Minimum wage

[FlyingIguana]

those companies won't hire more workers with the money they save. they'll put that money in the corporate bank accounts or pay it out as options to multi-million $ execs. if they can get by with x amount of employees, why would they bring in more employees to do the same work just because wages are lower? you would see more jobs without a min wage, but you'll have an even larger % that aren't making anywhere near enough to support themselves.

there's pretty much no way a student or someone without experience could prove their worth. so they would be forced to take shit jobs with shit pay. there is no way for the company to know your true value.

i believe the positives of a min wage outweigh the negatives and that overal its good for a wealthy country to have a min wage.

[BJ]

An economic recovery package should create jobs.

By freeing up investment capital and by lowering the cost of doing business, tax cuts help direct resources to needed areas and help struggling businesses retain workers. Mandates - such as a higher minimum wage - increase the cost of doing business. A minimum wage increase would make it harder for employers to hire society's most vulnerable workers just when the economy is at its most fragile point in a decade.

According to the International Strategy & Investment (ISI) Group, the week of September 17 saw 112,000 layoffs, compared to an average of 35,000 per week for the preceding 13 weeks and 10,000 layoffs per week one year ago.

The Hotel Association of Washington, D.C., estimates half of the area's 25,000 hotel employees will lose their jobs by this week.

The National Restaurant Association predicts job losses in the restaurant industry will hit 60,000 in September alone from decreased sales and worsened economic conditions in the wake of the terrorist attacks on September 11th. The group further predicts an additional 150,000 jobs would be lost in the last quarter of this year if Congress increases the minimum wage by $1.00/hour.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates a leading Democrat proposal to increase the minimum wage by $1.50/hour would cost the private sector $30 billion over five years - that's twice what Congress recently appropriated to bail out the airline industry. The CBO projects that a $1.50/hour increase would eliminate 200,000 to 600,000 jobs.

As Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan told a congressional committee this year, "I'm not in favor of cutting anybody's earnings or preventing them from rising, but I am against them losing their jobs because of artificial government intervention, which is essentially what the minimum wage is." [Wall Street Journal, July 19, 2001]

Even workers who keep their jobs would be hurt. Studies have shown increasing the minimum wage reduces other compensation such as training, which can lower minimum wage workers' long-term earnings.
With the economic picture already imperiling the jobs of thousands of low-wage workers, Congress and the President should give investors and employers the tools they need to retain the workers they have and hire more - and should not inflict greater damage on workers and the economy by increasing the minimum wage rate.

[FlyingIguana]

1.50 an hour jump is dumb. of course it will have a dramatic effect. min wages should be pretty much constant with small increases every few years based on a variety of factors.

[bhutocracy]

Originally posted by UnseenWorld


So, the cinema (and the low-wage jobs) are better sacrificed to the God of Living Wage, eh? Well, this is your opinion and I disagree. No one is holding a gun to the heads of the employees and telling them they have to work at that wage.

To be sure, if someone wants to make shoes for $15 and sell them for $112 (Nike?), they are probably already doing it, but don't deny that a mandatory increase in wages would exceed the tipping point for some businesses. To do so would defy reason and logic and appear stupid.

no.. if the business isn't viable at paying poverty line rates then it should be sacrificed to the God of Bad Business Idea or the demi-god of Poor Market Research.
No one is holding a gun to the head of the employer and telling him to start a business thats only going to bring in 10 people each screening.

a 10% rise will not "tip" businesses over into look offshore. for a start you are still seeing minimum wage increases as REAL increases.. how can a business be forced into looking offshore when the minimum wage although periodically being adjusted has actually been falling in real terms for the last 20 years?

that means a business employing minimum wage workers for the last twenty years is actually paying them LESS in real terms than twenty years ago.
A re-adjustment isn't costing them ANY MORE than it did 20 years ago.

If a small rise in the minimum wage means an employer looks offshore, then to me that just means he's a poor manager of resources who has been willfully blind of the profit to be made offshore for the past decade of his business.. a few % on the minimum wage either way means nothing compared to being able to pay an indonesian $2 a day.. where has he been?

the besides most minimum wage jobs can't be exported as they are service industry.

[UnseenWorld]

Originally posted by FlyingIguana
those companies won't hire more workers with the money they save. they'll put that money in the corporate bank accounts or pay it out as options to multi-million $ execs. if they can get by with x amount of employees, why would they bring in more employees to do the same work just because wages are lower? you would see more jobs without a min wage, but you'll have an even larger % that aren't making anywhere near enough to support themselves.

What do you think happens to money when it goes into a bank account? Apparently, you think they put it on a shelf. No, they use it to make loans to start-up businesses, to help businesses expand (which means more jobs), to help people buy houses (which have to be built, meaning jobs).

You're right, the money might end up in a bank account. So what? What's wrong with that? Your next paycheck will draw money from a bank account.

there's pretty much no way a student or someone without experience could prove their worth. so they would be forced to take shit jobs with shit pay. there is no way for the company to know your true value.

No concept of working your way up by proving your worth here. My dad became a well-paid department head of a company where he started as the guy who walks around delivering and picking up the mail. You apparently feel you should start out as a department head, or paid like one, with virtually no evidence of your worth. How does THAT work?

i believe the positives of a min wage outweigh the negatives and that overal its good for a wealthy country to have a min wage.

So far, not much evidence that the premises behind your belief hold any water.

[bhutocracy]

the minimum wage should be indexed to inflation so people don't get shocked about re-alignments. thats pretty much what this is all about. people not being able to see that a $1 increase isn't a static $1 increase.. it's a temporary increase. if the National Restaurant Association's member's could afford to pay the minimum wage a few years ago they can afford it to be re-aligned, because in real terms it hasn't moved at all.

[bhutocracy]

Originally posted by UnseenWorld

No concept of working your way up by proving your worth here. My dad became a well-paid department head of a company where he started as the guy who walks around delivering and picking up the mail. You apparently feel you should start out as a department head, or paid like one, with virtually no evidence of your worth. How does THAT work?

news flash.. the days of the mail-room clerk working his way into management have been over for more than a few years.
it's a cliche that has had much written about it as the end of an era.
which isn't of course to say that you shouldn't have to prove your worth and gain experience or in any way invalidate the thrust of your point.. it's just that the old gold watch after 30years - work your way from the mail-room days are long over.

oh.. and poor people spend a higher proportion of their income than reach people on goods and services which also stimulates the economy.

[BJ]

Originally posted by bhutocracy


news flash.. the days of the mail-room clerk working his way into management have been over for more than a few years.
it's a cliche that has had much written about it as the end of an era.

oh.. and poor people spend a higher proportion of their income than reach people on goods and services which also stimulates the economy.

I worked in the mail room of a fortune 500 company and made my way up to a consultant and eventually to a project manger in under 2 years right out of college. This was only 3 years ago.

[UnseenWorld]

no.. if the business isn't viable at paying poverty line rates then it should be sacrificed to the God of Bad Business Idea or the demi-god of Poor Market Research.
No one is holding a gun to the head of the employer and telling him to start a business thats only going to bring in 10 people each screening.

Apparently, it's better to unemploy those workers than to let the management decide how much to pay for those jobs. I'm sure they'll be happy you unemployed them, since apparently unemployment is better than a low wage.

[jB]a 10% rise will not "tip" businesses over into look offshore. for a start you are still seeing minimum wage increases as REAL increases.. how can a business be forced into looking offshore when the minimum wage although periodically being adjusted has actually been falling in real terms for the last 20 years?[/B]

Well, the only increase which it makes sense to talk about is the increase from one moment to the next when the law takes effect. After all, you can compare wages today with any year in US history. Why not compare them with wages in 1792? The fact is that the moment the wage requirement takes effect is the moment which will affect the future, not a comparison with some arbitrary past year.

that means a business employing minimum wage workers for the last twenty years is actually paying them LESS in real terms than twenty years ago.
A re-adjustment isn't costing them ANY MORE than it did 20 years ago.

Who cares about 20 years ago? All that tells me is that companies are more profitable today. Profit = jobs. Even if Bill Gates builds a gigantic mansion and buys a yacht, those things take workers to build, maintain, and operate.

I think the image people like you have of business people is that they take their profits and put them in a chest buried in the backyard. The concept that business activities actually generate employment seems lost on you.

If a small rise in the minimum wage means an employer looks offshore, then to me that just means he's a poor manager of resources who has been willfully blind of the profit to be made offshore for the past decade of his business.. a few % on the minimum wage either way means nothing compared to being able to pay an indonesian $2 a day.. where has he been?

the besides most minimum wage jobs can't be exported as they are service industry.

[UnseenWorld]

Originally posted by PureMeds


I worked in the mail room of a fortune 500 company and made my way up to a consultant and eventually to a project manger in under 2 years right out of college. This was only 3 years ago.

It's hopeless to convince these people that work actually results in reward. Whining your way to the top is apparently the currently favored approach, and if that fails, there's always The Living Wage.

[theking]

Originally posted by bhutocracy



no.. if the business isn't viable at paying poverty line rates then it should be sacrificed to the God of Bad Business Idea or the demi-god of Poor Market Research.
No one is holding a gun to the head of the employer and telling him to start a business thats only going to bring in 10 people each screening.

a 10% rise will not "tip" businesses over into look offshore. for a start you are still seeing minimum wage increases as REAL increases.. how can a business be forced into looking offshore when the minimum wage although periodically being adjusted has actually been falling in real terms for the last 20 years?

that means a business employing minimum wage workers for the last twenty years is actually paying them LESS in real terms than twenty years ago.
A re-adjustment isn't costing them ANY MORE than it did 20 years ago.

If a small rise in the minimum wage means an employer looks offshore, then to me that just means he's a poor manager of resources who has been willfully blind of the profit to be made offshore for the past decade of his business.. a few % on the minimum wage either way means nothing compared to being able to pay an indonesian $2 a day.. where has he been?

the besides most minimum wage jobs can't be exported as they are service industry.

You are dead on target. A minimum wage earner of today is being forced to try and sustain himself/herself on a significantly lower amount of money in real terms, than a minimum wage earner of twenty to thirty years ago. Raising the minimum wage does not cost jobs (other then very short term) and does not cause inflation other than in insigificant way. I repeat you are dead on target. End of debate.

[bhutocracy]

Apparently, it's better to unemploy those workers than to let the management decide how much to pay for those jobs. I'm sure they'll be happy you unemployed them, since apparently unemployment is better than a low wage.

I'll hand write them a card with the address of a McDonalds.

I can make any shitty business plan work if i get to decide the wages.
Apparently you think the answer to unemployment is to create thousands of bad businesses that have to pay a wage thats below the poverty line to break even.

Well, the only increase which it makes sense to talk about is the increase from one moment to the next when the law takes effect.

only if you want the inability of seeing the broader picture.
this is exactly why it should be indexed to inflation so there is no large increases for people to whine about.

I think the image people like you have of business people is that they take their profits and put them in a chest buried in the backyard. The concept that business activities actually generate employment seems lost on you.

i think the image that people like you have of people like me is a little wishful.. it certainly would be nice for you if thats what i thought. so easy to refute.. even though trickle down economics have been lambasted for the last decade, that is unfortunately not how i think. last year i made more than about 95% of people in my country and i know how money is spent.. i am familiar with the spending habits of CEO's even though i wasn't the head of my company. im sorry im not a hippy or someone thats easy to deride fiscally.

[FlyingIguana]

well of course there's positive effects of more money going into corporate bank accounts. there are also foreign companies who would take money out of the country which will alter the exchange rate. did you happen to forget about this?

there are far to many ripple effects to consider unless you have a ton of economic data in front of you. even then it would be very tough to know how min wage truly affects the economy.

raising the standard of living for everyone in the country should be the goal. a reasonable min wage which isn't too high is a decent way of setting a min. if you have children growing up in horrid conditions because their parents only make 3 bux an hour, they're not going to develop into a productive worker like they might have. instead of dropping out of high school to work, they could go on to university and make a real contribution to society. thats what seperates the united states from a 3rd world country.

[bhutocracy]

Originally posted by FlyingIguana
if you have children growing up in horrid conditions because their parents only make 3 bux an hour, they're not going to develop into a productive worker like they might have. instead of dropping out of high school to work, they could go on to university and make a real contribution to society. thats what seperates the united states from a 3rd world country.

sssshhhhh people don't want to hear that a person brought up in a poor household is more likely to commit crime or go on to make a poor household of their own, increasing the hidden costs to society.. every one is born equal.. environmental factors won't shape you at all.

this is why i mentioned my VCR earlier..

[pxtreme75]

Come on guys, without the minimum wage then the guys with no skills would turn into slaves.

Community IS OBLIGED to make sure that people are given a minimum amount of money.

The minimum wage wont make them rich but then it wont allow employees to take advantage of them the wrong way.

[bhutocracy]

the minimum wage shouldn't be increased in one big jump.. it should slowly be aligned so as to totally minimise the short term effects.. even if it takes another 10 years. and once it has regained what has fallen over the past 20 years it should be indexed to inflation so people can't complain.

[Frank W]

Originally posted by FlyingIguana


take away min wage and companies would take advantage of less skilled workers and give them even more pathetic wages than the min.

Not really. If some corporations all of a sudden, in light of the absence of a min wage law, decide to pay people lower than what they are worth the supply for that wage range will dwindle so fast that the price of labor increases dramatically. There is a dynamic here--the law of supply and demand.

[Frank W]

Originally posted by bhutocracy


sssshhhhh people don't want to hear that a person brought up in a poor household is more likely to commit crime or go on to make a poor household of their own, increasing the hidden costs to society.. every one is born equal.. environmental factors won't shape you at all.

this is why i mentioned my VCR earlier..

So its the government's job to act as a paternalist sponsor? Didn't the billions spent on US housing assistance for housing projects just create hotbeds of prostitution, drug dealing, and violence? The government makes a crappy parent. Moral guidance is best sourced from PRIVATE sources--church, family, etc.

[Frank W]

Originally posted by UnseenWorld


Your point being?...

Like I've said before, how did we reach the point where the only way to earn a living is to work for a company? Is it a law of the universe that people who aren't making it on one job can't moonlight or start a part-time business (a web site perhaps?).

What a world of cry-babies we live in. Suppose our country had been founded by this bunch of whiners.

You are so right. Before the 1960's American law focused on Individual responsibility and taking responsibility for your own actions. We now live in an environment where everybody is a damned victim and the "solution" is to turn to the government.
If it weren't for Goldwater/Reagan this country would have turned into another Socialist dystopia.

[Frank W]

Originally posted by PureMeds
I would rather see people paid based on their virtues, ie. productivity, then on some arbitrary number the government decides.

Sooner or later increasing minimum wage will catch up with productivity. what would we do then? decrease minimum wage? that would go over real well.

Oh no, reducing benefits in the Age of Entitlements is like slaughtering the Sacred Cow! Sacrilege!

[mika]

a study that I have already partially forgot showed that youngsters in USA go to work in the summer while youngsters in Europe take a summer vacation.

Reason: minimum wages are lower in USA than in Europe, and fewer European firms find it profitable to hire young people for summer jobs. Especially if the minimum wage is something like 60-70% of the median wage.

[StacyCat]

Originally posted by Carrie

Well, if you don't have the skills to get a job making $10 per hour (which isn't that hard to do), and consequently you can't pay the bills - then you get a second job.

but, its not that. People would rather live on welfare and not work than go out and work 2-3 minimum wage jobs. If a wage was set high enough, they could work their regular jobs, and be able to afford everything.

So, again, you have those with the good work ethic, that refuse to take handouts, that will work their 2-3 jobs to stay afloat. And you will also have a large portion of people that dont want to work because welfare is more profitable.

and, most employers dont pay 10 bucks an hour, even with good skills. Me, with 3 years of experience in hotels, cant get a starting wage over 8-9 dollars (10 if I want to give up insurance) This is speaking on the hourly side of things.

[Carrie]

Stacy,
I agree - there are people with work ethics and there aren't. But is it our responsibility to make sure the ones without good work ethics can live just as comfortably as we can? I don't think they should - again, it's something you earn.

It sounds like you are at a crossroads - you've got the experience and you've hit the ceiling of what hotels will pay where you live. You can either stay there, or you can move (go where the money is). It's not up to the gov't to force the employer to pay you more - it's up to you to go to an employer that will pay you more. If that employer happens to be a $600/night hotel in a different city, so be it... *you* are the one who ultimately determines whether you will do what it takes to succeed or just be content to stay where you're at when you know there's no hope for advancement.

We used to live in Syracuse. With a ton of computer experience under our belts, the job market there for computer gurus was horrible. $16k was the max you could hope to get for advanced networking and administration skills back in '98. So in spring of '99, we packed up and moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida where the computer business was booming - and more than tripled our income.
If your employer won't pay you what you're worth, you go elsewhere. Their loss, your gain.

[Frank W]

I hate to say it but you may have a good point re law of diminishing returns. Once a system reaches a certain level of efficiency, the incentives to reach higher levels is offset by transaction and systemic costs.

This is one of the logical limits to any economic "system"

Originally posted by FlyingIguana
those companies won't hire more workers with the money they save. they'll put that money in the corporate bank accounts or pay it out as options to multi-million $ execs. if they can get by with x amount of employees, why would they bring in more employees to do the same work just because wages are lower? you would see more jobs without a min wage, but you'll have an even larger % that aren't making anywhere near enough to support themselves.

[FlyingIguana]

Originally posted by Carrie
Stacy,
I agree - there are people with work ethics and there aren't. But is it our responsibility to make sure the ones without good work ethics can live just as comfortably as we can? I don't think they should - again, it's something you earn.

It sounds like you are at a crossroads - you've got the experience and you've hit the ceiling of what hotels will pay where you live. You can either stay there, or you can move (go where the money is). It's not up to the gov't to force the employer to pay you more - it's up to you to go to an employer that will pay you more. If that employer happens to be a $600/night hotel in a different city, so be it... *you* are the one who ultimately determines whether you will do what it takes to succeed or just be content to stay where you're at when you know there's no hope for advancement.

We used to live in Syracuse. With a ton of computer experience under our belts, the job market there for computer gurus was horrible. $16k was the max you could hope to get for advanced networking and administration skills back in '98. So in spring of '99, we packed up and moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida where the computer business was booming - and more than tripled our income.
If your employer won't pay you what you're worth, you go elsewhere. Their loss, your gain.

min wage is not living comfortably.

add up the positives and the negatives and overal for an advanced country a min wage is good to have. its not perfect, but then again nothing really is.

[salsbury]

Originally posted by FlyingIguana
min wage is not living comfortably.

the lowest wage will *never* mean living comfortably. that's a fact of our economy and one we need to face instead of trying to hide it with a minimum wage.

then again, the lowest wage shouldn't mean living comfortably. people should be encouraged to grow. take training courses, get promoted, etc.

[FlyingIguana]

yes and i think min wage accomplishes that by not being too high.

[Carrie]

How comfortable is comfortable? (Serious question.)
I have a friend who lives in a small rural town. She has a huge house, lots of land, 3 children. Her husband makes $800 a month.
They have a fantastic life and are very comfortable.

I know what you're going to say - that doesn't work in cities, where the cost of living is higher. But again, if you can't afford to live somewhere, you can move... either to where it's cheaper to live or where you can make more money.

The question of "how comfortable is comfortable" is such a subjective one. If you're making money like, say, Lensman, then "comfortable" is a lot higher than my friend making $800/mo. But they both truly enjoy their life and their lifestyle.

Poor people are the ones who usually live beyond their means - not with necessities, but with luxury items.
There are ways to live on less money and still be very comfortable, past the point of basic necessities. You buy food that you have to actually cook (rather than frozen microwave dinners), you don't buy costly junk food, you buy in bulk and put stuff in the freezer... get very nice clothes on sale or at the thrift store (but oh no! They don't have "abercrombie" on them!), you don't opt for the expanded digital plus option on your cable (if you even bother getting cable)...

I think the necessities are rent, food, electricity and phone. Out of those four, only electricity and phone are pretty much stable. You can always find somewhere cheaper to live and you can always find ways to cut costs on your food bill if you bother to look.

So for all of you saying that the minimum wage *has* to allow people to live - how comfortable should these people be living?

[theking]

Originally posted by Carrie
How comfortable is comfortable? (Serious question.)
I have a friend who lives in a small rural town. She has a huge house, lots of land, 3 children. Her husband makes $800 a month.
They have a fantastic life and are very comfortable.

What you are saying is that they enjoy their life and they may. If they live in the US it is impossible to meet what they should consider to be obligations on an $800.00 a month income. By obligations, I mean car insurance, home insurance, life insurances, medical, dental, and eye insurances, savings for their childrens education etc, home maintinance, transportation maintinance, property taxes, etc.

[FlyingIguana]

how you manage your money is your business. but i think you need to set a minimum hourly wage to try to set a minimum standard of living to give people a chance at a somewhat decent life.

decet being a place to stay and food to eat.

[Altima]

omg sad animals let the weak and crippled die why cant we?

[Joe Sixpack]

Originally posted by Altima
omg sad animals let the weak and crippled die why cant we?

Because they can't do anything about it. We can.

[UnseenWorld]

Originally posted by Frank W


Not really. If some corporations all of a sudden, in light of the absence of a min wage law, decide to pay people lower than what they are worth the supply for that wage range will dwindle so fast that the price of labor increases dramatically. There is a dynamic here--the law of supply and demand.

I guess people who are so naive they've never seen supply and demand at work will simply have to imagine what you are talking about.

Labor is a commodity just like pork bellies. Want to know when jobs are widely available and laborer's pay goes up? Oh, after a hurricane or forest fire.

At any rate, interfering with any market has unforseeable consequences, as FlyingIguana in his left-handed way said. So, the best thing is not to tamper.

[UnseenWorld]

Originally posted by StacyCat
but, its not that. People would rather live on welfare and not work than go out and work 2-3 minimum wage jobs. If a wage was set high enough, they could work their regular jobs, and be able to afford everything.

Well, let them. Someone who doesn't want to work should expect no reward, should they?

So, again, you have those with the good work ethic, that refuse to take handouts, that will work their 2-3 jobs to stay afloat. And you will also have a large portion of people that dont want to work because welfare is more profitable.

A great argument for making it difficult for an able-bodied person to qualify for welfare.

and, most employers dont pay 10 bucks an hour, even with good skills. Me, with 3 years of experience in hotels, cant get a starting wage over 8-9 dollars (10 if I want to give up insurance) This is speaking on the hourly side of things.

And yet, I suppose, you are planning on sticking with a job you aren't satisfied with and simply whining about it rather than seeking higher paying work elsewhere?

[Joe Sixpack]

Dealing drugs is the answer.