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[YuriLowell]

Agreed. Minimum wage should be the minimum that you can survive on your own with 1 full-time job. 10 dollars is a good figure

so after health insurance taken out of your checks and everything else you honestly think that 1100 dollars a month is enough to live off?

 

[that1dude24]

i'm going to drop off two good articles on the minimum wage here:

Economic benefits of raising the minimum wage:

In 2007, Congress passed a three-step federal minimum wage increase. The first two increases took effect inJuly 2007 and July 2008, and the final will take effect in July 2009. These increases boost consumer spending and stimulate the economy in the following ways:
The first two increases
• Will have generated an estimated $4.9 billion of spending by July 2009, precisely when our economy needed it the most.
• The final increase in July 2009 is expected to generate another $5.5 billion over the following year.
• The increase to $9.50 by 2011 that President Obama promised during the campaign would generate an estimated $60 billion of additional spending over a two-year period.
...
This stimulative effect may help explain why studies of the minimum wage rarely find that an increase leads to higher unemployment. One common misconception about the minimum wage is that increases in the wage will result in businesses hiring fewer people, and thus, more unemployment. However, recent studies (Card and Krueger (1995); Baiman et al. (2003); FPI (2006); and Wolfson (2006)) have failed to find a significant impact on unemployment from raising the minimum wage. There are several potential explanations for this, including increased productivity and morale along with reduced turnover and absenteeism (for details, see Bernstein and Schmitt (1998); Card and Krueger (1995)). In addition to these explanations, the stimulative effect may play a role. If raising the minimum wage leads to millions of families spending billions of more dollars, then this spending creates jobs for other workers and helps offset the theoretically negative impact on employment. Another common misconception about the minimum wage is that these workers are mostly teenagers in welloff families. This study, like the study by Aaronson et al. (2008), intentionally excludes such workers and still finds a large effect. In fact, when considering all minimum wage workers (including teenagers), the vast majority are adults. Using the most recent data available (from the increase in 2008 to $6.55), close to 70% of the 2 million affected workers are at least 20 years old, and over 60% come from families earning less than $35,000 per year. Furthermore, more than 520,000 affected workers support at least one child.
...
Conclusion
These results demonstrate that an increase in the minimum wage would not only benefit low-income working families, but it would also provide a boost to consumer spending and the broader economy. Increasing the minimum wage is an effective stimulus that helps workers who need it the most and supports the economy.

Full PDF

Evidence against "increases in minimum wage lead to higher unemployment":

The argument that state minimum wages have had a substantially negative effect on a state’s labor market is an extreme repackaging of the perennial claim that minimum wages do more harm than good because they cause many low-wage workers to lose their jobs. While this argument was once more prevalent among economists, recent studies with improved methodologies have reached the opposite conclusion. In general, there is no valid, research-based rationale for believing that state minimum wages cause measurable job losses. Making the extreme case that the job losses are severe enough to show up in a noticeably elevated state unemployment rate is a wild extension of a largely unfounded theory.

A more careful look at state labor markets reveals that minimum wages are clearly not the cause of labor market pain in the states. Much more dominant forces, especially the unrelated decline in manufacturing employment, better explain state economic circumstances.

Full Text (with lots of good data)

 

[nilbog21]

Americans are finally starting to protest. I am so proud

 

[Dunk#7]

The higher you raise minimum wage the higher unemployment will go.

The organization has a finite amount of money and if they have to pay each person more then some will have to be fired.


Minimum wage was never meant to raise a family on. You can't sit at the same job you had as a teenager and complain about your circumstances. Get out and find an entry level position with the opportunity to move up. Sometimes it comes down to the individuals work ethic and drive. Some also blew a large portion of their chances when they were in school laughing at those who were trying and working hard for good grades.

**What is stated above is not the case for everybody as I know some of the workers in these positions work just as hard as anybody, but they still often don't look elsewhere and realize the money potential is maxed out at their current employer.

 

[Jimothy]

The higher you raise minimum wage the higher unemployment will go.

I'd love to see some statistics for this.

 

[Mudkips]

Those employees better be careful.
If they demand too much they will be replaced with robots.
That would be a lot of lost jobs.

The problem with your thinking is that it does not work on a macro level. We need someone to work at McDonalds, robots aren't good enough to do the jobs yet and even then who would really trust a robot to make them their food?

http://momentummachines.com/

Our alpha machine replaces all of the hamburger line cooks in a restaurant.

It does everything employees can do except better:

it slices toppings like tomatoes and pickles only immediately before it places the slice onto your burger, giving you the freshest burger possible.
our next revision will offer custom meat grinds for every single customer. Want a patty with 1/3 pork and 2/3 bison ground after you place your order? No problem.
Also, our next revision will use gourmet cooking techniques never before used in a fast food restaurant, giving the patty the perfect char but keeping in all the juices.
it’s more consistent, more sanitary, and can produce ~360 hamburgers per hour.

The labor savings allow a restaurant to spend approximately twice as much on high quality ingredients and the gourmet cooking techniques make the ingredients taste that much better.

 

[The Technomancer]

But after years of the richest 1% walking off with so much of our nation’s wealth, places like McDonald’s and Walmart have become the last resort for too many middle-aged and elderly workers.

“I’ve never been so low in my life,” Mary Lopez said as she counted off all the maintenance jobs she’d done — all for far better pay.

“I put in 10 years at the World Trade Center, you know the restaurant at the top of the towers, Windows on the World, and I was in the restaurant union then,” she said. “After that, I spent another 10 working for OTB (the Off-Track Betting Corp.). We had a union there, too, but they laid me off from that job in 2010.”

Standing next to Lopez was Linda Archer, 59, a cashier at the McDonald’s at Times Square.
“I’ve only gotten an 80-cent raise in the past two and a half years,” Archer said. “It’s just me and my mother at home, and she’s retired. But I’ve got bills to pay, and they give me just 24 or 26 hours a week of work. How are we supposed to make it in this city, with everything so expensive?”

This really is the core of the issue. There are full adults trying to live off of these wages at less than forty hours a week

 

[speculawyer]

Consider the economic malaise & unemployment, I'm kinda amazed the protectionism is never raised.

 

[gwarm01]

What if you can't move? Like you can't actually move away. You can't do it, it's impossible

woops, guess you suck it up and be underemployed?

I absolutely understand that there are scenarios where people get stuck in terrible situations where it is almost impossible to pull yourself out. I'm just more in favor of social programs to help these individuals better themselves rather than increase the pay of unskilled jobs such as this. I'd rather McDonald's stay a place where youngsters work to spare cash rather than a place an adult works to try and support themselves and a family. It would be better if programs existed to help them get training and new skills.

Of course the wage problem really varies with location. I live in a rural Southern state where $15/hr is what you make in a manufacturing job or as a young college grad. I understand the situation is very different in more expensive cities.

 

[qizah]

$7.25 is minimum wage? Wow.

In Ontario it's $10.50 I believe, which I think is pretty fair. I feel like $15 is too much for a fast food joint. In comparison, some full time entry level office jobs start at around $16 or $17 per hour. I definitely agree that $7.25 is too low though. $10.50 seems like a happy medium.

 

[Dunk#7]

I'd love to see some statistics for this.

Isn't that a pretty common mathematical certainty?

Your revenue is going to stay the same and you will have to pay each worker more money. You can now higher less people with the same amount of money because you are paying each person more.

Johnny gets fired so that his earnings can be split up to pay others more.

Extra money does not magically appear for paying people more

 

[WickedCobra03]

Is this real life? All I see here is "Booo hooo it's too fucking hard, I give up!!"

If you are that poor, the federal government offers financial aid. If a person chooses to go back for a Bachelors degree, then start at the community college where financial aid will help cover most of the costs of school there. Plus, with the minimum wage salary in addition to financial aid, that will provide a good amount of funding and help with education and living.

If a person chooses to go to the vocational route, then the person needs to make sure to research where they are going. If they get tricked into going to one of those places for a freaking iPad, then it's their own damn fault. For a person to improve their lives, it means stop being stupid and actually making sure that decisions that are made benefit them.

As for all your other hypothetical situations, live at home if you can't live with a roommate or find a place to live with 3-4 other roommates, get a bike for transportation if gas is too much, learn to cook and buy your own groceries, etc. for every situation. There is such a thing as growing up.

Also, a person with a bachelors degree is still better off than a person who works minimum wage. Do you really think the economy is always going to suck? Once the economy picks up, a person with a bachelors degree will have a better future than a person who is working minimum wage.

Then you are part of the 47% Romeny wanted to wipe off the face of the earth by taking any sort of aid. Okay, living at home isnt an option, parents don't give you a proper support system, don't get a long, whatever.

All I have to say to these people who think minimum wage is fair... you work for $7.25/hour with no support from anyone else but yourself. It is damn near impossible to survive let alone better yourself. The economy, even in the next 10 years will not be in the place it was in the 90's and early 00's. And we are talking about people with nothing but themselves to provide for here.

This is real life, and just give me your thoughts when you have to live in the $7.25 real life that these people are living in for years and get back to me on just how easy it is, that "they didn't build it hard enough", they have not picked themselves up by their "bootstraps", ect.

The companies are the fucking leeches, sucking off the governments tit, only by proxy of their workers.

 

[Jimothy]

Isn't that a pretty common mathematical certainty?

You can't just blurt this shit out without anything to back it up. The burden of proof is on you.

 

[jamesinclair]

Isn't that a pretty common mathematical certainty?

Nope, just a theory. Some cities and stars raise their minimum wage every year. Unemployment does not follow.

 

[B-Dubs]

Isn't that a pretty common mathematical certainty?

Your revenue is going to stay the same and you will have to pay each worker more money. You can now higher less people with the same amount of money because you are paying each person more.

Johnny gets fired so that his earnings can be split up to pay others more.

Extra money does not magically appear for paying people more

Actually it isn't.

 

[kame-sennin]

Americans are finally starting to protest. I am so proud

Me too. People (mostly those who oppose the goals of the organized left) will argue that these tactics are ineffective or point to a movement stumbling as a sign of defeat (OWS). But these tactics have worked in the past. It always took years or even decades to accomplish their goals, and there have always been setbacks that looked at the time like defeat. It'll take Americans a while to get "good" at protesting again, but I'm glad that process has begun.

 

[ElectricBlanketFire]

I'm not necessarily against a pay increase for those that deserve it, but I don't think a blanket increase is the answer.

We can't assume that these are all stellar employees who tried as hard as they could but just weren't given the chance to move up.

 

[Prez]

What kind of idiots would demand a 100% raise?

 

[B-Dubs]

What kind of idiots would demand a 100% raise?

Guys who are negotiating. No one actually thinks it will happen, odds are they will settle for $10 or $12 an hour. You always shoot high with your first demand that way when you eventually get what you want the other side doesn't feel hosed.

 

[Zhengi]

i'm going to drop off two good articles on the minimum wage here:

Economic benefits of raising the minimum wage:

Full PDF

Evidence against "increases in minimum wage lead to higher unemployment":

Full Text (with lots of good data)

This study was very interesting. I read it all and wondered about this part:

The minimum wage increase is an increase in their permanent income, which allows these families to significantly adjust their consumption patterns in the short term. In the long term, however, this spending increase must partially fade in order to match the increase in income.

Also, another argument is that increasing minimum wage also increases prices. It would have been great if they included that in their study as well.

The only other question I have is that this study looked at studies that showed that the minimum wage had no impact on unemployment before the recent recession hit. I am curious to see if this was the case after the recession hit and if it is the case today a few years pass the recession.

 

[YoungFa]

Isn't that a pretty common mathematical certainty?

Your revenue is going to stay the same and you will have to pay each worker more money. You can now higher less people with the same amount of money because you are paying each person more.

Johnny gets fired so that his earnings can be split up to pay others more.

Extra money does not magically appear for paying people more

If each person got paid more, they can spend more. Workers are also customers.

 

[Freshmaker]

Isn't this only an assumption made in the article? What about other factors such as declining graduation rates?

While I do agree that there should be living wages, I also feel like if a person is stuck in a minimum wage job like at McDonalds, that person has to do something else to improve themselves so that they aren't stuck there. Whether that is through education or learning a new skill, no one is better suited to help that person. The opportunities and the resources to help them improve are there.

This is just a hilarious argument.

"Workers shouldn't have any say in their wages. Only companies should have any say since these jobs suck."

I'll never understand why companies are allowed to negotiate wages, but the other party that's directly engaged in making their money for them is never supposed to negotiate at all.

 

[ElectricBlanketFire]

Guys who are negotiating. No one actually thinks it will happen, odds are they will settle for $10 or $12 an hour. You always shoot high with your first demand that way when you eventually get what you want the other side doesn't feel hosed.

So I should walk over to HR and ask for twice my current salary as a negotiating tactic?

 

[Piecake]

so after health insurance taken out of your checks and everything else you honestly think that 1100 dollars a month is enough to live off?

payroll, SS, and health insurance will probably come to about 300-400 dollars a month, not 600. As for state and federal taxes, you'll be getting all of that back come tax time

If you live in New York or SF it might not be doable, but for pretty much every where else, I think you can live off of 1400 a month

 

[kame-sennin]

Isn't that a pretty common mathematical certainty?

No, it isn't. Wall Street is hoarding huge sums of money. Raising the minimum wage to a living wage would redistribute (gasp!) that hoarded wealth from Wall Street investors to working class people. Even better, those working class people, who barely have enough money to survive, will put that extra money back into the economy. Why? because the poor and working class "do without". There are tons of goods and services these people want and even need that they simply can not afford to buy. An increase in their wages would cause a surge in spending. What we have now is a system where the wealthy, who already have all that they could ever need or want, vacuum money out of the economy to increase their economic and political power at the expense of everyone else.

 

[B-Dubs]

So I should walk over to HR and ask for twice my current salary as a negotiating tactic?

Obviously not, but shooting higher than you want is a common tactic. The only reason they are asking for double is because of how little they make. If they ask for $10 or $12 they'll be lucky if they get $8 and $8 is as much of a joke as $7 and change. This isn't the same thing as you, one guy, negotiating either. This is a few hundred guys, 1 guy you can just fire, a few hundred protesting you can't. Well not without looking like an absolute dick.

 

[heliosRAzi]

.

 

[Zhengi]

Then you are part of the 47% Romeny wanted to wipe off the face of the earth by taking any sort of aid. Okay, living at home isnt an option, parents don't give you a proper support system, don't get a long, whatever.

All I have to say to these people who think minimum wage is fair... you work for $7.25/hour with no support from anyone else but yourself. It is damn near impossible to survive let alone better yourself. The economy, even in the next 10 years will not be in the place it was in the 90's and early 00's. And we are talking about people with nothing but themselves to provide for here.

This is real life, and just give me your thoughts when you have to live in the $7.25 real life that these people are living in for years and get back to me on just how easy it is, that "they didn't build it hard enough", they have not picked themselves up by their "bootstraps", ect.

The companies are the fucking leeches, sucking off the governments tit, only by proxy of their workers.

I've lived on minimum wage for approximately 3 years before going back to school to finish my bachelors degree. I got my BA when I was 28 years old.

I did live with my parents to offset costs though. Why isn't living with parents an option? If it isn't, why not look for 3-4 roommates to reduce the cost of an apartment even further?

This is just a hilarious argument.

"Workers shouldn't have any say in their wages. Only companies should have any say since these jobs suck."

I'll never understand why companies are allowed to negotiate wages, but the other party that's directly engaged in making their money for them is never supposed to negotiate at all.

Who said workers shouldn't be allowed to negotiate their wages? What part of my original quote did I even say that?

Workers can have a say in their wages, but if a company doesn't hire them cause there is excess unskilled labor out there, then what bargaining power do they have?

So if all it takes is workers negotiating, why don't you go to your boss and ask for $100 an hour? Let's see how hilarious that is after your boss shuts the door on your face.

 

[Prez]

Guys who are negotiating. No one actually thinks it will happen, odds are they will settle for $10 or $12 an hour. You always shoot high with your first demand that way when you eventually get what you want the other side doesn't feel hosed.

There's no way they're getting $10 an hour either. Maybe $8.

 

[B-Dubs]

There's no way they're getting $10 an hour either. Maybe $8.

They'll get $9 at the very least, if anything comes of this that is.

 

[Prez]

They'll get $9 at the very least, if anything comes of this that is.

What came out of the Walmart strikes?

 

[Dead Man]

i'm going to drop off two good articles on the minimum wage here:

Economic benefits of raising the minimum wage:

Full PDF

Evidence against "increases in minimum wage lead to higher unemployment":

Full Text (with lots of good data)

Excellent post. Not just because it agree with me, either

 

[that1dude24]

This study was very interesting. I read it all and wondered about this part:



Also, another argument is that increasing minimum wage also increases prices. It would have been great if they included that in their study as well.

The only other question I have is that this study looked at studies that showed that the minimum wage had no impact on unemployment before the recent recession hit. I am curious to see if this was the case after the recession hit and if it is the case today a few years pass the recession.

well, here's something (which, admittedly, i've only skimmed through) that states it being rather negligible in the food industry (where they think it would impact more than other industries because of the amount of persons at minimum wage in that sector):

Abstract
An input-output model is used to analyze price pass-through effects of a minimum wage increase on prices of the food and kindred products and food-service industries. These sectors employ a disproportionate share of minimum wage workers, but results suggest a $0.50 increase in the present minimum wage would increase food prices less than percent for most of the 12 food and kindred products prices and 1 percent at eating and drinking places.
...
Conclusions
The methodology we used assumes a full pass-through;that is, the increase in cost of labor is fully passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices, so our estimates are probably best considered as upper bounds. We found that (1) within the food and kindred products industry, the share of workers in the minimum wage category is relatively small (less than 10 percent in most cases); (2) the share of labor cost in the total cost is also relatively small for most of the sectors in the food and kindred products industry; and (3) although total compensation is composed of both wage and salary and supplemental compensation, the minimum wage increase would affect only the wage and salary share of total compensation. In most cases, the wage and salary share of compensation is 80 to 85 percent of the total compensation. This study is based on the assumption that if the number of workers and hours is fixed in the short run, the expected reaction on the part of businesses that wish to maintain their profit level is to raise the price of their goods or services. Using transportation and trade margins, we transformed the producers’ prices to purchasers’ prices and showed that the minimum wage increase usually affects transportation and wholesale and retail trade sectors less than food processing sectors. Thus, the estimated effect of increased minimum wages on retail food prices was softened from what we observed at the food processor level.

Full PDF

 

[B-Dubs]

What came out of the Walmart strikes?

I don't think it was big enough to do anything, it made a lot of news because it was the first of it's kind.

I don't think the idea here is for the company to raise their wages, but for the minimum wage to go up a bit. It is way too damn low right now considering the living wage is $15. That's what's being drawn attention to with this particular strike. I don't think it's so much putting pressure on the company as it is on the legislature. If they do get a raise good on them, but reminding everyone about how people make half of what they need to live at a full time job isn't bad either.

 

[iamblades]

As far as increases in minimum wage causing more unemployment, it obviously depends on whether a particular business is at minimum employment already. Obviously not all businesses can trim their workforce while still remaining in business, though with the increasing sophistication of robotics, that result is becoming more and more likely.

The major thing that a minimum wage increase causes is increase in prices to offset them, which nullifies the whole point of a wage increase. What good is a wage increase if it just means everything costs more?

Money does not just materialize out of nowhere to pay for an increase in the minimum wage. It either comes from marginally employable workers losing their jobs or from increases in prices.

 

[The Abominable Snowman]

Costco and Home Depot sell big ticket items.

McDonalds serves cheeseburgers.

This infuriated me to no end, I'm just jumping in on page 5 but i hope page 1-4 roasted this guy appropriately.

Working Minimum wage jobs are beyond stressful, not only because of the pay and the work you're expected to do on that low, low pay, but because of the type of jobs they are and the situations they put you in with customers. There are new "Rude Customer at McDonalds" and "McDonalds Prank" and "fight in McDonalds" videos popping up every hour. My local McDonalds has mostly either high school/college kids in evenings and over 40 workers all day, with little or no inbetween that I've seen. Definitely deserving of way more than 7/8 a hour.

The major thing that a minimum wage increase causes is increase in prices to offset them, which nullifies the whole point of a wage increase. What good is a wage increase if it just means everything costs more?

Money does not just materialize out of nowhere to pay for an increase in the minimum wage. It either comes from marginally employable workers losing their jobs or from increases in prices.

Why cant business and spending increase along with the minimum wage? I'd imagine there would be at least a few people in a position to spend a little more every now and then instead of thinking up new ways of how to make it on what they have.

 

[CrankyJay]

Fine, raise the minimum wage, but then I want my pay raised by that amount as well.

 

[Loofy]

Why is minimum wage so low in the states compared to canada?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_wages_in_Canada
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._minimum_wages

Is it offset by taxes?

 

[SoulPlaya]

Paying a McDonald's cashier $15 an hour would be insane.

My cousin in Norway makes that much being a cashier at a Old Navy equivalent. Well, to be fair, she gets paid $14.

 

[iamblades]

This infuriated me to no end, I'm just jumping in on page 5 but i hope page 1-4 roasted this guy appropriately.

Working Minimum wage jobs are beyond stressful, not only because of the pay and the work you're expected to do on that low, low pay, but because of the type of jobs they are and the situations they put you in with customers. There are new "Rude Customer at McDonalds" and "McDonalds Prank" and "fight in McDonalds" videos popping up every hour. My local McDonalds has mostly either high school/college kids in evenings and over 40 workers all day, with little or no inbetween that I've seen. Definitely deserving of way more than 7/8 a hour.


Why cant business and spending increase along with the minimum wage? I'd imagine there would be at least a few people in a position to spend a little more every now and then instead of thinking up new ways of how to make it on what they have.

Overall business in dollar amounts is almost certain to increase as a result of an increase in minimum wage, but that doesn't mean anything with regards to costs or purchasing power or company profits. If costs rise in the same percentage as revenue, you haven't gained anything.

Also while fast food jobs may be shit, there are worse minimum wage jobs to be found. Try working in an injection molding plant handling 500 degree plastic all day.

 

[scar tissue]

More or less insane than paying someone millions of dollars a year to be a CEO or professional athlete/actor?

.

People getting paid millions because they won the genetic lottery is one of the biggest injustices of today.
I'd say fastfood "cooks" provide more valuable services than athletes or many (not all) politicians.

Hell, if you pay them decently, they might stop spitting in burgers.

 

[entremet]

Good luck making $15/hour. Lots of professionals don't make that much money.

Isn't that roughly 30k? That's not exactly tons of money.

 

[scar tissue]

Money does not just materialize out of nowhere to pay for an increase in the minimum wage. It either comes from marginally employable workers losing their jobs or from increases in prices.

How about the big players who are rich as fuck anyway take a small dent in their profits so their employees can afford a decent life?

...fuck, who am I kidding?

 

[CornBurrito]

Good for them. Minimum wage is such a joke.

Heh, some people would agree for entirely different reasons.

It either comes from marginally employable workers losing their jobs or from increases in prices.

Out of curiosity, why can't employers simply take in less profit?

 

[iamblades]

How about the big players who are rich as fuck anyway take a small dent in their profits?

...fuck, who am I kidding?

Retail and fast food profits are already pretty shitty.

I certainly wouldn't invest in a company in either sector outside of a total market index fund. Yields are way to low to be a draw to investors.

 

[alphaNoid]

I worked fast food for my first job, made $4 an hour. When I wanted more money, I didn't something CRAZY. I got a better job.

Crazy concept

 

[scar tissue]

Retail and fast food profits are already pretty shitty.

I certainly wouldn't invest in a company in either sector outside of a total market index fund. Yields are way to low to be a draw to investors.

Weird, how is that possible? Take McDonald's: they sell utter crap to comparatively high prices, pay their employees like crap, the "restaurant" is furnished with cheap shit - where does the money go?

 

[captmorgan]

Raise min wage to whatever you want, just make sure my wage increases accordingly to cancel out the price increases. The numbers in the end are meaningless, its the buying power thats important.

 

[captmorgan]

Out of curiosity, why can't employers simply take in less profit?

Then why bother with increasing the wage just take it from them.

 

[Guevara]

Negotiation 101: ask for more than you want.