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Rise of Minimum wage?

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Re: Rise of Minimum wage?

Postby BigBallinStalin on Mon Feb 18, 2013 12:20 pm

PLAYER57832 wrote:
Night Strike wrote:
PLAYER57832 wrote:
Night Strike wrote: Furthermore, why should the government tell employers what to pay regardless of the ability of their business to stay open? If the government can mandate a pay floor overall, why not also pay floors in mid-level jobs? Or pay caps? When does the government control end? When does the marketplace get to determine how much jobs are worth and people are allowed to have the freedom to figure out what pay they want?

The minimum wage is just that... a bare minimum beneath which hiring someone is dragging down society for the benefit of the owner or a few in that business. When someone is paid such a low wage that they cannot support themselves on that wage, then other people in society have to support them. They don't pay the taxes they could, don't buy as many products. Instead of contributing to society, they are a drain... to fill the pockets of a few greedy individuals at the top.


And when the employer can't afford to pay a cart pusher $20 an hour, they remove the position and everyone has to go get their own carts or other workers have to do it in addition to their roles. And this causes even fewer people to be employed. Employers aren't just made of money and can dole out whatever the government decides to dictate at that period of time.
Since no one is proposing anything close to a $20 wage, your argument is idiotic... at best.


On the contrary, the $20/hour example stresses the implications of pricing the supply of a good (labor) beyond its market clearing price. When price floor is imposed by the government within a relatively free market, then at least be aware of the poor outcomes (e.g. decreased quality, higher prices in other areas, etc.).

The point is that paying someone more than their labor is worth is stupid (e.g. $100 per hour to shovel dirt---one exception would be a disaster zone where there's high demand for labor, and/or supply of labor is very low). But most people don't get that. They don't understand what marginal labor product is. They don't understand that for every hour of labor, a certain amount of revenue is generated. Paying someone (marginal cost) more than the revenue they generate is stupid.

Hopefully, something nags on people's minds when they think, "Gee, what if I paid everyone a minimum of $100 per hour." Other times, it resorts to emotional knee-jerking and petty insults---which is easier than addressing the problems of one's deeply held emotions.
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Re: Rise of Minimum wage?

Postby tzor on Mon Feb 18, 2013 2:48 pm

Symmetry wrote:Hilarious- what skills do you think they're picking up? Why do you think only young people are in these positions?


They pick up lots of skills; skills that you and I might take for granted. Of course the older you are the more likely you might have picked up those skills. There might be exceptions, I suppose.
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Re: Rise of Minimum wage?

Postby tzor on Mon Feb 18, 2013 2:54 pm

AndyDufresne wrote:Back in the 1950's where that meme was generated I think.


Wait, I thought that decade brought the violin as an instrument of torture ...
Oh wait, Jack Benny was in the 1940's ... never mind.
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Re: Rise of Minimum wage?

Postby stahrgazer on Mon Feb 18, 2013 6:19 pm

tzor wrote:
Symmetry wrote:Hilarious- what skills do you think they're picking up? Why do you think only young people are in these positions?


They pick up lots of skills; skills that you and I might take for granted. Of course the older you are the more likely you might have picked up those skills. There might be exceptions, I suppose.


Skills like getting up on time. Diplomacy with your boss. Dealing with customers, or in the case of the 7.25/9.00/20.00/100.00 ditch diggers, learning how to dig a ditch better, faster, and without the sides caving back into the pile to have to do it all over again.

Counting money out seems to be a skill many cashiers cannot handle, for example. Give them 31.75 for a bill of $26.73 and they just cannot seem to realize that that means you want $5.02 in change.

In the case of a lowly retail worker, learning where the stock is and how the store wants that stock repriced, refaced, or inventoried at the end of the shift/week/month/year.

Would you feel better having a fresh-out-of-law-school handling your legal business or do you want someone with experience?

If your point is that you don't need experience for a minimum wage job, then the point that the minimum wage shouldn't be raised is even MORE valid. Give the extra pay to more workers or to more experienced workers who can take a little more of the slack from the boss.

Raising the bottom end too high squishes the economy every bit as much as raising the top end too high; the difference is, it actually hurts those on the lower end more than it helps, because what it helps most is: It helps CAUSE inflation.
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Re: Rise of Minimum wage?

Postby Juan_Bottom on Mon Feb 18, 2013 7:53 pm

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Historically speaking, the minimum wage was much higher than it is now, during a period of growth. Just using an inflation adjustment shows that the minimum wage should be at least $10.55 now. Americans, you're not saving any money by allowing corporations to pay people minimum wage. Those minimum wage earners have to make up the loss by being supported by taxpayers through the dole, or through loans. So if private industries can't 'make enough profits' while paying people a living wage, then the government should socialize those private industries.

http://inequality.org/minimum-wage/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_ine ... ted_States

Yes, had the US income distribution and US standards of decency remained exactly what it was in 1968, the minimum wage would now be $21.16 per hour.
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Re: Rise of Minimum wage?

Postby Night Strike on Mon Feb 18, 2013 8:29 pm

So Juan, why aren't you adamant about stopping inflation since inflation is the root problem of minimum wage not paying enough in today's society? If the government weren't devaluing our dollars so much, we would never have to raise the minimum wage.
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Re: Rise of Minimum wage?

Postby BigBallinStalin on Mon Feb 18, 2013 10:14 pm

Juan_Bottom wrote:Image

Historically speaking, the minimum wage was much higher than it is now, during a period of growth. Just using an inflation adjustment shows that the minimum wage should be at least $10.55 now. Americans, you're not saving any money by allowing corporations to pay people minimum wage. Those minimum wage earners have to make up the loss by being supported by taxpayers through the dole, or through loans. So if private industries can't 'make enough profits' while paying people a living wage, then the government should socialize those private industries.

http://inequality.org/minimum-wage/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_ine ... ted_States

Yes, had the US income distribution and US standards of decency remained exactly what it was in 1968, the minimum wage would now be $21.16 per hour.


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Re: Rise of Minimum wage?

Postby stahrgazer on Mon Feb 18, 2013 11:01 pm

Another problem with "minimum wage" is similar to a problem with some education systems.

It's like "Pass/fail" rather than a scale of "A to F" - those who work really hard and well won't get as recognized because those who're just shuffling by, one half-step ahead of a pink slip, are being paid so much.

"Just bodies" are okay in some aspects, but not as okay as having folks who really want to work hard; "minimum wage" takes away some of the incentive to work really hard.

and as I said, similarly, some folks argue against schools that want to go to a pass/fail type standard as not sufficiently recognizing high achievers.
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Re: Rise of Minimum wage?

Postby PLAYER57832 on Tue Feb 19, 2013 6:13 am

BigBallinStalin wrote:
PLAYER57832 wrote:
Night Strike wrote:
PLAYER57832 wrote:
Night Strike wrote: Furthermore, why should the government tell employers what to pay regardless of the ability of their business to stay open? If the government can mandate a pay floor overall, why not also pay floors in mid-level jobs? Or pay caps? When does the government control end? When does the marketplace get to determine how much jobs are worth and people are allowed to have the freedom to figure out what pay they want?

The minimum wage is just that... a bare minimum beneath which hiring someone is dragging down society for the benefit of the owner or a few in that business. When someone is paid such a low wage that they cannot support themselves on that wage, then other people in society have to support them. They don't pay the taxes they could, don't buy as many products. Instead of contributing to society, they are a drain... to fill the pockets of a few greedy individuals at the top.


And when the employer can't afford to pay a cart pusher $20 an hour, they remove the position and everyone has to go get their own carts or other workers have to do it in addition to their roles. And this causes even fewer people to be employed. Employers aren't just made of money and can dole out whatever the government decides to dictate at that period of time.
Since no one is proposing anything close to a $20 wage, your argument is idiotic... at best.


On the contrary, the $20/hour example stresses the implications of pricing the supply of a good (labor) beyond its market clearing price. When price floor is imposed by the government within a relatively free market, then at least be aware of the poor outcomes (e.g. decreased quality, higher prices in other areas, etc.).
Setting an ultimate bottom doesn't as you and Nightstrike wish to imply destroy a valid free market.

That said, jobs are not truly free market items. Financial service provider salaries are a good example. Why are their salaries so much higher than a world reknown biologist? Because financial service providers hold the money. It used to be that people made money off real property they owned. Now they do it from skimming money off other folks' earnings... and often they make out whether their "customers" make money or not.

Yet... biologists have a lot more to do with keeping our world functioning and safe than any financial advisors.

Those same advisors would pay all they have to have just one more fire fighter, or a few minutes quicker response after a tragedy impacts them. Yet... up until that point, they will protest paying a dime more for fire services. THAT is the kind of back-ass thinking that has to change.

BigBallinStalin wrote: The point is that paying someone more than their labor is worth is stupid (e.g. $100 per hour to shovel dirt---one exception would be a disaster zone where there's high demand for labor, and/or supply of labor is very low). But most people don't get that. They don't understand what marginal labor product is. They don't understand that for every hour of labor, a certain amount of revenue is generated. Paying someone (marginal cost) more than the revenue they generate is stupid.

No, the point is that your idea of setting a person's worth is no different than old time monarches declaring that they can eat and have a castle while serfs can just try to survive off the leanings.. because God mandated it so.

The market doesn't set human worth, it really doesn't set the worth of employment at the bottom OR the very top.

BigBallinStalin wrote: Hopefully, something nags on people's minds when they think, "Gee, what if I paid everyone a minimum of $100 per hour." Other times, it resorts to emotional knee-jerking and petty insults---which is easier than addressing the problems of one's deeply held emotions.

Try again. You lose.
Distorting this into a debate over $100 wages for burger flippers is your attempt to play on people's fears, far more of an emotional response than my facts preseted honestly.
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Re: Rise of Minimum wage?

Postby Nobunaga on Tue Feb 19, 2013 6:25 am

There is probably no law more popular and less questioned by liberals than minimum wage laws. Tell a liberal that you are opposed to minimum wage laws, and he or she will look at you as if you are a heartless ignoramus. I’ll bet you could not find a single liberal who has the least degree of doubt about the wisdom and effectiveness of minimum wage laws. Being in favor of minimum wage laws gives you the satisfaction of thinking you’ve done something good even if the actual results are harmful.

Liberalism is about feeling good about yourself. It is public policy based on self-indulgence. In liberal never-never land, intentions are all that matter. Intentions are the be-all-and-end-all of public policy choices. Results be damned.

There are people who would like to work for $4 an hour, and there are employers who would like to hire them for that wage. However, for them to enter into such a transaction is a criminal act. Some far-away clueless politician has arbitrarily decided that $4 an hour is not fair and not enough to live on.

http://spectator.org/archives/2013/02/1 ... mum-wage/1
The clearest evidence for the damage done by the minimum wage laws is the unemployment rates for teenagers, particularly minority teenagers. Today the overall unemployment rate in the U.S. is 7.9 percent. For those 16-19, the rate is more than twice as high (20.8 percent) and for black teenagers the rate is more than four times as high (37.8 percent).

... But think about it - high unemployment rates help Democrats. The fact that blacks are harder hit is only a bonus. It represents political opportunity for them. Is the introduction of a higher minimum wage and the resulting increase in unemployment not intentional?
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Re: Rise of Minimum wage?

Postby Symmetry on Tue Feb 19, 2013 7:54 am

Nobunaga wrote:There is probably no law more popular and less questioned by liberals than minimum wage laws. Tell a liberal that you are opposed to minimum wage laws, and he or she will look at you as if you are a heartless ignoramus. I’ll bet you could not find a single liberal who has the least degree of doubt about the wisdom and effectiveness of minimum wage laws. Being in favor of minimum wage laws gives you the satisfaction of thinking you’ve done something good even if the actual results are harmful.

Liberalism is about feeling good about yourself. It is public policy based on self-indulgence. In liberal never-never land, intentions are all that matter. Intentions are the be-all-and-end-all of public policy choices. Results be damned.

There are people who would like to work for $4 an hour, and there are employers who would like to hire them for that wage. However, for them to enter into such a transaction is a criminal act. Some far-away clueless politician has arbitrarily decided that $4 an hour is not fair and not enough to live on.

http://spectator.org/archives/2013/02/1 ... mum-wage/1
The clearest evidence for the damage done by the minimum wage laws is the unemployment rates for teenagers, particularly minority teenagers. Today the overall unemployment rate in the U.S. is 7.9 percent. For those 16-19, the rate is more than twice as high (20.8 percent) and for black teenagers the rate is more than four times as high (37.8 percent).

... But think about it - high unemployment rates help Democrats. The fact that blacks are harder hit is only a bonus. It represents political opportunity for them. Is the introduction of a higher minimum wage and the resulting increase in unemployment not intentional?


You're shifting around a lot in that post. Do you dislike minimum wage law, or a higher minimum? Why do you think it won't work in the US when it works everywhere else without the issues you worry about?
the world is in greater peril from those who tolerate or encourage evil than from those who actually commit it- Albert Einstein
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Re: Rise of Minimum wage?

Postby BigBallinStalin on Tue Feb 19, 2013 9:39 am

PLAYER57832 wrote:
BigBallinStalin wrote:
PLAYER57832 wrote:
Night Strike wrote:
PLAYER57832 wrote:
Night Strike wrote: Furthermore, why should the government tell employers what to pay regardless of the ability of their business to stay open? If the government can mandate a pay floor overall, why not also pay floors in mid-level jobs? Or pay caps? When does the government control end? When does the marketplace get to determine how much jobs are worth and people are allowed to have the freedom to figure out what pay they want?

The minimum wage is just that... a bare minimum beneath which hiring someone is dragging down society for the benefit of the owner or a few in that business. When someone is paid such a low wage that they cannot support themselves on that wage, then other people in society have to support them. They don't pay the taxes they could, don't buy as many products. Instead of contributing to society, they are a drain... to fill the pockets of a few greedy individuals at the top.


And when the employer can't afford to pay a cart pusher $20 an hour, they remove the position and everyone has to go get their own carts or other workers have to do it in addition to their roles. And this causes even fewer people to be employed. Employers aren't just made of money and can dole out whatever the government decides to dictate at that period of time.
Since no one is proposing anything close to a $20 wage, your argument is idiotic... at best.


On the contrary, the $20/hour example stresses the implications of pricing the supply of a good (labor) beyond its market clearing price. When price floor is imposed by the government within a relatively free market, then at least be aware of the poor outcomes (e.g. decreased quality, higher prices in other areas, etc.).
Setting an ultimate bottom doesn't as you and Nightstrike wish to imply destroy a valid free market.

That said, jobs are not truly free market items. Financial service provider salaries are a good example. Why are their salaries so much higher than a world reknown biologist? Because financial service providers hold the money. It used to be that people made money off real property they owned. Now they do it from skimming money off other folks' earnings... and often they make out whether their "customers" make money or not.

Yet... biologists have a lot more to do with keeping our world functioning and safe than any financial advisors.

Those same advisors would pay all they have to have just one more fire fighter, or a few minutes quicker response after a tragedy impacts them. Yet... up until that point, they will protest paying a dime more for fire services. THAT is the kind of back-ass thinking that has to change.

BigBallinStalin wrote: The point is that paying someone more than their labor is worth is stupid (e.g. $100 per hour to shovel dirt---one exception would be a disaster zone where there's high demand for labor, and/or supply of labor is very low). But most people don't get that. They don't understand what marginal labor product is. They don't understand that for every hour of labor, a certain amount of revenue is generated. Paying someone (marginal cost) more than the revenue they generate is stupid.

No, the point is that your idea of setting a person's worth is no different than old time monarches declaring that they can eat and have a castle while serfs can just try to survive off the leanings.. because God mandated it so.

The market doesn't set human worth, it really doesn't set the worth of employment at the bottom OR the very top.

BigBallinStalin wrote: Hopefully, something nags on people's minds when they think, "Gee, what if I paid everyone a minimum of $100 per hour." Other times, it resorts to emotional knee-jerking and petty insults---which is easier than addressing the problems of one's deeply held emotions.

Try again. You lose.
Distorting this into a debate over $100 wages for burger flippers is your attempt to play on people's fears, far more of an emotional response than my facts preseted honestly.


I didn't see the relevance in any of your responses, and you wind up repeated your tired old argument because you fail to understand. One try is good enough with you. Thanks!
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Re: Rise of Minimum wage?

Postby Funkyterrance on Tue Feb 19, 2013 2:42 pm

It seems as though a number of people are forgetting the fact that if someone doesn't perform their job up to expectation you can fire them. The minimum wage is meant to reflect what is a reasonable bottom limit to what someone can survive off of. This is the point that I personally am driving at more than anything.
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Re: Rise of Minimum wage?

Postby Night Strike on Tue Feb 19, 2013 2:46 pm

Funkyterrance wrote:It seems as though a number of people are forgetting the fact that if someone doesn't perform their job up to expectation you can fire them. The minimum wage is meant to reflect what is a reasonable bottom limit to what someone can survive off of. This is the point that I personally am driving at more than anything.


Every single person who is hired costs more to the business than the wage they get paid. And if they do fire them for anything other than for-cause, the unemployment taxes they have to pay contribute to paying that laid off employee.
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Re: Rise of Minimum wage?

Postby thegreekdog on Tue Feb 19, 2013 3:07 pm

Nobunaga wrote:There is probably no law more popular and less questioned by liberals than minimum wage laws. Tell a liberal that you are opposed to minimum wage laws, and he or she will look at you as if you are a heartless ignoramus. I’ll bet you could not find a single liberal who has the least degree of doubt about the wisdom and effectiveness of minimum wage laws. Being in favor of minimum wage laws gives you the satisfaction of thinking you’ve done something good even if the actual results are harmful.

Liberalism is about feeling good about yourself. It is public policy based on self-indulgence. In liberal never-never land, intentions are all that matter. Intentions are the be-all-and-end-all of public policy choices. Results be damned.

There are people who would like to work for $4 an hour, and there are employers who would like to hire them for that wage. However, for them to enter into such a transaction is a criminal act. Some far-away clueless politician has arbitrarily decided that $4 an hour is not fair and not enough to live on.

http://spectator.org/archives/2013/02/1 ... mum-wage/1
The clearest evidence for the damage done by the minimum wage laws is the unemployment rates for teenagers, particularly minority teenagers. Today the overall unemployment rate in the U.S. is 7.9 percent. For those 16-19, the rate is more than twice as high (20.8 percent) and for black teenagers the rate is more than four times as high (37.8 percent).

... But think about it - high unemployment rates help Democrats. The fact that blacks are harder hit is only a bonus. It represents political opportunity for them. Is the introduction of a higher minimum wage and the resulting increase in unemployment not intentional?


Actually, think about this

thegreekdog in another thread wrote:http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2011.htm

(1) In 2011, 73.9 million American workers (which eliminates all non-workers) age 16 and over were paid at hourly rates, representing 59.1 percent of all wage and salary workers. So that eliminates 40.9% of workers.
(2) Among those paid by the hour, 1.7 million earned exactly the prevailing Federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. About 2.2 million had wages below the minimum. Together, these 3.8 million workers with wages at or below the Federal minimum made up 5.2 percent of all hourly-paid workers.
(3) Minimum wage workers tend to be young. Although workers under age 25 represented only about one-fifth of hourly-paid workers, they made up about half of those paid the Federal minimum wage or less. Among employed teenagers paid by the hour, about 23 percent earned the minimum wage or less, compared with about 3 percent of workers age 25 and over.

There are a lot more relevant statistics in the website. But what the above and the other statistics tend to show is that raising the minimum wage, on its own, will affect a very small portion of the population, a lot of whom cannot vote and a lot of whom are not taking care of themselves, much less a family. So, why do we care so much about minimum wage again?


I don't think Democrats care about minimum wage for any reason other than that their main voting constituency and their main donors have wages tied to minimum wage. Ultimately, the minimum wage is not enough for someone to live on if that person only works a 40 hour week. When I made close to minimum wage ($9.25 an hour baby), I worked about 60 hours a week and still had trouble buying enough beer. But that's irrelevant because no one who takes care of themselves works a minimum wage job for 40 hours a week. If those people existed in any great number, don't you think the Democrats would be trotting those poor bastards out?

Now, if minimum wage was raised to $21 an hour, maybe we'd have something to talk about.

Here, let's even look at this website's explanation:

http://www.npr.org/2012/07/08/156458470 ... lp-or-harm

Now let's parse out some quote:

According to the Economic Policy Institute, if Harkin has his way and the minimum wage was actually raised to $9.88 an hour, it would increase wages for 30 million Americans — 10 percent of the country.


Harkin estimates that his minimum wage increase would mean about $25 billion more for GDP, 100,000 more jobs and 28 million Americans would get a raise.


Margaret Lewis


She makes minimum wage in Illinois ($8.25 an hour). She makes $18,000 a year. That means she works 2,181 hours or about 42 hours a week. Do you feel sorry for her? If so, why? What if you make $10 an hour and work 60 hours a week? Could she get another job? Could she get a different job making more money? Does she receive any other compensation apart from her work? Does she get money from the federal or state governments (the answer should be yes to both)?

Further, is Mr. Harkin or the Economic Policy Institute just talking about people like Margaret Lewis or they talking about others? Based on the federal government's own data, they must be talking about people other than just those that make minimum wage.

From the Economic Policy Institute:

Economic Policy Insitute wrote:Increasing the federal minimum wage to $9.80 by July 1, 2014, would raise the wages of about 28 million workers, who would receive nearly $40 billion in additional wages over the phase-in period.2


According to the federal government only 1.7 million people earn minimum wage. What gives? Oh yeah...

Economic Policy Institute in a buried footnote wrote:3. These data, and the data presented throughout this issue brief, include directly affected workers (those who would see their wages rise because the new minimum wage would exceed their current hourly pay) and indirectly affected workers (those who would receive a raise as employer pay scales are adjusted upward to reflect the higher minimum wage).


Those "indirectly affected workers" are who the Democrats are going after.

So, if people want to have a discussion about raising wages for people making over minimum wage, that's fine. Let's have that discussion. Let's not have this fake discussion about the horrible minimum wage laws. I mean for f*ck's sale, NPR couldn't even find some poor bastard making FEDERAL minimum wage; they had to find someone working 42 hours a week making $8.25 an hour (a dollar over the federal minimum wage).

EDIT - By the way, I find this sort of journalism by NPR to be disgusting. It is completely misleading if one does not understand the underlying data. NPR should be ashamed honestly.
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Re: Rise of Minimum wage?

Postby stahrgazer on Tue Feb 19, 2013 3:53 pm

Night Strike wrote:
Funkyterrance wrote:It seems as though a number of people are forgetting the fact that if someone doesn't perform their job up to expectation you can fire them. The minimum wage is meant to reflect what is a reasonable bottom limit to what someone can survive off of. This is the point that I personally am driving at more than anything.


Every single person who is hired costs more to the business than the wage they get paid. And if they do fire them for anything other than for-cause, the unemployment taxes they have to pay contribute to paying that laid off employee.


Not to mention legal fees for the attorneys the company has to hire when the guy/gal who wouldn't pull his weight after the company spent 6 months to a year trying to teach the dude how to pull his weight, decides to sue the company claiming this or that wrongful termination.
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Re: Rise of Minimum wage?

Postby BigBallinStalin on Tue Feb 19, 2013 4:29 pm

Funkyterrance wrote: It seems as though a number of people are forgetting the fact that if someone doesn't perform their job up to expectation you can fire them. The minimum wage is meant to reflect what is a reasonable bottom limit to what someone can survive off of. This is the point that I personally am driving at more than anything.


Yeah, but that's not the point of the minimum wage, and this position ignores the unintended consequences.

There are many other programs which supplement people's incomes*; raising minimum wage is unnecessary--yet for some reason it's still done. Why? To maximize votes and Party Approval as well as justify bumping up union wages. That's pretty much it.




*
Mr. Obama didn't even tell the whole story about parents raising a family on a minimum-wage income. A full-time minimum-wage worker earns roughly $15,000 a year. But that worker also receives a cash supplement from the earned income tax credit of roughly $5,000, and many states provide benefits on top of that to reward working. That doesn't count government benefits like food stamps, Medicaid, child care and more. According to data from the Employment Policies Institute, about two of every three minimum-wage workers also get a raise within one year.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 14712.html
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Re: Rise of Minimum wage?

Postby BigBallinStalin on Tue Feb 19, 2013 4:33 pm

thegreekdog wrote:
Nobunaga wrote:There is probably no law more popular and less questioned by liberals than minimum wage laws. Tell a liberal that you are opposed to minimum wage laws, and he or she will look at you as if you are a heartless ignoramus. I’ll bet you could not find a single liberal who has the least degree of doubt about the wisdom and effectiveness of minimum wage laws. Being in favor of minimum wage laws gives you the satisfaction of thinking you’ve done something good even if the actual results are harmful.

Liberalism is about feeling good about yourself. It is public policy based on self-indulgence. In liberal never-never land, intentions are all that matter. Intentions are the be-all-and-end-all of public policy choices. Results be damned.

There are people who would like to work for $4 an hour, and there are employers who would like to hire them for that wage. However, for them to enter into such a transaction is a criminal act. Some far-away clueless politician has arbitrarily decided that $4 an hour is not fair and not enough to live on.

http://spectator.org/archives/2013/02/1 ... mum-wage/1
The clearest evidence for the damage done by the minimum wage laws is the unemployment rates for teenagers, particularly minority teenagers. Today the overall unemployment rate in the U.S. is 7.9 percent. For those 16-19, the rate is more than twice as high (20.8 percent) and for black teenagers the rate is more than four times as high (37.8 percent).

... But think about it - high unemployment rates help Democrats. The fact that blacks are harder hit is only a bonus. It represents political opportunity for them. Is the introduction of a higher minimum wage and the resulting increase in unemployment not intentional?


Actually, think about this

thegreekdog in another thread wrote:http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2011.htm

(1) In 2011, 73.9 million American workers (which eliminates all non-workers) age 16 and over were paid at hourly rates, representing 59.1 percent of all wage and salary workers. So that eliminates 40.9% of workers.
(2) Among those paid by the hour, 1.7 million earned exactly the prevailing Federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. About 2.2 million had wages below the minimum. Together, these 3.8 million workers with wages at or below the Federal minimum made up 5.2 percent of all hourly-paid workers.
(3) Minimum wage workers tend to be young. Although workers under age 25 represented only about one-fifth of hourly-paid workers, they made up about half of those paid the Federal minimum wage or less. Among employed teenagers paid by the hour, about 23 percent earned the minimum wage or less, compared with about 3 percent of workers age 25 and over.

There are a lot more relevant statistics in the website. But what the above and the other statistics tend to show is that raising the minimum wage, on its own, will affect a very small portion of the population, a lot of whom cannot vote and a lot of whom are not taking care of themselves, much less a family. So, why do we care so much about minimum wage again?


I don't think Democrats care about minimum wage for any reason other than that their main voting constituency and their main donors have wages tied to minimum wage. Ultimately, the minimum wage is not enough for someone to live on if that person only works a 40 hour week. When I made close to minimum wage ($9.25 an hour baby), I worked about 60 hours a week and still had trouble buying enough beer. But that's irrelevant because no one who takes care of themselves works a minimum wage job for 40 hours a week. If those people existed in any great number, don't you think the Democrats would be trotting those poor bastards out?

Now, if minimum wage was raised to $21 an hour, maybe we'd have something to talk about.

Here, let's even look at this website's explanation:

http://www.npr.org/2012/07/08/156458470 ... lp-or-harm

Now let's parse out some quote:

According to the Economic Policy Institute, if Harkin has his way and the minimum wage was actually raised to $9.88 an hour, it would increase wages for 30 million Americans — 10 percent of the country.


Harkin estimates that his minimum wage increase would mean about $25 billion more for GDP, 100,000 more jobs and 28 million Americans would get a raise.


Margaret Lewis


She makes minimum wage in Illinois ($8.25 an hour). She makes $18,000 a year. That means she works 2,181 hours or about 42 hours a week. Do you feel sorry for her? If so, why? What if you make $10 an hour and work 60 hours a week? Could she get another job? Could she get a different job making more money? Does she receive any other compensation apart from her work? Does she get money from the federal or state governments (the answer should be yes to both)?

Further, is Mr. Harkin or the Economic Policy Institute just talking about people like Margaret Lewis or they talking about others? Based on the federal government's own data, they must be talking about people other than just those that make minimum wage.

From the Economic Policy Institute:

Economic Policy Insitute wrote:Increasing the federal minimum wage to $9.80 by July 1, 2014, would raise the wages of about 28 million workers, who would receive nearly $40 billion in additional wages over the phase-in period.2


According to the federal government only 1.7 million people earn minimum wage. What gives? Oh yeah...

Economic Policy Institute in a buried footnote wrote:3. These data, and the data presented throughout this issue brief, include directly affected workers (those who would see their wages rise because the new minimum wage would exceed their current hourly pay) and indirectly affected workers (those who would receive a raise as employer pay scales are adjusted upward to reflect the higher minimum wage).


Those "indirectly affected workers" are who the Democrats are going after.

So, if people want to have a discussion about raising wages for people making over minimum wage, that's fine. Let's have that discussion. Let's not have this fake discussion about the horrible minimum wage laws. I mean for f*ck's sale, NPR couldn't even find some poor bastard making FEDERAL minimum wage; they had to find someone working 42 hours a week making $8.25 an hour (a dollar over the federal minimum wage).

EDIT - By the way, I find this sort of journalism by NPR to be disgusting. It is completely misleading if one does not understand the underlying data. NPR should be ashamed honestly.


I wonder how a politician could influence the type of stories that NPR produces.
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Re: Rise of Minimum wage?

Postby PLAYER57832 on Tue Feb 19, 2013 6:43 pm

stahrgazer wrote:Another problem with "minimum wage" is similar to a problem with some education systems.

It's like "Pass/fail" rather than a scale of "A to F" - those who work really hard and well won't get as recognized because those who're just shuffling by, one half-step ahead of a pink slip, are being paid so much. "Just bodies" are okay in some aspects, but not as okay as having folks who really want to work hard; "minimum wage" takes away some of the incentive to work really hard.

and as I said, similarly, some folks argue against schools that want to go to a pass/fail type standard as not sufficiently recognizing high achievers.

That argument might apply if we were talking about something other than the basic minimum wage it takes to live upon.. and if employers were not allowed to offer a higher wage.

The real truth is that many managers and supposedly "professional" people work a lot less hard than most minimum wage workers.

The part most of you miss is that folks right now are recieving well above minimum wage.. it just happens to come in the form of entitlement subsidies at YOUR expense instead of for work done for an employer who either is making a profit ... or doesn't need to be in business anyway.

AND.. funny how you all seem perfectly happy to "justify" why a CEO should make millions... but its perfectly OK for someone working hard at their job to make only $7.50 an hour or less.
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Re: Rise of Minimum wage?

Postby PLAYER57832 on Tue Feb 19, 2013 6:46 pm

According to the federal government only 1.7 million people earn minimum wage. What gives? Oh yeah...

Economic Policy Institute in a buried footnote wrote:3. These data, and the data presented throughout this issue brief, include directly affected workers (those who would see their wages rise because the new minimum wage would exceed their current hourly pay) and indirectly affected workers (those who would receive a raise as employer pay scales are adjusted upward to reflect the higher minimum wage).


Those "indirectly affected workers" are who the Democrats are going after.


Uh.. try again. The minimum wage figure includes only those making $7.35 an hour or the equivalent much lower wage allowed for tipped jobs. Anyone making $7.36- $8.99 would see a pay increase if the minimum wage were increased.

I mean seriously... you could at least think about the data you folks post!
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Re: Rise of Minimum wage?

Postby Juan_Bottom on Tue Feb 19, 2013 9:52 pm

I've fired at least a hundred people before. Probably more.... I dunno, but not a single person ever sued. Furthermore, I've personally signed my name to deny unemployment benefits to a dozen people, and my company never had to hire no damn lawyers as a result. The bottom line for me, as with a lot of you, is that if someone is apathetic or a bad worker, you just fire them and move on. And I live/work in the great blue state of Illinois. All this fear of firing people is unfounded. Now, I personally don't have a single problem if someone is doing their best but they are struggling. In fact I'll help carry their weight. But I wont carry a lazy or apathetic worker. The minimum wage isn't tied into laziness.
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Re: Rise of Minimum wage?

Postby kentington on Tue Feb 19, 2013 10:52 pm

Juan_Bottom wrote:I've fired at least a hundred people before. Probably more.... I dunno, but not a single person ever sued. Furthermore, I've personally signed my name to deny unemployment benefits to a dozen people, and my company never had to hire no damn lawyers as a result. The bottom line for me, as with a lot of you, is that if someone is apathetic or a bad worker, you just fire them and move on. And I live/work in the great blue state of Illinois. All this fear of firing people is unfounded. Now, I personally don't have a single problem if someone is doing their best but they are struggling. In fact I'll help carry their weight. But I wont carry a lazy or apathetic worker. The minimum wage isn't tied into laziness.


In California it is a bit worse than that. It is not easy to fire people even when they deserve it. We have had someone who lied on their resume and cost the company a lot of money, taking a machine completely apart for a small repair, and still convinced the court to give unemployment. It wasn't the only incident with this guy either.

The only two cases I can think of where we didn't have to give over unemployment was when a guy kept falling asleep on running machines, machines that were on not treadmills, and a guy who took a vacation that was denied the request.
Bruceswar » Tue Aug 28, 2012 8:59 pm wrote:We all had tons of men..
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Re: Rise of Minimum wage?

Postby tzor on Tue Feb 19, 2013 11:24 pm

PLAYER57832 wrote:AND.. funny how you all seem perfectly happy to "justify" why a CEO should make millions... but its perfectly OK for someone working hard at their job to make only $7.50 an hour or less.


Well I have never "justified" why a CEO should make millions. IMNSHO, those who do should not and those who do not should. Let's be honest here, a large company could not care less about the so called "minimum wage," as it is always lower overseas. Let's also understand that the question of "minimum wage" is also avoided by the use of illegal workers. In both cases the result is the same; the person could have a job at level X, but that job isn't available as it was given to someone else at a lower level and the poor worker can't take advantage of that so he doesn't get paid anything.

Furthermore, the whole question of the "minimum wage" cannot be taken apart from the fact that we are up our necks in the "welfare state." The person who makes a minimum wage is also entitled to a bucket load of additional benefits, worth far more than even a modest increase in the minimum wage might grant. I forget the exact links to the study but there were some cases where you could literally double the income of a single mother and she would wind up with less net pay as a result.

There are certain laws in the universe that you can't mess with; conservation of energy, gravity, and the law of supply and demand. If you want to increase the wages of all, you need to increase the demand of people wanting people to work for them while keeping the supply of laborers constant. Increasing wages while unemployment is still high is like getting energy from nowhere or living on a mountain of Upsidasium.

(I can't believe I had to google it to make sure I got the spelling right; if you don't know what that is, ask Borris Badenough. He might tell you to ask Natasha.)
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Re: Rise of Minimum wage?

Postby Night Strike on Wed Feb 20, 2013 1:42 am

PLAYER57832 wrote:AND.. funny how you all seem perfectly happy to "justify" why a CEO should make millions... but its perfectly OK for someone working hard at their job to make only $7.50 an hour or less.


Working hard does not mean one automatically deserves a drastically higher wage.
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Re: Rise of Minimum wage?

Postby PLAYER57832 on Wed Feb 20, 2013 8:14 am

tzor wrote:
PLAYER57832 wrote:AND.. funny how you all seem perfectly happy to "justify" why a CEO should make millions... but its perfectly OK for someone working hard at their job to make only $7.50 an hour or less.


Well I have never "justified" why a CEO should make millions. IMNSHO, those who do should not and those who do not should. Let's be honest here, a large company could not care less about the so called "minimum wage," as it is always lower overseas. Let's also understand that the question of "minimum wage" is also avoided by the use of illegal workers. In both cases the result is the same; the person could have a job at level X, but that job isn't available as it was given to someone else at a lower level and the poor worker can't take advantage of that so he doesn't get paid anything.
Which is Precisely why major unions are now for immigration reform instead of opposed, because the threat of deportation seems to make people endure a LOT. This whole bit of "I'll just go overseas" is a bit of a red herring. Companies don't because there are a LOT of benefits to staying in the US. But, they want to take those benefits and not offer a return to the lowest ranks.

Also, we need international tax reform.. that, too, would stop some of the loopholes that allow companies to shift profits and avoid paying taxes.

tzor wrote: Furthermore, the whole question of the "minimum wage" cannot be taken apart from the fact that we are up our necks in the "welfare state." The person who makes a minimum wage is also entitled to a bucket load of additional benefits, worth far more than even a modest increase in the minimum wage might grant. I forget the exact links to the study but there were some cases where you could literally double the income of a single mother and she would wind up with less net pay as a result
.
EXACTLY why we need a rise in minimum wage... and some welfare reform as well. Welfare is supposed to be a bottom line hold over for people who have NO work, not a supplement so companies can get by with paying too low of wages.

Oh, and when I say "welfare reform", I mean REFORM, not just cuts. But we need a few other changes. HIdden in that "poor single mother" garbage are a LOT of moms who are getting nice, fat checks from their kid's fathers and yet not having to claim it as their income. THAT all needs to end. Child support should be listed as the child's income, put on the Mom's EZ or 1040 form and then taxed just as if it were her income, becuase it effectively is. It should not be counted as part of the father's income. Worse, if she has multiple kids from multiple fathers, then she tends to get even more because the father has to fork over a somewhat higher percentage usually for that one child than for more than one. We reward bad behavior and penalize people who choose to be responsible.


tzor wrote: There are certain laws in the universe that you can't mess with; conservation of energy, gravity, and the law of supply and demand.

Oh please, the idea of supply and demand is not a "law of the universe".. or rather what you types like to claim is "supply and demand" utterly ignores the fact that the earth is a dynamic system with very serious limits that cannot be ignored. You cannot just "econimic" yourself more gas.. not matter how much you try to claim you can. Raw petroleum in the form we are used to using is not being produced any longer. Alternatives might be encouraged to come about, but we have failed miserably in that becuase the impact of rising oil prices would be "too harsh". And investing in research is now no longer something popular--- neve rmind that most industries in existance today can than government research for their existance.

You cannot just "economic away" things like pollution or global warming. You can use economic tools to manipulate things toward a solution, but that requires a concerted effort of intelligence intstead of folks thumbing their noses because they have money and power and most 'ologists don't... and so in their world are stupid dumbasses.


tzor wrote: If you want to increase the wages of all, you need to increase the demand of people wanting people to work for them while keeping the supply of laborers constant. Increasing wages while unemployment is still high is like getting energy from nowhere or living on a mountain of Upsidasium.

Not at the bottom. If your theory were correct, we would not have slavery or people working in extremely dangerous conditions or other abuses.

Laws are not to control honest and decent business people, they are to keep the nasty jerks from being so abusive and getting advantages over the more honest folks.

Laws are ALSO for seeing that people gaining from other people don't pass on the risk and damage onto others. When employers say "its OK to pay $7.35 because that person gets medicaid, housing subsidies, etc, etc,... it means WE, not he is paying for that employee.. and we are not gaining more than a few cents, not even generally a real income tax because most of the money in that business will be classed as "investment" or written off in various ways.


A basic minimum wage sets the field in an honest way. No one denies that it takes more than $7.35 an hour to get by. Pretending it is OK to do so means you are supporting the welfare state, not opposing it.
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