Thank you for posting this! I only occasionally get to watch Bill Maher and his New Rules are always brilliant. And excellent point on the low wages don't happen because of immigrants; they happen because our governmant won't raise our minimum wage! I can't believe Congress spends days debating these kinds of issues when we can't even pay people a decent living. Or provide health care to millions of Americans. Thanks again for the laugh, though :)

Great bit on the microwave... "cook, defrost, and hepatitis".

VBG

"most upper-middle class people don't clean their own toilets, or do their own laundry ... until they go to rehab."

Holy moly. I'm glad I wasn't drinking coffee during that line, I would have spit all over my computer.

n.

If you tied the minimum wage to a maximum wage there would be a whole different tune being played. Like a sliding scale, everytime a CEO or Congress or a Football player pushed the maximum wage up it would pull along the minimum.

According to the "Unite for Awareness Week" at Ohio Northern University: 42 percent of those who are homeless have jobs. The problem is, they don't make enough to afford housing.

thanks, great tape. this is the only way I can view and it really lifts my day. great piece on minimum wage. Living wage for all!

I remember reading years ago that a 17:1 ratio in wages was adequate to maintain an incentive for people to want to move up while at the same time reflecting differences in levels of responsibility and contribution to the enterprise. I like the idea.

Thank you Bill, I'm glad somebody said something on a stage where they could be heard.

I'm gonna go ahead and address the elephant in the room: Ben Affleck???

Unable to see any video. Error message says I need software which is unavailable. Why not use Real Network or Windows Media instead of this junky QT 7? Isn't the purpose of these videos so that people can see them?

Bad Dog, try installing Quicktime Alternative. Works for me. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QuickTimeAlternative http://www.free-codecs.com/download/QuickTimeAlternative.htm

Also, please be polite to Norm. He is doing us all a service.

Yeah, but it was worth Affleck being there because when Maher said that about "most upper-middle class people don't clean their own toilets, or do their own laundry ... until they go to rehab," Affleck chimed in with "sometimes not even then." Good times.

The idea that raising minimum wage will raise the quality of living for the poor is a fallacy. Raising the minimum wage only raises inflation and hurts the economy so that the poor are no better off. Raising minimum wage is only good for winning the support of people who are ignorant on the subject of economics

There are no "lucky" people in this world. Lottery winners are the only people with money that I consider "lucky." I worked my ass off to get to where I am at, that does not make me lucky. Stop bitching about your problems and fix it yourself. Even if the minimum wage was raised it will only go up a couple bucks an hour at the most; if you have to live like an "animal" on $5.15 an hour what tangible difference is $80.00 a pay period going to make?

Raising the minimum wage effectively makes everyone else less well-off. Assuming the work force isn't reduced by an increase in a minimum wage (which is more likely), it increases the amount of money in the economy and a risidual effect is an increase of prices.

The problem is not the minimum wage (people making this wage are classified as being in the poverty level and therefore have access to free health care, susidized housing, food credits, tax breaks and child care), but rather the people earning just above the poverty level. These people are not afforded the same access and, oftentimes, can afford none of these benefits.

Working Poor: http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2000.htm Note the strong correlation between income and education. Perhaps subsidizing education would be a better suggestion than increasing the minimum wage.

Ronnie, do you have a link to results from the Awareness Week survey?

spencer,

$80 for some people, could mean the difference between eating in a soup kitchen or buying your own food.

Just because YOU worked YOUR ass off, you don't think people making Min Wage don't?

I worked as an accountant in a large factory where all of the workers worked for either minimum wage or about $7/hr max. They were all good workers and took pride in their work. One young man, with two children, came to work everyday on time, if not early, and was really good with customers (he was a delivery driver). Customers would call and say what a good job that he was doing. A year went by and he was still making minimum wage. I asked the CEO of the plant why doesn't he give this guy an increase and he said that this was a lower-level job and he couldn't afford it. Not true. I did the books, so I know he could afford it. I kept insisting and he finally gave the guy a 5 cent an hour increase, which was more a slap in the face than anything else. People who had an upbringing which enabled them to know how to go about climbing the ladder have no clue what it is like to try to make it in this world when you don't have the requisite skills and background. There are people out there working their asses off and they never get rewarded for it. But it is much easier to just tell oneself that their low wages are how it must be because, of course, anyone who understands economics knows that this is the way that it must be.

I love how everyone, who took a micro-economics class is all of the sudden Alan Greenspan. "If you raise the minimum wage then all the prices of goods will go up, so it makes no differnce!" I can just picture the person saying this giving himself a smile for putting his giant brain to good use.

Another thing is when people think there successful and have to give the customary roll up your sleeves and get to work speech. Unless you came from a home where your mom is a crackhead and your father is a crackpipe your mom named timmy and you're homeless and everyone around you is is getting murdered for no reason at all and despite all this you became a success, I suggest you keep your speech to yourself.

Um...wouldn't raising minimum wage just result in more companies hiring illegals because they don't want to pay the higher wages, thus resulting in more actual citizens going without jobs?

Something else needs to be done before raising wages.

I'd just like to thank you for having the good sense to use Quicktime instead of the incredibly inferior alternatives mentioned earlier by another poster. Thanks.