By all means, keep raising the minimum wage and unionize

We are at an interesting point in time. Technology has made it so that the jobs required to support society are far fewer than the people who need jobs. How to solve this issue would be complex. Obviously some people still need to work to support society, but there must an incentive to do so (Which is why pure socialism can not work). There must be a difference in the lifestyle between those who contribute to society, and those who don't. But this wealth gap infuriates the left. The goal should not be income equality, but that those that contribute nothing have their basic needs (and only their basic needs) met. This would by definition be uncomfortable, but livable. Those that contribute little (i.e. unskilled service workers) still need to be doing better than those that contribute nothing. Otherwise there is no incentive to even contribute a little. This is the biggest problem with our current welfare system. When you make just enough to cover the needs that government was paying for, they cut you off, leaving you working for the exact same lifestyle you had without working. I'm not claiming to have a solution for this, just contemplating the problem.

So why is it that the lifestyle welfare provides being the same as working a low-end job an indication welfare provides "too much" as opposed to the jobs providing "too little?"

I never said welfare provides too much or too little, and did not provide an opinion in regards to whether minimum wage was too much or too little. My point was about incentives.

But the topic of what is "too much" or "too little" is a tough one. In the U.S. even people who have food and housing (what most would consider to be the basics) are considered impoverished.
Is everyone entitled to cable and internet (luxuries many take for granted). Even having a TV (another luxury) is taken for granted. What about cell phones? Does every member of the household need one? Is every person in a household entitled to their own room, or should they be expected to share? Does every household need a car? Multiple cars? Is beans and rice an acceptable meal? What about Mac n cheese? Is top ramen even food?
If we were to expect the government to provide a minimum standard of living, we would have to come to s consensus as to what that minimum standard is. And I can assure you, not everyone would be in agreement.

It just means that more people will be hired to make checkout scanners.

More 'Skilled' People

People would train themselves to be good at making them. Also that profession requires very little skill.

Because a wage isn't decided by an entrepreneur or workers, but instead by the market naturally, for example a low skill required job like working at a grocery store, will require low wages because low labor skills equals low labor payment.

You just expressed the exact same thing that FightingUntruth did''

No. I only agreed with him on the fact that raising any minimum wage in the US isn't a good idea.

''If there was no minimum wage, workers and employers would be free to exchange labor for wages, the services of the employee for the goods of the employer. That's how it's supposed to work, and that's how it did work for a long time.'
'
The only worth of a product comes form it's situational worth, so if there was a system where each person exchanged labor for wages, the market would be constantly changing before the workers or employers could discuss new wages. The last part of your comment is just many generalizations about stuff.

That's a poor response.

That's another poor one.

That better?

And so the cycle continues.

Now get back to leeching off the welfare you claim to hate so much.

Yet you turn a blind eye to the corporate welfare that St. Ronald Reagan thought was a good idea, yet in the long run has become just as exploitable as the stuff that keeps you alive each week?

Taxation is far from welfare. Are sure you responded to the right comment?

Oh! I get it now. You just don't understand the difference between welfare and taxation.

Where in this comment did I mention taxation?

'I have no problem with businesses and companies that are contributing to society getting help to do so. Prefer those who contribute are helped over the freeloaders.''

Don't you "right-wingers" support self-reliance not expecting the government to help you do things that you're already capable of? The entire idea of competition in the free market is that the best ideas win over the inferior ones; thus contributing to society at the best possible quality. Btw, I'm not a liberal. As for the final part of your big-brain response it's just projection.

Again, market competition is all about who's best at managing their own business. For example, who's best at keeping their workers happy without the need to apply things like unions and such. You don't need government help to be competitive, in fact, you need the opposite.

Tax cuts on corporations is only one way to use corporate welfare, so they aren't entirely the same thing.

But that's still not as many jobs as would have been required to run the register's. Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing to maintain obsolete jobs for the sake of keeping people employed, but it is by no means a one for one trade off.

But that's how the free market works. Not everybody is going to end up with a job.

I never use self check out. Most people I know don't.

That's your choice, nothing wrong with that. Options are good. But commenting without upvoting is rude.

Leaving an up vote is a choice, an option, and there is nothing wrong with not leaving one.

Haha. It IS rude though. Like it or not, it started a conversation and brought you in. That deserves an upvote.

Lol, all this fuss about upvotes and you didn't upvote my comment when you replied... It's OK, I don't care about the imaginary points but I find it humorous that you contradict yourself.

Agree with the meme, but that's completely false. A upvote only should indicate agreement with the topic, not interaction.

I upvote things that caught my attention, not necessarily something I agree with. If something engaged you enough to comment, that deserves an upvote, otherwise you're just trolling.

You’re pretty much alone in that odd line of thinking. And that’s no part of what trolling is. Don’t confuse terms.

I live in Texas. Minimum wage has not been increased here.

These things are all over the place. Even the McDonalds have them now.

Robots don't get sick. They don't have kids. They don't take vacation days.

These have nothing to do with artificially raising the price of unskilled labor.

The robots are coming. Unskilled labor first. Then they will work their way up the skilled tree.

My day job is a copywriter for an ad agency. My boss just came back from a convention where a company had software that handles paid social media advertising across the major platforms.

It's not a question of If they're going to be doing your job but a question of how soon.

Texas minimum wage increased the 1st of this year. Granted it is still way below most other States, which is why there's much less inflation than in other States. Still I'm sure most of the automation you see is in national chains like McDonalds, with the changes being triggered in stupid states like mine.

Don't worry about copywriter software, anyone foolish enough to rely on it will feel the hurt soon enough. I worked before in an industry that was thought to be replaced by automation years ago. Algorithmic Trading was going to replace all currency, equity, and commodity traders. Two math geeks with a high end computer, instead of a floor of high income traders - everyone was ready to be obsolete. But it didn't take long to notice that all the places that had live traders were outperforming the algo desks, and that even the less experienced traders (like myself) could crack an algo pattern in minutes. Turns out vacation pay isn't so bad when you get four times the alpha.