Given that America currently has an inflation rate below its target of 2-3 percent (I believe it's about
$10.10 Minimum Wage Could Lift About 5 Million Out Of Poverty
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Given that America currently has an inflation rate below its target of 2-3 percent (I believe it's about
soul creator
Member
I'm not quite sure I follow. Isn't the issue is that it's already too low pretty much everywhere, therefore worrying about "going too high" is pretty much pointless right now? Maybe that would be a problem if we tried to make it $30/hr suddenly, but going to $10-$15 doesn't look like the massive risk some people paint it as (I feel like this same point can be applied to tax rate discussions in this country)
On a separate note, this map is pretty interesting. Looks like there are exceptions for states to get out of paying the federal minimum wage anway: http://www.dol.gov/whd/minwage/america.htm
The product of a bad economy handed to everyone on a silver platter by our policies will have adverse effects, sure. The inability to prepare for a "rainy day" and live within your means is NOT a product of policy or economy, however. Blame is shifted, but not outright passed.
Have you seen medical costs? "Rainy day"? More like impending financial ruin.
And what if the economy didn't have those three jobs for your mother, what if she only found one?
TheRagnCajun
Member
Makes sense. Canada has been above 10 for some time now.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
Sorry, Opiate, but you don't quite have 2) right. It's not true to say that more money has entered the economy. An increase in the minimum wage is simply a change in the distribution of revenues - instead of going towards profit, running costs, or the wages of highly-paid workers, some of that money goes towards low-paid workers instead. There's no 'new money' given the authority responsible for currency issue hasn't done anything.
The reason increases in the minimum wage causes inflation is because people with low incomes tend to spend more as a proportion of their income over a given time period than people with high incomes. As such, when you divert money from highly-paid workers, or from shareholders who statistically are quite wealthy, towards low-paid workers, then money is spent more quickly (or in econ-speak, the transaction velocity of money has increased). This is what drives inflation.
sssstententen
Member
The people making the insane arguments that it would be a negative or disatrous thing to raise the minimum wage 3 DOLLARS in this thread, are the very same reason we will not see this pass any time soon.
Like others have said before me, so many people brainwashed into thinking that this would somehow ruin the economy, mass layoffs, huge cost of living/price hikes, etc.
It's crazy. The money is there for everyone to be making much more than we are, and for all businesses to thrive, even with the expanded population. We've just been told for so long that it isn't that most people really believe its true.
Like others have said before me, so many people brainwashed into thinking that this would somehow ruin the economy, mass layoffs, huge cost of living/price hikes, etc.
It's crazy. The money is there for everyone to be making much more than we are, and for all businesses to thrive, even with the expanded population. We've just been told for so long that it isn't that most people really believe its true.
Good for her. But there's no reason she should have had to work 3 jobs that paid shit with presumably terrible hours just to support her children. Especially since that ends up hurting the kids through no fault of their own because their parent is always absent.
As long as you're working 40 hours a week, you should receive supplemental government assistance that gets you above the poverty line, or the employer should be forced to pay you a wage that does the same. Period.
We've been conditioned to accept the fallacy that certain jobs are just not worth doing (even though somebody has to do them) and that those who perform them don't deserve a decent wage.
If someone is getting out there and working ~40 hours per week, they deserve to make a wage that pays reasonable bills and living expenses.
Please elaborate on what you mean by "today's reactive society." P.S. Any generalization about "today's society" tends to make my eyes roll. How, exactly, were things different in olden times?
Straw man.
I'm uncomfortable with shifting the notion of minimum wage from a beginning salary to one that's needed to support the underclass that's permanently mired in it.
We shouldn't accept little-to-no job mobility as the status quo. I am all for an adequate minimum wage, but only if it functions as a leaping-off point and not a final resting place.
We shouldn't accept little-to-no job mobility as the status quo. I am all for an adequate minimum wage, but only if it functions as a leaping-off point and not a final resting place.
CyclopsRock
Member
But overall productivity never really has been "the thing" - productivity doubling in ten years, for example, makes no difference if all the employees are also doubling their productivity. In such a situation, the employer is given no economic reason to increase pay. It's a given person's productivity compared to the other employees that's what matters within fairly large boundaries (ie being 10000% more productive is unlikely to mean McDonalds pay you 10000% more) just like the value of consumer electronics are seen through the lens of the competition available (again, within those same boundaries.
But is that really how we define value? Employees aren't a fiat currency - they get hired and paid to perform a certain job, usually so that it benefits the employer in terms of a product produce or service offered for money. It may well be socially irresponsible to allow people to earn only $4 an hour if that's all the market deems their produce to be worth, but I don't think we should use words like "value" or "worth" to describe it - at that point, they're effectively being paid based on their need, not their ability.
Well, I don't know - is it? Remember that taking the state-wide or even city-wide median income isn't really enough; You need to also look at various other demographics, chiefly age. If an area has a pretty high income (potentially allowing for a higher minimum wage) but the unskilled in that area are paid very little - perhaps it's a college town with a disproportionately large number of under-25's who have yet to graduate college - then these people may find themselves priced out of a market if the minimum wage is set too high. This is an example, but my point is that there's a lot of finesse to it - in the UK, different age ranges have different minimums for this reason, though the graduations are not that significant unfortunately, which is partly what lead to the situation between 1997-2007 of high employment increases in all demographics but the young, who saw employment stagnate despite a booming economy (1997 was the year the minimum wage was brought in in the UK - prior to this, we didn't have one).
Out of interest, on that map do you know what happens in states with local minimum wages lower than federal ones? Does the federal one only apply to states which don't have their own specific minimum wage laws?
I'm not quite sure what you missed about a product of policy? Or shifting but not passing blame? So you are suggesting that a minimum wage bump of a few bucks would offset "financial ruin"? Fascinating!
Fort MacMurray, where the avarage wage is up somewhere around $160k/year and was a desolate rural shithole, and is experiencing localized hyperinflation is not a great comparison for this thread.
If you want to look at comparable examples perhaps look at the fact that every Canadian province has a minimum wage above $9.95.
http://canadaonline.about.com/od/labourstandards/a/minimum-wage-in-canada.htm
davepoobond
you can't put a price on sparks
i think we should reduce minimum wage. since it promotes the cost of everything to go up, if we reduce to nothing that should mean everything becomes free right?
Freshmaker
I am Korean.
$10.10 an hour isn't a get fat and comfy wage.
I thought about changing that, but didn't think specifics were needed. It's an increase in the velocity of money, which affects inflation.
Yes, I definitely agree. I clearly should have read your second paragraph before responding to your first. I just had to make a decision between being concise and being particular, and I chose the former.
When did I say anything about the minimum wage? If you're gonna be an ass. Be an ass that at least pays attention.
soul creator
Member
It's kind of a religious belief at this point.
Though I think there's a deeper issue behind a lot of that...which is the idea that our trust in public institutions is so low nowadays (which is often warranted), that the only people we feel we should "trust" is ourselves. Which leads to all the stories and myths of self-sufficiency, bootstraps, blah blah.
Granted, America has always kinda been that way since the beginning, but I think it's grown a lot more in recent years
especially since the 80's
Okay, I'm not understanding your position. How are you suggesting that we define the "worth" of an employee's productivity then?
Oh, I was commenting about shifting the concept of what minimum wage is meant to be, and the lack of job opportunity that's prompting that philosophy shift.
Thanks for letting me reiterate my point.
Sincere question about minimum wage - is that 1.6 million figure people who earn exactly minimum wage? What about people who earn between minimum wage and the proposed 10 an hour? You usually get a couple cent pay hike after working minimum for a few months... I wonder if that is then taken into consideration with minimum wage statistics, I'm sure they are
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Well no, what we're saying is that there is a minimum valuation on labor. That a person's work, we have decided, is worth a certain amount by virtue of simply being labor. It doesn't fit into a purely market driven scheme because yeah, it isn't purely market driven. That ain't a bad thing. In some sense yes, I suppose an analogy between labor and a fiat currency could be drawn.
The majority of people are unremarkable and stay in the class they're born. Those who are born into the middle and upper classes stay there without any amazing intelligence, high grades, notable achievements or strenuous effort. Most of us are B and C students (or worse). You're asking the working poor -- the ones who grew up going to the worse schools, living with the most distractions (inadequate housing, neighborhood crime, hunger), the least amount of free time and with the least resources -- to give a relatively extraordinary A+ effort to pull themselves out of living hell... or otherwise they're not really trying or they don't really want it!
Like you and Frank the Great, I too came from a poor immigrant family. Now I live a good middle-class life with a job that pays well. I consider myself fortunate and not typical. Hundreds, if not thousands, of my schoolmates are likely still stuck in the very same poor/working-class neighborhood I grew up or in similar areas under the same circumstances. I'm not foolish enough to think my own success (and yes, luck) can be replicated by every single person who was in my shoes. There are multiple people out there just like you, just as smart and eager, who are stuck in poverty because of some unforeseen bad twist in their lives or because they're stuck living in a place with nothing to offer. Again, class mobility often requires a tremendous effort that not many are capable of doing. Kinda shitty to think otherwise.
So everyone that needs assistance is a cheat and a liar? Care to explain why so many working individuals need food stamps AND food banks to survive? It's not just lazy bums sitting at home all day.
CyclopsRock
Member
Via the markets. How much is someone willing to pay you for your skill or ability or dumb labour? To me, that's the only definition of "value" that means anything. It's what makes Banksy and Damien Hirst's art "worth" more than an art-school graduate, even if the effort, thought and intricacy of both is the same.
For the purposes of a minimum wage, this isn't really relevant - by definition, it's subverting this market based approach in favour of a redistribution of wealth, and that's fine. By and large I'm in favour of it from a purely macro sense. I just find it a little odd when people talk about how awful employers are for giving low wages or even wanting to pay lower wages were there not a minimum wage, as if they should be expected to perform what is in effect an act of charity with their company's profits. The whole point is that this labour isn't worth as much as the minimum wage, otherwise it'd already be receiving it.
In other words, I think a robust defence of the minimum wage should come from the position of economic benefits and possibly less social tension via the possible reduction in income inequality, rather than a sort of weird emotive argument about how labour is intrinsically worth more because they're humans etc.
Edit: to clarify and as a response to The Technomancer above, when you "assign" value to labour, it ceases to really mean "value", surely? You can do it with a fiat currency because, assuming there's reason to have faith in a currency, when it's determined that $1 is now worth $2 instead, you can then use that to buy $2 - or what used to be $2 - of product with it. That's not the case with labour. You can assign it the value of $10.10 if you want, but that doesn't mean an employer actually gets $10.10 worth of productivity.
Hey there! Welcome to a conversation.
Here's how it works.
Someone makes a point, you're free to discuss said point.
This is how it works.
Unless of course, you're some sort of indignant person that really has no point to make other than that they're indignant
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
This is somewhat dishonest, though, because the problem most Western societies face is that employers are willing to pay higher wages than the wages they actually do pay. There are far less employers than there are employees, granting them a monopsony hold on the market, and employers are normally wealthier than employee, meaning that employees often have to accept offers regardless of whether that offer accurately reflects their productive capacity. If a worker would make an extra £15 an hour for my business, then, under the right circumstances, I'd be willing to pay that worker up to £14.99 because at the end of the day I still make money, so my 'willingness' price is £14.99. However, because there are so many workers and because those workers need labour, need it to feed their kids and pay their mortgage and meet the costs of school, need it much more than I do, and because there's so many workers, I can pay them £5.00, because they have nowhere else to go, despite the fact I'd be willing to go £10 higher.
...and this is why the above is important. This labour may well have been worth as much the minimum wage and possibly even more, but labourers aren't in the position to be able to make a fair bargain. Yes, in an entirely competitive market with full knowledge and an infinite number of employers and employees, the wage rate a worker receives is equivalent to their marginal productivity. Economics 101, etc. However, it should be immediately apparent that we're not in this entirely competitive market. We're in a market where workers do not have full information and have essentially no bargaining strength, particularly with the constant erosion of unions without corresponding legislation to empower individual workers. That means someone whose productive value exceeds the minimum wage often still gets paid far less than it, because of just how easy it is for large companies to exploit workers.
See above, then.
AlimNassor
Banned
Minimum wage sucks, but, the only way to survive is to step over everyone and get into a management spot. 7.25 at walmart is not possible to survive on, not when they refuse to give associates anything over 32 hours. Even then becoming a manager is hardly better, you'll still be making next to nothing, but, now you'll be working long hours and be under huge pressure.
quickdevilred
Banned
in Canada the minimum wage is 10.50
trust me it still feels like you are working for peanuts.
it really needs to be something like 13.50, you should be able to make 100 bucks in a day of work IMO.
trust me it still feels like you are working for peanuts.
it really needs to be something like 13.50, you should be able to make 100 bucks in a day of work IMO.
There will always be the need for people to work at McDonalds. You're thinking with you're heart, not your brain. there are a ton of adults working minimum wage jobs, and it needs to be addressed.
makingmusic476
Member
Is there any data at all that shows an increase in the minimum wage would result in an increase in inflation or expenses enough to negate the additional purchasing power of the higher wage?
Because I sure haven't seen it. And historical data and data from other nations with a higher minimum wage than the US suggests that that doesn't happen.
I feel like those who assume it would haven't taken even a few seconds to consider the fraction of the population whose wages would be immediately effected or the amount of revenue the businesses they work for earn per employee, let alone bothered to do a quick Google for some hard numbers. What was it, 46 cents per Wal-mart transaction needed to cover a wage hike, ignoring the fact that Wal-mart has enough profit to easily cover the increase in costs with no additional revenue? And UE is high enough that the increase in demand from the increase in wages would likely result in new hires to meet that demand as opposed to inflation?
Because I sure haven't seen it. And historical data and data from other nations with a higher minimum wage than the US suggests that that doesn't happen.
I feel like those who assume it would haven't taken even a few seconds to consider the fraction of the population whose wages would be immediately effected or the amount of revenue the businesses they work for earn per employee, let alone bothered to do a quick Google for some hard numbers. What was it, 46 cents per Wal-mart transaction needed to cover a wage hike, ignoring the fact that Wal-mart has enough profit to easily cover the increase in costs with no additional revenue? And UE is high enough that the increase in demand from the increase in wages would likely result in new hires to meet that demand as opposed to inflation?
Once you get your 25 cent raise because you've been at McDonald's for 6 months you're no longer making min wage. You assume the people getting min wage now are the only ones that would benefit from the raise but you're not taking into account the people that have been cleaning ladies or burger flippers or shelf stockers for years and are now making a whole shiny dollar more than the minimum.
Aizu_Itsuko
Member
You should learn some austerity from Europe.Minimum wage should be, adjusting for inflation, be around $21-23 and yet we have people bitching about $10+
GTFO
We don't want our workers to have enough money to be consumers, do we? Do we?
The economy can't support having consumers. That would be communism!
All of this assumes that markets are the "natural" or "correct" way to approach valuation, and that other forms of valuation -- even more objective ones, like a relation to productivity -- are somehow a subversion of this. What if I don't agree with this unstated premise?
Again, your basis seems to be that markets are correct, and that other means of evaluating "worth" are subverting the natural balance. It's the implicit basis of your argument here and it is something I don't agree with. We can evaluate "worth" in many ways, and market forces are just one of those ways. Yes, if you start from the perspective that free markets correctly evaluate "worth," then of course any other measure of "worth" is a subversion. But you can do this in reverse: if you start with the premise that productivity measures worth, then markets are the subverting force when they pay high productivity workers low wages.
In other words, you have a huge initial unstated premise: that markets are the "natural" or "correct" way to evaluate worth. I would say are a way to evaluate worth, and I don't see why we should view market valuation as the "correct" way to evaluate worth and view every other way as a subverting interloper.
that's because people were moving there from all over because of the boom. There wasn't enough supply to meet the demand. That's the main reason the prices skyrocketed.
ElectricBlue187
Member
The difference between poverty and almost poverty is rather academic. The real problem is everyone who is working should be making a livable wage where they live and this might help but ultimately would not fix the problem.
Rainy days signify short term downturns or problems. Having your wages slashed in half because of a weak job market and economy is in no way short term or corrected with a normal individuals 6 months of suggested rainy day funds.
Personally I feel all citizens should receive a living wage with annual cost of living adjustments based on CPI and inflation.
BloodMoney
Banned
I need my non-minimum wage increased
You should be getting $8.00 an hour in California, which is above the federal minimum wage, unless you are exempt from this law. Also, the minimum wage increased January 1, 2014 to $9.00 an hour and will again increase to $10.00 an hour in 2016.
Also, after going through that study, it was definitely an interesting read. The only problem I really have with it is that the authors put all their numbers in terms of percentages, but never really gave raw numbers that they used in order to get those percentages. They explained the equations they used, but did not give us the numbers they used to crunch through the equations. They also never explained how they got the 10 cents a day figure.
I work on an Indian reservation so they only have to abide by federal law when it comes to wage. So I get fucked a bit.
Ugh, my sympathies for you my friend.
Davis_McGee
Member
diffusionx
Gold Member
I work hard all day and yea I guess some of my money goes to the people you describe. But I'm pretty sure I am afforded a better lifestyle than them too, so I work hard so I can have the life I want. If I wanted their life I could just stop working and go on the dole, I guess.
You Are Viewtiful
Member
Sweden? The social democratic country with no minimum wage?
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
That's somewhat intellectually dishonest. The reason Sweden has no mandated minimum wage is because each sector normally sets a unique minimum wage for that sector, reached as a result of collective bargaining between unions and businesses. Thus, there's no need for legislation. Given the current desiccated state of unions in the United States of America and the unwillingness of most businesses to open up negotiations, that's not exactly an option.
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