If you are poverty level you hardly pay taxes in the first place. You pay zero income tax and FICA is only 7.5%. Based on this your gross hourly wage should be $5.29. Is an increase of $0.14 enough?
I doubt most people can live on $5.29, but it is better than keeping it where it is. Your quoted figure of $9,800.00 is below survival rates for most folks if hey have a family.
$9,800 is definitely below survival rate for most major cities, especially if you have a family. But also remember at $9,800 or below you get a lot of benefits from the government that lowers your cost of living. TANF, Food Stamps, free medical, etc. It is impossible to raise a family at $9,800. This is where some personal responsibility comes into play. If you cannot earn more than minimum wage then you probably should not be having kids. It is definitely a tough situation to be in. That's why we have to hope that people will strive to better themselves to the point that they can EARN a living wage.
Actually if you have a family the federal poverty level is not $9,800 either, for a family of two it's $13,200 which translates into $7.50/hr. But you conveniently forgot to mention that.
I intentionally did not mention that. Give me a good reason why a persons compensation from an employer should be based on the number of family members he or she has to support?
It should not but if we make an assumption that minimum wage is or should be related to the federal poverty level as you did when you tried to prove that $5.15 is already too high, we should take the average size of minimum wage family into account as well.
I disagree. We should not take any family considerations into account. If a person cannot support a family then they should not have a family. I know that this is easier said than done, but at some point in time you have got to make people take responsibility for themselves and their actions. There has to come a point when they are responsible for themselves and not the government being responsible for them. Making the politicians responsible for your standard of living is a slippery slope. When you abrogate your responsibility you let others decide for you what your standard of living should be. You no longer have person control over your future. Of course, that is my opinion as a highly independant person who has no desire to let a politician tell me what is best for me and what my standard of living should be.
Really? I have no problem with politicians helping americans get better and more fair deals with employers, same employers who use armies of lawyers, HR professionals, psychologists, background checks, outsourcing, strikebreakers, lobbists, corrupt politicians, collusion etc to lower your wages and keep you as powerless as possible. You btw did not have a problem with politicians helping YOU when YOU were the one getting minimum wage.
You're making assumptions that have little practical value. Studies show that the overwhelming majority of minimum wage employees either do not head households (students ect.) or are seniors supplementing retirement income. Bumping the 16 yo working behind the soda fountain in the Fashion Plaza is not a paramount moral concern. We should all be sensitive to the plight of those raising families at or near the poverty level. However the reality is most "working poor" are already making more than the MW. (jobs in the $7-$10.00 per hour zone). For many poor it's not so much about wages as it is other factors like available time that make economic survival difficult. Try being a single mom raising a couple of toddlers and still be able to put in a 40 hour week. This is where conservatives often differ with liberals. The goal of society should be rooted in justice and solutions. Empty symbolism is pointless. We must deal with a wide strata such as developing transportation networks that help folks commute from affordable neighborhoods to jobs in outlying areas, enabling mom's with innovative child care options, free alcohol and substance abuse help, and job training/networking programs. However those institutional changes require wholesale commitment. I guess it's easier to just say "raise MW by a buck and call it a day."