Please help me understand how a $15 minimum wage is a good idea.

There are problems with making a rigid minimum wage. Instituting a drastic raise would do just as some already point out, which is it will gather a huge amount of the work force at that minimum wage. Out goes motivation to move up the pay scale.

Let's address the reason why we're talking about a $15/hr minimum wage, which is poverty and wealth inequality, no? Tackle the reasons for poverty and wealth inequality directly and specifically.

Poverty: The only reason for poverty is a lack of marketable job skill. Improve access to job/skill training. But that does not mean free college! Tons of careers don't take college degrees, just training. Vocational programs, internship programs, etc.

Wealth inequality: Reduce the incentive for enormous salaries and close the tax loop holes for the most wealthy. Make the company owners want to put profits towards increasing employee wages rather than get taxed at high rates. Yes, increase the tax rate for the wealthiest 10%, and drastically increase it for the top 1%. Make the absurdly high salaries a poor business strategy for those companies.

Edward teach wrote:

You guys act like places that employ min wage employees can operate with fewer employees. What's the grocery store going to do? Have no one watch the self checkout lane. How about McDs ? Only a single employee instead of 3 for the lunch rush? I suppose Starbucks drinks will make themselves ? No raising min wage will cut the money at the top, redistributing it from the most to least needy. It could come from the middle but if you cut the salaries of the ppl who actually do stuff, they leave and your company fails.

Sure they will. Recently went to a national chain restaurant that now has a device on all tables that allows you to order your food, pay your bill and get a receipt without talking to anyone. With the exception of bringing you your food, it eliminates most of the server's duties. With less to do, eventually the servers can just bus the tables and out go the busboys.

Low end markets already have you bag your own groceries. Do other grocers continue to hire baggers at $15 an hour, or pass that job off to the customer? One employee can watch three self checkout stations, so they can install more self checkout machines and employ less people. Stores are continually increasing the number of items you can bring in self checkout lines, and my local market has one register with no limit. My local Target just replaced three staffed "6 items or less" cash registers with four self checkout kiosks.

If this is happening with no minimum wage increase, it's most certainly going to happen if it's raised to $15/hour.

Edward teach wrote:

You guys act like places that employ min wage employees can operate with fewer employees. What's the grocery store going to do? Have no one watch the self checkout lane. How about McDs ? Only a single employee instead of 3 for the lunch rush? I suppose Starbucks drinks will make themselves ? No raising min wage will cut the money at the top, redistributing it from the most to least needy. It could come from the middle but if you cut the salaries of the ppl who actually do stuff, they leave and your company fails.

Ummm...ever heard of automation? How about self-checkout lines? Maybe you've heard of businesses closing? Or not opening?

Holy heck, you are dumb!

Edward teach wrote:

You guys act like places that employ min wage employees can operate with fewer employees. What's the grocery store going to do? Have no one watch the self checkout lane.

That's an ironic example because stores with self-checkout have already cut their workforces drastically. I wouldn't worry about them, they're fine.

The opposite is the the problem at many employers. The work opportunity tax credit allows them to collect up to 40% of most new hires' first year wages from the government. This makes labor so cheap that they shifted to using large numbers of unskilled workers rather than investing in skill development or equipment. They turn themselves into sweatshops to drive their new hires away within 1 year, or failing that, simply fire them on flimsy or no pretext and replace them.

In a state with an $8 minimum, they are effectively paying a little more than $5. So an increase to $15, or effectively $12, would more than double their payroll expenses. They would have to dramatically alter their business model to be a "good" job again. They'll fight to the bitter end against it, but the economy won't be strong again without it. An economy full of part time shitty jobs is going nowhere.

Increases in the minimum wage pretty much lead to inflation. But really, why stop at $15, lets just make it an even $40 an hour. Just enjoy that $25 foot long and that $20 grande Frappuccino. Truth be told a person is not supposed to support a family on a minimum wage job. Minimum wage jobs are for people to learn about business and what jobs they do not want to spend a life doing. I worked plenty of minimum (or there about) wage jobs when I was 15-20 years old (and even at that I was typically raised off of that after I had demonstrated a work ethic). I worked to pay for school so that I wouldn't be stuck in a minimum wage job. Ultimately, the wage is set by the consumer. If you don't like minimum wage jobs, shop at stores that are known for over paying their staff.

I hope you aren't serious. This is in no way accurate. Automation is the simple answer. I used to live in Europe. Automated checkouts at mcdonalds, KFC, etc, are very very common. Much less common in America. The technology exists, it works, and is ready for use. The minute it is more profitable to automate those services instead of hire someone, it will happen. Of course, that would have happened without min wage increases anyways, but raising the minimum wage significantly speeds up the process, hurting millions of low income earners in the meantime.

again, completely incorrect. Paying wages is a cost of business. The business will just raise prices. The consumer loses. And people who get priced out of a job or fired lose too. And the people already making 15$/hr but don't get a raise, but see their daily food/rent/utilities costs go up, they lose too. It hurts almost everyone except the vast minority of workers who get to keep their jobs.

You have a significant misunderstanding (possibly willfully, judging by your past posts) about how minimum wage jobs work. I worked at a minimum wage job for 2 years in high school (fast food). Over that 2 years, I was the only employee (besides managers) who still worked there from when I started. People quit all the time. Some were hired, got pissed off, and walked out. Some lost their jobs because they were in/out of jail constantly for small troubles with the law. Some just got sick of it, and stopped showing up for work--no notice, nothing. just stopped coming. Many were high school students who only worked for 3 months during the summer. Some worked just enough to go out and buy weed and get high, and didn't want to work any more or less hours than required in order to have enough money to buy their weed.

Now with people like that, can you imagine why fast food and other low wage paying jobs don't want to invest a significantly larger amount of money into them? they aren't worth it. Let me guess--it's all the big evil boss man's fault for not paying them 100K/yr to flip burgers, right? I'm sure it's all a vast right wing conspiracy

Now I know for sure you don't know the least thing about the fast food industry. Of all things I ran across in my time working at a popular fast food chain (2009-2011), this is something I never saw happen. Managers greatly valued employees who actually tried and could tell they cared. They never just fired people for the sake of it.

I think you're a troll, and it's taken me this long to be able to tell--OK, you got me good. No one is this asinine. Yeah--how cruel of them to give unskilled workers a chance at a job, right? Yeah, shame on them for not "investing in skill development"--that vast, vast skill development that it takes to know how to take an order, flip a burger, make a pizza, etc. It might take all of 1 week to learn those skills!

joedirt wrote:

Increases in the minimum wage pretty much lead to inflation. But really, why stop at $15, lets just make it an even $40 an hour.

you evil, rich, elitist bast*rd! only 40$/hr? I guess you just hate poor people. I can't even have a rational conversation with someone unless we're talking at least 1,000,000$/hr. Then, we'd all be millionaires! checkmate conservatives!!

Edward teach wrote:

You guys act like places that employ min wage employees can operate with fewer employees. What's the grocery store going to do? Have no one watch the self checkout lane. How about McDs ? Only a single employee instead of 3 for the lunch rush? I suppose Starbucks drinks will make themselves ? No raising min wage will cut the money at the top, redistributing it from the most to least needy. It could come from the middle but if you cut the salaries of the ppl who actually do stuff, they leave and your company fails.

This is the correct answer. The other problem the United States has had over the last 30 years is the low tax rate on the largest income earners. The reason behind a higher tax rate isn't to "make" money and distribute it to the poor, but to make it less desirable to make incrementally more money. What has happened over the last 30 years is that the large corporations have put all of their small competitors out of business. Go to 20 fairly large cities in the United States and drive down the commercial corridors and you couldn't tell them apart. All the same restaurants, all the same retail stores, etc. Instead of many owners making good money, there is only one owner and many managers who have basically become unskilled workers making far less money. Remember when the utility companies had an office in every town? Now you have to call who knows where and talk to somebody who has no clue where you are or how to pronounce the name of your town just to get the gas turned on so you have heat. Probably great for the investor of utilities who makes a few extra bucks, but terrible for everybody else who has to waste more of their time to get what used to be simple things done.

These large corporations have NEVER provided more jobs. They have just run all the other businesses out (and their employees) and replaced them with lower paying jobs and fewer of them.

For the last few years, every time Warren Buffet buys another company, it isn't long before another business or factory in my area he now owns goes out of business. (consolidates or moves to another country)

Those people who once had pretty good jobs are the ones who may depend on a minimum or near minimum wage job just to be able to scrape buy unless they want to move all over the country trying to find a better job. I live in the Midwest also and know that 7.50 an hour is not enough to support a family on. I have rental properties that rent between 350-500/month and 10-12/hour is the minimum wage from my experience that families can pay all their bills with.

15 is a little high but....... wrote:

The other problem the United States has had over the last 30 years is the low tax rate on the largest income earners.

the USA income tax on high earners is on par with that of European countries. In fact, it is 6th highest in the world:

Sort by "Individual max." The rich most definitely pay their fair share of taxes in this country--most likely even more.

Many people get confused by this. But it is because many countries have only 1 national income tax. The USA has 3--federal, state, and local. Add all 3 together, and they are just as high, if not higher, than most European nations, as the link explains. What makes European nations collect more taxes is their crushingly high VAT (sales tax), where it is as high as 20-25% in some countries. Of course this is a regressive tax and hits the poor the hardest, and could help explain why Europe is still feeling negative effects from the financial crash (unemployment in southern europe is still 10-20%) even 7-8 years after the fact. Yet the USA has recovered significantly faster, as our poor do not have nearly the tax burden their poor have.

anapaix wrote:

15 is a little high but....... wrote:

The other problem the United States has had over the last 30 years is the low tax rate on the largest income earners.

the USA income tax on high earners is on par with that of European countries. In fact, it is 6th highest in the world:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates

Sort by "Individual max." The rich most definitely pay their fair share of taxes in this country--most likely even more.

.

What the other countries do has nothing to do with what the tax rate for the US should be. You have to have a rate that takes away the incentive to earn additional income at the expense of others. If somebody is making 5 million dollars a year, why do they need to expand their business and put 20 others out of business just so they can make 8 million a year? Does that 3 million extra help them in any way? No, they don't need the money, they just do it to "keep score".

Just look at the lowly pathetic Columbus Blue Jackets Hockey team. They are in a market that will sustain a 50 million dollar payroll. They can't win enough with a 50 million dollar payroll so they ask the voters to give them 10 million dollars a year so they can win more or they may move. Voters continually say NO. Casino comes to town and politicians/large corporations (nationwide/Dispatch) backdoor voters and steal 10 million dollars a year from the casino tax to give to the bluejackets so they can raise their payroll to 60 million a year. After 3 or 4 years of this, they are still in DEAD LAST. Most of the salary money doesn't even stay in the state.

The baseball salaries for pitchers are crazy. One million dollars/ start for some of them. Would they be offered that much money if the owners knew the last 20 million would be taxed at an 80 or 90 percent rate? Probably not. It wouldn't make that pitcher more hittable if he only made 7 mil a year instead of 30 mil. It would reduce the cost of your cable bill though which would give you enough money to pay an extra buck for your lunch so the people making it could pay their heat bill without having to be subsidized by the Heap program.

freeze or watch hockey..... wrote:

You have to have a rate that takes away the incentive to earn additional income at the expense of others.

It's 3:45 am and I've finished my programming for the night, so, even though you're a troll, I will take the time to respond to this.

No. No. That is not how things works. The economy is NOT a zero sum game. Believing the economy is zero sum (i.e., you make money at the expense of another) is the economic equivalent of teaching creationism in a college biology course. It is simply false. Nobody who has even the slightest idea of anything concerning economics believes that.

Oh--and the minimum wage--which is what this thread is about--HELPS put those small business owners out of business that you are so adamantly defending. Who do you think can more easily afford to pay their employees 15$/hr--mom and pop store that generates 40K profit a year, or walmart, that generates several billion in profit (with tens of billions in reserves) per year? That isn't a difficult question to answer. You're here defending small business, like you're afraid of big business hurting them so much--well think about it--small business owners generally lean republican. of course this is because those regulations are much more easily handled by billion $ corporations than by local places. Onerous taxes and regulations hurt small business owners significantly more than big business competition does.

The idea that the government should have a vested interest in making sure no one makes too much money is just so insane. There is a name for the time when the only business was local business, the only people with any power and money were the government, and nobody ever made a lot of money unless they had special family connections. It's called the middle ages. People shat in outhouses/the street, there was no internet, smartphones, refrigerators, microwaves (all technology was bad--after all, most tech investors are evil billionaires in silicon valley) many mothers died at childbirth (hospitals are evil--they are owned by rich people), and life expectancy was only 30-40 (medicine and scientific research is evil--it is often funded by billionaires or carried out by large pharma corporations).

Centrally planned economies where the government tries to control too much of the economy simply do not work. It never has and it never will. Look at the world rankings of the most and least free economies:

Most free:

Hong Kong, Australia, Singapore, Switzerland, New Zealand, Canada, Chile, Estonia, Ireland, Mauritius, and Denmark.

Least Free:

Eritrea, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Congo

There is no debate. Centrally planned economies do not work. They never have and they never will. Only market economies work. There is not a single historical example that proves otherwise. The world is progressing. As capitalism, market economies, and globalization bring more and more people out of poverty and into prosperity, outdated economic views spouted by the left becomes more and more irrelevant.

All I know is that in my town someone working 40 hours a week at minimum wage could afford a small apartment and groceries and have a little left over.

They certainly would be living paycheck to paycheck and would not have money for luxuries, but that is that is why it is the minimum wage, it is a starting point.

You clearly have never lived off of this much as an independent adult. I don't think you have a real concept of life expenses.

Don't forget to take out taxes reducing this to less than $6.16 per hour (this is fed taxes only, state not included in this figure)

A small apartment and groceries...Great!

So, what about:

1) transportation costs: a car to get to work (=monthly car payments, auto insurance, gas money, repairs, and maintenance)

OR a cheap junker car (= cash towards this + repairs/maintenance) until it breaks down on you

OR

-bus fare (-IF- reliable public transport is an option).

2) medical bills... try going to the doctor without insurance and paying the visit cost/meds. at least $200. Then, you pray to God not to have any type of medical emergency that requires an ER visit (which is more likely to occur without regular medical care). Forget about seeing the dentist; you definitely can't afford that !

OR

alternately, pay insurance premiums and co-pays (neither of which you can afford).

3) clothes and shoes. even if you have access to a thrift store they still cost money, and you have to buy them from time to time.

4) a cellphone and monthly bill

5) utilities - NOT usually included in rent...add another $100 at least per month.

6) don't plan on having any kids...no way to support them on this income. so, you better buy plenty of condoms. Fortunately, these are quite cheap!

7) there are other costs of living I'm forgetting right now.

But, I look at my own monthly breakdown, of necessities only, and I can tell you those wages would not work for me.

These wages leave no way to get ahead or support a family and leave a person vulnerable to devastation at any time. These folks end up costing a lot of money to ERs because they don't get routine medical care because they can't afford it. Those of us who are insured pay for unpaid ER visits of indigent, uninsured folks through higher premiums, or, alternatively tax dollars going to welfare programs or FQHCs... Imho, nothing wrong with this, but the point is that WE as a middle class pay some of the costs of these minimum wage uninsured jobs out of our pockets while the employers pay nothing beyond minimum wage.

Postingfromatrain wrote:

I personally favor eliminating the minimum wage and replacing it with an expanded earned income tax credit, which helps the same people more efficiently because it doesn't penalize employment.

You know that results in lower wages which produces less payroll and income tax.

While at the same time you are asking to increase government deficits greater with that expanded earned income tax credit.

You favor putting greater financial stress on the government.

The biggest problem we have now is low wages which stifles consumer spending and requires greater government involvement to subsidize the poor.

I am not saying that a higher minimum wage is the remedy.

The problem is mostly with people that only make $15/hour that should be getting more.

But I am saying that if minimum wage is set too low, there will be workers that will be exploited to increase a business' profits.

Edward teach wrote:

You guys act like places that employ min wage employees can operate with fewer employees.

Which is exactly why a big increase in minimum wage will put smaller local places out of business and leave us with only the big chains that actually have the money "on top" to take this hit.

Notice I did not say get ahead or anything about supporting a family, I said having the bare necessity to get by. I am not saying this is a good thing, but you could do it on full time minimum wage where I live.

1. Transportation: I live in a small town, it is very easy to walk.

2. Medical Bills: Go to an Urgent Care not $200.

3. We have churches and goodwill that have free and very cheap clothing.

4. Cellphone: That is a luxury, you can also get a pay as you go phone if you have to have one.

5. Utilities: True, not normally included in rent price.

6. Kids: Correct, don't have them at this point in your life!

My point is that you can make it but it is in no way fun, but it is a starting point.

ok. Sure... but, how do you propose a person in this situation can get to a better place financially? do u see a lot of room for advancement from these jobs?

understander of subtlety wrote:

These wages leave no way to get ahead or support a family

yeah. they aren't meant to. if you are still making minimum wage, or anywhere close to it really, don't have a kid.

anapaix wrote:

understander of subtlety wrote:

These wages leave no way to get ahead or support a family

yeah. they aren't meant to. if you are still making minimum wage, or anywhere close to it really, don't have a kid.

Well then, I guess this leaves a lot of folks childless. So, I can assume you support funding birth control and abortions for poor people, right? So, you are okay with your tax dollars going to pay for birth control for these uninsured, minimum wage earning ("or close to it") folks, I assume. (Otherwise, you can plan on your tax dollars paying to support the children these folks weren't supposed to have per your reasoning.)

Or, how about just providing high enough wages for people to be able to have health care and support a family?