$15/hour minimum wage

[Cincinnatus]

Social economic engineering is an utter myth.  Many people in the underclass cannot function but in the underclass economic system, and there's little anyone can do to adjust that behavior.

It has nothing to do with behavior, Glob!  It has to do with power.  In fact the US mostly only provides WalMart and McDonalds type jobs (underclass jobs), so inevitably more and more people will be underclass in future, till soon it is the majority. And they all wake up early and live in fear and don't enjoy anything, and work like dogs.   

As someone who until recently lived hip-deep in the underclass (south Baltimore), I can tell you that the above in no way reflects my experiences, at all, with the "underclass".  The underclass in Maryland is a direct result of behavior, and the attitudes that the urban poverty culture inculcates into the youth.  In my neighborhood, there was trash all over the streets, people screaming and fighting and pissing everywhere and acting like fools at all hours of the day.  Women farting at my front door, junkies vomiting in the street, teenage girls with strollers out at 1am, vandalism, petty crime.

If that's the underclass you're talking about, f*** the underclass, I hope they starve, the world would be better off for it.

You must be one of those compassionate conservatives I used to hear about 10 yrs ago.

These people need help not your ridicule.  Have you seen The Biggest Loser?  Those people look awful on day one.  I wouldn't hire a single one of them.  But with dedication, help, and hard work most of those people make a miraculous transformation.  Instead of W Bush spending $1 Trillion+ killing 600,000 Iraqis we spent $1 Trillion in the ghettos of this country can you imagine what our cities would be like?  Think about it.

$1 trillion ?  Do you really think that's enough..  Let me open my wallet, maybe I can get us .0000...1 % there.  Do you hear yourself?  Let's just spend $1 trillion we don't have.  It would be nice if we didn't waste money on the War in Iraq, but the American people voted twice for Bush, so we've made our own bed regarding that.  Spending $1 trillion on cities?  You do realize it'll cost us an estimated $2 trillion alone to fix our infrastructure?  A lot of people don't want to just be given the money.  They want an opportunity to earn it, and that's where the hard work lies for government. 

[Cincinnatus]

A minimum wage is necessary, but instead of having a single minimum for everyone, it should be adjusted on a sliding scale based on the absolute minimum needs of the individual in question. So lets say a teenager, for example, could be paid less than a single mother trying to raise a couple of kids while working three jobs. This would also enable teenagers to have a chance to build up job experience that they can use later on when they are starting their careers because employers would have an incentive to hire them.

But if they are applying to the same jobs why would the employer take the single mother rather than the teenager.

Due to the fact that under the situation he described, the youth will have a lower minimum wage then say, a 26 year old Mother.  It'll be a trade-off for either experience, or a lower payroll.  Which, for already low-wage jobs won't make any difference to the employer, because simply picking a teenager will greatly benefit said employer (See: Clothing stores, food-chains, ect).