Minimum wage: $15 NOW!; or 15... eventually

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by Gravdigr

...and the person who found a book they want to buy, but, it costs a thousand dollars, so you can afford to pay that worthless book shelver $50/hr.

Not if all the buyers are making $50/hr. And the books would not have to increase in price at all if bookstore owners who make $100MM/year reduce their own income.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by henry quirk

If I'm wise, then I pay what my lil economy can bear.

If I'm unwise then -- one way or another -- I go out of business.

The great strength of humans over other animals is that we share our wisdom, and try not to let the unwisdom of some take down the efforts of others. Enron, for example: yes, their unwisdom did eventually put them out of business, as the system says must happen. It also, however took down thousands upon thousands of innocent individuals who never made any of the unwise decisions that killed their employer.

The system as you describe it does work, but is unnecessarily brutal. If the lessons of the past are lost, your system is a valid backup. But we are stronger as a whole when we take what we've learned in the past and use it to mildly regulate the unwise individuals who crop up in the present.

[footfootfoot]

I agree with HQ but for slightly different reasons. Raising the minimum wage won't change income disparity as long as Quirk's books wants to make X* his employee's minimum wage. As one goes up so will the other.

If a certain group of people want all the marbles then the number of possible marble games drops to *ahem* 1%.



A guy who makes 365 times what his 50k/yr employee makes doesn't buy 365 times more groceries, cars, beds, shoes, and so forth. He stockpiles money and doesn't stimulate the economy.

If he could be contented with making 20 times his 50k/yr employee then he could hire 340 more employees or double the pay of 680 his 25k/yr employees and they for certain would spend the shit out of that money and that would help the economy.

Ultimately you can't legislate for morality or against greed, if you could no one would try to find loopholes.

[Undertoad]

One pundit suggested, in the case of Seattle, it may displace the poor as over qualified people suddenly find it worthwhile to work a low-level job in town. The poor are forced to commute to the burbs as that is where the low-level jobs for poor people are.

[Gravdigr]

[Pete Hogwallop]That. Don't. Make. No. Sense.[/Pete Hogwallop]

[Gravdigr]

I'm also hearing snippets of conversation in my head:

What do you do?

I program CNC milling machines for the aviation machining industry.

How much do ya make doing that?

Minimum wage.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Hmm

[DanaC]

*applauds*

Excellent.

[Happy Monkey]

It reminds me somehow of Anne Elk.

Except her theory was correct.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Massachusetts too.

The measure, which won Senate approval last week, would raise the state's $8-per-hour minimum wage in three increments to $11 per hour by 2017. Routine procedural votes are needed in both chambers before the bill is sent to Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick for his expected signature.
Future increases in the minimum wage would not be automatically tied to inflation, as an earlier Senate version of the proposal would have done.
~snip~
He said many of the state's estimated 600,000 minimum wage employees live in poverty despite having full-time jobs, while others are forced to work multiple jobs to support their families.
~snip~
The minimum wage would rise to $9 per hour on Jan. 1, 2015; to $10 on Jan. 1, 2016; and finally to $11 on Jan. 1, 2017.
The measure would also gradually raise the minimum wage for tipped workers, such as restaurant servers, from the current $2.63 per hour to $3.75 per hour, a 31 percent increase and the first since 1999, Conroy said.

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

It reminds me somehow of Anne Elk.

Except her theory was correct.

And it was hers, too.

[Undertoad]

That's much more reasonable than Seattle's plan. If the number is kept within a certain level, like the tying to inflation they suggested, it won't have as much of an impact.

Everything is tied together you know. To imagine it won't have any impact, or that it will hurt only the targets we hope for and not the ones we don't, is just wishful thinking. We constantly bolt things onto the economic plane for our various reasons and sometimes it's good. Other times the plane no longer has lift and then the entire economic engine may falter. (oh no mixed metaphor!) When there is no economic growth, that hurts the poor most of all.

And we actually want some low wage jobs. Traditionally, things like fast food are called starter jobs. The jobs are easy to do, don't add a ton of value, but wind up teaching people how to hold a job. How to apply, interview, how to get there on time and groomed, how to manage weekly pay, how to orally satisfy your bosses, etc. etc. Not all low wage jobs are taking advantage of people, and if they offer a boost to a better job, that's great. How many of us had a first job in fast food? (raises own hand) It paid shit, right? (nods) But it was good for you? Part of life? And when you realized you didn't want to do this your whole life, that was part of it too? A little motivation to make sure you didn't get stuck there. Exactly. S'a good thing.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

That's much more reasonable than Seattle's plan. If the number is kept within a certain level, like the tying to inflation they suggested, it won't have as much of an impact.

Everything is tied together you know. To imagine it won't have any impact, or that it will hurt only the targets we hope for and not the ones we don't, is just wishful thinking. We constantly bolt things onto the economic plane for our various reasons and sometimes it's good. Other times the plane no longer has lift and then the entire economic engine may falter. (oh no mixed metaphor!) When there is no economic growth, that hurts the poor most of all.

And we actually want some low wage jobs. Traditionally, things like fast food are called starter jobs. The jobs are easy to do, don't add a ton of value, but wind up teaching people how to hold a job. How to apply, interview, how to get there on time and groomed, how to manage weekly pay, how to orally satisfy your bosses, etc. etc. Not all low wage jobs are taking advantage of people, and if they offer a boost to a better job, that's great. How many of us had a first job in fast food? (raises own hand) It paid shit, right? (nods) But it was good for you? Part of life? And when you realized you didn't want to do this your whole life, that was part of it too? A little motivation to make sure you didn't get stuck there. Exactly. S'a good thing.

Not having a mimimum wage also has a negative effect - people working full time, sometimes in more than one job and still being too poor to feed their families. That is wrong. And the idea that they are free not to be exploited is ridiculous, if the alternative is starvation and destitution. You can get away with not having a minimum wage if there are adequate support systems in place through benefits - if the choice is between subsistence or taking that job, then fair enough. That's a true choice.

Not having a minimum wage and not having adequate safety nets in place forces people to accept exploitation.

Some jobs are starter jobs, sure - but that's usually about the age of the person, not the nature of the job. A 17 year old, living at home with his parents and earning $8 an hour is one thing. A 40 year old with children to feed doesn't need a 'starter' job, he needs a living wage.

Over here we scale the minimum wage according to age - so a 'starter' job is only a starter job for those at the start of their working life. It's still shit and far too low - and there is growing pressure for the living wage, rather than just a minimum wage.

And if paying a living wage means you can't afford to hire the staff you need, then your business model is broken, your business is not really solvent it is just pretending to be, with the shortfall resting on the backs of people who can't afford to say no.

And yeah - it will probably put up prices of cheap burgers - but that's ok, because if working people are earning that bit more then they'll be able to afford those slightly more expensive burgers.

And if the people who run those burger bars and cheap shops are worried that they won't be able to employ enough people, because it will put the prices up and customers won;t be able to afford what they're selling, then they should be supporting decent welfare payments for those who aren't in work. Because damn near every penny of that welfare gets spent on their products.

Instead, though we (I include the UK in this) opt for a race to the bottom - wages stagnate, and benefits are slashed, so prices have to be slashed to bring in customers, and the low prices mean that wages have to stay low, and so on, and so on. And as low as those wages go, there will always be a pool of people who will take those jobs, because they have no other option if they want to remain fed and housed - and so there is no competition driving wages up.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the scale, remuneration and bonuses go through the roof, and are justified with the idea that in order to hire the best you have to pay high.

There is very little evidence that minimum wages damage employment levels. Very few companies are unable to hire the staff they need because they have to pay a couple of dollars more per hour. It just means they have to find their savings elsewhere. As long as there is no minimum wage and no benefits to speak of, then there is no incentive to look at less palatable savings - it is always easiest to skimp on the workforce.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

The jobs are easy to do, don't add a ton of value, but wind up teaching people how to hold a job. How to apply, interview, how to get there on time and groomed, how to manage weekly pay, how to orally satisfy your bosses, etc. etc.

You're thinking of choirboys.

The minimum wage only effects the starter job concept, the pimply faced teen learning responsibility at McWenBurg, is misleading. But that's what most people think about when the subject comes up. There is a whole hell of a lot of people working for minimum wage who are not in fast food. Both the fast food and other jobs are no longer a step to something bigger and better because that next step rarely opens up unless somebody dies or gets jailed.


I have no clue if this is accurate or completely from whole cloth, but there is certainly plenty of anecdotal evidence to make it sound reasonable.

[Undertoad]

There is very little evidence

I think I've seen enough evidence. I could be wrong. This is one of those things where the truth is hard to find, because the sources we read will tell us the story we like to read. Still, the first Google result for "minimum wage unemployment" is this:

http://dailycaller.com/2014/03/31/st...-unemployment/

Researchers looked at labor data from both the nineteen states that as of 2013 had enforced minimum wages above $7.25 per hour and the thirty-one states that had minimum wages equal to $7.25.

Overall, they found that just a $1 increase in the minimum wage was “associated with a 1.48 percentage point increase in the unemployment rate,” and a “0.18 percentage point decrease in the net job growth rate.”

Well yeah, it's a righty website writing about a vaguely righty organization's study, but it's just math they're doing in that study, and people could check their math.