This is what's wrong with the US...

RunDaddy wrote:

Seriously? wrote:

9 times out of 10 that assumption is correct.

This is a starting wage. If one employee gets 25, and another gets 30, (all things equal) chances are the better paid employee will perform better.

No. Wrong. ... Actually, quite the opposite is more likely. The person making 25, once they learn that someone in town is making 30 for the same job, is more apt to bust their butt so they get the next job that opens at higher than 30, and beat out the person making 30. This is the way the world works in a market economy.

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How many people are going to bust their arse to make that extra 5. Not many. You're thinking in a perfect world, not the real one. Most would find that out and start looking elsewhere, where they would be compensated properly for the SAME effort. NOT for an effort above & beyond...

Well if we're talking 25k in a town where living expenses are high, like Boulder, then maybe that's not enough money. But 25K is plenty to live on in many other places in America. You might not be able to buy new cars, a big house, or lots of little nifty electronic gizmos like an IPhone, but 25k/year is plenty to get you by if you are single and you don't buy a bunch of shit you don't need.

That's the problem. People expect more money because we live in a society where unnecessary luxuries are considered neccessary.

I couldn't agree with you more. I'm single and living in Boulder. I do not own a car, or any of the new-fangled Ipod type crap. I have a tv, but no cable. I have DSL. That's about it for my expenditures, well, except for this running habit...

I can tell you if you're making 25K here, and renting/buying you're own place, you're not able to do anything else. Heck, you can't even do that on 25k.

Well, I was really just playing devil's advocate. I have plenty of shit I really don't need, like some of the "nifty" things I mentioned. I was just saying that it is quite possible to live on 25k if you're frugal. But like you said, if you live in a place like Boulder, CO you probably need a bit more than 10 bucks an hour.

Although, what can be done? Pay everyone in Boulder 40k+?? The fact is, a hotel desk manager is a job that anyone who managed to graduate high school could do. In an ideal world, everyone would make enough to live comfortably. But in the real world, if you have a job that a chimp could do, you're gonna struggle financially. If you want the American dream, you're gonna have to bust your ass to figure out to get it. Or come from a wealthy family, or win a lawsuit, or rob a bank, or sell drugs, etc.

RunDaddy wrote:

This is an erroneous assumption.

If the salaries of the folks that work at your favorite running store were suddenly doubled tomorrow, do you think you'd get twice as good service when you walked in the door in two weeks? I doubt it.

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Americans do quite well in wage compensation. Their problem is they consume too much and save very little.

First he didn't say that there was an elasticity of 1 (as your example implies). Just non-zero. You're trying to make things black and white because it's simpler for you that way.

Second social services and health care are worse in the USA than they are n other developed countries compelling higher spending. For example Americans spend more on transportation because conservatives kill attempts to invest in good public transportation and land use planning. Housing is more expensive too.

Lazy L wrote:

First he didn't say that there was an elasticity of 1 (as your example implies). Just non-zero. You're trying to make things black and white because it's simpler for you that way.

Second social services and health care are worse in the USA than they are n other developed countries compelling higher spending. For example Americans spend more on transportation because conservatives kill attempts to invest in good public transportation and land use planning. Housing is more expensive too.

It's simpler for young folks who haven't been out in the real world for 25 years busting their asses. There is absolutely no sense in arguing that a hotel desk manager should command some minimum salary above what is legal and what the market will tolerate. If the OP thinks 25K isn't enough to check people in and out of rooms for 45 hours a week, he is free to not interview for the job and look for better employment elsewhere. Entry level salaries are generally low, relative to what could be made in any career field, for the simple reason that companies like to see how someone performs for a while before boosting their salary and trying to lock that person in for a longer period of employment. No one likes overpaying some shit-heel for 6 months before finding out he's a slacker looking for a hand out.

The point I was making is that money is almost never an honest motivator. People who are only motivated to work hard for more money are probably not the kind of people you'd want in your business. Money should be a reward for hard working people who are doing something they are passionate about.

And services in the U.S. are not bad compared to other developed nations given our relatively low tax burden compared to those countries. I lived in the UK for 3 years - the Brits have been $5-6 for a gallon of gas for quite a while. And their housing is quite pricey and generally smaller than what you'd get in the U.S. Britain was a failing welfare state by the early 1970s until Thatcher came to power in the late 70s and saved the country. That's why when Labor finally won again in the mid-90s, Blair never reversed any of Thatcher's reforms.

If you want the government to step in and make those mean hotel managers pay new desk managers $50K a year, or whatever is deemed a "liveable" wage, guess what: the hotels will simply cut staff elsewhere and/or pass the cost off to the customer. When government screws with the market too much, everyone gets screwed.

This is what's wrong with the U.S.??? I don't think so, champ.

What's wrong with the U.S. is that there are too many pussies like you who think they are entitled to good money right out of the gate before they've proven themselves. Well let me let you in on a little secret - YOU AIN'T ENTITLED TO JACK SH$T!!! And 45 hours a week is nothing. How about you get your sorry ass off letsrun for a few extra hours a day and get out there and work a little harder for a living. What??? Afraid if you work say 60 hours a week your precious 5K time might slow down by 30 seconds?? Well here's another little secret - NO ONE IN THE REAL WORLD GIVES A FLYING F&%K HOW FAST YOU RUN!!!

Why don't you just shut your piehole, find the best job you can in a field that interests you, and then start work your freakin' ass off for, say, 40 years. Welcome to the real world you freakin' whiny bitch.

Be grateful that you even have a job if you aren't willing to go to college or learn new skills.

I would say $25K is right for a managerial job in a 2-3 star hotel.

Most of the computer jobs are being sent to Malaysia and India and people there get paid $10K for a equivalent $50K job in the US.

l disagree but this is what you should have posted earlier. Not some bogus strawman argument about productivity not being doubled with a doubled wage.

25k is $10.12 an hour considering time and a half for the last 5 hours. The minimum wage in Colorado is $6.85.

I worked my way through the last two years of college in 1988-89. I was making 4.35 an hour as the head of the plumbing dept at a hardware store. The minimum wage at the time was 3.35 an hour. By working 49 hours a week, I was bringing home about 190 a week. I was also taking 12 hours of classes.

That job didn't pay much but it was enough to allow me to finish college and get that high paying job as a manager trainee at McDonalds. I raked in the enourmous sum of 15k a year there.

While the hotel job might not be much to you, it may be a steppingstone for someone else to the career they want to achieve.

You must have just recently moved to Boulder or something. The thing is...the job market in Boulder is basically non-existent unless you are willing to make peanuts working in some retail store on Pearl St. Most people move there being completely over-qualified settling for jobs that are well below their skill level. They settle for less money and take what they can get. That is Boulder for you. Residents who DO make decent money have to commute to work in Denver or beyond. Lesson: well paying jobs in Boulder, CO are hard to come by...if you don't accept a low paying job in the city, someone else will gladly snatch it up.