You don’t want to work for minimum wage. You don’t have to! Minimum wage is just a stepping stone for you to move into something else.
I used to clean toilets for a living
When I was a recently arrived immigrant, I worked for less than minimum wage, I cleaned toilets and vacuumed office buildings at 3:00 am. I was so happy to be able to earn any money at all, at the same time, I wasn’t planning to stay as a minimum wage worker for a long time.
A minimum wage job should only be temporary, not a career
This is the mentality that you have to have. Minimum wage is transitory, for the other people, for those who have neither the ambition nor the imagination to take the next step in life. For those people who can’t figure out what to do next.
Union jobs are for losers
There is a drive to unionize Starbucks stores and Amazon warehouses. Those people who are struggling to increase their salaries by a few cents, those people already put themselves into a corner. For them, the only way to move up in life is to unionize and squeeze a few more cents out of their employers. They are planning to be baristas or Amazon workers for the rest of their lives. Those people have lost the self-esteem battle right from the beginning.
When I was a janitor. I knew that I would move on. And I did. I became the owner of a school, I invested in Real Estate, I invested in the stock market. And I retired 20 years after my arrival. I had no family wealth, very little education, no friends, and no connections.
You don’t need intergenerational wealth
People say that whites have intergenerational wealth to help them pay for school and buy their first house. All that is true, but that’s not an excuse for you not to get your own wealth. If you have the ambition and desire, you can get your own wealth as well.
Don’t believe that sorry ass story that because you are black, or Latino, or an immigrant, you will be stuck in life. Sure, you will be starting at a disadvantage, but can certainly catch up with all those white dudes. I did it and so can you.
I came to Canada, not thinking of how much I could earn as a minimum wage worker, but how much progress I could make in my life. I arrived in Canada at age 30 and by age 50 I was retired.
Increases in minimum wage are useless
Even if those seeking an increase in minimum wage get it, they will always be at the bottom of the economic status because the real barrier is not their salary, but their mental limitation. They will always be the people who earn whenever the minimum wage is at the moment, while the rest of the world moves on.
Factors that create mental weakness
There are many factors that create this mental weakness. Drugs, alcohol, lack of physical activities, poor diet. You just have to get with the program. Don’t do drugs, don’t drink in excess, eat well, sleep enough hours, educate yourself every day, do some physical activity, and there you are, you have leveled the playing field. Within a few years, you will be earning a lot more than what you are earning now, and you will feel better about it.
No one is forcing you to be mediocre
No one forces someone else to have one more beer, to take a drag of pot, or to shoot drugs. You can always say “no” or build an environment where saying “no” becomes easier.
One thing that millionaires have in common is that they are hard workers. Elon Musk works in excess of 40 hours a week. And so does every other millionaire. And when they are not working, they are learning. Those are the habits that make a person a success. Those are the habits you need to adopt. Don’t focus on taxing them, focus on being at the same level as them.