# House Dems propose raising minimum wage from $7.25/hr to $10 **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 7, 2012, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-dems-propose-raising-minimum-wage-from-7-25-hr-to-10/624401 "2012-06-07T16:58:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2012, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-dems-propose-raising-minimum-wage-from-7-25-hr-to-10/624401/161 "2012-06-13T16:17:12Z")
[QUOTE=Evil Captor] But … sob … my children have no polo ponies! Seriously, these just so stories about how you pulled yourself up by your bootstraps so everyone else can go to hell cut absolutely no ice with me. The bulk of people are average, not driven to succeed by all the fires of hell. That’s the problem we are addressing. Outliers do not make for a good basis for planning, typically. [/QUOTE] Well of course it doesn’t, EC. For one thing, you blew most of it off and focused on only a small part of what I wrote there. For another, it runs counter to your political philosophy that folks do this (honestly, it was my dad who did most of the work by bringing us here in any case). And lastly, you pretty much had everything handed to you, obviously, since you claim to have never had a job that didn’t put a roof over your head. It’s nice if you can get that, ehe? 😛 The bad thing is you totally missed the point I was getting at, which isn’t that ‘everyone can do it!’ or some other rah rah! horseshit. It was merely to point out that your little anecdotes, while nice for you do not resonate with everyone. At a guess, most people HAVE worked jobs that didn’t, by themselves, put a roof over their head or give them everything they needed, especially early on in their working career. You might have, but at a guess it’s you who is the outlier here in this respect. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2012, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-dems-propose-raising-minimum-wage-from-7-25-hr-to-10/624401/162 "2012-06-13T16:17:50Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > He’s not required to accept your descriptions at face value and he didn’t directly call you a liar. That said, **Evil Captor** , you’re treading a very fine line here and you’re better off debating the claims then arguing whether or not **kayaker** is telling the truth. Fine, no problem. I was just pointing out that accepting whatever is claimed on an anonymous message board as axiomatic can skew the debate a wee bit. I’ll not further impugn anyone, though I did post already in response to kayaker. For the record, I don’t know kayaker, so I’m in no position to speak as to his personal qualities at all. ---
**Author:** ![Acid\_Lamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Acid\_Lamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acid_Lamp)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2012, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-dems-propose-raising-minimum-wage-from-7-25-hr-to-10/624401/163 "2012-06-13T16:18:29Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Bolding done by me. I’ve been vague in an effort to not identify what I do for a living, or where I do it. What I do requires a college degree and specific licensing that my support staff do not have. In addition, I choose to work as few hours each week as possible. I’m lazy. > > Added to all of this is the fact that the area I live/work in is economically depressed. The recovery may be occurring some places, but it isn’t here. Some of my customers are non-profits that are on the edge of shutting down. > > Theoretically, I could cut staff significantly, work 50 hours a week, and make decent money. I’d rather work 15 hours a week, pay a largeish support staff (who are happy to be making minimum wage, given the unemployment picture locally) and get by, barely. > > Apologies for remaining vague.🙂 No problem, so long as you admit that it is nothing but your own laziness and lack of motivation that would cause the lay-offs rather than any \*real \*lack of funds. The wage isn’t the problem, your own lack of ambition is. In most businesses I could find that sort of money in any number of places before I’d have to go to lay-offs. You are the owner, you can do as you please, and I won’t argue, but don’t pretend there aren’t a myriad of options out there, including streamlining infrastructure issues, renegotiating with vendors, dealing with supply chain problems, Incrementally raising prices to consumers, accepting a slightly smaller margin, providing additional value to your consumer and raising prices to reflect a higher end model, reducing staff hours fairly, or management paycuts just for starters. Hell, you could save that kind of money in fuel costs easily if you have a few drivers on the road by maximizing their routes. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2012, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-dems-propose-raising-minimum-wage-from-7-25-hr-to-10/624401/164 "2012-06-13T16:21:56Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Well of course it doesn’t, EC. For one thing, you blew most of it off and focused on only a small part of what I wrote there. For another, it runs counter to your political philosophy that folks do this (honestly, it was my dad who did most of the work by bringing us here in any case). And lastly, you pretty much had everything handed to you, obviously, since you claim to have never had a job that didn’t put a roof over your head. It’s nice if you can get that, ehe? 😛 > > The bad thing is you totally missed the point I was getting at, which isn’t that ‘everyone can do it!’ or some other rah rah! horseshit. It was merely to point out that your little anecdotes, while nice for you do not resonate with everyone. At a guess, most people HAVE worked jobs that didn’t, by themselves, put a roof over their head or give them everything they needed, especially early on in their working career. You might have, but at a guess it’s you who is the outlier here in this respect. > > -XT right out of college, I had to share an apartmetn with two other recent college grads, I had a roof over my head but only because we banded together to rent a cheap, scummy apartment. I have also been homeless once when a company hired me from out of state then went bankrupt a month or two later, a horrible experience. I was able to stay with friends, but still horrible. So I’ve been batted about as much as anyone, though prolly not as much as you. BTW, worked my way through college on academic scholarship and a part time job, as well. I think you had better move that silver spoon to another candidate. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2012, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-dems-propose-raising-minimum-wage-from-7-25-hr-to-10/624401/165 "2012-06-13T16:23:27Z")
I kind of figured that. So, you DID work jobs in the past that didn’t put a roof over your head by themselves, but had to band together with others to make ends meet. Correct? Glad we cleared that up then, EC. See how easy that was? 😉 -XT ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2012, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-dems-propose-raising-minimum-wage-from-7-25-hr-to-10/624401/166 "2012-06-13T16:31:37Z")
> [@XT](#): > > I kind of figured that. So, you DID work jobs in the past that didn’t put a roof over your head by themselves, but had to band together with others to make ends meet. Correct? Glad we cleared that up then, EC. See how easy that was? 😉 > > -XT Do you think this makes your point? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2012, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-dems-propose-raising-minimum-wage-from-7-25-hr-to-10/624401/167 "2012-06-13T16:52:02Z")
It make A point, to be sure…that being that you exaggerated in your statement and that it was a silly thing for you to have said. Other than that it whiled away some time in between flights and kept me amused, so it’s all good from my perspective. 😛 -XT ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2012, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-dems-propose-raising-minimum-wage-from-7-25-hr-to-10/624401/168 "2012-06-13T17:13:15Z")
The problem with these MW discussions is that they often conflate two entirely separate issues: 1. How much is a given job worth? (Something that only the market can tell us.) 2. How much must we, as a society, assist those whose are unable to support themselves. As I said earlier, the one thing the MW has going for it is that it distributes $$ to people in need with little or no overhead cost (that is, no government bureaucracy set up to hand out funds). But, it does distort the market and sends $$ to teenagers and people who are not the primary breadwinners and who don’t “need” it. It also hides the cost of that welfare system so we don’t even know what we’re shelling out. It is possible to not like the MW, but still think we need a safety net for those who can’t support themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2012, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-dems-propose-raising-minimum-wage-from-7-25-hr-to-10/624401/169 "2012-06-13T17:39:28Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > The problem with these MW discussions is that they often conflate two entirely separate issues: > > 1. How much is a given job worth? (Something that only the market can tell us.) I’m sorry, this isn’t accurate. Wages aren’t a measure of what a job is “worth” in any sense other than bad use of language. In fact, wages represent many different pieces of information, such as the relative bargaining power of workers and employees. Allow me to demonstrate: suppose there are two islands. On one island the workers negotiate wages individually, and as a result the average wage is, say, $1/hour. On the other island the workers band together into a union and negotiate collectively, and as a result the average wage is, say, $10/hour. The work performed is the same. Is the same job “worth” $1 on one island, and “worth” $10 on the other island? If you say yes, “bargaining power is reflected in wages, and that’s what the job is worth; that’s just economics in action” (I knew you’d say that), then I will say, government is the ultimate reflection of bargaining power, therefore minimum wages are just economics in action, and you arguing against them is inconsistent. Even at the econ 101 level, economics talks about various outcomes (or, “equilibria”) that are self-sustaining and fully market clearing, but which can be rated compared to each other. In fact there’s a whole economics literature that discusses using government intervention to move from one equilibrium to a “better” equilibrium; search on “big push,” where the government uses its power to move an entire economy from a low-wage-low-productivity equilibrium to a high-wage-high-productivity equilibrium. Introductory 101 level game theory classes will cover simple demonstrations of this; two player games with a high equilibrium and a low equilibrium, each of which is a Nash equilibrium but one of which is better. For any given market, there are infinite combinations of wages and returns to capital that are fully market-clearing (that is, there are infinite Pareto efficient outcomes). Economists try not to rank these equilibria (search on normative v. positive economics), but to say that the one particular outcome you are currently seeing is the “only” or the “best” outcome is just wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2012, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-dems-propose-raising-minimum-wage-from-7-25-hr-to-10/624401/170 "2012-06-13T17:54:19Z")
> [@Evil\_Economist](#): > > I will say, government is the ultimate reflection of bargaining power, therefore minimum wages are just economics in action, and you arguing against them is inconsistent. There’s a British comedy news show called 10 o’clock live (kind of the UK equivalent of the Colbert Report), and one of the panelists was interviewing I believe the prime minister. The Prime Minister said something like “it’s economics in action to sell off these forests. people who want to preserve them can band together and form a group to buy them up” and the panelist said “we already have that, it’s called the government!” ---
**Author:** ![Fiddle\_Peghead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddle_peghead/32/3506_2.png) [@Fiddle\_Peghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiddle_Peghead)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2012, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-dems-propose-raising-minimum-wage-from-7-25-hr-to-10/624401/171 "2012-06-13T18:29:47Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > You have to count all the workers who earn less than $10/hour. Of my company’s approximately 93,000 employees, about 68,000 make less than $10/hour. The average is $7.99. So the proposed hike would cost us an average of $2.01 per hour for each of those employees. > > If the average workweek for those employees is 20 hours, thats 20 \* $2.01 \* 68,000 = $2.7 million _per week_. And that’s not even taking into consideration all the other hourly workers making $10-$12/hour who will also want a commensurate raise. Fair enough, but this doesn’t mean much to me without knowing what kind of profits your company makes. Wiki tells me that Exxon employees 82,000 people worldwide, and the [Washington Post](http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/exxon-mobil-profit-soars-along-with-gas-prices/2011/04/28/AF1gWG7E_story.html) says they made an average of $119 million a day for the first quarter of 2011. So for example, one might argue if their situation is similar to yours, a minimum wage increase wouldn’t affect their bottom line significantly and perhaps is the right thing to do. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2012, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-dems-propose-raising-minimum-wage-from-7-25-hr-to-10/624401/172 "2012-06-13T18:50:20Z")
> [@Fiddle\_Peghead](#): > > Fair enough, but this doesn’t mean much to me without knowing what kind of profits your company makes. Wiki tells me that Exxon employees 82,000 people worldwide, and the [Washington Post](http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/exxon-mobil-profit-soars-along-with-gas-prices/2011/04/28/AF1gWG7E_story.html) says they made an average of $119 million a day for the first quarter of 2011. So for example, one might argue if their situation is similar to yours, a minimum wage increase wouldn’t affect their bottom line significantly and perhaps is the right thing to do. Do you think that just because they made $119M a day they’ll just absorb the payroll increase? No, they’ll pass it along to the consumer just like my business with 10 employees will. It drives me nuts when people tell someone else what they can and can’t afford based on how much money they think they have. ---
**Author:** ![Kearsen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/82dd89/32.png) [@Kearsen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kearsen)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2012, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-dems-propose-raising-minimum-wage-from-7-25-hr-to-10/624401/173 "2012-06-13T19:18:59Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > What? > > If a business is really that close to that profitability line–and the boss really does suffer those headaches so much more than he enjoys the commensurate freedoms–why shouldn’t he make this choice? What’s to regret? He possibly regrets the fact that the choice was made for him by people like you who demand others pay for everyone, instead of by himself? ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2012, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-dems-propose-raising-minimum-wage-from-7-25-hr-to-10/624401/174 "2012-06-13T19:23:16Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > Do you think that just because they made $119M a day they’ll just absorb the payroll increase? No, they’ll pass it along to the consumer just like my business with 10 employees will. > It drives me nuts when people tell someone else what they can and can’t afford based on how much money they think they have. But you got no problem telling low-skill workers how much money they can make. ---
**Author:** ![Kearsen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/82dd89/32.png) [@Kearsen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kearsen)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2012, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-dems-propose-raising-minimum-wage-from-7-25-hr-to-10/624401/175 "2012-06-13T19:28:02Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > But you got no problem telling low-skill workers how much money they can make. The worker still has the choice to take it or not. There are plenty who don’t. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2012, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-dems-propose-raising-minimum-wage-from-7-25-hr-to-10/624401/176 "2012-06-13T19:31:53Z")
> [@XT](#): > > That, like the workers in Henry Ford’s day, the average worker spends over 70% of their pay on bare essentials (such as food and clothing)…or do you think it’s shifted When you look at the people this law would effect, yes, they do. Housing and utilities are bare essentials as well. ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2012, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-dems-propose-raising-minimum-wage-from-7-25-hr-to-10/624401/177 "2012-06-13T19:33:23Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > No, they’ll pass it along to the consumer just like my business with 10 employees will. That’s exactly the point, particularly in the presence of deflationary price pressures. The idea of the minimum wage is to subsidize the lowest income earners so that they will buy more goods and services, pushing up demand and causing higher prices. The people that “pay” for it are the non-minimum wage earners who end up paying a bit more for goods and services produced by minimum wage earners. This is, perhaps, not a bad thing, as mild price and wage inflation is generally considered significantly better for an economy than deflation or stagnant prices and wages. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2012, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-dems-propose-raising-minimum-wage-from-7-25-hr-to-10/624401/178 "2012-06-13T19:34:10Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > In my business (I’m not the owner), we’d have to raise prices pretty significantly I would think. Such a huge hike would result in an immediate shock to consumers across the board as companies passed along the cost. I can’t see how that would be good for the economy. > > But I fully support gradual increases and I agree the current minimum in most states is too low. Then the price of everything goes up and the buying power of the wage goes down. None of this happens in a vacuum. We compete in a global market so if you can’t buy a widget or a McDouble burger for the current dollar value then it will be farmed out or production will be automated further. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2012, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-dems-propose-raising-minimum-wage-from-7-25-hr-to-10/624401/179 "2012-06-13T19:46:45Z")
[QUOTE=Ludovic] When you look at the people this law would effect, yes, they do. Housing and utilities are bare essentials as well. [/QUOTE] Well, I got this ‘fact’ from the dubious source of the folks on United Stats of America, last night on History. They claimed that today, on average, Americans only spend 40% of their total income on essentials, while in the 50’s it was 60%…and a much higher percentage towards the beginning of the last century. They didn’t break it down by economic class, but if it’s an average I’d guess that it still represents a move up for the poor in terms of over all disposable income vs sunk costs for essentials…that is, assuming the stats were accurate. 😛 -XT ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2012, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-dems-propose-raising-minimum-wage-from-7-25-hr-to-10/624401/180 "2012-06-13T19:51:27Z")
> [@Jas09](#): > > That’s exactly the point, particularly in the presence of deflationary price pressures. > > The idea of the minimum wage is to subsidize the lowest income earners so that they will buy more goods and services, pushing up demand and causing higher prices. The people that “pay” for it are the non-minimum wage earners who end up paying a bit more for goods and services produced by minimum wage earners. This is, perhaps, not a bad thing, as mild price and wage inflation is generally considered significantly better for an economy than deflation or stagnant prices and wages. When you say “The people that “pay” for it are the non-minimum wage earners” you are implicitly claiming that the economy is zero-sum; that any beneift one group of people receives must be balanced out by a deficit applied to another group. That is wrong. A wage increase can be positive-sum; it is entirely possible that wage increases could make every single person in the entire economy better off. Simple example–low paid workers might have no particular desire to put in much effort, or might just quit whenever they don’t feel like going in to work (when you’re minimum wage, quitting your job doesn’t have a high cost). If they were higher paid, they might care more about their job, and since the cost of quitting would also increase, they would be more likely to stick around, reducing turnover and retraining costs. Increased average seniority might increase productivity. The increased productivity and reduced retraining costs might completely offset the employer’s higher wage costs. If you think “that sounds unlikely”, allow me to point out that’s what actually happened in the Card study. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-dems-propose-raising-minimum-wage-from-7-25-hr-to-10/624401.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-dems-propose-raising-minimum-wage-from-7-25-hr-to-10/624401.md?page=10)