Is the Democrats or Republicans Better for Disabled Folks?

[The Black Forrest]

They are the same. Any differences are just minor details.

I didn't know that the party which opposed rights for any minority (except whites, because, you know, whites are a minority) and wants the US to become a Christian theocracy is the same as the rather vanilla right-wing Democrats.

Add in the tea party. If the tea party infests the democrats then the "they are the same" argument gains strength.

[Agymnum]

I didn't know that the party which opposed rights for any minority (except whites, because, you know, whites are a minority) and wants the US to become a Christian theocracy is the same as the rather vanilla right-wing Democrats.

Add in the tea party. If the tea party infests the democrats then the "they are the same" argument gains strength.

Are they infesting the Democrats?

[The United Colonies of Earth]

Add in the tea party. If the tea party infests the democrats then the "they are the same" argument gains strength.

Are they infesting the Democrats?

If they are, they're hiding it pretty well. But I hardly think so.

[Vault 1]

Um, because food, fuel and taxes aren't the only expenses? There's medical expenses, which are getting worse, but thank God for the ACA...

They are getting worse in large part because of the ACA - insurance premiums jumped up as much as 50% since. Break something and have people thank you for offering a substandard ersatz, great plan. But this isn't an ACA thread, so enough about that.

Medical expenses are not something fixed. They are very small for a normal person, but life extension in conditions considered natural death in most of the world begins at hundreds of thousands and goes into millions. So what do you suggest, a $1,000/hour minimum wage to make sure everyone can afford getting an all new organs transplanted if they happen to need it?

Speaking of high minimum wages, Australia's is the highest in the world at $16/hour but buys the equivalent of $9.77/hour because it is so expensive to live there.

And why do you think it's so expensive to live there?

These things are linked. Raising the minimum wage above the necessary minimum - just enough that an average healthy person can survive without becoming a detriment to the society (beggar, homeless, etc) - is part of what produces that effect. Least valuable workers have to be fired, taxes raised to support their welfare, low value workers paid more, so on.

You haven't addressed my argument about different labor having different hourly value.
Why do you believe it is fair that a lobby guard who just sits on his ass all day should earn twice as much as someone doing hard physical labor who physically can't pull such a schedule because of exhaustion?

[The Black Forrest]

And why do you think it's so expensive to live there?

Ohhh so eliminating minimum wage would lower my mortgage and property taxes. So simple.

These things are linked. Raising the minimum wage above the necessary minimum - just enough that an average healthy person can survive without becoming a detriment to the society (beggar, homeless, etc) - is part of what produces that effect.

So living in poverty is good for society?

Least valuable workers have to be fired, taxes raised to support their welfare, low value workers paid more, so on.

Do you understand the difference?

[Saiwania]

Why do you believe it is fair that a lobby guard who just sits on his ass all day should earn twice as much as someone doing hard physical labor who physically can't pull such a schedule because of exhaustion?

I've never said that in any of my posts, but what I did say was something to the effect of: the minimum wage in the US is currently set too low. It is just 37% of what the average wage is in the US when it used to be as high as 50% of the average wage in the late 1960s. The buying power of the lower and middle classes has eroded since then in real terms.

There is a desperate need for a small, gradual boost to the minimum wage because it hasn't kept up with inflation. Increasing it to around $9/hour wouldn't harm the US economy so much as stabilize it to closer reflect reality. The problem with not increasing it when it is set too low, is that people will eventually require a 2nd job combined with assistance to get by. This just adds to unemployment with fewer workers filling a larger amount of available job positions, with less disposable income being circulated through consumer spending.

[Vault 1]

Why do you believe it is fair that a lobby guard who just sits on his ass all day should earn twice as much as someone doing hard physical labor who physically can't pull such a schedule because of exhaustion?

I've never said that in any of my posts, but what I did say was something to the effect of: the minimum wage in the US is currently set too low.

So essentially you believe in a high enough minimum wage that it will become a universal wage for entry level jobs.
And make no mistake, the extra $1.75 paid to the lowest wage worker won't come from a super-wealthy CEO selling his personal jet, it will come from the worker right above the bottom, now making $10 because he's doing a harder job, a better job, or simply a job involving fewer hours per week.

I'm strongly opposed to high minimum hourly wage on the basis of situations like the one mentioned above. All labor - even all unskilled labor - is not equal. Sitting on your butt is not equivalent to lifting fridges. Jobs with room and board provided are not equivalent to jobs where you need your own. They should not all pay the same even if your goal is equality, because the same hourly wage for 35 hr/week of hard labor and 70 hr/week of sitting on the one's butt with free housing in the same building ensures inequality.

The problem with not increasing it when it is set too low, is that people will eventually require a 2nd job combined with assistance to get by.

In practice, doesn't work like that. In practice a lot of people working two jobs simply combine two part-times. The myth of people forced to work an 8-hour job and then pulling 8 hours on another is just that - an urban myth.
Only 5% of those employed hold more than one job (this includes self-employment!), and the highest percentage groups are Bachelor's degree by education, white by race, female by gender.

Code: Select all

Multiple jobholders worked an average of 46.8 hours per week in 2009.
72 percent of multiple jobholders age 16 to 19 and 45 percent of those
ages 20 to 24 worked part time at both their primary and secondary jobs.
Management, professional, and related occupations .............. 39.6 %
Service occupations ........................... 27.1 %
Sales and office occupations  .......... 23.6 %
Natural resources, construction, and maintenance occupations .... 4.3 %
Production, transportation, and material moving occupations ...... 5.5 %

A graph on page 3 shows no significant correlation between multiple jobholding rate and unemployment rate. If anything, there's a weak reverse correlation: higher unemployment correlates with fewer multiple jobholders. The multiple jobholding rate has been slowly decreasing since over 6% in 1994-1999.

[Conservative Conservationists]

I'm strongly opposed to high minimum hourly wage on the basis of situations like the one mentioned above. All labor - even all unskilled labor - is not equal. Sitting on your butt is not equivalent to lifting fridges. Jobs with room and board provided are not equivalent to jobs where you need your own. They should not all pay the same even if your goal is equality, because the same hourly wage for 35 hr/week of hard labor and 70 hr/week of sitting on the one's butt with free housing in the same building ensures inequality.

Interesting article, but it unfortunately lacks comparisons to other nations on earth.

How do you know that? Has a higher minimal wage been practiced elsewhere leading to collapse?
http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Minimum-wage-comparison.pngimg too big

Here is a collection of wealthy nations. Most have a higher wage than the US. You can always point to one like Greece that is collapsing (altho the US is near collapse too), or you can look at the nations which have higher life expectancy, higher employment, greater welfare programs etc above.

Its next to impossible to tie the minimal wage to a rise in another factor. Whilst there are many reasons people get two or more jobs (including to pay for extra items or having two part time jobs for a full time equivalent), it does not make it mean that raising the minimal wage is bad.

[Vault 1]

Interesting article, but it unfortunately lacks comparisons to other nations on earth.

Not meant to. It's just a demographic study without particular bias or theory behind it.

How do you know that? Has a higher minimal wage been practiced elsewhere leading to collapse?

Collapse? Why so small - why not a zombie apocalypse or heat death of the universe?
I would request no strawmen please. There is no need for to refute or support a claim that has never been made in the first place.

The simple fact is that even if you're pursuing equality, minimum wage is a severely flawed instrument for ensuring such, since it leaves people in lower hours per week employment just as disenfranchised (pushing employers to reduce their working hours and work their people even harder to compensate). It then disproportionately rewards people in jobs with low-effort and long hours made possible by that low effort.

[Saiwania]

The simple fact is that even if you're pursuing equality, minimum wage is a severely flawed instrument for ensuring such, since it leaves people in lower hours per week employment just as disenfranchised (pushing employers to reduce their working hours and work their people even harder to compensate). It then disproportionately rewards people in jobs with low-effort and long hours made possible by that low effort.

My aim isn't for equality, but to give the lower and middle classes just a tiny bit more bargaining power than they currently have with employers. Make no mistake, businesses can afford to pay higher wages but simply don't want to, instead having chosen to neglect their workers responsible for productivity increases to benefit those at the top of the economic ladder.

The US wouldn't even need a minimum wage if it was more like Germany and had much stronger labor laws and unions in place. But in the absence of that, minimum wage is there to try to reduce poverty and ensure that lower wage workers have some measure of economic bargaining power. Even at $9/hour, it would still be lower than Canada and a lot of other developed countries. Because of inflation eating away at what $7.25/hour can actually buy, the US minimum wage will eventually be raised; but probably not soon enough to make any real difference in the lives of those near the bottom.

Anyways, you win this battle. Odds are the US federal minimum wage won't be raised by enough, soon enough; by the US congress which is in perpetual gridlock. Nope, instead it will be allowed to further stagnate and people in minimum wage jobs will be more poorly compensated than before or right back where they were a few years ago in real wages. Breaks my heart.

[Vault 1]

My aim isn't for equality, but to give the lower and middle classes just a tiny bit more bargaining power than they currently have with employers.

Outside of the discussion of your specific job performance and compensation, you shouldn't be bargaining with employers. If you don't like your current employer, and the two of you can't find a consensus, you should shop around for a new employer and he should go shopping for a new employee.

Collective bargaining is what killed the American automotive industry. The only reason people demand antitrust laws yet fully support identical mechanisms on the employee side is sympathy for "the little guy". But the result of these practices is the same: those who are good at playing this game end up with $50/hour jobs that are paid even if they have no work to do and are paid that for just sitting in the break room, because you forced clauses that make them impossible to fire. And it all comes at the expense of the real working class, those actually in minimum-wage jobs, who can't exploit the privileges given to unions, but end up paying for the above's wages in bailouts all the same.

Make no mistake, businesses can afford to pay higher wages but simply don't want to

Technically they can. But they will raise their prices to compensate. Most businesses employing min-wage workers work at tight profit margin that barely make them worthy of investment. And the prices will be mostly raised on the cheapest goods and services, those provided by min-wage labor, eroding a lot of their income gain.

...what $7.25/hour can actually buy

I'm sorry, a terminology problem here. Do you get paid literally every hour and spend money literally per hour of labor with no expenses for hours of non-labor?

Because as far as I know, people's spending is based on what they earn per week, not per hour.

[Herskerstad]

As someone who leans Republican I would say the Democrats, though their healthcare reforms seem to be a mess to say the least, they do have a significant investment in granting aid to people with preexisting conditions and the disabled which I think will be the silver lining to rising costs and the new government-approved standardization, which is a dual-edged sword.

There would be an exception if there ever was a Gingrich or perhaps Huckabee administration, but both are very unlikely to happen.

Obamacare won't send costs nearly as high as the right wants it to and what is this new "government-approved standardization"?

The standardization has to due with the fact that currently, the average plan currently meets only 76% of the mandatory requirements that the affordable health care demands. Meaning that a great deal of plans will either have to be reformed, scrapped or replaced entirely. In the marketplace the only logical choice to do when giving a patient more coverage is to increase the cost. Now, there are going to be subsidizes and general government spending to level out this to some degree, but from what I understand the subsidies are largely for the individual families in question, and while multiple big businesses have had their implantation delayed by around a year it is uncertain how much it will affect those who are under those plans, as it will affect the cost of said businesses. Several businesses have already cut down work-hours so their jobs classify as part-time to dodge this, and, seeing how the financial situation makes for few thriving arrangements on corporations that can make or break depending on cost, I suspect more rancor down the road.

Now it is impossible to predict because is a massive bill to say the least, and the cost fluctuations will vary from state to state, city to city. And with the large businesses that have had their implementation delayed by a year, I suspect it will take around two years before one can more conclusively state how well it has worked or if it has made a tricky situation worse. As for the cost, there are already certain taxes, like the medical equipment tax that will aid with the administrative and subsidies cost. How it will balance out on the federal level is impossible to tell cost-wise, but with already high yearly deficits I doubt that the federal cost has been the greatest or the most accurate concern addressed.

[Cameroi]

the democratic party cultivates an image of caring about people, the (u.s.) republican party cultivates and image of caring about economics more then anything else. the reality for the elderly, sick, injured or disabled, is that politicians are politicians, whatever their political party's image. so while the democrats have given themselves an image of caring to keep up, the differences in practice, may not always be all that great. still, having that image to keep up, does give the democrats at lest some incentive to do so.

[Saiwania]

Collective bargaining is what killed the American automotive industry. The only reason people demand antitrust laws yet fully support identical mechanisms on the employee side is sympathy for "the little guy".

So explain why collective bargaining hasn't killed the German or Japanese automotive industries? To be clear, I'm not a big union person and used to trash on them all the time, but now I don't buy the narrative that it was primarily unions which were inherently at fault for the loss of American manufacturing jobs.

[Luziyca]

Probably the Democrats, but really, if I were disabled in the USA, I would pray that my family would move to a different country, like Canada or Britain.

[Vault 1]

First of all, the argument "I run red lights all the time and it hasn't killed me yet" is flawed. That said, in this case the scale of

So explain why collective bargaining hasn't killed the German or Japanese automotive industries? To be clear, I'm not a big union person and used to trash on them all the time, but now I don't buy the narrative that it was primarily unions which were inherently at fault for the loss of American manufacturing jobs.

Auto unions in Detroit have been provided enough privileges, have been enabled enough by their employers, and had enough strength and cunning to wrestle themselves into positions of absolute power within the industry. It wasn't bargaining in any way or form, but rather a system where whatever the union says, goes. It was impossible to fire or layoff union employees; if you say had to close a factory, you still had to pay the worker till retirement age.

http://www.boston.com/business/articles ... _full_pay/

The jobs bank was established in 1984, during contract talks between the United Auto Workers Union and the Big Three -- General Motors, Ford Motor Co., and Chrysler Corp. The program guarantees pay and benefits to union members whose jobs were eliminated due to technological progress or plant restructurings.

In most cases, GM workers end up in the jobs bank after 48 weeks in ''layoff status" -- which entitles them to government unemployment benefits and a supplemental payout from the automaker that brings the total payment to 95 percent of their take-home pay.
The workers then move into the jobs bank, which entitles them to their full gross pay. In some cases, workers go directly into the program and in all cases, the workers can stay in the jobs bank until they are eligible to retire or be placed in another job.

There are generally three states of layoff: temporary layoffs where workers know their return date, indefinite layoffs where workers get 48 weeks of unemployment benefits and a supplemental from their employer equal to 100 percent of your salary. After 48 weeks workers are reemployed by the Job Bank, at which time they receive 95 percent of their salary.

More detail from 2008
Another 2008 article (bad source but well corroborated)
Still steadfast in 2013

A Pyrrhic victory of government-enabled collective bargaining over their own industry and common sense.