Wait... wrote:
If you have to pay your workers more money then the prices of what you are selling have to go up to continue to break even on what you are selling, so raising the minimum wage wouldn't accomplish anything other than inflation, so why?
One other effect is to kill off many jobs (business turns to automation). This kills the path upwards for many and they resort to welfare .... the leftist’s ultimate goal because now they control that person.
Previously, it was a relevant topic for me as well, I always wanted my minimum rate to be as high as possible, but then I realized that in any case it is better to work for yourself, and not for someone else. I sat for a long time at the minimum rate in the office, but decided to leave my comfort zone and decide to open my own business, for this I had to mortgage my car in order to get a large amount of money in investments, the guys from the site https://compacom.com/title-loans/utah helped me with this, without their help and my decision I would continue to sit in the office at my minimum rate and only thought about opening something of my own.
principles of economics wrote:
just some real thoughts wrote:
Except when you raise prices you lose sales. So you have to raise them MORE to compensate and still break even. And then you lose even more sales. Minimum wage doesn't work.
Minimum wage does work.
Card and Krueger argued for the advantages, then Burkhauser, Couch and Wittenburg showed that there is a slight but statistically significant decline in the demand for low-skill workers. Fewer workers implies lower aggregate demand, and on average supply creates demand (Say's Law, weak form).
However, as I noted in my previous post, there are costs to society not necessarily measured in Burkhauser, Couch and Wittenburg.
Minimum wage and increases in minimum wage work the best for workers and most likely society in aggregate if there are guaranteed federal or state jobs for every able body person. I know those in government in Seattle area bragged years ago that they raised their minimum wage and unemployment rate slightly improved. You know unemployment figures are a sham. Mayors can arrest their way to low unemployment numbers. Real stats are labor participation rates. You engaged me in a discussion of 1920's outsourcing yesterday. International corporations are going to seek cheap labor. No use complaining about it. Governments can provide work. I do not mean unnecessary work. High speed rail lines need to be built. High speed rail trains cannot rely on outdated rail lines. Intermediate travel, it is more efficient for U.S. citizens to take high speed rail than fly or drive. I have traveled from Chicago to Minneapolis-Saint Paul numerous times by air, rail, driving I-90 or driving I-94. Rail is most consistent but on slow Amtrak it takes 10 hours. The actual flight time is only 50 minutes but due to post 9/2011 security, one has to arrive (90-105)mn early. Time to park vehicle. If flight is delayed, when I had a home in MN and an apt. in Chicago, flying took longer than drive from front door to front door at least 25% of time. Anyway, government must guarantee employment for minimum wage to work for society and work for the best of U.S. citizens. As stated yesterday, increases in minimum wage only always work for highly skilled labor like RNs and airline pilots. When minimum wage is increased by 25%, RNs & pilots get 25% wage increases also.
Wait... wrote:
If you have to pay your workers more money then the prices of what you are selling have to go up to continue to break even on what you are selling, so raising the minimum wage wouldn't accomplish anything other than inflation, so why?
I think many know me as a conservative poster, but I understand the appeal and think it is justified. Companies have paid the least they can to employ people for so long, the financial divide between those at the top and those at the bottom of the company is tremendous. Everyone knows this is not sustainable, and is one of the leading causes of the political discontent in this country. The real question to ask is this: why do companies not voluntarily reduce CEO salaries and upper management in favor of providing better wages to the lowest paid?
On a side note, the greed from university officials and health care administrators have done the exact same thing. This is why we see so many on the left gaining support of their ideas. You can blame the influential people on the left for the issues, but there is some merit to these complaints that must be addressed if we are to maintain a strong middle class in this country.
It is popular because people are laxy and dont want to do anything in their lives accept flip burgers. That way the folks busting their balls for twice minimum wage can be poor too.
“having a minimum wage harms the poor”
That’s enough internet for today
running in the breeze wrote:
It is popular because people are laxy and dont want to do anything in their lives accept flip burgers. That way the folks busting their balls for twice minimum wage can be poor too.
Do you believe that minimum wage workers are the reason that your wages are not higher? Do you know upper management and and CEO's salaries have increased just under 800% since the last time the federal minimum wage was increased.
Oh, by the way, your first sentence shows a lot about the kind of person you are.
What you can charge for your product is somewhat constrained by what customers are willing to pay. If McDonald's labor costs double they can't simply charge twice for a Big Mac what they'd charged before. If a doubled wage results in even a 20% price increase those getting that doubled wage are well ahead.
And at some point businesses will be hurt if overall salaries are too low. Henry Ford was no progressive but he understood that it was in his interest to pay his workers enough that they could afford to buy the cars he was selling. An overall increase in the minimum wage, one that goes to all 40 million or so workers who are earning it, will allow for a lot more discretionary spending which for McDonald's would mean a lot more Big Macs getting sold.
fdssss wrote:
I'm not an economist but thinking through this I wouldn't expect the increases to be 1 for 1. For example maybe labor is 50% of McDonald's costs. So if the cost of labor goes up 20% then the price of food only goes up 10%. So now the minimum wage worker whose wage went up 20% has greater purchasing power at McDonald's.
But OK - what if that minimum wage increase ends up eventually increasing the cost of food & rent for McDonalds? Now everything has gone up 20%, right?
I would argue no. I think a minimum wage does end up impacting higher salaries, but again it's not 1 for 1. Let's say I make $100k. Minimum wage goes up 20%. That will not eventually translate to my salary increasing to $120k. Maybe it goes up a little but there are enough steps in between that the impact should dampen by the time it reaches me.
So maybe raising the minimum wage increases the cost of everything, but I'd argue there is some dampening that happens and so while the lowest wage people get the 20% increase, the price of everything and wages for higher earners does not necessarily go up by the same 20%. So those people effectively get a targeted boost.
That is my intuition but an economist can tell me if I'm wrong.
you are 100% wrong on every aspect of this
The real minimum wage is $0 an hour. The number of people on the $0 an hour minimum wage increases every time you raise the legal minimum wage. If liberals cared about people for once their goal would be to create jobs and get as many people as possible off the $0 an hour minimum wage. Instead they will do their best to keep them unemployed through things like raising the minimum wage and pay them unemployment benefits so they stay dependent on the government.
Why is the idea of freezing minimum wage at the 2009 rate so popular?
For businesses with minimum wage workers, their prices have gone up since.
Notice how much more you pay for a burger these days?
I believe something like 3% of american workers actually make minimum wage. Some people act like half the work force is on min. wage
X-Runner wrote:
Why is the idea of freezing minimum wage at the 2009 rate so popular?
For businesses with minimum wage workers, their prices have gone up since.
Notice how much more you pay for a burger these days?
Exactly! A study was done 6-8 years ago tha it was determined that Walmart could raise the price of every item in the store by 3 1/2 cents to raise the pay of every worker to $15 per hour and somehow keep 8 members of the Walton family in the top 20 of America's richest people.
Bob schul country wrote:
fdssss wrote:
I'm not an economist but thinking through this I wouldn't expect the increases to be 1 for 1. For example maybe labor is 50% of McDonald's costs. So if the cost of labor goes up 20% then the price of food only goes up 10%. So now the minimum wage worker whose wage went up 20% has greater purchasing power at McDonald's.
But OK - what if that minimum wage increase ends up eventually increasing the cost of food & rent for McDonalds? Now everything has gone up 20%, right?
I would argue no. I think a minimum wage does end up impacting higher salaries, but again it's not 1 for 1. Let's say I make $100k. Minimum wage goes up 20%. That will not eventually translate to my salary increasing to $120k. Maybe it goes up a little but there are enough steps in between that the impact should dampen by the time it reaches me.
So maybe raising the minimum wage increases the cost of everything, but I'd argue there is some dampening that happens and so while the lowest wage people get the 20% increase, the price of everything and wages for higher earners does not necessarily go up by the same 20%. So those people effectively get a targeted boost.
That is my intuition but an economist can tell me if I'm wrong.
you are 100% wrong on every aspect of this
well ...I believe it if this guy says so!
(also , please cite your sources when you get a chance...sounds like some interesting data out there! share it with the world!)
pucket frop wrote:
I believe something like 3% of american workers actually make minimum wage. Some people act like half the work force is on min. wage
Minimum wage is misleading when the living wage is a lot higher.
In a lot of areas businesses have to pay more than minimum wage just to get workers. But that is probably still under the real living wage for that area.
I remember this great article about this issue.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/03/upshot/fast-food-jobs-teenagers-shortage.htmlpucket frop wrote:
I believe something like 3% of american workers actually make minimum wage. Some people act like half the work force is on min. wage
yeah...but if you raise the minum wage $3 you have to include all the people making 3$ more than minum wage in your figure......and all the people making just a little more than that too since they will conceivable see a bump too in companies with tiered payscales. So now we're talking about improving the lives of tens of millions living at or near the poverty line.
can I get change? wrote:
Limousine Libertarian wrote:
You are the A-hole is you for making mutually agreeable transactions illegal, and in so doing, raising the cost of living in the effected areas.
right.....and we should have no labor laws, environmental laws or anti-monopoly laws too...and only private highways and schools. You realize what sht hole country that would be, right?
how dare people not allow a 11-year old work 2 hours a day factory if they want to! it's a mutually a agreed on transaction!
Libertarians always talk about how much better things would be if re rolled back all regulation..........but they don't acknowledge how much worse life was when we didn't have these regulations.
yes yes yes...all these regulations on free trade only make everyone poorer and life worse!! Except we somehow seem to be way better off despite not working 12 hours a day in excessively dangerous jobs. We have just as much as we did then and have better lives. Undeniable fact. Wins out over fantasy theory every time.
Thank you for being the voice of reason!
Wait... wrote:
If you have to pay your workers more money then the prices of what you are selling have to go up to continue to break even on what you are selling, so raising the minimum wage wouldn't accomplish anything other than inflation, so why?
A $15 minimum wage will be disastrous. The minimum wage is already terrible as is. What it really is, is saying if you can't add $15 an hour of value to a business you aren't allowed to work and become a ward of the state. Businesses don't hire people for a loss, if they do they go out of business. There are lot of entry-level jobs for low-skilled people or young people that are stepping stones and allow them to develop skills to earn more that this will kill. No reason a movie theater shouldn't be able to hire a high schooler for $5 an hour to serve people popcorn. If the left is so concerned about automation taking peoples jobs don't force employers to pay so much for labor that they choose automation over employees. The next response will be programs like universal income to motivate people not to work.
Not to mention the idiocy that a $15 minimum wage should be applied across the board to New York City and rural Appalachia.
But why do people like the idea of raising minimum wage. People always love free stuff from the government. Or the promise of more from the government. People just don't realize how much this "free" stuff costs. Or the economic damage these programs do. It's a lot easy for a politician to stand on their pulpit and say vote for me and free checks for everyone than to explain how the free checks will devalue our currency and increase the national debt and burden the economy decreasing the quality of life for all. Which message are you going to vote for. I want the guy who is promising free stuff!!!
How about an $8 federal minimum wage for starters?
Wound that destroy the southern states that stick with federal $7.25?
Wait... wrote:
If you have to pay your workers more money then the prices of what you are selling have to go up to continue to break even on what you are selling, so raising the minimum wage wouldn't accomplish anything other than inflation, so why?
On average inflation adjusted minimum wage, in the USA, has been declining.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Timeline_of_federal_minimum_hourly_wage_for_nonfarm_workers_for_the_United_States._And_inflation-adjusted.gif1. Federal inimum wage should be tied to inflation - I think $10/hr in today's terms is reasonable, and it should automatically increase with inflation so that acts of Congress aren't required to change it.
2. Minimum wage for part-time work should be higher (say $15/hr). If you want to pay low wages you need to guarantee work and pay benefits.
3. Full time work should be 35 - 37.5 hours/wk, rather than 40, gives more employees a chance to work. Employers are free to pay overtime to their most talented employees if they want them to work more.
