What do you think about the Minimum Wage fight?

This is simply not true.

While base pay is $18,561 (E-1) and $35, 416 (E-5 over 8) for 2015, once you include BAS and BAH that jumps to $29,799 and $50,502 respectively. (I calculated BAH and BAS with dependents). Let's also not forget that BAS and BAH is tax exempt - that equates to another 15% of spendable income.

You also need to factor in health care. Most of the burger flippers do not get any type of health care from their employers and must pay for health and dental out of their own pocket.

The burger folks also don't get education benefits. I don't know if you have looked at the post 9/11 education benefits, but they are very generous.

There are also a host of incentive pays: Career Enlisted Flyer Incentive Pay; Hazardous Duty Incentive Pay (Crew Member- Non-AWAC); Imminent Danger Pay/Hostile Fire Pay; HDIP (Parachute, Flight Deck, Demolition, & Others); Diving Pay; Hazardous Duty Incentive Pay (Non-Crew Member); and, Family Separation Allowance

Also, don't forget the Combat Zone Tax Exclusion.

The outrage expressed in the email is misplaced.

Basically it's going to be inflation. Ohh would you like a $15 hamburger or $20 cheeseburger.

If you are a small business owner should your highest paid employee take home more money than you do when you draw from the company books and put money in your personal account? If you have a business in an area that is suffering an economic down turn should you wages have to compete with areas that are successful? If you work for a large business and are a union member should you be compensated for the investors and entrepreneur who risked fortunes on an idea that gave you a job?
If you think that the answer is yes I should be making a fortune at the assembly line or as much as the small business owner then there is this system called communism that has failed all who have tried it. China did not have an explosion in economic growth until it relaxed somewhat government control of its markets; albeit a corrupt version of free market capitalism.
Even the poor in our society do relatively well for the most part, they have a car, a big screen TV, an XBOX, internet, etc. They have food stamps and other public assistance programs that allow for a standard of living that is better than those of the 1900’s. They are in fact wealthy compared to places in the world that many of us have never heard of.

Minimum wage should be tied to the CPI as should all government and state paychecks. There should be no resins that businesses can plan for costs when using the CPI. It is when they have no true basis to plan that the system is out of wack. Since it is currently out of wack, it would take several years to make it right but in no means should a burger flipper make more than a soldier, sailor, airman, or marine...or police officer, fireman, or teacher for that mater.

I agree with the post.

So the argument is we should deny a living wage to civilian workers because the government currently doesn't pay servicembers as much as the current minimum wage proposals, meanwhile discounting that we get free healthcare, paid housing, extra pay for dependents, and so on. I'm not saying we shouldn't get paid more for what we sacrifice, but let's not introduce a level of contention against civilian workers because all they want is the equivalent of a 1970s wage, today. Productivity over the past 4 decades has increased by over 150% while the average pay remained flat. If people are paid a livable wage then we end up paying less in taxes from social support services paid to those very same people.

We need to relook at what a 'living wage' really is. It was defined that a person needed a phone and therefore, the poor got free phones. That has now been extended to cell phones. We also subsidize health care for the poor as well and can also subsidize housing and provide welfare, medicaid, WIC, and other supplemental income vehicles.

That all said, if we start providing a living wage, will that then get rid of all the subsidized services and 'benefits'? If so then I am all for it. Better to have people working and the prices go up some than having our taxes go to those who do not work or do not work enough.

I say this because my wife works at CVS and will work as many hours as the boss will give her. One of the employees works only 9 hours a week. Any more and she loses her benefits. WTF? Why not work a whole lot more and not take any benefits.

CEO are literally overpaid. Most CEO get paid more than their entire minimum wage workforce. You cannot possible tell me that a CEO has a skill is unique that no one else has it? I'm sure they're mind reader that can shoot laser out of their eyes.

The raise of the minimum wage will make a miniscule dent on the profit or the goods the store/restaurant sell. The Big Mac index gives anyone a good idea of the affect of a minimum wage will do to people's buying power.

What a lot of people don't mention when talking about raising the minimum wage up to $15.00/Hr is that people who now make more than that will also demand a corresponding wage. What skilled laborer who makes $15 hour today is going to accept that his skills are worth the same as the high school kid (or under achiever) who is flipping burgers at Mickey D's? That will ripple most of the way right up the ladder and equate to everybody demanding a corresponding raise. $15.00 combo meals will be the norm.

Do I think Mcdonalds and Walmart should pay $15+ an hour? No. But it wouldn't hurt them to pay maybe $10 an hour after six months to a year. A lot of these jobs have HIGH turnover (my first job the franchise turnover goal was 135% a year) regardless of wages as many of them pay the same but differ in hours. $10 an hour straight up at day of hire I don't agree with.

I grew up right near Fort Drum and these are the main jobs for many people - fast food and retail. I knew people who worked at almost every fast food restaurant because one gave more hours than the other and would bounce around. I knew someone who worked at both Burger King AND McDonalds.

I started working when I was 16. My dad gave me an option "You are bringing f'ing books home (as I had very little to NO homework due to having multiple study halls), or you are getting a job!" Two weeks later I got a job at Burger King making $5.15 an hour, which was the minimum wage 12 years ago when I was 16 in New York State.

For a HS student I made good money due to the fact I got great hours (high turnover) and made more than a peer who made $10 an hour working at Pier 1, but his mommy and daddy had a lot more $$$ so they were able to offset everything else. I can tell you that I was not worth $10 an hour even though I thought I deserved it at the time (was a dumb 16 year old). I was smart enough though to save a lot of that $$$ and it's there today.

If you look at a lot of these people who are begging for $15 an hour, many of them made some questionable decisions in life - having kids you cannot support, trying to live beyond means etc. I can't say I feel too bad. Very rarely if never you see the single person mentioned, it's always someone with kids.

I think maybe if society had more focus on vocational training/job skills and college degrees that are marketable and actually translate to something then maybe we wouldn't have this debate. Of course there are other things to consider that I left out, but you don't see trades pushed so much anymore. Nothing at all wrong with college, but I think we need to look at the benefits and pros/cons.