a few minimum-wage earners are college grads and that many also have advanced degrees.
He must not know about something called OUTSOURCING...you know, where jobs are eliminated *HERE* to be shipped *THERE* leaving people with BAs, MAs and some with PhDs out on their ass. What are they supposed to do? Many DO take a McJob.
Hell, quite a few new college grads who can't find jobs because their degrees aren't "marketable" end up flipping burgers, waiting tables driving cabs or stocking shelves as well...
Guess according to Boortz anybody who loses a job via outsourcing or can't get a job just out of school is "incompetent, ignorant, worthless " and "pretty pathetic."
My kids who are still in college have worked in restaraunts and other low paying jobs with college grads looking for a job in their field.
We have to pay them over there so we won't have to pay them here, you see...
The attitude and comments displayed by Mr. Boortz are a perfect example of what is wrong with the path our nation is on, due in no small part to the policies of the current party in power.
Mr. Boortz deserves only to be ignored. Also voice your objection to Cox Syndications' Managing Director to help curtail "hate radio" such as this:
Paul Douglas Managing Director Cox Radio Syndication Phone 404.962.2078 Fax 404.897.2226 dougatl@earthlink.net or paul.douglas@cox.com
Mailing Address: 1601 W Peachtree St. NE Atlanta, GA 30309
Please do all you can on November 7 to put the United States back on the road to being the compassionate and forgiving nation it should be.
I see this jerk isn't mentioning MMFA in this rant. This topic must be extremely important to him...
Henry Ford (who was no giant of liberalism) recognized that if you paid your employees enough to purchase the products you make everybody wins. And any business that cannot absorb $2 more dollars per hour per minimum wage employee is either greedy or poorly run (assuming that the more employees you have, the more money you make.)
be hurting as much as Bore(tz) would lead us to believe, but it plays well with his base. A higher federal minimum wage? I think I would leave it up to the States to decide what the minimum should be, after all $5.15 probably goes further in the rural Midwest than it does in the Metropolitan coastal areas. What the Federal Government should do is promote incentives so that people can "rise above" the ground floor (minimum wage).
Ok so when we talk about public assistance to give people a leg up…or we talk about the scarcity of quality well paying jobs…we have these same idiots saying "I don’t know what they are talking about I drive past the local (insert fastfood joint here or any other low paying job) and see help wanted signs all the time". Now we have these same idiots saying you are pathetic if you take a low paying job. Can we get any more inconsistent?
Boortz is again tying a person's worth to their paycheck. Some of the most important and rewarding jobs are the one that pay the least. Who is more worthless, Neal Boortz or Mother Teresa?
Nothing will improve until we stop measuring a person's worth as a human being by the amount of money they earn.
At first I set in my chair and thought of a lot of cool things to counter with concerning this piece. Then, I thought "for what," so I can give the shock jock the privilege to say "the people love it" and it makes the cool-aid drinking Liberals go crazy. Not this time, I rather save the clever dialog for the slaughter in Lebanon because that is more important then a grown man calling people who might have to take a minimum wage job stupid. Not this time. Next
Joseph
if he was broke. You have to really, really, really be a pretty pathetic human being if you own a business and make your employees work for minimum wage. And Republicans slipping in the $2.13 provision for waitstaff? Complete dogs. These are the guys who leave a dollar tip on a $40 check, except when they're at Hooters. There they slip their business card inside a folded twenty.
Soem earning more than minimum age are stupid, worthless, hatemongers and scam artist. Case in point....meet Mr. Boortz
Guys like this make me want to abandon my Godless ways.
He makes me hope that I'm wrong and religious people are right.
Imagine the fun of Jesus coming back to give Boortz a little refresher course about "the least among us"
That would be a sweet whoopin'
After all, it's a known fact that the south gets welfare $$$ while the north pays in surplus, and who does the south support?
if the figures I've seen are right, these blue states pay more than they get back, as well as the Northeast.
Makes it all the more entertaining to listen to El Rushbo the OxyMoron's flying monkeys calling in from the heavily subsidized red states to bitch about them freeloadin Mexicans and welfare queens.
If you can't laugh, whatcha gonna do?
He would be earning min. wage all his life.
He doesn't deserve more than that.
After all, there just aren't enough wingnut radio talk show hosting jobs to go around.
For years Boortz led his radio audience to believe he was a graduate of Texas A&M,telling them stories of his being the BMOC,stories about being in the Corps of Cadets,"ROTC ",Last year "The Battalion" the school paper, led off with a story about Boortz, with the tag line " Class of 67",in the first sentence or two. Boortz even has or had, a picture of him on his website as a ROTC cadet,of which he dropped out ,after 3 quarters! A phone call to the Office of Registrars in the Fall of 04' found out the following: Boortz had quit after 4 years ,never graduating! But until the Fall of 2005 in articles in JohnSugg.com Boortz continued to let anyone who would listen, that he was a graduate of the Univ. While in the Corps of Cadets he enjoyed a deferment from the draft,but after dropping out, he never informed the Selective Service he was eligible to be drafted!For years he was quick to point out that he was 4-F,because of his Eyes,or Asthma. A FOIA to the Selective Service found out that he had misled them since he dropped out of ROTC! In reality Boortz is a card-carrying Chickenhawk,bellowing loudly about any war, as long as he doesn't have to be serve in, be inconvienced,or get his hands dirty! If the truth stood directly in front of Boortz ,waving flags and blowing whistles, he wouldn't recognize it! Go to johnsugg.com scrowl down for the months of Sept,Oct,2005,and March-May 2006 click them and read the truth about Boortz just being a high school graduate ,nothing more! Then ask yourself,why should I believe anything this hypocrite says?
It is truly amazing, for this so-called person, who does not work for a living, but rather rely on spew and bile, should scorch hard working people. These Minimum wage earners are parents, family members trying to eek out a living. Yes they do not have the skill set nor the where with all to climb up the ladder. However, atleast they try. What is sadder still that Boortz's sponsors are keen to take money from these minimum wage earners, and fuel his vile spew. It takes all kinds of people to make this world. However, the US seems to be breeding this type like rabbits.
Wasn't a great part of Compassionate Conservatism the end of Welfare, so people could begin to end their dependance on the government and learn the value and dignity of work? Now we find that if you work at the lower ranges of that pay scale, you are still "worthless."
Tommy: You usually seem a decent and civil sort, despite our differences in philosophy, but you couldn't be more wrong about this issue. First, I will remind you that conservative chicken-littles have screamed "the sky is falling" every time the minimum wage has been raised in the past. Also, the minimal increases in the minimum wage indexed against inflation over past decades mean that the current minimum wage earner's salary is at an all time low in terms of purchasing power.
[link to www.epinet.org]
[link to www.infoplease.com]
I'd add that if payroll is the first area that companies cut, it would be nice to see them cut some flab from the top for once, rather than cutting muscle and bone at the bottom. This goes double for a congress that excoriates minimum wage hikes while voting to raise its own salary on a regular basis.
A poster earlier said this wasn't much to get worked up about. In this case I disagree. In 1984 in my hometown Rath packing plant closed up putting about 6500 people out of work over a few months' stretch. Later, John Deere started laying off workers, including my dad. This was during the farm crisis of the early 80's. My dad was a hard worker, worked every day at JD on his feet, in the foundry where they welded and temperatures were in the 90's everyday. He lost his job for 2 years. He worked at JC Penneys because the competition for any work was so fierce in Waterloo that to buy any groceries and pay the mortgage those laid workers had to take any job they could get or try to relocate. My dad was blue-collar to the bone and working at JCP was particularly humiliating for him- not very good at it, rude customers, wearing a fake smile everyday, etc., etc. I don't know for sure but I'm guessing he didn't make much more than minimum wage. But he went to work every *%&$ day for 2 years because that's what he had to do. Neil Boortz, in my opinion, just went on record with the most callous, blue-blood, silver spoon, punk neocon quote I've heard in 2006. Even more than Ann Coulter. I guarantee the guy's never worked more than a week of hard labor in his life, if that. I wish I had 5 minutes in a room with this dude. Oh...man!! I can NOT understand how a person that affiliates themselves with the GOP can support and encourage guys like this. Start looking at your party's pundits closely. Is that really the way you think?
Steal from the poor and give to the rich. Power customers in Baltimore saw their bills go up 70% despite a 40% drop in natural gas prices. Demonize the working classes, set up a fake office in the Caymans, funnel $ into sham charities like Delay's ARMPAC, spend nothing on the electricity grid and cackle all the way to the bank.
You people are ridiculous!
I've read EVERY comment on this post and the ONLY thing I pull from it is that you people are nothing but a bunch of steal from the rich and GIVE to the poor, welfare loving, wealth-envy pigs. Grow up.
It is truly amazing, for this so-called person, who does not work for a living
Why don't you give his job a go and see how "easy" his job is... oh wait, that would require effort on your behalf.
How bout you consider my dad's situation tough guy? So, my dad was "worthless, incompetent, pathetic" because he was laid off from John Deere, a job he went to faithfully every morning and worked his ass off at, and he and thousands of other co-workers had to find other work much of it at minimum wage.
I'm not even condemning John Deere for the layoffs - this was during the farm crisis of the early/mid 80's. I'm saying that these men had to take minimum wage jobs because there was simply nothing else available. My dad was a welder; by the time he was laid off there were 300 qualified men in line for 1 welder's job in ours and surrounding counties.
Dad was forced to take a job at JC Penney for minimum wage for two years. He did it because he had a family to feed, a mortgage to pay, and a home to heat.
Your neocon buddy Neil Boortz claims that my dad is all those negligible things and you're criticizing every one of us which in my mind's eye means that YOU'RE claiming my dad was all those negligible things. I take offense to that you little punk.
So STFU tuffy - you're opinions are dead wrong. Chump
I'm a 31 year old veteran of the Navy. I've been all over the country, I've had my own experiences which led me to have to take jobs I didn't want to. Finally, I paid my way through college and now I'm in a position where I doubt I'll have to take a min. wage job again. But...as with much of our country's population I struggled at times to get where I am today, and I don't just easily forget that. My assumption, since you're making them about us, is that you're a pampered little rich kid that has never worked with his hands, has never physically built anything, doesn't know how to work a drill, has never been dirty, dusty, or wet from a hard day's work, and had his life financed by his parents all the way up to this point.
You don't know what you're talking about little man. Essentially, you're embarrassing yourself and proving what a shut-in, spoon fed, inexperienced boy you are but you're also making people mad.
Get off your thin Paris Hilton behind and volunteer once, help your fellow human being with something, EARN your trust fund chumpy.
The topic, as I understand it, is not about stealing from the rich and distributing to the poor sh*thead. It's about people who would otherwise be criticized for having the government subsidize their survival and are instead working 39 hours a week (see, companies do that so they can avoid overtime pay- if you'd ever had a job you'd probably have been exposed to that), on their feet, dealing with difficult and demanding customers, and serving your rude prick family fries. Would you and your hero Neil Boortz prefer they were on welfare?
Idiot.
"I've read EVERY comment on this post and the ONLY thing I pull from it is that you people are nothing but a bunch of steal from the rich and GIVE to the poor, welfare loving, wealth-envy pigs. Grow up."
Gee, that's the only thing you got from reading all the posts on this thread? The subject of the thread is Minimum Wage (as in working for a living). Welfare has nothing to do with minimum wage. Of course, I could gather from your posts that you are a steal from the poor and give to the rich greed-pig, or that you are a Bush Republican, but I repeat my self.
Everyone rants, but what are the statistics?
haracteristics of Minimum Wage Workers: 2005
According to Current Population Survey estimates for 2005, 75.6 million American workers were paid at hourly rates, representing 60.1 percent of all wage and salary workers.1 Of those paid by the hour, 479,000 were reported as earning exactly $5.15, the prevailing Federal minimum wage. Another 1.4 million were reported as earning wages below the minimum.2 Together, these 1.9 million workers with wages at or below the minimum made up 2.5 percent of all hourly-paid workers. Tables 1 - 10 present data on a wide array of demographic and socioeconomic characteristics for hourly-paid workers earning at or below the Federal minimum wage. The following are some highlights from the 2005 data. # Minimum wage workers tend to be young. About half of workers earning $5.15 or less were under age 25, and about one-fourth of workers earning at or below the minimum wage were age 16-19. Among employed teenagers, about 9 percent earned $5.15 or less. About 2 percent of workers age 25 and over earned the minimum wage or less. Among those age 65 and over, the proportion was about 3 percent. (See table 1 and table 7.)
# About 3 percent of women paid hourly rates reported wages at or below the prevailing Federal minimum, compared with under 2 percent of men. (See table 1.)
# Less than 3 percent of white hourly-paid workers earned $5.15 or less. Among black, Asian, and Hispanic hourly-paid workers, about 2 percent earned the Federal minimum wage or less. For whites and Hispanics, women were twice as likely as men to earn $5.15 or less. (See table 1.)
# Never-married workers, who tend to be young, were more likely to earn the minimum wage or less than married workers. (See table 8.)
# Among hourly-paid workers age 16 and over, 2 percent of those who had a high school diploma but had not gone on to college earned the minimum wage or less. (See table 6.)
# Part-time workers (persons who usually work less than 35 hours per week) were more likely than their full-time counterparts to be paid $5.15 or less (about 6 percent versus 1 percent). (See table 1 and table 9.)
# By occupational group, the highest proportion of workers earning at or below the Federal minimum wage occurred in service occupations, at about 8 percent. About three in four workers earning $5.15 or less in 2005 were employed in service occupations, mostly in food preparation and service jobs. The proportion of hourly-paid workers whose earnings were reported at or below $5.15 was lowest for persons employed in management, professional, and related occupations and natural resources, construction, and maintenance occupations (less than 1 percent for both). (See table 4.)
# The industry with the highest proportion of workers with reported hourly wages at or below $5.15 was leisure and hospitality (about 14 percent). About three-fifths of all workers paid at or below the Federal minimum wage were employed in this industry, primarily in the food services and drinking places component. For many of these workers, tips and commissions supplement the hourly wages received. (See table 5.)
# Among the states, Oklahoma and West Virginia had the highest proportion of hourly-paid workers earning at or below $5.15 (at about 4 percent). Alaska, California, and Washington had the lowest proportion earning the minimum wage or less (less than 1 percent). It should be noted that some states have minimum wage laws establishing minimum wage standards that exceed the Federal level of $5.15 per hour. (See table 2 and table 3.)
# The proportion of hourly-paid workers earning the prevailing Federal minimum wage or less has trended downward since 1979, when data first began to be collected on a regular basis. (See table 10.)
[link to www.bls.gov]
Hey, Right On is just telling us how they see it. And it's true to them. To them labor unions are bad, free markets are good. They're wrong, but at least Right On is honest. Why are they wrong . One thing I've learned statsitics, studies and facts don't matter to most conservatives unless it supports their beliefs. I could throw out a bunch of quotes from people like Henry Ford or Dale Carnegie, JK Gailbraith, etc. But quotes only get you so far. I'll try to be straight and to the point. Paying taxes and responsible use of the funds to trulty benefit society makes people richer. You take care of the poor, you lower crime. You raise the minimum wage and you put that much more money directly into the local economy. The more you earn the more you spend, like now. There has to be a reasonable ratio between the heads of corporation and the lowest wage earner. I call this compassionate capitilaism. The CEO no doubt earns their paycheck, but they would be notihing without labor and consumers. The more you benefit the more you should give back to society. There is no guarantee that keeping more of ones income will mean they will earn more money. Lastly I'll remind our friends on the right, the man they love to demonize FDR, saved capitalism when the country had began to wonder if it was worth saving. That's right, taking care of the poor, public works, education are investments in the future of our country. Paying taxes and making sure your representatives spend wisely are the most patriotic thing one can do. Which begs the question, why do conservatives hate America so much?
<>
I disagree. At no point did Mr. Boortz suggest that miminum wage earners should die.
Just wanted to make sure that Ann Coulter is recognized as the worst of the very bad.
We have a competitve society. People who work hard or inovate should be able to become rich, but I am continually astounded at the pure greed that motivates so many at the "top". Guys like Boortz wouldn't mind steping over homeless in the streets as long as he was wearing his top hat and spatz.
This shows that Boortz is not willing to tackle the real issues but wants to be a loud mouthpiece for the facist view. He should have printed my email to him that told him that the people that earn a minimum wage actually produce a more valuble service and strengthen America more than he does. His kind does nothing but tear away at the fabric of the Constitution and shirk the responsibilty that we all have to satisfy the Preamble. Minimum wage earners wash the dishes in restaurants so he does not get a disease, clean his office so he does not have to work in filth and scrub the toilets that he soils on a daily basis. These are things that have improved the standard of living in the United States and anyone that disparages fellow Americans that are working hard and trying to raise a family is surely someone with personal motives and agenda. Americans have been hood winked by this "facist" point of view which has become the normal rhetoric with Right Wing Talk show hosts. Hatred and derisi0n does nothing but show that America's well off people are not concerned with strengthening America and it's citizens but only out to make more money than anyone else. The minimum wage issue is a prime example of Americans walking on others in order to satisfy their bank books. And the real truth is that every time Boortz opens his mouth, our nation is farther from enacting the Preamble of the Constitution.