WHAT'S FAIR: Minimum Skills Earning Minimum Wages

Are you worth $30,000 a year?

For those fast food employees, and their nannies in public office, thinking they deserve $15 an hour, or more, let's do some math.

> At $15 an hour, someone slinging burgers would make $31,200 annually.
> An E1 (Private) in the military makes $18,378.
> An E5 (Sergeant) with 8 years of service only makes $35,067 annually.

So you're telling me, Woody Likefrieswithat , that you deserve as much as those kids getting shot at, deploying for months in hostile environments, and putting their collective asses on the line every day protecting the rights of YOUR unskilled butt!?

Here's the deal, Frank Andbeans: you are working in a job designed for a teenager in high school or working his way through trade school or college. It's a job for someone who is learning how to work. Have you thoroughly learned how to work? These jobs are designed for those looking to earn enough for shared rent, beer, and some food and gas, and hanging out with their equally goofy young pals.

If you have CHOSEN this basic means of making a living as your lifelong profession, you have not planned very well. Time to accept the consequences or to firm up, work your way out of the lower rungs, and rely on yourself, not count on foul promises of a few rise from low wages to high with little or no stops to learn skills that deserve a higher wage. It is a tough lesson, but you either learn it, or you stay where you are. The ones misleading you into believing you deserve higher pay for the same minimum role in life might sound like your hero, but they are only your big talking "better." They are fooling you. Wake up!

Here's what is fair to everyone: If you don't want minimum wage, don't settle on your minimum skills,  don't put forward minimum effort, be the example of a great employee that can move past the minimum job. And please don't expect someone else to pave your way, without you advancing your skills, for a smooth ride to $30k and better in earnings. That's how it might work in your dreams, but in real life, a solid person seeks rewards for effort, not for whining.

I revised this considerably. A version of this, no doubt a chain email, was sent to me by a retired person. He understands what working means. No one promised him a cake walk to a better life.

- J Ruse