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$10.10 Minimum Wage Could Lift About 5 Million Out Of Poverty
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Because if you have a full time job you should not be struggling hand to mouth. If that means companies and shareholders have to accept lower profit margins, I will shed no tears.
killer rin
Member
How long until they lock the minimum wage to inflation/deflation like they do with everything else?
Actually, with more people earning money, you have more people spending money. Businesses then get more customers and clients and can expand their business, instead of struggling to protect what they already have.
Keeping cash flow at the top if not frozen is a form of austerity. Pumping cash to the middle and lower brackets is pro-growth.
Keeping cash flow at the top if not frozen is a form of austerity. Pumping cash to the middle and lower brackets is pro-growth.
Yeah, but the people who make the decisions don't think that is the case.
This is the reason why I've always found arguments against welfare to be so silly. Because it's ALWAYS getting pumped in the economy even if some scrooge is using it exclusively to fund his video game playing habits.
Because they are certain to lose out in the short term even if they stand to gain in the long term.
Yup.
And there it is. Hahahaha.
Ether_Snake
å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®
THIS IS A MYTH
I have to bold it, because people need to stop repeating this.
Most poor people have no discretionary income, they can only pay obligatory expenditures, sometimes only by accumulating debt. Increasing the minimum wage will not cause obligatory expenditures to rise in prices since everyone, not just poor people, pay for those expenses, but poor people will have either more money to pay off their debts or more discretionary income, so it's a win-win situation for the economy since discretionary spending is one of the best economic stimulants.
The only thing that might go up is rent, and that's why you need regulations to protect poor tenants from unjust rent increases, because landlords should not be allowed to increase rent just because a poor person has had a pay increase.
/thread
Then they should be punished for not meeting the minimum, which should be a living wage. It shouldn't be a choice for them to hire people for less than a living wage.
Sirpopopop
Member
It is insulting that a poster continues to trot out the "If you work hard, you will have more opportunities in life" meme.
It's a harmful, inimical belief that is one of the root causes of the U.S.' inability to get its economy jumpstarted - namely our inability to help the unemployed. After all, "IF THEY ONLY WORKED HARD, THEY WOULD HAVE MORE OPPORTUNITIES IN LIFE." So let's cut their benefits, BECAUSE THIS WILL MAKE IT EASIER FOR THEM TO WORK HARD.
So yes, I think this is one fucking case where people can take the moral high ground while personally insulting people.
Black Mamba
Member
Walmart isn't my proof, I'm simply saying they have the similar reasoning.
Also, I find it humerous to think one needs proof to accept that owners are greedy.
Of course, but this really isn't the case here and you know it. You're trying to turn this into an argument over semantics but the reality is most Americans support a minimum wage hike to 10.10: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/01/minimum-wage-poll_n_3691118.html
So unless that 20% is entirely small business owners when 2/3 of them support a "minimum wage hike" without a stated number, it's pretty safe to assume most, if not all, that 2/3 support a $10.10 wage hike. I think it's safe to assume they all assume a $10 minimum wage hike.
If their reasons are "inability to pay," then they're going to go under very soon regardless of a minimum wage hike. This often gets lost on people.
Their reason is "it will cut our profits" to which I have a small violin playing (oh, and yes, I've experienced in small businesses).
Yeah, and minimum wage workers earning more means more money to spend on their good, which is good. The point is that small businesses have to compete for skilled labor and rarely employ unskilled labor outside the food sector (who is already exempt from the minimum wage law). That's why only 15% of small businesses pay someone minimum wage or less and with most of those being restaurant jobs exempt, the actual percentage of those paying out minimum wage is almost irrelevant. And the same goes for near minimum wage.
It is the big businesses who fear a minimum wage hikes because it will eat their profits in addition to making their products less desirable (income effect!).
This is completely wrong. Most evidence shows huge positive effects on poverty and nearly non-existent effects everywhere else. Card/Krueger was only the first in a long line of studies demonstrating this. Your argument is nothing but Neumark's BS argument (I'll mention him again later) which Card/Kruger addressed in a later paper and refute.
Regarding youth employment, this has also been refuted. Neumark's study was directly refuted by this paper: http://www.irle.berkeley.edu/workingpapers/166-08.pdf
In fact, some studies show it increases youth employment: http://moya.bus.miami.edu/~lgiuliano/minwage_prepub.pdf
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=654069 or www.cbc.ca/​bc/news/​bc-110429-fraser-institute-minimum-wage.pdf
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=961374[/QUOTE]
The first link is Canada and I'm not bothering with it. The second link doesn't work and you're liking the Fraisier Institute, a libertarian think tank. The final is from Neumark and Wascher (the latter is a complete schill for conservative think thanks and corporations, btw) and Neumark is pretty much the only current American economist pushing the minimum wage is bad argument (besides when Wascher pops his head up from the sewers) and his own papers have been thoroughly refuted numerous times to the point that he goes back and re-does them after they've been refuted. There is no reason to take Neumark's research seriously as anything he's done before 2012 has been destroyed and sent to waste bins. Neumark himself, when confronted with the data he found, admitted the effects are negligible but essentially argued it didn't matter because basically if it has a negative effect of 0.00000000001, then it shouldn't be allowed regardless of the positive effects.
If you want to read stuff not being pushed by an agenda, I'd start here: http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/min-wage-2013-02.pdf
That is not a flat rule, however. It depends on the size of minimum wage regulation. We'd have to see which is more efficient for businesses and consumers, especially since the money they spend isn't guaranteed to come back to those individual businesses at all.
But the money lining the pockets of 'job creators' is guaranteed to come back to the people it came from? Of course not. But if the overall situation improves, then that is good enough. Unless you only want systems to change when no party to the system may be worse off with the changes :/
You're right the money won't immediately find it's way back to certain businesses. Hedge funds for example, won't be seeing any new customers. Clothing stores, small businesses, restaurants, grocery stores, big chain stores, movie theaters and that sort of thing are going to see most of the immediate benefit from an influx of new consumers with more money to spend on their products. Eventually that money will work it's way back up the chain, creating more spending as it does, until it reaches the top. Then it'll get taxed or used as payment for workers and find it's way back down again.
The flow of money through an economy is like the circulatory system. If the economy is healthy that money will flow through the economy and everyone will get their hands on it eventually, if it isn't healthy the money will stagnate and that causes problems. The longer it goes on the worse the problem gets.
shanshan310
Member
UP the minimum wage to $10?!?!? Jesus, how do people live?! Our minimum wage is double that.
Basically? The social safety net.
Businesses can get away with paying so little because we as a nation decided that we should try and help the poor. Businesses are taking advantage of our kindness towards each other and using that kindness to fuck us up our collective ass with no lube and a sandpaper condom.
The overall situation needs to account for hurting businesses that may not receive benefits from a potentially small boost in spending and what exactly those hurt businesses are doing in reaction to being hurt by legislation.
I have very little faith in it properly trickling upward to all the places or most of the places that are affected by this. We just need to find a fair balance.
Probably cheaper goods + government benefit.
The people who benefit from this increase aren't going to be able to sit on that money, they'll have to use it to survive. To pay bills and put food on the table. The money won't stagnate because there won't be enough there to stagnate. There will always be someone to buy or pay for at that income level. All this will do is increase their purchasing power, which will lead to them buying more things, which will eventually lead to more profits.
The reason money can stagnate at the top is because eventually you run out of things you can spend it on. Imagine being paid 10 million a year for 3 years. The first year, you'll find plenty of things to buy. Houses, cars, planes, jewels, vacations and that sort of thing. The next year you won't have as much to buy because you've already bought so much, so you will still be spending money but not nearly as much as your first year. The third year you'll be spending the same or maybe even less. There's only so much you can spend it on, a lot of what's left will stagnate. The people who benefit from this hike will not have that problem. That's why it won't stagnate and will eventually find it's way back up.
Black Mamba
Member
Because the minimum wage is an attempt to try to adjust for a assymetric information and monopsony power.
In a perfectly competitive market, no one would be earning something as low as our current minimum wage.
We cannot raise the number to any hyperbolic number. The number does matter.
The overall situation is one vague condition.
We have much better welfare than the US. It is still busted, but at least it is better than the US.
Yes, yes, I understand it on a collective level. As long as you generalize businesses as a whole and just mention "the economy" it becomes very simple to work with but if you charge some of these businesses within that collective more money that they may not see returned to them they will have to do something to make up that cost, which may in turn affect the amount of income workers there receive. If the business is not directly affected by the spending on "bills" and "food" then the cost per worker per hour definitely does add up.
You seem quite happy to collectivise the working poor, but not happy to collectivise the businesses.
?
Your comment is pretty strange to me. It sounds more like an attack to character but if I were to defend your judgement on me - businesses are a lot more varied than the demographics that are involved in minimum or low wage work, which are studied often so we can make larger statements about the group as a whole and the demographics within them.
Edit: Far too late. Heading out. You all have a nice night.
...and I just justified it too by saying we have the data to correctly judge the working poor collectively and by their individual demographics. However, I'm not judging businesses individually either. I'm just breaking the whole collective of "businesses" into smaller demographics. Now goodnight.
You did it again in this post. Individual businesses compared to demographic groups rather than than individual people.
The money will eventually find it's way back up the chain though. These businesses that won't benefit immediately are the sort that tend to cater to the rich already. If this is really going to drive them out of business then they haven't been doing a good enough job.
Stores like Sears and Walmart are going to see more customers spending more, so they'll be fine. McDonald's will be the same, people will have more money to spend on their crap food. Before you say anything about the dollar menu let me just say they've phased it out already, last year. Movie Theaters will see more customers because people will have more money to spend on leisure. Book stores will be the same as will airlines, as now people will have money to go on vacation with. All the shops on your main street will start seeing more traffic as a result of the hike. What businesses won't benefit at all? Hedge funds? Investment banks? Yacht shops? I think they'll be fine.
benjipwns
Banned
Why can't we correct the market to be even more competitive? Just phase it in over time if you can't do it right away which should be the only complaint. Denmark is at $20 or something without any ill effects, so moving to something even more sane and humane just makes rational sense.
What should the number be then if it has to be harsher and leave more in relative poverty?
Black Mamba
Member
What other countries are at is irrelevant. What matters is purchasing power within a given country. $10 here could be higher than 20 euro in germany, for example.
That's a hard thing to answer, but it should probably be industry specific.
All I know is we're well below the number right now.
Black Mamba
Member
What are you trying to prove with the hyperbole?
Black Mamba
Member
lol, i see what you did, now.
Damn you, benji.
Damn you, benji.
ClassyPenguin
Banned
Looool.
"Job creators"
Where's that? Sounds like there has to be a catch.
There is. Property is unaffordable. Food is a bit more expensive. Petrol(gas) is much more expensive. Clothes are more expensive. But most of those are the result of distance from other markets and fucked up government policies with the real estate market rather than high wages.
Edit: LOL, just realised I didn't answer your question. It is in Australia.
I don't understand how people are claiming the minimum wage is directly correlated to rental home prices. It's just not true.
The high price for rental units is largely an issue of supply and demand. When the housing crash occurred and the barrier to home ownership was raised, many owners became renters after they lost their homes and the poverty rate rose across the board, supply could not keep up with demand and rental prices rose in most of America.
There are other reasons such as young professionals that tend to move away from their hometown and are renters for an extended period of time. the same also goes for the workforce in general where longterm employment at one company is less normal then in the past. Add to that the downward pressure on wages occuring all over the country and the result is many people can't afford the down payments or the credit requirements to buy a home in today's economy. Then you throw in the return on investment of rental units versus stand alone homes along with the large ownership conglomerates in many areas that dont want to build new properties and make it difficult for new devlopers to move into the market and there isn't a large rush to meet the growing rental demand.
Taking into account all of that and I really don't see how raising the minimum wage is going to be the determining factor for higher rental prices. In fact if anything a raise in the minimum wage could actually alleviate some pressure on individuals trying to meet rent and governments having to subsidize living expenses for the poor.
The high price for rental units is largely an issue of supply and demand. When the housing crash occurred and the barrier to home ownership was raised, many owners became renters after they lost their homes and the poverty rate rose across the board, supply could not keep up with demand and rental prices rose in most of America.
There are other reasons such as young professionals that tend to move away from their hometown and are renters for an extended period of time. the same also goes for the workforce in general where longterm employment at one company is less normal then in the past. Add to that the downward pressure on wages occuring all over the country and the result is many people can't afford the down payments or the credit requirements to buy a home in today's economy. Then you throw in the return on investment of rental units versus stand alone homes along with the large ownership conglomerates in many areas that dont want to build new properties and make it difficult for new devlopers to move into the market and there isn't a large rush to meet the growing rental demand.
Taking into account all of that and I really don't see how raising the minimum wage is going to be the determining factor for higher rental prices. In fact if anything a raise in the minimum wage could actually alleviate some pressure on individuals trying to meet rent and governments having to subsidize living expenses for the poor.
Bringing up the catches was kind of a question so I appreciate both answers.
Still though, had a mini-daydream about the possibility of $20 minimum wage in the dirt cheap area of the US I grew up at. No way I would have went to university.
A Link to the Past
Banned
On one hand, it will hurt businesses' bottom ends. On the other hand, perhaps this wouldn't have happened if minimum wage didn't go up so slowly.
Cotton McKnight
Member
Shit, there are kids going to bed hungry tonight, in the USA.
The food that people can afford is crap, while we are at it....
oneils
Member
It wouldn't just raise the wages of 1.6 million people. It would raise the wages of all the people making under 10.10 an hour and not just those making the current minimum.
That would change the demographics affected.
Also, the impact would be minimal. Over the last 15 years, minimum wages has gone from 6.85 an hour to 10.50 an hour in the province I live and it's impact is minimal. Cost of living increases are hardly impacted by minimum wages.
Coriolanus
Banned
Do most people opposed to a minimum wage increase realize that, when someone is getting minimum wage, there's really good odds that everybody ends up paying for that person's wages, instead of just the business owner?
shanshan310
Member
But we do that too and still have a minimum wage that you can live on.
Maybe that's another problem. I would say that fast food here (Aus) is more expensive than healthier options.
Misnomer, while many poor as fuck areas have atrocious produce selection, if you have even the most basic of culinary skills you can cook semi healthy stuff for dirt cheap.
Problem is we don't teach those skills to kids in America so when they grow up poor as fuck they think the dollar menu is a replacement for cheap meals at home.
I've had teammates on sports teams who had NEVER seen raw chicken until they came over for dinner. Think about going 18 years and when someone says chicken your first thought is a fucking chicken nugget.
Shit like this makes me proud that at my work we never pay anyone minimum wage just out of principal. Even though legally we don't have to pay them anything (the home for them originally offered to PAY us!) we even pay the mentally challenged people who come for a few hours a week with a supervisor to learn job skills more than minimum wage.
Minimum wage = You're worthless I'd pay you less if it wasn't illegal. Minimum wage/minimum effort.
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