Quote:
Originally Posted by GatorB
Who's to say someone's skill is only worth $5. Besides say there wasn't a minimum wage. Well in my area wal-mart, McDonald's etc would pay maybe $3.50 an hour. First of all that would reduce the income of the area meaning people have less money to spend at palces at wal-mart and McDonald's etc. And thus their sales would hurt but they are too stupid to see that because they only look short term. so their solution would be to either cut wages further ot cut hours further hurting sales. Because as I said they are stupid.
Also this guarantees high turnover in employees. Once again NOT good for profit. when you're always having to train new people productivity is bound to go down. Higher productivity=higher profits. Simple economics.
Also people would be eligible for MORE welfare MORE food stamps etc etc. Is that good? where does this money come from. ME the taxpayer. There is absolutely ZERO reason I should have to subsidize the wages of a person working full time because their employer doesn't want to pay decent wages.
That person whose wages are gong to go from $5.15 to $7.25 will get LESS welfare( that=GOOD ) pay MORE in taxes ( meaning LESS is needed from me ) LESS earned income credit( which is an oxymoron anyways ). They'll get less in foodstamps.
Now food stamps are free from sales taxes. Where I live sales tax on food is 8.25% so every $1 spent on food using food stamps means 8.25 less cents that is needed for the state and local coffers. Considering where I live 40% of the people are get food stamps, my local area is shorted of thousands of dollars each year in revenue. Doesn't sound like much, but in a rural area it is. So either services get cut or taxes are raised on us that aren't on government assistance. All because a company like wal-mart that makes nearly a half a TRILLION in in sales doesn't want to pay decent wages.
Now lets' face it, many of wal-mart and McDonald's customers are their own employees. So those employees getting paid higher wages will inevitably spend that extra money at wal-mart and McDonald's thus offsetting the higher pay these places have to pay out. There's no doubt that the worker whose take home pay is $3400 a year more is going to spend that money at palces like wal-mart. How that is somehow BAD for wal-mart is beyond me.
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It's pretty naive to call McDonalds or Walmart "stupid", they know damn well what they are doing. They probably have a team of economists spending their whole day analyzing stuff like this. If there was no minimum wage they would simply pay a rate that is in the best interest of their shareholders given the area/circumstances. In some areas they might pay $5/hr, in others they may pay perhaps $15/hr.
Of course you are right, you shouldn't have to subsidize anyone, but why are you blaming it on businesses? How is it business' fault that there are people out there willing to perform the given job for $5/hr? Businesses are in no way obligated to pay a "decent wage", their only obligation is to their shareholders.