Whatever (was:Ruggles transportation options...)

[Midnight Rambler]

That's not how tax brackets work. A higher rate bracket only applies to the money you make in the amount of the bracket, not your entire income. You never take home less because a slight pay increase "pushes you into the next bracket".

[terracore]

"They should not be raising the taxes on anything until they raise the minimum raise back up to a living wage."

The minimum wage has never been a living wage, nor was it ever intended to be.

"The minimum wage law requires employers to discriminate against persons with low skills. No one describes it that way, but that is in fact what it is. Take a poorly educated teenager with little skill whose services are worth, say, only $2.00 an hour. He or she might be eager to work for that wage in order to acquire greater skills that would permit a better job. The law says that such a person may be hired only if the employer is willing to pay him or her (in 1979) $2.90 an hour. Unless an employer is willing to add 90 cents in charity to the $2.00 that the person’s services are worth, the teenager will not be employed. It has always been a mystery to us why a young person is better off unemployed from a job that would pay $2.90 an hour than employed at a job that does pay $2.00 an hour."

-Milton Friedman, (1976 Nobel Prize recipient)

[justthefacts]

uber/lyft is simply a ridiculous idea an idea that is completely void of thinking or common sense. I met an uber driver last week ,she was at the harbor trying to pick up tourists coming off the cruise ship. she was asking for directions for hilo area, said she has only lived her 3 months wasn't sure of the area.

and the road organization in Hawaiian acres has No insurance, husband and wife team are the board members one is the president the other is the treasure, its the fox watching the hen house

[Tink]

I started out at minimum wage in 1971 at $1.55 an hour. Within a month I realized "this really sucks lemons" and made an oath to myself to "always find a job that pays more with the skills I have learned". I finally "capped out" working as a private heavy equipment operator charging $89.00 an hour, plus fuel expenses while also working as a Building Inspector (one of the "cool" ones, as told by quite a few contractors). My inspector job gave me the money to lease a "Bobcat" skid steer to start my business, a few grade and trench for house footings and I was on my way!
There is definitely a way if you have the will.

Community begins with Aloha

[terracore]

I've never worked for minimum wage, though one of my first jobs was for $3.50/hour when minimum wage was $3.35, but the mandatory union dues actually brought my take-home pay down below minimum wage. I've hated unions ever since.

I was a teenager and my union-caused-below-minimum-wage job was WAY better than my previous employ as a strawberry picker where I was paid by how many containers I filled working 12-hour days directly under the sun in 90+ degree (in the shade) weather.

I can see myself working for minimum wage in my retirement, but in a job more sedentary than picking strawberries or working at Safeway. Extra income needed, no "living wage" needed.

My most valuable employment as far as experience gained for future jobs... I was a volunteer. Was paid nothing. Zero. Zilch.

ETA: The strawberry fields were uphill, both ways. Forever.

[Kapoho Joe]

Cost of living keeps going up. Always has and always will.