Oh look, somebody on Fox News said something dickish about the working poor - Something that is more commonly known as "Thursday" - in responses to the President's executive order on overtime pay which expands the protection against corporate wage theft.
“This is redistribution by executive order,” the Fox Business host complained. “The president is buying votes. He is commanding higher salaries for millions of people. Right before an election. Don’t you think that those millions of people will be grateful and say, ‘Thanks for the pay raise, Mr. President. I’m voting Democrat.’ Don’t you think that’s in there?”
Yeah, sure, the only way that Democrats can get Votes is by
buying them. And they do that by making sure people that work extra hours,
actually get paid for the work they do?
So the Fox position, seriously, is that paying people is a scam? It's some kind of pay off. It's Bribery?
Well, welcome to corporate America Stuart. Bribery works. It's also known as Capitalism.
But, of course, it didn't stop there...
Fox News host Bill Hemmer agreed that Varney had “an interesting point,” and wondered if the rule change would be a “continued drag” on the economy.
Yes, because
paying people for the work they do - is "bad for the economy". I'm not sure which economy he's talking about, but somewhere, somehow, people with more money in their pocket, who are more likely to spend that money - is a "Drag".
Let me just say it. FUCK!
“Let me take you back to Google,” Varney opined. “In the earlier days of Google, they had all kinds of youngsters, up and coming strivers, who would work day and night. That’s how they built the company. Tech startups with really a drive to succeed and climb that food chain.”
Because Stuart Varney never met a form of
Free Slave Labor he didn't like. But let me tell you something Stuart, since I actually worked for a dot com startup at the end of the 90's - those "youngsters" working all night weren't doing it for shits and giggles, they did what they did with the expectation that they'd be rewarded with
Stock Options that would turn into BIG FUCKING BUCKS once that company finally did an IPO.
Trust me on this, I was there. And just because 9-11 cut short the life of the company I was working for then, I still got my stock options. I mean, the company folded and they're worthless, but I got 'em.
Before that we actually worked all week and once got paid in pizza (and I'd provide a link about that event which got posted on fuckedcompany.com, except that fuckcompany.com - Got Fucked), but it wasn't because we were blind altruists who just felt we were willing to give up our life's blood for nothing. We were all hoping and expecting a Pay Day for our Effort.
"Greed Is Good" Bitch!
“Now if you bring this in, those high tech workers who started all these brilliant companies, they’ll be on the clock,” he insisted. “Instead of these overnight creative meetings, they’ll be saying, ‘Oh, I just exceeded my 40 hours, I’m due overtime. And if I don’t get it, I’m going to sue.’”
“Can you imagine the number of retroactive lawsuits from all kinds of people who were eligible for overtime, didn’t get it, and now say, ‘Come on, pay up’?”
I don't have to
imagine that Stuart. It's
already happening.
In two lawsuits filed in Michigan against McDonald’s and two Detroit-area franchise owners, workers claimed that their restaurants told them to show up to work, but then ordered them to wait an hour or two without pay until enough customers showed up.
Their lawsuit also argued that the requirement by McDonald’s that employees pay for their uniforms resulted in expenses that often illegally reduced their pay below the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. [...]
In three lawsuits brought in California, the workers are suing McDonald’s and its franchise owners, claiming that they did not pay them for all hours worked, cheated them out of overtime, shaved hours from pay records and denied them legally required meal periods and rest breaks.
But to Stuart, apparently the argument that working minimum wage (according to the Libertarian Cato Institute) pay less than welfare does is a bad thing, but paying people more is still bad, cuz, greed.
Of course Cato assumes that the "typical welfare family" is simultaneously receiving SNAP, TANF, LIHEAP, EITF, General Assistance, Medicaid, Section 8 Housing Support, S-CHIP all at the same time while being comprised of a single-mother with two children under the age of 5 - but then assumes that minimum wage workers Don't get Medicaid or SNAP or LiHeap or - well - you get the picture.
Hawai‘i, according to Cato, has the most generous benefits. Cato's up front calculation says Hawai‘i "typical welfare recipients" receive $49,175 in welfare benefits. Their "typical typical" calculation drops that to $23,235. Cato's Medicaid calculation for Hawai‘i is $6,776. The minimum wage family is several thousand dollars better off than the "typical welfare family."
In Mississippi, which Cato ranks dead last in welfare generosity, the up front calculation gives welfare families $16,984. Mississippi provides housing assistance to less than 10% of TANF families, so Cato's "typical typical" calculation isn't much different ($15,261). Cato's Medicaid calculation for Mississippi is $6,909, putting the minimum wage family at nearly $26,000 - more than $10,000 better off than most welfare families.
New York often gets labeled as a welfare state. The "typical typical" benefit there is about $24,000, but almost half of that ($10,464) is Medicaid. The minimum wage + Medicaid family will be more than $6,000 better off than the welfare family. You're about that much better off in California, too, before taking the higher minimum wage into account.
Alaska tops the Cato "typical typical" list at $26,560, but even there the minimum wage plus Medicaid family will be ~$2,000 better off annually.
In short - too late - there appears to be NO state where a family in the same situation as the family Cato used for their welfare calculations will be worse off if employed at a minimum wage job. Zero. None. Nada.
Yeah, that. But let's not make that situation better for the working poor, they might get "Greedy".
Vyan