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Seattle Approves $15 Per Hour Minimum Wage
An anonymous reader writes "The Seattle City Council announced on Monday that it has unanimously approved a $15 per hour minimum wage mandate. The new rate will go into effect starting April 1, 2015 in a tiered, gradual manner that depends on employer size. In the first year of implementation, hourly minimum wage will be raised to either $10 or $11 according to the employer size category. By 2021, hourly minimum wage across the board should be at or above $15. Seattle is the first city to implement a living wage for its lowest earners."
$15 per hour is barely a livable wage currently; there's no way it will be in 2021.
And the masses cried out, "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0!"
$15 will be the new $7.50
All your 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 are belong to us
I hope everyone on Seattle loves to interact with machines rather than people. That is what you will experience at McFastFoods, Starcoffee, and any other unskilled labored job.
Unfortunately this will hit teenagers the most. Contrary to what the supports of the home cherry pick, those who earn minimum wage have the least amount of experience. In other words, young people. And while the law will make some exception for teenager salaries, with the addition of all the enhanced automation, you'll have a city with a high population of unemployed teens which causes a different set of issues.
I hope I'm wrong and this turns out to be a good thing. It's nice to see a community try something different so everyone can learn from the experience.
Your math is off, 0x15 = 21
Not hex? What do you mean?
In Sweden we have no minimum wage. We're said to be one of the richest countries in the world, but there is a dark underground that very few speak about, and that is about all those people who work for LESS than the US call "minimum wage". It may sound like a joke to you (especially if you read the numbers), but I can assure you - it is not. When I was new to Sweden, I had to work for LESS than minimum wage as a substitute teacher in some small city. Substitute teachers have no rights, receive only what they can negotiate (which is usually very little, and we compete with foreigners and FAS3...gov. unemployed activity candidates) for the scraps.
The same thing with burger flippers, and now also train-personnel (they're currently on STRIKE in Sweden right now, for the rights to work full-time instead of being paid by the hour and shared amongst many desperate job seekers).
This seems to be the net outcome of the society we've chosen today, to let the few have 80% of our assets, and the rest just work as slaves for the 10-20% rich elite. I must stress that I am not a socialist or communist by a long shot, but there is something wrong with a society that can't pay their workers a proper wage.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
as a small business owner, I predict these outcomes:
1. More long-term unemployed adults will apply for these jobs, pushing teens out of work. (Most businesses would rather hire an adult than a teen.)
2. Few will want to work full time at $15, because it will mean that they lose SNAP eligibility.
3. The price of burgers and lattes will go up.
In the first year of implementation, hourly minimum wage will be raised to either $10 or $11 according to the employer size category. By 2021, hourly minimum wage across the board should be at or above $15. Seattle is the first city to implement a living wage for its lowest earners
Santa Fe has had a living wage since 2003, presently at $10.66. San Francisco implemented a living wage shortly thereafter, presently at $10.74. I'm sure there are others at this point.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
I think A/C meant that Ox number 15 goes in circles, with a little trail following.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
They've just promised that some other group of politicians will raise it years from now?
This seems to be the way so many new laws work: they're delayed until after the next election, so today's politicos can take the praise for passing the law, and the new bunch will be the ones in power when the problems become apparent.
The price of burgers and lattes will go up.
Nah. With interest rates at roughly 0%, this will just accelerate automation of low-skilled jobs.
If it works at $15 why wouldn't it work at $100?
Of course, it doesn't work at $15, or any other price. Sure, it helps those who manage to keep their jobs, but everyone else... well... http://reason.com/blog/2014/05...
Thank you, gullible tool, for helping us propagate the message that earning a living wage is bad for workers.
Your friends,
The One Percent
Pull your head outta your ass for 2 sec and understand the problem, the new pay for employee's gets pasted on to customers a lot of them are ones making that 15$ an hour which makes their wage increase less helpful, plus if company wants to minimize the increase in their prices they have 2 options, stop hiring or fire some people. doing massive pay hikes ends up doing as much or more harm then it help's and turns in nothing more the something politicians use in their coming campaign
Then you have bunch of the best doing the jobs and everyone who is not feasible to hire for that $15/hr is simply put onto government support.
When you're selling hot dogs at the side of the street, if you set the price at $0, you'll lose money, and if you set the price at $100000, you'll lose money, but if you set the price at $3, you might make money?
You can't reductio ad absurdum a minimum wage like that.
As a difficult-to-implement experiment, I'd love to see what actually happens (I know what people of various political stripes will predict happens; I want to see reality tried and I want to see it tried a few times in different cultures so we aren't extrapolating from a single datapoint) when you combine Mincome that met the "living wage" criteria, with abolishing the minimum wage.
Since everybody now makes Mincome, the living wage is no longer a factor and that knocks out the key motivation behind a minimum wage. Therefore, in principle, you can hire your fast food vendors at 50 cents an hour. Provided you can find them, of course, since if they have a livable wage, they don't have "sheer desperation" as a motivator to get a low-paying job -- but so long as the entire economy doesn't collapse to the point that the mincome is unsustainable, I'd view that as a positive change, not a negative. Job experience might be a motivator, though, and anyway a living wage isn't exactly a luxury wage -- somebody who made $10 an hour might be perfectly willing to work the same job at $2 an hour to effectively push their income up and save up for that xbox or whatever. Maybe shit job wages go down, maybe they go up, maybe it depends on the industry -- there are factors pushing in both directions.
Meanwhile, the mincome wouldn't be completely irrelevant to the lives of the relatively high-paid tech workers (obviously this varies with geography), but it wouldn't be an overriding concern either. It gives a bit more power to the worker in that they can be confident that their family won't starve if they quit in outrage or if a prospective employer calls the employee's bluff in a salary negotiation.
I know the mincome concept makes a lot of people grind their teeth just on the face of it (COMMUNISM LEADS TO DEAD BABIEZ!), but among other things it's about the only practical way to realize the theory of having truly no minimum wage at all. Bluntly, even slaves cost money to keep alive -- that expense combined with the limited hours in a day generates an effective wage floor even without the law, in the absence of some other income source like a parent or spouse or independent wealth or rampant theft.
I'll just leave this here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
School. Go back. Now!
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
I like how they conflate "minimum" and "living". The quoted councilman is doing it for effect, obviously, but it's not the same thing, and it won't be.
Jobs which currently exist, and are not worth paying for under the new wage will either go away, or become "sidework". This is how "sidework" started in the food service industries in the first place, after the minimum wage bumped to the point that it was no longer profitable enough to employ full time bus boys. It's why your tables don't get bussed by someone other than the waiter/waitress at even mid scale restaurants these days, and why in the higher end restaurants with bus staff, they tend to be paid out of shared tips from the wait staff at the lower end of high end places, or make minimum wage at the higher end.
Other jobs which are nice-but-not-strictly-necessary just won't get done. This is why your typical store owner doesn't have a kid washing down the sidewalk at the start of the day, and why the parking lot at the strip mall near your house looks like the inside of a dumpster, until the minimal cleaning work by local ordinance can be carried out by a street sweeper service that hits the parking lots of the local businesses as little as legally possible to get away with.
There will be jobs going away over this for sure. It will be interesting to watch how this plays out over time; I don't expect most other cities to be following this model, and I don't expect state adoption any time soon in Washington.
I hope that it is because someone has done the maths and worked out how much it costs to LIVE (rent at shared flat + food + bills) in Seattle and based it on that. Alas that is not the case in the UK, where the minimum wage is £6.30 (~$10) and the cost to live in the capital means it should be ~£8.50 (~$15). Given Seattle is a large city I'd suggest that $15 is (give or take) a living wage.
If you don't agree with a minimum wage - Cool. Tell us why without the fucking "WHY NOT A BAZILLION AN HOUR!" shit. Does this mean you can not afford to employ as many staff as before? Are you scared that your job will be replaced with a robot or off-shored to India?
Still further there is the even more ignorant people that believe that not only should there be a minimum, but that it should be a "living wage" -- because all work that must be done must also be worth enough to afford a nice cozy life.
Whoa, back the horse up. A living wage is not about a "nice cozy life". It is about not having to choose between eating and paying the rent. Believe it or not, there are some people in this country that have to make that decision. Why should anyone have to work 2-3 jobs just to survive when corporate profits are at an all time high?
Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
"So broken the rest of the world already does it..."
You seriously believe that? You should visit the far east, india or africa sometime and wise up.
this is what makes me angry about people bitching about minimum wage increases. there are *so* many countries with much higher minimum wages that you could quite easily look at to see the result of said changes.
here's a hint, the worse off are much less so.
This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
is it? that's about australia's minimum wage and the sun seems to be still shining over here.
This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
First you get (...) Then, when that's done, they move on to (...) Then, of course, they'll have to (...) Then, eventually, they'll (...)
Thank you for a textbook example of the slippery slope fallacy.
Just kidding, those are so common as to be plain boring these days.
Gravitation is a theory, not a fact.
That sounds like more of a problem with economists.
Horation, there's a lot more in Heaven and Earth than see-sawing financial computations. If enough people are in enough economic misery, they will eventually resort to non-economic means as an attempt to remedy their situation.
So for any economic system to work in the real world, it must allow for the fact that there are practical limits to what can be tolerated before people start breaking market curves and jumping up and down on the pieces.
At the moment, the trend has been to leech money out of the masses and into the hands of the few (a/k/a 1%) aided and abetted by productivity gains, the abolishment of many traditional trade barriers and the ability to arbitrage labor costs to countries with lower standards of living. When the many were relatively well-off, that wasn't a concern. However, with all the recent downward pressure on average wage-earner salaries, we're getting some seriously dissatisfied voter/taxpayers. Whereas a minimum-wage job used to be for kids under someone else's support and society's "losers", it's now becoming a nightmare for people used to a superior standard of living and they don't like the idea.
Jacking up the minumum wage may not be the optimal solution, but no one seriously expects to see the wealth come trickling down any more. Poverty definitely bubbles up - I've got home repairs to do and until I get paid, the repair people wont, but the reverse direction has had about 30 years of varying economic conditions and the only trickle has been a thin yellow stream.
It's for certain that someone who makes 400x the average worker's pay isn't going to buy 400x as much toilet paper, 400x as many McDonalds hamburgers or 400x as many Barbie dolls for their kids. So if natural market forces isn't going to do the job you have to expect that people are going to experiment with alternate solutions. Because if 400 people get just a little more in their pockets, they are a lot more likely to buy those hamburgers and Barbie dolls and they won't have to use their paychecks as emergency toilet paper.
In my country a 15$/hour wage would be a dream come true for most. I work at a large firm, and I'm one of the best paid employees of the company, and even I get paid less than that. And the actual prices are not significantly different than in the US. Some things cost more, some things cost less. For example an US Gallon of petrol is about 6.6USD right now. So how in the word is it possible that in the US 15/hour is barely a living wage? How wasteful a life are you living there seriously?
no serious economist? at *worst* economists are 50/50 on the subject, so you can shove that BS right back where it came from.
This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
If you have spent the past few years busting your ass at a job, and managed to make your way to $14/hr (say, you got promoted to a manager position at a restaraunt)... then what? Do you essentially go back to making minimum wage? Do you now make, as a manager, the same hourly wage as the dishwasher? Increasing the minimum wage is great for people that already make it, but I have always felt like it has screwed those who have worked hard to get a few raises over minimum wage.
Certainly the rent in "poor neighborhoods" will go up, yes.
Not sure the rents in my area will go up, because contrary to popular slashdot belief, almost nobody actually makes minimum wage.
"His name was James Damore."
You're uninformed and have a vastly over-sized opinion of your own knowledge. Plenty of very credible economists support the idea of a minimum wage, in fact many support a minimum wage nearly 50% higher than the current US minimum wage source here
You know when you see 'stupid' people saying they don't see why doctors, lawyers, scientists, programmers etc get paid so much because they don't understand what they do and thus think it must be easy? That's like you commenting on what 'serious' economists think when you clearly haven't got a fucking clue.
However I doubt that your point is that Seattle shouldn't do this because it isn't done in east, india or africa...?
It is what it is.
What we really need is a maximum wage; a maximum amount of annual income -- from any source -- that a person can make. This maximum amount should be tied to the median income or some such so that if the rich and powerful want to increase their earning limit, they have to do things that will benefit all of society instead of hurting all of society.
Too much of the economy's lifeblood (i.e. money) is sequestered in the bank accounts of the ultra-wealthy, which a) stalls the economy, and b) gives a disproportionate amount of socio-political power to those individuals. The current vast difference in wealth is as damaging to the human race as things like racism, homophobia, nationalism, etc. (if not more so), and people really need to realize this.
There is an entire class of people that most of society never sees, but which has a profound impact on their lives...and our current economic setup promotes sociopaths and psychopaths into this class. These people have the economic power and the self-centered focus to literally destroy the planet. This situation has to be rectified.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
This is why we HAVE states... Let Washington do something crazy*, and the rest of us will sit back and see how the crazy works out for their economy. I would expect either higher prices, or a rash of (eg.) fast-food restaurants closing.
If it goes bad for them, we don't have to go down that hole. If the predictions are off, then everyone else can adopt a significantly higher wage. The effort to get this across the country would be stupid and dangerous.
* Actually, to be fair this is only just BARELY crazy... Washington has higher cost of living than many states, and employees won't get the full $15 for several years, now. California's $10 minimum wage works fine, but a $15 minimum wage in Canute, Oklahoma would be downright ridiculous.
I also object to the "living wage" bullshit. A single mother with 10 kids in NYC isn't going to get by on her own, with any job... While a young, single guy renting a room in a small town, could be pretty comfortable with a part-time, $5/hour job. The only way to establish a "living wage" is to switch to full-fledged socialism, where jobs don't pay a fixed rate, but give you however much you need. I suppose "company towns" could make that kind of thing work, too, if those in charge so desired.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Communism leads to dead retirees if not babies, dear. They are on a fixed income. Seattle has just doubled what it will cost them to go out for a dinner or a coffee. If all they get is social security you've just constrained them to their homes. Oh wait, they can't even live there because the prices of the food they eat are going to go up. The prices of the gasoline they use to get out of the city to saner purchasing climes goes up. All prices go up. How about making sure those on a Social Security income have their income go up accordingly?
If the current minimum wage is not worth working to receive why do people work? They have welfare to fall back upon? It sets a very effective and practical minimum wage? Oh, you say these are young people of school age trying to build up work resumes of any kind possible so they can move on to better paying jobs? Hm, will they be able to get the resume job (hey, he actually is willing to work) with the higher cost for their unproven (or proven barely adequate) labor?
Minimum wage has a lot of "feel good" associated with it. Now sit down and build the logic tree for what happens next, with real people involved not fantasy idealized people.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
{^_^}
You are under the assumption that all jobs must generate wealth. Look at a janitor, how much wealth is this guy generating. Are people going to buy more just because the toilets are clean? What about school districts, are the janitors mopping the floor making the school any money? Maybe we should just fire all the janitors because if they don't produce wealth, they must be useless.
What about cashiers?
What about Middle Management?
How much money to these people directly generate vs how much their paid? A good cashier can process more customers in a shorter amount of time generating more dollars per minute income for a store and yet typically get paid shit wages. The average HR middle manager is just a useless paper pusher and get paid pretty damn well, even better than the engineers, developers, and laborers who actually *make* products the company sells.
Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
The way to implement the experiment is to abolish the minimum wage entirely, and then leave it abolished since it will achieve the natural price for labor value.
We already tried slavery, feudalism, indentured servitude, company towns/stores, debt bondage, wage slavery... these are the labor systems that arise when you don't enforce paying laborers enough to keep them independent of their employer... aka "a living wage."
Maybe the problem is you don't understand what "living wage" really means.
=Smidge=
Cherry picking at its best.
7 nobel economists? You can probably also find 7 that say murder is OK. There have been something like 80 economics prizes awarded since 1969, so yay for getting less than 10% to endorse your theory.
"His name was James Damore."
Are Sweden's elite also telling all of you that you could be living in India and you should shut up?
That's what Ive decided what I'm going to do: pretend I'm living in India.
I will not consume like an American. I will pretend I'm dirt poor.
Basically, I will not all those things the elite sells to us little people.
New car? Nope. Mines 20 years old and works fine.
New TV? Nope.
New computer? Ditto. Although, Internet has become a necessity in the States - shitty internet speeds too - like a Third World country.
I'm eating less and less meat - cut out red meat totally.
And it goes on.
Fuck'em. They want to play it that way, I'll give them their wish.
I'm also thinking of getting a band of kids dressed in rages to surround limos on Park Avenue to beg for money.
Another person that measures wealth in dollar signs....
Let me repeat what you have surely already been told numerous times. Wealth is not measured by the quantity of currency. Wealth is measured by the quantity of goods and services that can be enjoyed.
Every time you try to justify your argument using the idea that the richest wont consume "400x as much [goods and services]" you have lost because you are failing to address the point you were trying to justify. You are trying to claim that those that earn minimum wage do not enjoy much goods and services, but never once attempt to show that they don't enjoy much goods and services.
In your attempt to do so, its then OK to start counting currency, but only because you are then relating currency to what wealth really is.
"His name was James Damore."
Imagine the minimum wage is $100/hour. There's a massive number of job which simply do not produce that much wealth per hour - they cannot exist, because to offer that job to someone is to lose money. All those jobs disappear.
Setting aside the stupidity of $100/hr minimum wage... (I mean, why not $1,000,000/hr right?)
The jobs that people do for under $15/hr still need to be done. Not every job produces wealth. Nobody gets rich by having clean floors, or mowed lawns, or bagged groceries. However, these are examples of tasks that arguable have to be done by someone, and the cost of not having them done can, at least in some cases, be argued to be greater than $15/hr.
The same applies to jobs that "do not produce that much wealth" - they still need to be done. Either you pay someone $15/hr to flip burgers, or you stop selling burgers and go out of business. Don't want to go out of business? Pay the $15/hr and increase your prices by the ten cents or whatever it averages out to be. What a goddamn stupid argument you're making.
I'd rather pay an extra buck for a trip to the local fast food place than have my tax dollars end up subsidizing the employees through food stamps and housing because they're barely paid enough to afford the same food they cook all day.
=Smidge=
OK so some businesses will not be able to either give up some profit or raise prices to accommodate the higher wages... they go belly up. But then whatever services they provided will be unavailable & someone will jump in & fill that gap. It's hard to believe the claims of job losses tied to the minimum wage.
SLOWER TRAFFIC KEEP RIGHT
You're demonstrably full of shit. McDonalds could DOUBLE their wages and completely pay for it by raising the price of a big mac less than 75 cents. There's also the issue of, yknow, literally every single other first world country on the face of the earth objectively disproving your bullshit claims.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
no employer will take a risk on them at that wage level.
This is such a silly concept. If the employer needs someone in order to make its business work, then it will hire someone. It's not a matter of choice, no employer likes having extra people just sitting around - that's wasteful at any price. A need for employees creates new jobs. This is the only thing that creates new jobs.
You say that this will reduce job opportunities for those who are less educated, but the reality is that the employer is going to get the best / most appropriate employee that it can no matter what the job is and no matter what the salary. The only point at which salary actually factors into this is when the business is just barely scraping by and may not be able to afford the employees that it needs. So this may be bad news for some already failing businesses, but that's it - everyone else benefits. Whether it's the employees who are now making more money, or the non-failed businesses who are selling more product because the people who buy their products now have more money.
The liberals are not pushing for the increase in minimum wage because of the people who earn it but because of all the poeple who make a higher salary that is tied to the minimum wage.
So you will now have a bunch of people get a similar percent increase in salaries, which will then push those not tied to have a an increase in salary. If you are currently making $15 an hour you will not want to stay making that when the minimum wage is $15, you will be looking for $20-$24 jobs. That keeps pushing up until it does affect your area.
I notice you didn't actually refute his argument, asshole. How about you stop being a flaimbaiting troll and refute his argument? Oh, wait, that would require you to not be a fuckwit tool.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Well and while you are here whining and not making any better suggestions, Seattle went ahead and decided for one of the not-so-great options and they decided employees deserve more rights than big, fat corporations in that case.
You thought these topics are easy to solve and the solutions should be clean cut and perfect? I thought you said you were on both sides of that discussion.
"Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." - Mark Twain
That's actually a flat out lie. All studies refute what you just said. Actually common knowledge refutes what you just said. When a business needs one additional hire they don't hire two people just because labor is cheap and they can afford it. They still hire just ONE. Low wages DO NOT CREATE JOBS. I'm so sick of hearing this lie repeated...
LOW WAGES DO NOT CREATE JOBS. GIVING WEALTHY PEOPLE MORE MONEY DOES NOT CREATE JOBS. HAVING MORE PEOPLE THAT CAN AFFORD A SECOND PAIR OF SHOES CREATES JOBS.
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
thats been tried at full scale in USSR and Mao's China. lets not try that again.
Surely no true Scotsman would ever endorse minimum wage!
Hold my beer and watch this!
Did you just use the cost of rent in Oklahoma as a variable in the cost of living in Seattle? Even if you've never been there you must have some idea of what it costs to live there. A two bedroom apartment is two thousand dollars. Now run your numbers chief.
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
Thank you for a textbook example of the slippery slope fallacy
Funnily enough, his "slippery slope" is a reality already, or have you forgotten the recent initiative in Switzerland that tried to create a maximum wage?
(luckily, the voters rejected it)
Its people that arent paying any attention that so often call things "slippery slopes" when in reality the slope isnt just slippery, there is also someone pushing you down it.
"His name was James Damore."
Keep in mind that a family would qualify for SNAP and rent support also.
Translation: the employer can only get away with paying only $7.50 because the government makes up the difference between that and a realistic wage. Benefits without minimum living wage == state subsidy of industry. Still, don't worry, if you look around enough you'll be able to find someone faking disability to parade in front of the media, and prevent people asking awkward questions about how much taxpayers money goes to allowing working people to survive on unliveable wages.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Wealth is not measured by the quantity of currency...
What a crock of shit. Stop repeating this wealth is absolute bullshit perpetuated by paid-for-by-the-super-rich "think tanks". It is a lie. You have been informed. Research and don't lie again.
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
$15 per hour is barely a livable wage currently; there's no way it will be in 2021.
$15/hour is approximately $30,000 per year. If you can't figure out how to live on $30,000 per year then you are utterly clueless and/or spoiled. No it won't be a posh lifestyle but it's certainly enough to get by and it will be in 6.5 years too baring economic catastrophe.
If you don't agree with a minimum wage - Cool. Tell us why without the fucking "WHY NOT A BAZILLION AN HOUR!" shit.
why? can't handle logic? fairly typical for socialist puppets.
Thats because minimum wages don't cause inflation but a one time price raise at best.
"we are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further."
Hello, I am from the city government. We have heard your complaints about how hard it is to make a living selling hot dogs, so we have a solution. From now on, all hot dog stands must sell their hot dogs for no less than $20.00 each. We are sure the loss of customers will be offset by the increase in price.
Do you now see the problem with your argument?
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
I have a better way to implement "Your Master"'s (YM) experiment. YM goes out and gets a hot dog cart and starts selling hot dogs and let's the market set the price. Then, YM hires someone to sell hotdogs from that cart at Seattle's minimum wage and then has to not lose money or shut down the cart while keeping his employee and not breaking the law. He can report back every day with the results.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Raising Walmart's minimum by ~50% would result in 1.1% price increases
Which is complete bullshit if you actually understand accounting. (Disclosure - I am a cost accountant in my day job) You'll note that the article you linked to has no actual analysis attached. If you actually look at Walmart's financial statements and information about their financials you would find that Walmart has around 2.2 million employees with an average unburdened wage of $12.83. That means they pay around $55 Billion in wages each year which amounts to around 15% of their costs. That means that if you increase wages by 50% you would be adding $27.5 Billion in cost to the company each year which is significantly greater than the 2014 Net profit. Increasing wages by 50% would make Walmart instantly unprofitable.
I'm not even counting the cost of lost sales from the increased prices or the increased burden (overhead) costs that come with paying higher wages. So no, the effect would be FAR greater than 1.1%. You might want to actually check your sources instead of just accepting uninformed (or disingenuous) assertions at face value. I don't have any problem with increasing the minimum wage but don't be stupid about what the impact might be.
"So broken the rest of the world already does it..."
You seriously believe that? You should visit the far east, india or africa sometime and wise up.
I bet lots of US companies would love to get away with the kind of shit foxxcon does. Is that how you see the ideal job market? Why does it seem that a lot of Americans (some of you seem sane) want nothing more than to be rich and don't give a shit if everyone else is dirt poor. The 'company' seems to have most consideration for it's right to exist and make massive profits while employees are little better than chattel and that's fucked up.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Where the neighborhood of Fremont has a statue of Lenin, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Lenin,_Seattle) and people have voted in an openly-socialist council woman (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/seattles-socialist-councilwoman-on-why-capitalism-offers-nothing-for-young-people/).
It's trendy up there... (http://www.socialism.com/drupal-6.8/seattle)
"Now, I doubt any of you would prefer a rolled up newspaper as a weapon against a dictator or a criminal intruder."
I.E. -> Those "1%-ers" ARE "the problem" in that not only does capital underutilization occur due to hoarding money essentially, but NEVER using it ... but those 1% hoarders ALONE could never, EVER, spend as much as the masses would .
I suspect that a lot of that money is fairy gold that would disappear if it were ever spent. What do you think would happen, say, to the MS share price if Bill Gates just dumped all his shares on the market?
I'm not sure the problem with wages is so much the billionaire's club (there may be other problems with that) as the large number of management/admin employees on mid 6-figure salaries, often receiving several times more money than even well-qualified employees 'below' them, let alone the janitor. Re-distributing some of those wages might make a difference.
I'd vary the GPs suggestion and have a maximum legal salary of (say) $100k, or maybe lower, with any benefits beyond that in the form of shares (with a strict minimum holding period) or other long-term profit-sharing schemes. These should satisfy strict criteria to ensure that they were genuinely dependent on medium/long term performance and carried significant risk (not the typical dollar-on-elastic share option scam).
I don't mind some people becoming rich. I do mind some people getting high-6-digit salaries for turning up to work and implementing short-term-ist slash & burn schemes.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
What business hires employees they don't need? If you lay people off because the minimum wage is raised, who takes over the work those people did?
Here's a contrived example to illustrate the point.
Let's say that Acme Inc has a low-skill job that can be performed equally well by either by a human or by a machine. Should Acme hire a worker to perform this job, or purchase a machine?
Answer: it depends on which costs more. Let's say that over the expected lifetime of the machine, the costs to operate it (purchase, maintenance, electricity, etc.) nets out to $15 per hour. Let's say that hiring a worker to perform the job costs $14.50 per hour at the current minimum wage of $7.25 per hour (including taxes and benefits and whatnot).
I actually run a business, and for me, I'd much rather hire a worker at $14.50 per hour than buy the machine at $15 per hour because while the machine really would only be able to perform the task that it was designed to perform, a human being is much more versatile and can be trained and can grow with my business.
But now we raise minimum wage to $15 per hour, which is really $30 per hour once you get done with taxes and benefits. As a business owner, this tradeoff looks very different to me. Now the employee costs twice what the machine costs. While I'd generally prefer to have an employee over a machine, in this case, I'd have to buy the machine and not hire the worker. I mean, it's twice the cost if I hire someone. I've got a family to feed. Not happening.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
LOW WAGES DO NOT CREATE JOBS.
Example of low wages creating jobs:
I hate mowing my lawn, if I can hire someone to do it at $10/hour, I'll do it. At $15/hour I can't afford to hire someone and I'll do it myself.
Example of high wage destroying jobs:
My labor cost goes up by 20% so it's now more cost effective to invest in a $200k machine that it is to hire 10 people.
But it's also worth noting that the jobs that are getting destroyed are the shit jobs where you are being treated like a half-machine already.
We would all be better off if all the repetitive jobs like cashier were eliminated and people could actually do jobs that they enjoy.
Whether this is possible is obviously subject to debate.
A 5% increase in the minimum wage could easily be 20% increase in costs.
I'm an accountant and that is pretty much nonsense. A 5% increase in wages cannot result in a >5% increase in costs. In the real world this is true even factoring in overhead because wages typically are significantly less than 100% of total cost. It would be correct to say that a 5% increase in wages could result in a 20% (or more) decrease in profit - that is certainly possible, particularly in a low margin business.
Out of mod points, just as I needed them.
Seattle and the internet, where facts are a hindrance to 'progress'.
No brain, no pain.
Apologists are boring too. His argument would only be fallacious if it weren't exactly what is being proposed by the left today. Obama: "I do think at a certain point you've made enough money."
This is an experiment. If Seattle's unemployment rate goes up, you MUST accept the fact that raising the minimum wage kills jobs. If it goes down, then you MUST accept the fact that you are living in some sort of magical fantasyland where economic laws don't apply, and should immediately set about breaking windows and starting nuclear wars with aliens to improve the economy.
Imagine if there were a minimum home price. Say, $75,000. Sounds reasonable, right? I mean, everyone should have a right to be able to sell their home for enough to buy another somewhere. But what about houses that aren't worth that much (so cruel, so judgmental!)? They just sit around, and the owners are literally stuck. Sort of like today's young workers, for whom the job market just keeps going up and up and up, leaving new household formation at all time lows. Instead of being able to get a job, they have to go to college and get a degree along with a lifetime of debt slavery, and often wind up with jobs that don't require degrees, and certainly don't pay enough to service the debt.
I take it you assume this person has no kids. It might surprise you to learn that if you're single and childless and making minimum wage ($7.25/hr at 2000 hrs/year=$14500 yearly income), you aren't part of Romney's 47%. Yep, you pay taxes to the fed, and presumably to the state as well. Here's a story about a woman making $12000/year and paying about $1300 in fed/state/ss/medicare. And that was before the payroll tax break expiration.
So how do you get out of paying taxes if you're making minimum wage? Well, it helps to have kids/be older/have a mortgage. But of course, if that's the case, then the balance sheet you've provided above is wildly obfuscatory, with childcare/medical expenses taking up the bulk of whatever's left after you pay your mortgage.
That's not to mention the fact that you're also assuming that this minimum wage job is a full-time gig. Usually they're part time, and the people holding them work two or more of them, meaning they're spending a decent chunk of money commuting. All this adds up to the most important fact: no savings. The reason that's so damn important is that one little slip-up (car runs over a nail, you slip a disc in your spine, etc.) and all of a sudden, you're running around to high-interest predatory creditors, which isn't exactly a path to financial freedom. That, and since minimum wage jobs are so replaceable, if any emergency happens, you're likely to be unceremoniously fired.
I could go on about how being poor isn't all sunshine and rainbows, but frankly, I think it's kind of ridiculous that I should have to. If it's really as cozy as some people say it is, they certainly have the option of trying it on for size. Hell, it's much easier to become poor than it is to become rich. So why isn't everyone doing it? Because secretly, waaaaay deep down in their heart of hearts, they know it's a shit deal. I think that speaks volumes enough.
What about taxes, you assume in your math there are not any taxes, and while if you have kids or are that poor you can get away with little federal, you still got state. What about a car? In the US you need a car to get around except in large cities, where the rent is much higher. The median car payment is is $380, plus insurance, so about $450, well that ate up your left over and we still have not gotten to food/clothing/Utilities.. Electric bills are expensive as well, ranging from $75 up depending on time of year. Water bills, all these other things..
Look over the statement the ignorant one is you. You cherry pick your data without looking at the whole picture. Having worked for $15 an hour 10 years ago I can tell you I could not have made it if I did not life with other people. It is far from a cozy life style, and again that was 10 years ago.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Hmmm, I can afford to pay my workforce of 100 at an average of two dollars above the current minimum wage. The minimum wage doubles by decree. I can now afford to pay my workforce an average of six dollars below the minimum wage. I have to fire 40% of the workforce. But I don't have enough people to do the same work they were doing before, so I have to downsize. I lose my economy of scale. Costs rise. I have to fire another 40%, and so on, until it's just me trying to do the work of ten people, and making just enough to pay myself minimum wage.
And really? ALL studies? Like every single one? Right, Imma need a fucking citation on that one, mate.
Even if prices end up increasing by 10% but people's income increases by 20% then those people will be able to afford more items (and useful ones, like food and clothing)
And how exactly do you propose to ensure that people's income increases by more than prices? It's entirely possible for prices to increase 20% and income to go up only 10%. Inflation is significantly independent of whatever arbitrary wage level you desire. You can raise wages all you want but prices can just as easily rise faster than wages as they can slower.
Missed that in my econ class.
Guess I don't have enough sole.
No brain, no pain.
Natural resource rich economies can afford socialism, for a while. Eventually the phosphate runs out, and everyone loses their high wage jobs, and that's the end of it.
And in a capitalistic economy there is a direct relationship between the amount of money you have and the quantity of goods and services that you can enjoy, so once again you make a ridiculously simple and incorrect statement.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
You do know that people don't HAVE to pay rent, right? Teens CAN live with their parents. Adults can too, or they can get roommates.
Also, if you just work for a few hours at $5 an hour, you can afford to eat for a week, if you have the time to cook.
Seriously, you think starvation is a problem in America? Are you nuts?
You can't solve the federal reserve's redistribution of wealth to banks and corporations with more wealth redistribution. If you want to solve the problem of wealth disparity, you have to END MONEY PRINTING.
Ordinarily. But Walmart is the 900-lb gorilla. It's more like their competitors have to drop expenses to compete with Walmart.
Not that much. Walmart is the price leader but the margin of their lead isn't huge. Target and several others are pretty close and it wouldn't take much to make Walmart's prices higher than some of their biggest competitors.
Logical fallacy at its best, but with all the other fallacies.. Your statement was that no serious economists would support it, which was in itself a logical fallacy, then when pointed out that at least 7 do support it you start making up random number, and assume that only those 7 are about of that subset that support it. All while ignoring that they were 7 US prize winners out of a pool that consists of the entire world.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Americans NEVER seem to look at other countries. No matter what you're discussing, health care, gun laws, wages, whatever, they always speculate wildly about what might happen if. Never mind that much of the rest of the world has already tried it and found it works pretty well.
"At the moment, the trend has been to leech money out of the masses and into the hands of the few"
Yes.
" aided and abetted by productivity gains, the abolishment of many traditional trade barriers and the ability to arbitrage labor costs to countries with lower standards of living."
No, this is absolutely wrong. It has been caused 100% by central bank money printing. The corporations that are thriving right now are those with government contracts or are closely related to the banks. These are the organizations that see freshly printed money FIRST, and thus get to buy stuff before prices adjust to the new inflation. This is redistribution of wealth from the bottom to the top. Total productivity per productive (private sector) worker has risen, but that productivity has been countered by the rise of a class of non-productive worker who gets paid far more than anyone else, ie bankers and government workers.
But you won't understand. Not one man in a million can. At least that is what Keynes thought:
"Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security, but at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth. Those to whom the system brings windfalls, beyond their deserts and even beyond their expectations or desires, become 'profiteers,' who are the object of the hatred of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished, not less than of the proletariat. As the inflation proceeds and the real value of the currency fluctuates wildly from month to month, all permanent relations between debtors and creditors, which form the ultimate foundation of capitalism, become so utterly disordered as to be almost meaningless; and the process of wealth-getting degenerates into a gamble and a lottery. Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose."
If almost no one makes minimum wage then this increase will not be an issue, especially since it is not an all at once increase.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Those Zimbabweans sure were rich then, I guess. Starving trillionaires and such.
Oh, so they ONLY have to raise prices 25%? Yeah, that's not going to hurt anyone already barely scraping by on a fixed income.
AKA the fastest growing economies in the world.
I think that 7 Nobel economists are more than enough to argue against the claim that "no serious economist supports the minimum wage", especially when that claim backed up by... nothing. And if you keep reading passed the headline, you will also see a reference to a survey of economists that shows that opinions on the effect of minimum wage is a lot more divided than you made it out to be.
The point is that the only way to not pay those taxes for this hypothetical person is for he/she to have a kid or 2, but none of that was taken into account in his scenario, therefore you have to assume taxes, at even a base rate..
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Actually:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCQQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bls.gov%2Fcps%2Fminwage2011.htm&ei=SsyNU4m-H8e-sQSEy4GIAg&usg=AFQjCNGhmyPob_eopcXz8n3WS6t3aqWgZw&bvm=bv.68191837,d.cWc
In 2011, 73.9 million American workers age 16 and over were paid at hourly rates, representing 59.1 percent of all wage and salary workers. Among those paid by the hour, 1.7 million earned exactly the prevailing Federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.
1.7 million is not almost nobody, unless you have a really strange definition of the word almost.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Multiple fail on your part. First, "no serious economist" is a "No True Scotsman" fallacy. Second, abolishing the minimum wage to achieve the natural price of labor would only work in an ideal world where labor is 100% fluid. Yes, one can change jobs. Realistically, details like proximity to your home get in the way.
Did you know that we actually have done economic studies that show the impact of raising the minimum wage, and how little it actually helps the impoverished? According to a study published in the Southern Economic Journal in 2010, raising the federal minimum wage from then $7.25 to $9.50 would only benefit11.3% of those living in poverty, if you ignore any possible negative repercussions. However, coupled with negative employment effects, the conclusion is that it'd be a net loss.
I haven't seen a study yet that looked at raising the rates over 100% to $15, but I suspect that'd it'll end up even worse.
One of the concerns is that new unskilled workers - high schoolers and college kids - will be disproportionally targeted. After all, if your employment costs double, you can't risk someone with no proven work history when there's older, experienced individuals with responsibilities who can't afford to mess up a job around.
Another impact is that non-national chain stores will be severely impacted. Sole proprietorships - the Ma and Pa stores of mythical Main Street USA - will take great hits. These businesses usually lack the flexibility to provide employment as a loss-leader, and often don't have the option of doubling their employment budget. They'll have to make do with less, or simply not operate as a business.
So where's the fix?
What a lot of this comes down to is what I feel is an incorrect assumption; that minimum wage jobs are life-long careers, and that we intend for someone to work as an unskilled laborer for their entire life. The Brookings institute did a study/a - which does not prove causation, you know the drill - that showed that if a person could graduate highschool, get a full time job, and avoid marriage until after 21, they had only a 2% chance of living below the poverty line. In other words, analyzing the current population, that 15-20% that are living below the poverty line, 98% of them did not do at least one of those things.
There's heavy selection bias here, where the lifestyles that lead to success may coincidentally include these 3 goals, but that's part of the point.
We need to focus on education and long term planning - especially financial - and encourage a strong work ethic. Reducing the ability for highschool-aged folks to get jobs is almost the direct opposite direction. We need to focus on providing a path to skilled labor, blue or white collar, and realize that unskilled labor is primarily the domain of those just entering the workforce, not someone who's been in it for years.
2. Few will want to work full time at $15, because it will mean that they lose SNAP eligibility.
Assuming they work full time, but I see your point.
No beer and no TV make Homer something something
We could sit here and just theorize about what's going to happen but...this is a rare clear cut chance to see the effects of an above estimated living wage minimum wage. Who else is excited? Maybe we can learn from what goes wrong and apply a modified technique to cities with similar demographics?
We're all STEM workers here. Where's the excitement?
No beer and no TV make Homer something something
Even at the median rent level, a worker that earns $8/hour
All of your numbers seem to magically assume a full-time job. Hint: many people who work at or near minimum wage don't have full-time jobs. They thus often don't get benefits, which means they don't get time off for illness or anything, which means you need to factor in lost wages when they can't make it to work.
When the GP says they have to cobble together 2-3 jobs, it's often 2-3 independent part-time jobs, which together often don't add up to 1 full-time job in terms of total wages. And to keep said jobs, you often have to work whenever you're demanded to, which might mean working two full shifts in one day some days, and nothing other days. Unless at least one boss is willing to be flexible, it will be difficult to hold onto more than one job, too.
If some of the jobs are seasonal or dependent on the weather or a service job where you only get called in when things are busy, expect to go through significant periods where you're making a lot less than full-time on that minimum wage.
will still have $450/month left over for food, clothing, etc.
The median rent level shouldn't be taken as a cost of living for any particular area in the U.S. -- obviously in most big cities, the median rent for the city will likely be higher than the U.S. overall. Also, unless you have dependents, you're probably going to pay at least some income tax with that sort of income -- not a lot, but it could still decrease your monthly discretionary spending by maybe $30-50/month (maybe more), which is a significant percentage of $450.
However, let's assume your numbers for the moment. Have you ever had to live on something close to minimum wage in a big city? There are a LOT of things that have to fit into that "$450/month left over for food, clothing, etc." It's not just "etc."
Do you need a car to get to your job? Insurance alone in a big city for a young person (most likely to be working at minimum wage) might cost you $100-200/month, not to mention fuel, maintenance, and a car payment. It's pretty difficult to imagine a situation where you could own a car for less than $100/month in a city. And if you don't have a car, you might have less flexibility about where and when you can work, or whether you'd be able to get between jobs efficiently. So you end up with a commuter pass for public transport instead of a car, which might also cost ~$100/month. (If you don't have a car, though, you might occasionally need to pay for transportation to get to somewhere unusual that you can't get to by public transport.) So, let's say at least $100/month for transport, probably at least $200/month if you really need a car.
Next let's talk about utilities. It helps to have a phone, if you want to actually be able to get calls to come in for a job. Even if you go with the cheapest landline, combine it with heat and electricity, it seems doubtful you're going to get away with less than $100/month total for utilities. Don't think there's going to be much left over for a cell phone or cable tv/internet.
Now you have to budget for miscellaneous expenses, like doctor and dental bills. If you're healthy, great. I know Obamacare is supposed to give poor people health insurance, but so far I get the impression it's mostly catastrophic health insurance unless you pay a higher premium (too high for your budget). Let's suppose you get a magic subsidy that gives you minimal coverage without any premium (most people this would also add a signfiicant expense to your budget as well, potentially thousands of dollars per year). If you just get sick, or have a toothache, be prepared to pay at least something out of pocket. On the low end, you might be able to get away with budgeting only $10-20/month for this, but if you have any health problems, you might need to budget a lot more.
What about other miscellaneous expenses? Need a haircut? Get your
$75/hour? Really?
I mean, I wouldn't turn it down, but that's $150,000 a year. (before taxes, and assuming a 40-hour work week, 50 weeks a year)
I don't think my parents made that between them, and they had a family of six. It's not exactly reasonable to call that a 'living wage'. (For the record, the 2014 poverty line for a family of four is $23,850.)
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
I think part of that has to do with how big and physically isolated America is, and the other half is due to propaganda. Either individually wouldn't be very effective.
Since many Americans never venture beyond our borders, every country besides Canada seems exotic to many Americans and by extension, can't really teach us much. "They did this in France and it worked out just fine" would get you the knee jerk response of "Yeah, but France is totally different." You may as well be trying to use Harry Potter's universe as an example for economic policy.
To speculate more, the segment of the population most convinced of American exceptionalism is also the segment most likely to be getting their information entirely from corporate propaganda sources. Health care, gun laws, and wages all are issues which buisiness interests dictate to such people. Health insurance companies ran an effective FUD campaign leading to health care reform that gave them nearly everything they wanted, there was barely a whisper of "public option." The gun industry has gotten people to believe that firearms are an important part of their culture that is under attack by some nefarious conspiracy, and it somehow equates to their freedom, leading to the NRA being the unstoppable juggernaut that it is. Walmart and other employers didn't have to work very hard because they have an army that already listens entirely to them and has no real-world experience which could contradict their narrative.
Don't even bring up absolute poverty, not even remotely relevant here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...
"Social scientists, particularly political scientists and sociologists, have cited 'relative deprivation' (especially temporal relative deprivation) as a potential cause of social movements and deviance, leading in extreme situations to political violence such as rioting, terrorism, civil wars and other instances of social deviance such as crime."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
Sure, there is no issue with starvation in the US http://www.worldhunger.org/art....
People can live with other people, but typically they still have to pay rent, at least for adults. Roommates are not going to allow them to live there for free.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Every worker by definition gets a living wage, because the dead don't work.
Job experience might be a motivator, though, and anyway a living wage isn't exactly a luxury wage -- somebody who made $10 an hour might be perfectly willing to work the same job at $2 an hour to effectively push their income up and save up for that xbox or whatever.
I suspect workplace safety and conditions would generally go up as well. When it is a choice between cutting corners to not get fired or watching your kid starve to death, workers are faced with a tough choice. When the choice is between some disposable income and not losing your hands, the choice is easier. When the employer is only paying a few bucks an hour and the employee isn't desperate they also need to think about actually treating their good employees well to retain them.
and those countries with higher minimum wages also tend to have better social services, and higher taxes to accommodate the increase in unemployment. You forget that we in America invented the "i've got mine, fuck you" mindset.
The gullible tool is you, since you seem to believe the fiction that raising the minimum wage will result in more people earning a "living wage."
http://www.dol.gov/oasam/progr...
In a recent review of the literature, Professor Richard Freeman of Harvard, a widely respected labor economist, wrote: "At the level of the minimum wage in the late 1980s, moderate legislated increases did not reduce employment and were, if anything, associated with higher employment in some locales."
In discussing the minimum wage, Robert M. Solow, a Nobel laureate in economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, recently told the New York Times, "The main thing about (minimum wage) research is that the evidence of job loss is weak. And the fact that the evidence is weak suggests that the impact on jobs is small."
Here's another one:
http://www.igmchicago.org/igm-...
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
Demand for people to automate things just increased in Seattle.
"Don't teach a man to fish, feed yourself. He's a grown man. Fishing's not that hard." - Ron Swanson
Sure, there is no issue with starvation in the US
Because when you spend your money on Meth, there is no money left for food...
Newsflash... Seattler's are the nation's least obese. Seattle City Council claims it was due to the lack of McDonalds in the area.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
What about the health care, how do you pay for it or who pays for it?
Is it rather rotting teeth or dying of cancer and other crap the price to pay for dropping out of high school? (or just completing high school, maybe)
And when slaves cost more money to keep alive than they produce in value, their owners get rid of them. That's one of the reasons slavery ended in many parts of the world: it wasn't profitable anymore.
A basic income is fundamentally different from the minimum wage in that tax payers bear the burden. That's the correct way of providing income guarantees; minimum wage attempts to shift the burden of welfare programs to a small group of businesses.
If a basic income serves as a replacement for welfare and other government programs, it can be a good thing. Ask your progressive friends why they aren't making it happen, instead of this minimum wage nonsense.
Whatever you force McDonalds to give workers in a minimum wage raise will be paid for by McDonalds customers in higher prices, even if McDonalds doesn't fire people. Since McDonalds customers are predominantly lower income, it's basically a regressive tax.
"$75/hour? Really?
I mean, I wouldn't turn it down, but that's $150,000 a year. (before taxes, and assuming a 40-hour work week, 50 weeks a year)"
It would also mean that those people would finally _pay_ some taxes, before they didn't and their company certainly didn't either. At least that way you get at some of the company's money.
Wow......
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Not true. We seem to look at third-world shitholes and say "hey, at least we're not a third-world shithole, we've got $THING better than they do". In my experience, at least, we don't generally compare ourselves to other first-world countries and especially not western and northern Europe, probably because we privately admit to ourselves that (unemployment aside) we're not doing as well as they are generally.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
A poll of the IGM panel of economic experts found them about 50/50 to the question "Raising the federal minimum wage to $9 per hour would make it noticeably harder for low-skilled workers to find employment.".
Would be interesting to ask the question about $15/hour.
I suspect if you asked economists about $100/hour, they would all suspect greater levels of unemployment.
Why shouldn't it?
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
That's basic economics. The wage goes up, but prices only have to go up a tiny fraction due to the distributed source of paying for that wage. It's not this 1 for 1 that people think, it never has been and it never will be. That argument is brought out every single time min wage is increased, and it gets proven wrong every single time.
The math has been done to prove in order to raise McDonalds workers wage to 15/hour, the price of a big mac would only need to go up by 43 cents. Thats all.
You underestimate the malleability of technology in that it can be applied to any and every human problem imaginable. Automation is unstoppable unless its existence is forcibly restricted (a good or bad idea is for you to decide).
Either a company pays someone to flip burgers what they think flipping burgers is worth, or they make robots. Either a company pays someone at the register what they think cashiers are worth, or they automate. Do not assume that just because you and I would rather people do the jobs, that they can not be automated.
I would rather see a (hopefully smiling...) face when checking out of a grocery store or buying a burger at McDonalds than the terminal of a machine, but I somberly accept that there may come a time when that lifestyle disappears because, contrary to what you say, they will not go out of business if they stop paying someone to flip burgers or bag groceries.
In the absence of inflation, it is a valid measurement. With any inflation, though, the number of dollars needs to grow as fast or faster than the inflation of the currency, or one is losing wealth.
I know people who came to the US with no education, no money, no command of the english language. no legal status, etc. and they are able to work hard and provide for their families just fine.
You really have to screw up in the US to actually go hungry. Getting addicted to drugs, doing crime, etc. is one way to go down that path.
I shouldn't have called out meth, there are only about 350,000 meth addicts in the US. There are 7 million people opiate addicts (heroine, pain meds), and 1.5 million cocaine addicts.
(Wow, this got long...)
When minimum wage became the big issue, with all the protests, I thought back when I made minimum wage. I flipped burgers and live in a house with 4 friends. Sure I couldn't afford rent and food at minimum wage, but I could afford 1/5th rent and food and have plenty left over. My friends (who also worked the same McJob) saved money, a couple bough used cars. We had every game system, a great stereo, I had a top of the line computer. We had enough and some luxury items. I thought back then and how much I made. I adjusted my wage with inflation and it came to...... $6.52/hr. WHAT? wait a sec, all those protesters with signs said if I adjusted for minimum wage, it would be 10.75/hr! What gives???
So I grabbed every minimum wage since it's start and adjusted each one for minimum wage. Here it is (Note: I did this 3-4 months ago, there could be more inflation now):
Year: Wage then -> Adjusted to 'today' (3-4 months ago)
1955: $0.75 -> $6.55
1956: $1.00 -> $8.60
1957: $1.00 -> $8.32
1958: $1.00 -> $8.09
1959: $1.00 -> $8.04
1960: $1.00 -> $7.90
1961: $1.15 -> $9.00
1962: $1.15 -> $8.91
1963: $1.25 -> $9.56
1964: $1.25 -> $9.43
1965: $1.25 -> $9.28
1966: $1.25 -> $9.02
1967: $1.40 -> $9.80
1968: $1.60 -> $10.75 $10.20
1970: $1.60 -> $9.65
1971: $1.60 -> $9.24
1972: $1.60 -> $8.95
1973: $1.60 -> $8.43
1974: $2.00 -> $9.49
1975: $2.10 -> $9.13
1976: $2.30 -> $9.46
1977: $2.30 -> $8.88
1978: $2.65 -> $9.51
1979: $2.90 -> $9.34
1980: $3.10 -> $8.80
1981: $3.35 -> $8.62
1982: $3.35 -> $8.12
1983: $3.35 -> $7.87
1984: $3.35 -> $7.54
1985: $3.35 -> $7.28
1986: $3.35 -> $7.15
1987: $3.35 -> $6.90
1988: $3.35 -> $6.62
1989: $3.35 -> $6.32
1990: $3.80 -> $6.80
1991: $4.25 -> $7.30
1992: $4.25 -> $7.09
1993: $4.25 -> $6.88
1994: $4.25 -> $6.71
1995: $4.25 -> $6.52
1996: $4.75 -> $7.08
1997: $5.15 -> $7.51
1998: $5.15 -> $7.39
1999: $5.15 -> $7.23
2000: $5.15 -> $7.00
2001: $5.15 -> $6.80
2002: $5.15 -> $6.70
2003: $5.15 -> $6.55
2004: $5.15 -> $6.38
2005: $5.15 -> $6.17
2006: $5.15 -> $5.98 $6.60
2008: $6.55 -> $7.12
2009: $7.25 -> $7.90
2010: $7.25 -> $7.78
2011: $7.25 -> $7.54
2012: $7.25 -> $7.39
2013: $7.25 -> $7.28
2014: $7.25 -> $7.25
Now you see, the 10.75 is the highest value, in 1968. Claiming that should be the standard is as intellectually dishonest as claiming the lowest value ($5.98/hr) should be the standard. The median would be $7.78, and the average would be $7.94. A fair minimum wage increase would be in that rage. Last time we raised minimum wage in 2009, there was no issue... because it was with in that median-average rage. It was fair.
Minimum wage jobs are not meant to careers. They are entry level jobs for teens and young adults. Majority of minimum wage workers are just starting out. As you gain experience you become worth more to an employer and you should make more. If you aren't, look for a new job. Early in my adult life, I switched jobs every 1-2 years. Each job paid better than the previous.
There will always be somebody at the bottom. The young person who just starts out doesn't have anything. Some have debts, like college loans, so they have a negative self-worth. As we gain skills and earn more, our worth goes up. People love to tout the "Wealth inequality" but the better picture is "Income Mobility". What happens to those in the bottom 20%... From 1996 to 2005, over 50% of the people in the bottom 20% moved up to a higher bracket. In just 10 years, most moved up. Now why has the bracket increased in size if everybody is moving up? The bottom is always filled with new people entering the work force. The 9 year old in 1996 is now in the work force in 2005.
Also, when peop
if (it != oneThing) it = another;
Seattle is the first city to implement a living wage for its lowest earners.
... it hasn't been implemented yet. Rather than actually implement a $15 an hour minimum wage, they made it a slow and laborious process. The "livable" wage being spoken of will not "implement" for years.
...
Whether or not it's a "livable" wage aside
I wish I could get all the credit at my job for implementing something by saying I will and agreeing to do it 10 years from now. Only in the government
Or, you know, have parents who cannot afford to put food on the table. There are many people who are hungry outside of your limited scope of vision.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
$15 for working at McBurgerWorld?
Pfft.
Watch a round of automation go in and take jobs away.
Hell, watch hiring come to a standstill firings/layoffs skyrocket as employers clean house and work with staffing at the most minimal levels they can get away with.
Oh, and benefits? What benefits? There are none anymore. You're making $15/hour, pay for them yourself!
Oh. Did we mention a little thing called "inflation"? Have fun paying $5 for a gallon of milk.
Oh yes, and pretty much every business that's mobile enough is going to pack themselves up and move out of the city as fast as they can.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Lets think this through, shall we? What this actually translates to is a pay cut for everyone else, who isn't suddenly going to have their salary adjusted to match the increase to minimum wage workers.
To top it off, ALL the prices in the area will go up so that the businesses don't lose any money while consuming the increase given to minimum wage workers.
This is pretty stupid in ever aspect other than getting the bottom of the barrel voters and ultra-liberal idiots that care more about looking like they are doing something useful than actually understanding and doing something useful.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
While that doesn't sound like a lot by itself, it's quite significant when compared to the price of the item in question.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Okay, the whole "would finally pay some taxes" is bullshit.
Taxes are taken out of paychecks, regardless of how much or how little you make. You might get a hefty chunk of it back when you file your taxes, but you didn't get that money when you got handed your paycheck.
Also, sales tax, car tax, various municipal taxes... again, the whole "the poor don't pay taxes" argument is bullshit. (No, I'm not saying they should pay more.)
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Nobody gets rich by having clean floors, or mowed lawns, or bagged groceries. However, these are examples of tasks that arguable have to be done by someone, and the cost of not having them done can, at least in some cases, be argued to be greater than $15/hr.
Bagged groceries? Over here not only do you bag your own groceries, it's all self checkout. Four lines watched by one staff member to verify IDs and deal with coupons. If we had a $15/hr minimum wage I could see them turning four more lines into self checkouts.
Nobody got rich pumping gas either, and that's why in 48 states we have to pump our own.
Early 70s through early 2000s. And I said family of six. Four kids, two adults.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
we should have community college with trades as well at K-12 pricing point or at least some small fees.
Well, considering just by how much the wage goes up (how much is it? Triple? Quadruple?)....
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Or, you know, have parents who cannot afford to put food on the table.
If you are over 62 you can get Social Security - in 2013 over $670 billion was spent on OASI. Poor people make more in Social Security than they put in, even accounting for inflation.
I was going to mod you up but it seems pointless. When it comes to economics, the crowd here is so out of touch that anyone who brings up a reasonable argument gets burried. The illusion that we can get stuff for free has bamboozled the vast majority of people but the rude awakening is near and anyone who's paying attention knows it. You'll need hard assets to ride the next imminent downturn.
ayottesoftware.com
what about a CEO / executive X lowest worker pay cap / tax?
Where the CEO / executive can only make X times the pay of the lowest worker or a tax on pay over that?
Also will rules to stop subcontractors abuse
>Whether this is possible is obviously subject to debate.
And there you it upon the point of the minimum wage: mowing lawns is a miniscule portion of the minimum-wage labor market, and historically most minimum wage "shit jobs" couldn't be eliminated - reducing the number of cashiers/shelf stockers/burger flippers/custodians/etc directly reduces the customer flow you can serve, and thus your bottom line. I.e. you are on a very price-inflexible point on the demand curve, and will employee roughly the same number of people regardless of wage. And since the position has minimal skill requirements the labor pool is so large that they have no ability to effectively bargain to receive compensation proportional to the value they deliver, except through the ultimate collectivist bargaining process known as government regulation.
And as you also point out, that is beginning to change as automation becomes cheaper and more capable, which is beginning to become a serious problem. We've already automated away the vast majority of low-to-moderate skilled factory jobs, and are beginning to do the same to service jobs. There will only ever be a relatively small portion of the population capable of providing (or needed for) high-skill labor, which leaves a large percentage of the population with nothing to offer the economy - and that's a major problem. After all, people don't exist to serve the economy, the economy exists to serve us - and if it's failing in that mission then like any defective tool it needs to be replaced. The only question is hat the new tool will look like, and whether the change comes about through organic modification or violent upheaval.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
> If Seattle's unemployment rate goes up, you MUST accept...
Not hardly. It will certainly be a data-point in the analysis, but an economy is an *extremely* complicated system in which it's impossible to hold other variables constant. And in point of fact other data-points in the analysis seem to suggest that an increased minimum wage results in a small net reduction in unemployment.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Interestingly enough, the Swiss voted against creating a ~$25 (Ã18) minimum wage. Their reasoning? It's not enough. From the article:
While there is no formal minimum wage, median income in Switzerland is $37 an hour and 90 percent of Swiss make more than the proposed minimum wage. Switzerland has a 3.2 percent unemployment rate, the second lowest in Europe behind Liechtenstein.
Seems like we could learn something.
Shut up brain or I'll stab you with a Q-Tip. - Homer Simpson
I suggest that you look into the distinction between logic and rhetoric.
How is a one-time price rise not inflation?
This is such a silly concept. If the employer needs someone in order to make its business work, then it will hire someone.
That assumes that every business must be made to work, and that every potential job is essential to some business.
Any given business makes a certain amount of profit, on average, for each hour it remains in operation. Even if the continued operation of the business were absolutely dependent on hiring a certain employee, if hiring that employee would reduce the business's profits below the opportunity costs of the investment, the business would simply fold rather than hire that additional person.
More commonly, the business can do without the extra employee at a certain cost, which sets an upper limit on what they would be willing to pay. If your job would contribute $19/hr. to the company, but minimum wage, taxes, benefits, and overhead add up to $20/hr., they're not going to hire you—they would be losing money for every hour you worked.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
You're demonstrably full of shit. McDonalds could DOUBLE their wages and completely pay for it by raising the price of a big mac less than 75 cents. There's also the issue of, yknow, literally every single other first world country on the face of the earth objectively disproving your bullshit claims.
So why they just don't raise their prices right now, without giving any wage increases to their employees? If things are that simple, why are they avoiding an increase in revenue that would double their net income?
Are they stupid? No. Things are not that simple. They can't raise prices because that would lower the sales volume and also their net income. They probably employ dozens of people at their marketing department just to find that sweet spot.
So they could "OMG OMG DOUBLE" their wages and completely not pay for any of it because of simple market dynamics. But what if "OMG MAGIC" and we mandate that every single retailer in the food sector must DOUBLE wages right now? Inflation will be the answer. It's when people earn more money but buy less stuff, even after getting large wage increases.
The idea that raising the minimum wage will help people is baffling.
A business is actually a rather simple thing.
Sales - Costs = Profit.
If you increase costs, what alternatives does a business owner have?
Of course, the first assumption by the left is that the idle rich (ie anyone who owns a business) can just accept that their profits are lower. Except, this is based on some sort of cognitive dissonance. IF a business owner is likely to be reasonable enough to take the bite from their profit, then they are already likely paying their workers reasonably and taking a reasonable profit. If they are the exploitative sort of business owner that's largely assumed by higher minimum-wage advocates, it's a dead certainty that they won't take the bite in their profits, they'll do something else.
So what else can they do?
They can increase sales without increasing costs. They're already likely selling as much as they possibly can, so that's out.
So all they can do to maintain profits is to CUT COSTS...fire whomever they can.
Automate what they can (higher capital costs, but lower long-term costs and likely better efficiencies...and no health/pension costs either).
-Styopa
I am actually interested in hearing an answer to that question. We can all sense that there is a too high. What's the metric? 15 may be too high and may not be too high, I don't know, do you? How? Why are you shouting him down.
Taxes are taken out of paychecks, regardless of how much or how little you make. You might get a hefty chunk of it back when you file your taxes, but you didn't get that money when you got handed your paycheck.
If you were smart, you certainly would get that money when you were handed your paycheck.
If you don't owe any taxes, then not having any money withheld to pay taxes isn't a problem. When I was making very little, I regularly cranked up my "dependents" on my W4 so that I wouldn't end up with a large refund. Letting the government hold on to your money interest-free for an average of six months doesn't make good financial sense. My goal was to have to pay about $100 when I filed my taxes. That way, I get the use of some government money interest-free, but I also had no problem paying the balance due.
Certainly the rent in "poor neighborhoods" will go up, yes. Not sure the rents in my area will go up, because contrary to popular slashdot belief, almost nobody actually makes minimum wage.
If living at a poor neighborhood costs more, then people will start thinking about moving to better places that are still cheap. And that goes on and on and on. Most systems interact and housing prices are not exempt from that kind of price increase propagation.
In fact, most housing bubbles are created when credit lines are offered for low-income housing, just like the US Housing Bubble was created by subprime lending. People start thinking "If it costs X to live AT THAT UGLY PLACE, then my house is worth X + Y" and then the price goes up everywhere.
Well, considering just by how much the wage goes up (how much is it? Triple? Quadruple?)....
Raising the minimum wage to $15 three years from now would be about a 50% increase in the wage.
A $0.43 increase in the price of a Big Mac is around a 14% increase in non-premium areas (e.g., not Manhattan). I suspect the overall increase in McDonalds prices would be about 30%, since the Big Mac can't absorb as much increase as some other items. For example, the "premium" sandwiches might be able to move 20%, while lower-priced items might move 50%.
You forgot the part where the minimum wage workforce has more disposable income due to the wage increase, and is thus able to afford more of your widgets, meaning you can keep your higher paid workforce.
I haven't read all of the replies but a lot of you are missing an important point.... If I only have minimum wage employees and the minimum wage increases from $10/hr to $15/hr (50% increase) I would not increase my monthly payroll budget by that unless I wanted to obliterate my bottom line. Sure I might increase my payroll just enough to maintain an acceptable level of customer service but people start businesses to profit and make money. Not to provide for others. Being able to provide jobs for others is a perk of running a successful business. That will happen less if the minimum wage makes having a successful business more difficult!
I didn't even mention unfunded liabilities, which are estimated conservatively at about $90 Trillion (with a T) and more aggressively at $120-200T. Here's a tid-bit from only one of them, Social Security, not from a right-wing paper or blog, but from the official Social Security website's actuary report. http://www.ssa.gov/oact/trsum/
Social Security’s Disability Insurance (DI) program satisfies neither the Trustees’ long-range test of close actuarial balance nor their short-range test of financial adequacy and faces the most immediate financing shortfall of any of the separate trust funds. DI Trust Fund reserves expressed as a percent of annual cost (the trust fund ratio) declined to 85 percent at the beginning of 2013, and the Trustees project trust fund depletion in 2016, the same year projected in the last Trustees Report.
Wanna check Medicare/Medicaid? Federal pensions? State pensions? Food stamps? All overloaded beyond capacity. And the only answer you get from anyone is to keep voting for the same people and keep doing the same thing.
"Now, I doubt any of you would prefer a rolled up newspaper as a weapon against a dictator or a criminal intruder."
I'd vary the GPs suggestion and have a maximum legal salary of (say) $100k, or maybe lower, with any benefits beyond that in the form of shares (with a strict minimum holding period) or other long-term profit-sharing schemes. These should satisfy strict criteria to ensure that they were genuinely dependent on medium/long term performance and carried significant risk (not the typical dollar-on-elastic share option scam).
You essentially have that now, in the U.S., with the number set at $1 million. This happened years ago during the last assault on economic freedom when the tax deduction for salary expenses above $1 million was eliminated. The push was to get more people paid by something at risk and dependent on company performance and, thus, we saw the massive increase in stock options used as compensation.
Now people complain that stock option based compensation is outrageously high. Stock options, in the U.S., by law have no value when issued and only have value if the stock price increases. Whether you think the stock increased because of sound management of the company or because of legal shenanigans is a matter of opinion left to the market to determine.
The bigger issue, economically, with asset prices of anything represented by a fiat currency is the expectation that has been set that hard assets have to increase in price when there's no underlying increase in value. Selling inflation as a means of saving and increasing the value of one's assets is no substitute for increasing the true economic value of one's skills or the stock price representing a company's value.
It is this very manipulation of asset prices via inflationary policies that has us in the discussion about paying people a wage that doesn't represent their market worth and also a discussion about accumulation of assets held by the bankers.
Too bad in any real practical example you fail.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Germany is in the process of introducing one, currently planned for approx $12, next year.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Well, that might be the reason why a McD meal costs about 7 bucks around these areas... then again, if I couldn't afford it, I'd probably abstain. I can't imagine why McD raising its prices would affect me in any way. If it gets too expensive, simply avoid it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You do know that people don't HAVE to pay rent, right? Teens CAN live with their parents. Adults can too, or they can get roommates.
Ah, the new American Dream.... living with your parents.
I wonder if that message will be a winner at the ballot box?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
" I have to fire 40% of the workforce."
Why? why is that you only option?
If you were correct, then there would be no jobs.
http://thehill.com/blogs/congr...
http://www.dol.gov/dol/aboutdo...
"In a recent review of the literature, Professor Richard Freeman of Harvard, a widely respected labor economist, wrote: "At the level of the minimum wage in the late 1980s, moderate legislated increases did not reduce employment and were, if anything, associated with higher employment in some locales."
and so on. YOU are the bitch of the corporate spin machine.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The final result of the experiment in Canada showed that one very few people worked less.
I suspect wages will spiral down towards 0.
I think Mincome of some sort will happen. Probably when unemployement is around 15% due to vast automation.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Why should anyone have to work 2-3 jobs just to survive when corporate profits are at an all time high.
People aren't just working 2-3 jobs because of minimum wages, they're doing so because of shitty hours. Even if you had a $25/hr or even $50/hr job, it's not much use if you're only getting 5h/week. A lot of "minimum" wage jobs aren't just for crappy pay, they're also for hours that barely make them worth working at all.
Where I live, you could get by on minimum wage if you work full-time (say 35-40h/week).
You wouldn't be living in a huge house with a 60" TV, but it would cover rent in a decent place, food, and a little bit to spare. If you're in a relationship and both working minimum, then things would not be too bad (shared rent, etc).
The problem: almost *nobody* offers full-time hours. A lot of places offer 4-5h/day (and then a 6-7 day work-week), and more often than not on a variable schedule. That means that those at the bottom of the wage pool have to balance multiple jobs, trying to resolve conflicts in hours, and with little to no free time. It's a *huge* drain on quality-of-life, and an oft-ignored issue in comparison to wage.
Geekoid, you have to get a better keyboard for your phone. You make good points (occasionally), but they are hard to read because of the many typos in them.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
You forgot to figure in that when the minimum wage goes up all of your suppliers have more overhead and pass that on to you. So your cost of supplies increases as well. When you buy a Big Mac, you're paying for the entire supply chain that got the thing to you. Sometimes that chain is reasonably long and you have to cover the cost of every step of it.
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
Another person that measures wealth in dollar signs....
Let me repeat what you have surely already been told numerous times. Wealth is not measured by the quantity of currency. Wealth is measured by the quantity of goods and services that can be enjoyed.
So you assert that the very instant that people's wages go up, inflation will immediately kick in to negate that? I think that even in Zimbabwe it takes a little time for inflation to happen, and they have "trillion-dollar bills".
We already know that inflation doesn't always happen (or not happen) when it's "supposed to". The purpose of this experiment is to put more dollars in the hands of the people who cannot afford to sit on them so that those dollars will in turn flow to other people who likewise be empowered to go out and buy stuff they couldn't afford and so forth and so on. To let them enjoy goods and services that they were previously denied or rationed. The sideways version of Trickle-Down, if you will, since the vertical one didn't work.
True, all this sloshing back and forth may very well die an entropic death if merchants start raising their prices. But the poorer you are, the more you'll push back against those inflationary tendencies. Most likely the end result will be somewhere in between the extremes, but as a short-term solution, it's an attempt to try and jump-start a system instead of waiting helplessly around for the mystical benevolent Market Fairy to come along and make it all better.
According to the US Dept. of Labor, 4.7% of hourly employees in the US are paid at or below minimum wage with approximately half of those being under the age of 25. The largest category of those being paid at that rate worked in restaurants where it is common to be paid less than minimum with the understanding that tips will make up the remainder of your wage.
So in the entire US less than 3.7 million people are actually paid the minimum wage and even then a large number work in a field where additional forms of payment (mainly tips) are considered the norm and when calculated into their hourly pay would also remove them from the group making minimum wage.
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
Yes, you would. If you're hiring people, it's because you have some quantity of work you want performed, not because you have some quantity of money you need to spend. You're saying that you'd cut your staff by 1/3rd to maintain the same payroll. Well, you're either then choosing to sell 1/3rd fewer burgers, or you already have 50% more staff than you really needed.
What you may find is that having $15/hour people selling burgers means you need to charge more for them. Fine. That'll probably mean fewer people will buy your burgers. Fine. The question is whether that new equilibrium point will nullify the benefit of more money moving around in the economy. We'll see.
Actually:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCQQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bls.gov%2Fcps%2Fminwage2011.htm&ei=SsyNU4m-H8e-sQSEy4GIAg&usg=AFQjCNGhmyPob_eopcXz8n3WS6t3aqWgZw&bvm=bv.68191837,d.cWc
In 2011, 73.9 million American workers age 16 and over were paid at hourly rates, representing 59.1 percent of all wage and salary workers. Among those paid by the hour, 1.7 million earned exactly the prevailing Federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.
1.7 million is not almost nobody, unless you have a really strange definition of the word almost.
In a country with 300 million people, 1.7 million people is almost nobody. If you don't make enough money then provide more value to the economy.
Enigma
But deflation makes the rich richer, trap people in debt and the banks and rent seekers are the ones profiting on their end of that relationship.
The ideology of low inflation (0 to 2%) and sustained growth (3 to 5%) is just that, and you're getting fucked if the wages stay at 0% or even -1%. A situation of high inflation and wages increasing with inflation every year (even welfare) is actually better for the poor and working class, though it may have its own problems.
Payment in Oxen used to be popular.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
...you just made everyone who already made $15-$20 part of the low wage earners, and slapped them in the face.
(a fry cook does NOT deserve a wage that is equal to teacher/solider/fireman/police officer.)
There are 2 groups of people you can make fun of on the Internet without fear of attack. The illiterate, and the Amish.
except what you're missing. Everyone who's already working at those wages are now part of that minimum wage caste....and if you think THEY'RE getting raises? Think again.
There are 2 groups of people you can make fun of on the Internet without fear of attack. The illiterate, and the Amish.
Here in Australia, the minimum wage is 15 a hour, our parking lots look fine, and your full of shit. Maybe people will think twice before wasting another persons time doing trivial shit if they cost 15 a hour.
A formulation of a maximum wage can be than in a specific business, the top wage paid to someone can't be more than 20 times the lowest wage :D. That's an indirect separate minimum wage. But of course you would immediately game around it by bringing in contractors etc. and it could become a big stinking mess unless that can be possibly also accounted for..
A separate minimum wage for a large business?, or [more generally!] for some trades in some businesses.. yeah, negociating that would be the role of labor unions.
Saying that employers should be the guarantors of the welfare of their employees outside of work sounds a lot like slavery, especially if jobs are scarce due to a high minimum wage.
On the one hand, there are the issues of passing costs on to consumers. Elimination of many jobs at the margins of being economically viable, etc, etc.
On the other hand, our transit system just got turned down at the voting booth for a major cash infusion via higher priced annual car tabs. And they started howling about eliminating critical services and routes. Now that will be a non-issue. Simply increase the price on the fare box. You make $15 per hour. So put your $5 bill in for the bus ride and shut up.
Have gnu, will travel.
I think people who bring in 300k+ per person to the business, in some of these case working min wage, bring enough value to make more money
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Or have you and the person who modded you insightful forgotten how to do math?
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
You sure about that: http://singularityhub.com/2012...
The only thing preventing alot more automation is not lack of technology but rather the cost of that technology.
As technology gets cheaper and/or labor gets more expensive you'll definitely see a shift.
Go to a place where labor is cheap and digging holes is still done by 20 guys and you see very few pieces of heavy machinery.
Go to a place where labor is expensive and you see 1 guy running a single piece of heavy machinery.
Minimum wages only help people with jobs. They increase the incentive to automate. And if 2014 wasn't late enough, these laws won't take effect for years.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Of course you conveniently overlook the fact that (arithmetic) "average" is a relatively meaningless term in this context, median would be far more relevant.
You can run the same arithmetic using federal minimum wage and you'll find the logic of it does not change at all.
Besides which, even if we assume a 50% increase in the minimum wage translated to a 50% increase in total wages across the board, that still translates to only a 7.5% increase in costs. Increase prices by 7.5% and your profit margins remain the same, (and absolute profits increase, assuming volume remains constant)
You are ignoring all sorts of downstream issues. Let's assume that we increase minimum wage by 50% and that Walmart and others are able to pass the entire 7.5% cost increase on to their customers. In reality that wouldn't be possible but let's ignore that for now.
The cost of labor doesn't just increase for Walmart, it increases for the companies making the products Walmart buys from - which contrary to popular opinion is not just in China. Walmart buys a lot of domestically produced product too. That means that you essentially are providing a subsidy to overseas suppliers who do not have to share in the wage increases. So this means Walmart now has to source MORE products from outside the US and domestic manufacturers lose big. So even if Walmart doesn't have to lay off one worker by some miracle (which wouldn't happen), you lose a ton of jobs in US manufacturing - which still accounts for about 15% of employment in the US.
You also have to account for inflation. Increase wages by 50% and inflation is almost certain to increase. In terms of real purchasing power any increase you make is likely to be eaten way by inflation in short order. You also claim that Walmart's profit margins would increase which demonstrably wouldn't be true. Walmart associates might be able to buy more but the gains would be given back by the manufacturing employees that are now out of work. It's not like you can magically waive a minimum wage wand and everyone benefits with no consequences. Minimum wage laws serve a useful and important purpose but they aren't consequence free.
If you're not working full time you have time to work 2 part time jobs. Hell even if you are working full time you have time for another part time job
Who said anything about the elderly... Kids have no choice in who their parents are, and typically only get SS if they have something like autism.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
You're so right. Some people make more than that. Why is it fair that a heart surgeon makes more than a fry cook - who made that rule? Are they not both humans, equally deserving of respect. $150 an hour is a much better minimum wage - equality for all!
After all, if it's OK to raise the minimum wage without regard to market price for labor, why stop at a measly $15/hour? Cheapness and greed and republicans, that's why! Keeping the man down to $15/hour sounds like a Koch brothers plot, if you ask me!
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Now if only that was my problem. The market favors effiency, if the company can't provide a service people want to pay for at what it determines it must charge then why should we prevent a more effient player from suplanting them, large or small.
This is why your typical store owner doesn't have a kid washing down the sidewalk at the start of the day, and why the parking lot at the strip mall near your house looks like the inside of a dumpster, until the minimal cleaning work by local ordinance can be carried out by a street sweeper service that hits the parking lots of the local businesses as little as legally possible to get away with.
I live in NJ, USA, but I recently went on a trip to Japan. One of the things that I noticed while I was there was how surprisingly clean everything was. How there were always people outside sweeping sidewalks. You never see that type of thing where I live. You claim it's because of our high minimum wage pricing these jobs out of the market.
Japan's minimum wage is at least $8.40/hour (or maybe even $10.90/hr, it's not clear). No, the reason our communities look like dumpsters is because that's how much we value them.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
oh, and that other line on the financial statment, profits. They are at record highs as a percentage of GDP, so some downward movement wouldn't be a deal breaker.
The poor don't pay federal income taxes. That's all anyone ever claimed.
You're presenting a false dichotomy. On the one hand, either your preconceived notions of economics are true. On the other, all established principles of economics are false. This not an "A or not A" situation. It is entirely possible that labor cost does not have the same type of effect as you believe and for destruction for destruction's sake to still be a generally bad economic policy.
$30k/year in NYC:
There is a big world outside of NYC. Try it sometime.
your ignorance of other (read: more expensive) corners of the country is funny
And your sense of entitlement isn't funny at all. Here's a crazy notion. Move somewhere less expensive until you can afford to live in the expensive location. Nothing is forcing you to remain in NYC if you can't afford it. I went to school not far from NYC and you know what? I live in a place which costs 1/4 as much for housing because spending extra money just to live in a dense city when I can't afford it is stupid.
The equilibrium for your Labor function is the input of almost EVERY OTHER DEMAND FUNCTION IN THE GOD DAMN ECONOMY. So, higher wages are kinda important, while leaving room for appropriate profit. High unemployment wasn't caused by increasing minimum wage, it was caused by stagnating wages, market friction due to vast impovements in worker productivity, rising inequality, deregulation, and the single largest loss of equity in the history of mankind.
By automating jobs for lowskill employee's we have made those high school kids and college kids widely redundant. That automation isn't going away and is only going to expand. There are things we can do to address student debt, but that is another conversation.
Don't be daft. Of course Walmart would increase prices if the minimum wage were increased just like everyone else. If they had to increase wages 50% UNILATERALLY they would instantly be unprofitable because they couldn't raise prices in that instance.
One minute you claim that a 50% wage hike would cause Walmart to be unprofitable, and the next you claim that they would increase prices. You can't have it both ways, and that's all I was trying to say. Also, any wage increases would be unilateral; Walmart's workforce is not unionized, and therefore all decisions regarding wages are made unilaterally since there is no second party to wage negotiations.
Regarding payroll taxes, you're oversimplifying. Many payroll taxes are regressive, with a cap on taxable income. Fringe benefits that you mention are also regressive (for example, employer's health insurance contributions for employees is not linearly proportional to wage, and doubling wages doesn't double insurance costs). Consequently, a 50% hike in wages does not result in a 50% hike in overhead costs. Additionally, depending on how you're cooking your books, you did already mention a $27.5B hike in labor costs. If the initial $55B in labor costs included this overhead, then the $27.5B increase also includes the 50% increase in overhead (despite the real increase in overhead necessarily being less than 50%).
7.5% isn't a bound of any kind - merely an illustrative simplistic example that the real number is a LOT higher than 1.1%.
But that's my point. 7.5% isn't a "LOT" higher. It's a lot less than the 50% growth in wages that we're talking about. Most businesses would jump at the chance to increase their costs by 7.5% while at the same time increasing their revenues by 50%, and I think we'd all agree that this is a good deal. Why does this not hold true when discussing wage hikes?
It's much more complicated than you are making it out to be. By raising the minimum wage you are increasing costs for all domestic manufacturers (and there are LOTS). This effectively is a subsidy to overseas (read China) manufacturers who do not have wage supports at the expense of domestic ones who do. Manufacturers in the US would have to either lose business or in many cases simply shut down. So to prop up Walmart associates wages you are doing so at the expense of US manufacturing workers. Since they shop at Walmart too that is revenue that Walmart isn't going to get AND you are costing people their entire paycheck to raise someone else's by 50%. Did you think the money would come with no consequence?
1) Tarriffs
2) The domestic service/retail industry dwarfs the domestic manufacturing industry. The perfect is the enemy of the good.
3) The money comes with consequences, and on the whole, it's still a positive.
There's no evidence to support your remaining claims regarding inflation, unemployment, supply chain effects, etc. However, I do agree that it's NOT simply that everyone is magically better off with no downside anywhere. Some people would undoubtedly be worse off, but overall, it would be a benefit to society.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
But those on that wage level won't have lost anything either.
And I think a minimum wage wouldn't have a major influence on inflation.
One problem today is the loss of jobs due to more and more automation and outsourcing of manual labor.
Naturally this causes a drop of wages in certain professions because of less demand.
My opinion is that a society shouldn't allow wages to drop below a level where you can't make a living by a full time job.
Not because I'm so good at heart but because of all the related problems with poverty and crime that come with those low wages.
So - minimum wages seem to be a good idea to me - but I'm always open for better solutions.
"we are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further."
The costs of good and services is also ridiculously lower than it is in the US in those places. If you can afford to live on $1/day there and even $100/day is barely getting by to live in the US... Why oh why, would you ever think that you can pay the same wage in the US as Africa and anyone could survive on it? Pay directly relates to the costs of living wherever you are, if the pay is to low to live there you are going to have serious issues.
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
If you think it wouldn't have an influence on inflation, then you're dumber than Obama looks.
I've lived through several minimum wage increases...and it's the same every time. The people at minimum wage are happier they get more money. The people just above minimum wage essentially get a paycut, now you have more people at the same wage, and there's money in the money supply, the cost of goods and services goes up in excess of standard inflation. More poor people are created as a result.
This is econ 101 stuff, not rocket science.
There are 2 groups of people you can make fun of on the Internet without fear of attack. The illiterate, and the Amish.
So - what's your solution to get less poor people?
"we are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further."
Just the Big Mac or all prices for every menu item by that proportion?
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
One minute you claim that a 50% wage hike would cause Walmart to be unprofitable, and the next you claim that they would increase prices.
50% UNILATERAL wage hikes. UNILATERAL. Do you understand what that word means? Walmart alone = Unilateral. Minimum Wage increase = everyone raises prices. Unilateral = no profit.
Regarding payroll taxes, you're oversimplifying.
Of course I am because explaining the whole thing would require writing a freakin' novel.
But that's my point. 7.5% isn't a "LOT" higher.
BULLSHIT 7.5% isn't a lot higher. That is HUGE in an industry where profit margins are low single digits.
It's a lot less than the 50% growth in wages that we're talking about.
Only if you don't consider the entire economy. You are simply robbing Peter to pay Paul. You increase service sector wages and will cost manufacturing jobs. Some benefit, others don't.
1) Tarriffs
Which are a stupid idea. Tariffs on what? Your plan is to make everything more expensive? Tariffs raise prices for everyone to benefit a smaller group. Tariffs on steel make every car more expensive. Want to create inflation? Go ahead and start a trade war and enjoy the resulting recession.
2) The domestic service/retail industry dwarfs the domestic manufacturing industry.
The US manufacturing sector accounts for over $3 Trillion annually and has a multiplier effect beyond that larger than any other sector. The only country that has a manufacturing sector even close in size is China. Furthermore just because much of the economy comes from another sector doesn't mean it is a good idea to kill US manufacturing.
3) The money comes with consequences, and on the whole, it's still a positive.
Perhaps but you've hardly proven that. And bear in mind that I actually support raising the minimum wage. But if you raise it 50% overnight, my company will be out of business tomorrow and we're hardly the only ones. There is no way we could absorb a hit like that. I think the minimum wage should be raised some, indexed to inflation and to the poverty rate with allowances for exceptional economic conditions (like a big recession).
Actually it raises our collective buying power as well. As long as the rest of the country stays behind us in wages going to another state will be like going to a third world country. And then the extra money we do have after living expenses goes a lot further. But as I said before no one here cares if a burger costs an extra buck or two. In the end we'll all be better off than people in lower wage areas.
once more into the breach
You ask that as if you're not supposed to have poor people.
News flash. Being successful is not a right. If you want to be successful you have to work for it, or be prepared to accept mediocrity. Life isn't "fair"...but it *IS* fair, because you get out of it what you put into it. Living and breathing does not give you access to the world's coffers.
There are 2 groups of people you can make fun of on the Internet without fear of attack. The illiterate, and the Amish.
Because nobody starts a business with a dream of creating jobs.
I think you hit on something here that most people gloss over when we talk about the "job creators".
Yes, most business DOES NOT want to create jobs. So why are we so concerned what they think whenever the issue of jobs come up?
...you have to work for it, or be prepared to accept mediocrity.
Exactly - and if a society is at a point where you do not even get to mediocrity with a full time job, you need a solution for that.
So - any ideas except minimum wages? Or do you prefer to continue with rants and insults?
"we are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further."
1) (of an action or decision) performed by or affecting only one person, group, or country involved in a particular situation, without the agreement of another or the others.
2) relating to, occurring on, or affecting only one side of an organ or structure, or of the body.
Unilateral, in this context, means without the agreement of the others. In a discussion of wages, the two parties are the employer and the employee(s). That is, Walmart deciding to raise wages by 50% without the agreement of the employees. It has nothing to do with other companies, since other companies are not involved in this particular situation (employment at Walmart).
Anyway, Costco average wage is $21. Explain to me how they're able to shoulder such an unimaginably large labor burden in such a competitive industry with such tight margins. Explain to me how they can "unilaterally" offer such pay rates without getting driven into the ground by their competition. Explain to me why Costco can do this but Walmart wouldn't be able to.
BULLSHIT 7.5% isn't a lot higher. That is HUGE in an industry where profit margins are low single digits.
No, in this context, 7.5% isn't a lot higher. It's dwarfed by the 50% increase in wages. If we were talking about a 5% increase in wages resulting in a (upper bound) 7.5% increase in cost (a mathematical impossibility), then yes, I would agree with you. However, a 7.5% increase in cost is tiny compared against a 50% gain in wages.
Only if you don't consider the entire economy. You are simply robbing Peter to pay Paul. You increase service sector wages and will cost manufacturing jobs. Some benefit, others don't.
I'm considering precisely the whole economy, whereas you seem to be stuck on a particular sector. I am indeed robbing Peter to pay Paul, but our society is one in which the last few Peters are dying anyway, and there's a whole shitload of Pauls on the way. Yes, making the economy work better for Paul is a good idea, and one that benefits the whole economy overall, despite potentially hurting your pet manufacturing sector (which currently only employs 10% of the work force and is still contracting).
Which are a stupid idea. Tariffs on what? Your plan is to make everything more expensive? Tariffs raise prices for everyone to benefit a smaller group. Tariffs on steel make every car more expensive. Want to create inflation? Go ahead and start a trade war and enjoy the resulting recession.
Tariffs on imports. My plan is to make imports more expensive. Tariffs raise prices on imports for everyone to benefit a smaller group, those who contribute to domestic labor. Tariffs on imported steel make every car made of imported steel more expensive, providing incentives to use domestic steel. I do want to create inflation (as current rates are too low to spur investment), but I don't think a recession would help there. Your logic here is confusing.
The US manufacturing sector accounts for over $3 Trillion annually and has a multiplier effect beyond that larger than any other sector. The only country that has a manufacturing sector even close in size is China. Furthermore just because much of the economy comes from another sector doesn't mean it is a good idea to kill US manufacturing.
It's goinig to die whether we "kill" it or not. Manufacturing is a prime target for automation, as is clear from looking at the last few decades. I notice that you state the importance of manufacturing in terms of dollars, not jobs. Why is that? Is it perhaps because the jobs are disappearing faster than you'd like to admit? Manufacturing jobs aren't disappearing because of Walmart's generous wages, that's for sure.
Perhaps but you've hardly proven that. And bear in mind that I actually support raising the minimum wage. But if you raise it 50% overnight, my company will be out of business tomorrow and we'
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
It's a good thing the US has $45 Trillion dollars worth of nautral resources then, compared to Austrailia's paltry $19.9 Trillion.
I hate mowing my lawn, if I can hire someone to do it at $10/hour, I'll do it. At $15/hour I can't afford to hire someone and I'll do it myself.
Well that's just you. There are plenty of people that would look at that as worthwhile still. I've made that call myself - "Oh its a few dollars more, that sucks... but oh well, it will still be worth it" and I pay it. The net overall is probably a few lost customers, but enough extra from the ones that remain that it's still at least as much as before, if not more. This is of course speculation and depends greatly on type of business, location, etc. But I think that example hardly "proves" anything.
My labor cost goes up by 20% so it's now more cost effective to invest in a $200k machine that it is to hire 10 people.
Can be true -- again, greatly depending on industry, etc. But now, you're going to need get that machine repaired occasionally, and call the help desk when it starts doing funny things. So now we've employed people. Jobs shifted from grass mowing to doodad repair -- and doodad repair probably pays a good deal more than mowing the grass, so a net win. Assuming we can get people trained for these new jobs.
That's the main wrinkle, and why I support cheaper/free community college training, especially for those that have been laid off and looking for a career change. We can't stop the world economy, we have to learn to evolve with it.
But it's also worth noting that the jobs that are getting destroyed are the shit jobs where you are being treated like a half-machine already. We would all be better off if all the repetitive jobs like cashier were eliminated and people could actually do jobs that they enjoy. Whether this is possible is obviously subject to debate.
Definitely I encourage everyone to do things they enjoy. The problem is most of the time, those more enjoyable jobs (and not necessarily enjoyable in the sense of being a slacker, but for example, I'm a big tech geek and math nerd and enjoy working with numbers -- but being the "numbers R&D guy" isn't typically a job offered at most companies) don't exist, or are actively laying people off.
Studies have shown much of the jobs created in the "recovery" were low-paying retail/fast-food jobs. So I *wish* we could say they were all getting destroyed and we were progressing to a more enlightened society of creative people doing awesome things like sending people to the moon, but not so. We need to find a way of making that happen though.
To say that the labor isn't worth $15 and the labor isn't market clearing at $15 are two seperate things. The price of Labor is both and input and an output, as the price of Labor determines Demand. If your paying everyone $200K per hour and charging $100K for a hot dog, it just might be market clearing.
Because it is useless, trolly bullshit. That number exceeds worker productivity per hour, by a fair margin. But by looking at what workers actully produce per hour, we can see what compensation might be more equitable.
Is the rest of the world better off?
If so, why are they immigrating here?
If you're not working full time you have time to work 2 part time jobs. Hell even if you are working full time you have time for another part time job
Please re-read the first part of my comment. I explicitly discussed this. The problem is that many part-time jobs require you to be dependent on other people who choose your schedule and/or effectively "on call" to come in and work whenever you're needed. If you have two jobs and at least one of your bosses is somewhat flexible, you might be okay.
If both of your bosses don't give a crap and just need someone to be there whenever they call them, don't expect to be called back when you can't come in a few times.
I'm not saying it's impossible to work two part-time jobs. People do it all the time. But if you look at various reports on trends in employment stats, you'll have noticed the trend in recent years toward increasing "flexible" employment, where you need to show up when they call you. That can make it pretty hard to satisfy the demands of two separate employers.
This may be true on a country wide level, but Seatle alone doing this will lead to higher local prices, downsizing, and businesses leaving the area.
Prove me wrong Seattle.
Let the Fed keep printing, the bankers keep on bailing out, the party will never end! Oh, and inflation is years away, IF EVER. No need to adjust prices or wages to account for millions of deficit dollars per American, soon to be billions. Thank the military contracts and foodstamps for preserving this country from the commies.
$
Then why is everyone trying to move to the US?
http://www.ibtimes.com/minimum...
Nuff said.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
who's ranting or insulting?
Again, just because it's a full time job, does not mean you get to reap the rewards that others enjoy. There's a simple solution for that, improve your skills and make like the Jeffersons....Movin' on up....
Let's face it, not everyone is meant to be a Fortune 500 CEO, and nobody is completely worthless....they can always serve as a bad example. That doesn't make me dis-compassionate, it just acknowledging the reality.
There are 2 groups of people you can make fun of on the Internet without fear of attack. The illiterate, and the Amish.
You don't, legally. You may qualifiy to get most/all/even more, come April 15. (illegally, you work "day labor" jobs that pay cash without a hint of taxation.)
(Or tax exempt farm labor, but that's a very low number of hours -- if it even still exists.)
I stand corrected. Some comparisons have to go pretty far down the shithole country list though.
I disagree with your first paragraph, but agree with your second.
I live in Canada. Most discussion of public policy (and other things) incorporates what happens and has happened around the world, including the US and Europe. Canada is as "isolated" as the US, and even bigger geographically, although much smaller in population.
Interestingly, I currently live in a city where everyone is always telling themselves how awesome they, and their city, are. People here don't travel as much as I'm used to (why would I want to go anywhere else?), are much more insular, and tend to be more ignorant of history as well as world (and national) affairs. I blame fear of the unknown and us vs. them propaganda.
Also, several issues that have been discussed on Slashdot in relation to US politics actually have examples right in the US, whether they're cities or whole states. Didn't Mitt Romney implement a public health care plan in his home state? Do they have death tribunals yet?
Example of low wages creating jobs:
I hate mowing my lawn, if I can hire someone to do it at $10/hour, I'll do it. At $15/hour I can't afford to hire someone and I'll do it myself
There is work to be done: mowing your lawn.
There is someone doing the work: you or someone you pay $10 per hour.
In both cases, there is a job being done. Someone that could be doing something else is mowing your lawn. In one case you are spending your time doing something else while someone is mowing your lawn, in the other case, you are mowing your lawn while someone else is doing something else. In both cases, that something else could be something like a "job". Maybe you are paying someone $10 and hour to mow your lawn and you take that time to earn $60 an hour being a masseur. Maybe they are earning $15 an hour working at Burger King while you are mowing your lawn.
The fact that *you* may do work yourself or outsource it does not create the job: the lawn needing mowing does.
Well then answer my question: Where is the "correct" number?
None of these politicians even bothered to ask an economist. There is no correct number, they would say. The city council picked a number out of thin air that would get them political support, but not so high that there would be rioting from businesses (though that comes awfully darn close).
Wonder what the public key field is for?
This is an experiment. If Seattle's unemployment rate goes up, you MUST accept the fact that raising the minimum wage kills jobs. If it goes down, then you MUST accept the fact that you are living in some sort of magical fantasyland where economic laws don't apply, and should immediately set about breaking windows and starting nuclear wars with aliens to improve the economy.
The trouble with economic experiments is that you cannot isolate a single variable. No matter what happens with the unemployment rate, you cannot state a causal relationship between the minimum wage and unemployment rate. Also, unemployment rate is a lose indicator of jobs. One can posit a situation where the number of unemployed has increased while at the same time a number of unfilled positions have been created yet are unfilled due to misaligned skill-sets between the unemployed worker pool and positions.
Oh, so they ONLY have to raise prices 25%? Yeah, that's not going to hurt anyone already barely scraping by on a fixed income.
If costs go up by 25% but your income goes up by 100% (the example he cited with doubling pay while increasing a burger price by $0.75), are you better or worse off?
Whatever you force McDonalds to give workers in a minimum wage raise will be paid for by McDonalds customers in higher prices, even if McDonalds doesn't fire people. Since McDonalds customers are predominantly lower income, it's basically a regressive tax.
If you raise the minimum wage 100% and McDonalds increases their prices 10%, have the "predominately lower income" customers been regressively taxed?
you are saying a family of 4 needs 3K a week to be a living wage? Where the heck do you live that it cost that much to live?
If you're retired and living off savings, are you better or worse off? All you are doing is helping one class at the expense of another.
Wonder what the public key field is for?
If you're retired and living off savings, are you better or worse off? All you are doing is helping one class at the expense of another.
That's is generally what social economics is about, many choices are such and we must as a society choose.
The jobs that people do for under $15/hr still need to be done.
Not true. If every restaurant closed their doors, people would cook their own food. If every landscaping company folded, people would mow their own lawns. If the cost of cashiers is too high, self-checkout kiosks will become the norm. These jobs only exist because there is cheap labor to exploit. Make labor too expensive and the jobs will not exist.
GP says:
"eventually, they'll set the minimum and maximum wages to the same levels"
Obama said:
"I do think at a certain point you've made enough money."
and you say (of GP):
"His argument would only be fallacious if it weren't exactly what is being proposed by the left today"
Do you stand by that comment? Can you see the nuance between the two statements quoted above?
Do you think saying "some people have earnings that are unreasonably low / high" (respectively 7$ an hour, a bazillion an hour), is exactly the same as saying "everybody should earn the same?". Because that's what you just wrote.
Gravitation is a theory, not a fact.
And in a capitalistic economy there is a direct relationship between the amount of money you have and the quantity of goods and services that you can enjoy
Nobody at all said otherwise.
One side was challenged to show that people making minimum wage enjoy insufficient goods and services. All we have heard is crickets from that side.
You folks are waving your hands saying how unfair it all is, but cannot even give a single datum that supports the theory you have put forth. Hand waving is not an argument, and arguing about unrelated things doesnt prove the thing you are waving your hands about.
"His name was James Damore."
... try not being paid for half your fucking working week. That cunt ripped me off by about $2k in a couple of months, while violating about half a dozen other basic rights - even human rights - and if I kick up a stink, I'll be fired immediately.
Wait.. you are STILL working for 'em?
The government cannot fix your stupidity.
"His name was James Damore."
Thank you.
Finally someone that isnt just talking out their ass. These guys picked the theory before looking at any data, and then latched onto whatever number they come to first that seems like it supports their theory (even when it doesn't.)
Zero critical thinking skills (or worse! intentional dishonesty in some cases) from most of these people when it comes to economic issues.
"His name was James Damore."
I object to the $15 minimum wage. It should be even higher, like $30. Or for that matter, why don't we make it $50 / hour, if it raises people out of poverty and makes their lives better?
Aside from supply/demand for labor, I see very little factual support for why a wage *should* be a certain level.
It was tested in a small Canadian community, though not nearly on the scale you suggest it should be (for what it's worth, i agree with you)
The results seem pretty positive: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki...
...found that only new mothers and teenagers worked substantially less. Mothers with newborns stopped working because they wanted to stay at home longer with their babies, and teenagers worked less because they weren't under as much pressure to support their families, which resulted in more teenagers graduating. In addition, those who continued to work were given more opportunities to choose what type of work they did. Forget found that in the period that Mincome was administered, hospital visits dropped 8.5 percent, with fewer incidences of work-related injuries, and fewer emergency room visits from car accidents and domestic abuse.[6] Additionally, the period saw a reduction in rates of psychiatric hospitalization, and in the number of mental illness-related consultations with health professionals.
But I guess it's still too hippydippy for even Canada to get past the now-archaic principle of earn-to-eat.
And you will be wrong, because what will actually happen is firms will be forced to use their employees in a higher-productivity way (through various types of investments).
Obviously yes. Why do you even ask?
HAHAHA. Lets seem them papers, son.
"Rising prices lead to more sales! study finds. All stores immediately set prices to $infinite and became mega-wealthy as a result! We are now almighty gods! News at 11."
No, they raise them with inflation, and prices rise with inflation. THAT is why employment stays the same. Leave it the same in the face of inflation for 30 years and you will find your employment rate approaching that of Switzerland (~3.2%, IIRC), which has no minimum wage.
"I don't know what peer review is, so I will post a politically influenced paper put out under Clinton and a survey rather than any sort of actual numbers or anything relevant."
^---That's you.
That is a derivative of the broken window fallacy. According to that logic, we could just give those people money for doing nothing and it would have the same effect. The (greater) point of a job is not to attract money for the worker to spend, but rather to increase the productivity of the worker over the level of his consumption. This creates value for the economy, and allows for increased capital investment and savings. These lead to lower prices for goods and thus an increase in the standard of living for everyone.
Sorry, what are my other options when increased wage cost is forced upon me? I could raise my prices, but the market won't support that. China would eat up my market share at a higher price, and only a fraction of my customers could afford a higher price even if we imposed tariffs. That means they would go out of business too.
You really don't think, do you? It's quite clear who you voted for in the last two elections. And now we are all paying the price. Not that the right half track of the fascist machine would have been any different.
How much would it cost to extract all that?
Ohh.....
But you said that wealth is measured by quantity of currency. You going to retract that statement?
No, the MARKET should choose, since there and only there does EVERYONE have a voice. But you guys want to impose your arbitrary opinions on the whole under force of arms. Disgusting.
Moving the goalposts much?
Cost of living for the same STANDARD of living is much higher in Africa than the US. Actually, last I looked, the highest cost of living in the world was in Africa (thanks to inflows of Chinese hot money). http://www.zerohedge.com/news/...
But they still don't have a minimum wage, and their economies are still growing very quickly.
No, you set the goalposts yourself. I never said anything about the total value of natural resources in an economy being important. I said that natural resource rich economies can afford socialism. To determine if you are rich, you have to subtract you liabilities from your assets. Places like Norway do quite well, where the US has been in decline for a long time, punctuated by a brief shale boom that is already fading rapidly.
Kids have no choice in who their parents are, and typically only get SS if they have something like autism.
SNAP SNAP offers nutrition assistance to millions of eligible, low-income individuals and families and provides economic benefits to communities. SNAP is the largest program in the domestic hunger safety net.
But that isn't the common conitation of "natural resource rich". If that is the point you are tring to make you should be more articulate.
That is right. The law may say that if you employ someone, you have to pay him at least $15/hr. But, the law does not say that you must employ anybody. If a given potential employee can't pull his weight at his wage, you not hire him, or if you did, you will fire him.
Ask yourself how many kids fresh out of high school are worth $15/hr? I think the number is probably less than 3%, the rest of them will be working on their basketball shot or their video game skills.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
Actually its been shown that in a slow economy, giving money to idle workers has a stimulating effect on the economy since those workers will spend pretty much all the money they get. With a stronger economy there is more job creation leading to less unemployment and reducing the need for money to be given to idle workers.
Regarding your 'point' of a job, economic value is twofold - first is the worker's contribution to the end product (whatever that may be); second is the worker's participation in the economy by spending the money they make in their job. These two things are inextricably linked to have a functioning economy - without production by workers, there is nothing to buy; without spending by workers, nothing gets sold. So an increase in standard of living can come about two ways - lower prices via higher productivity, or more purchasing power by workers via increase in salary or other means.
Yes. We can look and see the relatively high cost of living that goes along with it, plus a very high youth unemployment.
Australia has a pretty high cost of living, too. But more importantly, Australia has a more sensible immigration policy than the US and hasn't flooded the low end of the job market with unskilled labor.
If they increased the price of something from 1 penny to 2 pennies that'd be a whole TWO HUNDRED PERCENT ZOMG. Nice use of percentages on a sub-dollar increase to try and make your argument sound scarier though.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
I think you're reading a bit too deeply into the words and missing the overall point... there are jobs that need to be done regardless of their cost.
Fine, bagging groceries is a poor example. What about janitorial work? Someone needs to do the basic maintenance of a public or commercial building.
=Smidge=
Not true. If every restaurant closed their doors, people would cook their own food. If every landscaping company folded, people would mow their own lawns.
Hahahaha... oh wow.
Yeah, assuming that everyone is willing any able to do their own cooking and yardwork (Ha!) who's going to do property maintenance for non-residential properties? Going to take turns at the office to see who's turn it is to trim the hedges that week?
=Smidge=
I agree on the janitorial work. However, in the past decade I have seen:
-College dorm bathroom cleaning go from weekly to every other week.
-Trash and recyling emptying at the office go from daily to every other day (3 days of trash, 2 days of recycling).
-Weekly office vaccuum became monthly.
And that's *without* a minimum wage hike. I fully expect in the coming years our janitorial staff to be replaced with directions to the cleaning supply cabinet and a map to where to bring our trash to when we'd like to empty it...
Oh shut it, I could spend all day finding papers for you and your mind wouldn't change. That's just a fact. The papers are there (New Jersey and other studies) you go find them if you want, I won't because you're hopeless. You're not interested in solving any problems, only in a world that fits your indoctrinated ideology.
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
The (greater) point of a job is not to attract money for the worker to spend, but rather to increase the productivity of the worker over the level of his consumption
No. The point of EVERYTHING is for money to move around. When money sits in one place (like an overseas bank) it is literally a drain on the economy (this is why there is a death tax). So no, the greater point of a job is that money gets moved around.
For almost 40 motherfucking years we've had an economy driven by supply side economic principles (yes, even under Clinton). Your principles apparently. Know this, it is a lie. Even Bush's own economist has admitted it. Reagan, the guy who started this nightmare, did it for ideological reasons not because it's technically a good idea.
Well, it is if you're one of the 1% making money hand over fist but it sucks for the rest of us.
Almost everyone's standard of living has DROPPED. Understand? We've done it your way for decades and everything sucks now.
I know, I know, I've seen the factory worker on TV getting laid off and STILL holding on to the broken ideology (yours) of the unregulated free market. He was about to be homeless and..you know what fuck it. You're probably just as brain washed as that guy, but with an education.
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
Since Reagan we have had a supply-side economy. Under Clinton and still under Obama. That's the whole story right there. Doesn't matter who you voted for since the 80's.
You've had it YOUR WAY FOR ALMOST 40 YEARS AND GUESS WHAT? YOUR WAY SUCKS.
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
?? Are you a stupid person with a good vocabulary? Seriously, look and think. I did not contradict myself in any way shape or form.
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
I don't know why it doesn't hold true in Canada as well. Perhaps Canada just has fewer people who are convinced that their country is unquestionably the best in the world. I should have listed nationalism as a third component of the US's issue as well. Possibly stronger than the other two. Maybe Canada's media is also a little bit better?
As far as examples within states, it's usually a little more complicated. The health care example for instance, yes Romney did do essentially the same plan before. The fury over Obama's implementation came from two driving forces, purely political (which is what prompted Palin to say death panels) and business. The health insurance industry wanted to try to stop reform if they could, but if they couldn't they wanted the version we got. Thus, almost the entire right wing made an effort to mitigate as much as possible the fact that there WAS an example in the US.
Meanwhile, the left had their own political reasons for ignoring Romney's example: it was going to be a victory for Obama, giving credit to the right would be a loss. Liberal voters needed to be convinced that Obama was their champion and had defeated the opposition, rather than a centrist who caved on reform and implemented a health care plan that not only was first done by a republican but was essentially a republican plan all along. Remember that the mandate was proposed by Gingrich's republicans in the Clinton era to defeat Clinton's actual health care reform.
So both sides of the political spectrum had reasons to pretend Romneycare wasn't the same thing. Romney in retrospect probably would have been better off standing up for his plan during the Obamacare process, telling republicans and democrats that it was a conservative plan, but at the time he probably thought he would be better off ignoring it, so Romney didn't speak up for it either.
That's why it was ignored as much as possible, but it was definitely mentioned among the open-minded Americans, who do exist. We're just quieter than the Fox News crowd.
No, the MARKET should choose, since there and only there does EVERYONE have a voice. But you guys want to impose your arbitrary opinions on the whole under force of arms. Disgusting.
The market also makes many choices, some of which benefit some sub-groups of the market and others of which are a detriment. My point was that in economics, policies do not benefit everyone equally.
Yeah, in fact I was gonna say... Headline should read: "Seattle approves 50% cut in availability of entry-level and low-skilled jobs". Because as others have pointed out, every minimal-skills job that can be eliminated *will* be. Instead of an order taker at McDonald's, there'll be a touchscreen. Self-checkout at groceries and Walmart (presently the largest single employer of the marginally-employable) will become the rule rather than the exception. And so on.
If such wage increases ever reach the ag sector, crops that now require a crew of hand-pickers will transition to crops that can be harvested by one guy on a tractor, and it'll be that much more of our fresh fruit and veggies that come from South America year-round.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Funny how the people claiming such wage increases aren't a slippery slope kinda forget that the proliferation of part-time jobs was a direct consequence of gov't making full-time workers too expensive.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
It should have been $27 an hour, to keep up with changes since the 1960s.
Or the original compromise of $15 in 2015 and $22 in 2022.
I blame the Mayor.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
There isn't. Food insecurity is different from starvation, and is honestly just ridiculous. We have food stamps, food banks, and church-run charities absolutely EVERYWHERE. If you are starving in the US, it's 95% likely that you are a child locking in a closet. Most of the other 5% just have some sort of extreme mental problem that prevents them from communicating and getting help.
And sure, roommates won't let you live there for free, but they charge less than it costs to live alone. Get two or three or four and your bill is pretty reasonable. And MOST people have families that WILL let you stay for free, or at least a severely reduced rate.
You're right, taxes are an undue burden. Let's get rid of them!
The US absolutely PROSPERED without an income tax, raising itself from an agrarian backwater to industrial power bordering on superpower without one. It continued to prosper for a long time when the income tax only really applied to the super rich, and didn't become a problem for normal people until inflation pushed everyone into the tax brackets that were once reserved for the wealthy.
Then why is everyone trying to move to the US?
I don't see a lot of unemployed people in Europe trying to move to the US. They'd be crazy to do it!
I think that if you're successful there is probably more opportunity in the US, but more stress as well. You'll do just fine in any country, but the sky is the limit in the US due to the libertarian mindset.
However, with that comes quite a bit of stress. If you lose your job in most of Europe it isn't fun, but you aren't going to die from a lack of medicine or living on the street. The safety net really helps out those who fall on bad luck. Oh, and the employment laws tend to prevent people from falling on bad luck in the first place. My employer tried to shut down a plant in Europe and took about 3 years to do it, which obviously gives everybody a fair bit of time to look for other jobs. You could argue that companies won't build in Europe, but they still do, because unlike in the US the government gives preferential treatment to local employers. If you want to sell your goods in most countries, you at least hire a token number of locals - which is why nobody else has the kinds of trade deficits you see in the US.
I love it when people respond only to back up my point. You're too poorly informed to even see that you are.
Yup - I've known lots of people who have been living on the margins and this sort of thing is par for the course.
If you're scheduled 12-4 one day and you show up and it isn't busy, they might send you home after an hour. Then they want you back again at 6 because things picked up.
If they could get away with it they'd tell you to live on a cot in the break room and clock in whenever a customer walked into the store, and clock back out when they leave. The general trend is to push the risks of running a business onto the employees, which is obviously nice for the owners.
Heck, I know somebody who worked for a public school who was paid for the hours scheduled even if they had to stay later than the scheduled hours to complete their work. That sort of thing happens all over the place and is illegal, but it is truly ironic to see the government doing it.
How is that not an improvement. If we could automate a job that only pays $10/hr, how is it not better for society to free somebody up to do something more valuable. Why should humans be employed so cheaply? Do we not value people's time?
It seems like a solution is to just pay basic income to everybody, and stop fighting the war to ensure that people continue to dig ditches.
it's about a 30% cost of living increase to a 100% increase in minimum wage (depending on state ofc, but most of the US minimum wage bumps have been quite recent). the US already has a much higher youth unemployment so i'm not sure what you're going for there.
This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
Then how do you propose that those displaced workers earn a living? What jobs are they suited for? Where will those jobs come from??
Walmart gives a lot of jobs to borderline-retarded and disabled people who aren't capable of more complex work, did you realise that? What are they supposed to do if those jobs go away -- collect welfare??
And it may seem strange to you, but some people are much happier digging ditches.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
'Fraid I can't remember the details, but Seattle is hardy the first place to raise the minimum wage.
Obviously, yes, some jobs will no longer be economically viable with a higher minimum wage. Most minimum wage jobs though are fairly price-inflexible: Walmart, McDonalds, etc. are already employing as few people as possible to handle the amount of business they have, and those jobs only represent a tiny percentage of costs, so increasing wages won't change prices enough to seriously impact the customer flow.
And the thing is, unlike trickle-down economics, trickle-up economics actually *works*, and pretty reliably. Poor people tend not to invest or keep a lot of savings, so raise the minimum wage 50% and you have an army of minimum-wage employes that are now spending 50% more money every month. That generates a lot more business, which then needs more employees to handle the increase.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
A certain country in northern Europe (Sweden, I think) passed a law saying the welfare was up after 7 years. Then they did a study seeing how long it took people to find jobs again, and the data was staggering: most people found work the month before the 7 years was up. A reportedly large number of people found work the week before their benefits expired. It didn't take long for both parties to figure out what was going on (fraud against tax payers).
.NET developers).
They lowered the welfare life cycle to something like 4 years, and people started finding jobs after 3 years and 350 days.
Out of work people in the US are not dying of hunger. The so-called poor people I've run into have smart phones, TV's, and sometimes nice cars. In a lot of respects they have it better than I do (developer who makes median wage for
If you're concerned about those outliers who can't find work because they are really disabled or unhirable, what is so bad about charity? 80% of Americans (that includes a huge swath of Democrats, liberals, etc) believe charity works better than government-managed welfare.
I only know one person who died of starvation here in the US. It had nothing to do with him not being able to find food. Many of us wanted to give him food, but it was his way off stage. The suicide rates are higher in countries with more welfare.
A certain country in northern Europe (Sweden, I think)
You might just as well say: "unsubstantiated fable ahead".
So many of those countries have tax rates that look like up to 51% individual -plus- a 25% VAT.
Nah, that's the extreme end. A better average for middle-class households in Europe would be 45% individual + 20% VAT (France, Germany, UK, and Spain and Italy are very close).
As opposed to the USA, where an average middle-class households household would face 30% individual (including state tax) + 7% VAT + 20% health insurance - still lower, but in the same ball park. Yes, that's right, health insurance is included in the individual tax in most of these countries, while in the USA, it is often withheld from your payroll, so that you don't realize you are (or your employer is) paying through your/their nose for it. And the lower-income households don't pay proportionally less for their health insurance, so it gets worse. I believe the absurd cost of health insurance is a major drag on the US economy and its financial health.
Substantiation is the veins of beaurocratic decay.
Then how do you propose that those displaced workers earn a living? What jobs are they suited for? Where will those jobs come from??
I already said it in my post - basic income. That means you mail every person a check every month sufficient for a basic lifestyle, regardless of need. Nobody has to work to earn a living. Those who are not suited for a job will just live on that income.
Walmart gives a lot of jobs to borderline-retarded and disabled people who aren't capable of more complex work, did you realise that? What are they supposed to do if those jobs go away -- collect welfare??
And it may seem strange to you, but some people are much happier digging ditches.
And with basic income there would be no minimum wage, so if people want to dig ditches for an extra $1/hour because they enjoy the work, they can do it. As far as welfare goes - everybody will be on welfare whether they work or not.
If you're concerned about those outliers who can't find work because they are really disabled or unhirable, what is so bad about charity? 80% of Americans (that includes a huge swath of Democrats, liberals, etc) believe charity works better than government-managed welfare.
Ah, so government-managed welfare is a bad idea, just like evolution and climate change? :)
If charity works so well, then why are so many people stressed out at the thought of losing their jobs and being forced to depend on it?
And where does the money for this 'basic income' come from??
And even if this scheme worked, you're forgetting an important part of human nature: Most people need to feel like they're earning their way. If they're on the dole, they feel worthless (thus depressed with its attendant issues), and no amount of hobbies and leisure pursuits can change that.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
And where does the money for this 'basic income' come from??
Taxes. Productivity is at an all time high.
And even if this scheme worked, you're forgetting an important part of human nature: Most people need to feel like they're earning their way. If they're on the dole, they feel worthless (thus depressed with its attendant issues), and no amount of hobbies and leisure pursuits can change that.
People can donate their time to help others, and they still can work at whatever jobs they can find. Basic income isn't about keeping people from working - it is about keeping people from losing their homes when they are out of work.
I do all kinds of productive stuff in my spare time. Why would that change if I had more of it?
Setting aside our apparent ideological differences, I completely agree about people being stressed out.
I have a lot of things I could stress out at my job (the example you gave, losing work, is perhaps the easiest), but I choose not to. I give it my best and let the cards fall where they may. People need to learn about how to do their best, and not worry so much about things. Life is too short for that!
When I used to work in the public sector my peers were more interested in doing nothing and shenanigans in general largely because they knew it was very unlikely they would lose their jobs. I see that problem less now that I've been coding in the private sector for 3 years, and on this side people are a lot happier. The going cliche is that government workers have a glazed over expression on their faces all the time. I think that stereotype fits 70-90% of the time.
Anyway, back to your question: why doesn't charity stop people from being stressed out?
People are disinclined to take up charity because they don't want to be seen asking for a hand up. But if someone *really* has a need (starving, dying of exposure, etc) they will ask. It's a lot harder on your ego/facade to admit you need help. This is what people are really "stressed out" about having to avoid, but they should really just learn to do their best and ask for help when they need it.