Minimum wage

In My Humble Opinion
81

That’s actually not true. Minimum wage is significantly above poverty level if you’re supporting yourself. It’s if you’re supporting others that it is insufficient.

Employers do not, and should not, pay based on your expenses. That’s a job for social policy, not employers. If a single person is going to take care of three kids despite having the job skills to only barely take care of themselves, then that’s a problem calling for a social solution, not a mandate on employers to become responsible for their workers family planning choices.

82

The real reason is simply that large employers don’t just have more power than employees do. It’s that they set up layers of management between the employee and the managers and supervisors who rely on them most so that the employee cannot exert any leverage. Let’s say you’re an awesome employee who is twice as productive as anyone else. Heck, your very existence in the company means that the company needs one less person since you do the job of two(in practice I’ve known employees who could do the job of three or even four). So you figure, I deserve a 50% increase and the company would still be saving big bucks.

Now if my direct supervisor could bargain my pay with me, I’d be in business. But instead, pay goes through HR in most companies, or there’s an additional two to three layers of management before you get to someone you can bargain with. And that person doesn’t know you or particularly care about your supervisor’s problems.

So since companies have removed bargaining from the equation except when you are first hired, we need minimum wage laws.
Oh, and Fear Itself, employers are not going to drop their wages based on the EITC, because too many employees don’t qualify for it even in minimum wage jobs. On the other hand, if you required employers to take care of peoples’ families, they just would only hire single people.

83

In my opinion, any company that rakes in billions of dollars a year can afford to pay their employees more than $7.35 without having to hike their prices in order to compensate. HOWEVER, $15 an hour is utterly ridiculous. I hate to sound harsh, but fast food workers are not worth $15 an hour, especially since fast food is hardly a necessity.

84

Also, there has to be some jobs available for people who won’t do much more than show up 4 out of 5 days and put in minimal effort. When I was a fast food manager, the kinds of people we had, they just didn’t show up many days, and you had to constantly be on them to do even their core job. Now that I work in a more professional environment, it felt like I was babysitting more than managing.

At some point, those kinds of people will be unemployable if wages are too high. Some would argue that with their attitude, they are probably better off just living with their parents for life anyway.

85

The thing is, the poverty level hasn’t been properly reassessed for decades. They’ve just taken the “staples of life” from the 1950’s and adjusted for inflation over the years for the most part, with no regard to modern lifestyle and eating changes. Back when the poverty level was first made, there was hardly any data to go on and so they kind of muddled through it. There’s a lot of scientists arguing about the validity of the poverty level at this point and how it may be much too low. The poverty level isn’t supposed to be the line wherein you’re so poor you’re living on the streets and going hungry, the poverty level is supposed to be the lowest point at which you can just cover everything plus an indulgence sometimes and still have a small bit to sock away; that is, a low but normal standard of living. I’d argue that minimum wage in many areas would be too low to support even one person this way, but it IS dependent on area. When there’s a statewide minimum wage, it doesn’t take into account that cities and rural areas have much different living expenses and a minimum wage may cover everything well in the boonies but not at all in the metro area. As others have suggested we may need to have major cities have their own minimum wage to solve this.

86

Many do. But I think in general the EITC is a better poverty fighting tool than minimum wage laws. We should have both, but the minimum wage should be a low floor so that it continues to not have too much impact on hiring.

87

Is there currently a market in place that can support every living adult with a professional or skilled career? [Assuming every person developed their skill set per your suggestion.)

This reminds me of Albert Brooks needs a 100k job.

88

Not every adult, but we import high skill labor because there are more jobs than skilled people, whereas we have a surplus of unskilled people.

The minimum wage is a living wage for a single person. If there’s a second person in the household, they should also be working. Business cannot be held responsible for peoples’ family planning choices, or lack thereof. If you look at the chart, the cost of supporting one adult and two kids at a living wage is so far out there that no reasonable person would suggest that an employer should be required to pay it. l

89

I don’t know what should be done with the minimum wage, but I think it might end up being a moot point.

I think it’s possible an enormous number of minimum wage jobs may be disappearing. And oddly enough, because of the self-driving car.

Bear with me a bit… I worry that the impact of that technology (not the car itself) will be more life-altering than we expect. Up to now, any robot with significant abilities has had to operate in an environment that’s been extensively and expensively modified to accommodate it. For a factory to build cars robotically instead of with human workers, an enormous and costly retooling effort must be made.

The self-driving car represents (IMO) the first significant application of robots (and it is a robot) that adapt to our pre-existing and random human environment. Nothing external to the robot needs modified. If we can successfully and safely drive vehicles cross-country without a human, then a smaller machine that can cook and assemble a hamburger (or clean the tables) will be child’s play. Remember, the significant change here is that the environment doesn’t need to change for the machine. I suspect a small efficient robot (or two) can soon be placed in an existing fast food restaurant and perform most, if not all of the food tasks. I have a personal bet with a friend that there will soon be drive-thru windows open all night after some restaurants normally close and the humans have gone home. Selection will be limited, but it will be like the all-night gas pumps (just swipe your card and press the buttons). This weekend I ate at a Chili’s that had self-order stations at each table. The waitress was needed only to bring your food. Ordering, paying, tipping and the receipt printout were accomplished by a small workstation on the table. They’re already reducing the need for waitstaff, reducing the need for food prep workers will be the next step. It seems logical that an entire restaurant could soon be run with just a few people. I can come up with a variety of other ways this could be used (would you really need people to change the oil in cars any more?)

Maybe I shouldn’t be quite so concerned about this, but when robots are flexible and capable enough to adapt easily to existing environments, I think it will have a large and maybe disastrous impact on low and minimum wage jobs. And when I think about what happens after that, I generally end up sitting on the deck and having one-too-many beers.

Aren’t I the little ray of sunshine? (and on Labor Day weekend, no less) :rolleyes:

90

I think there should be min wage laws but not one national rate. The minimum wage for NYC and the minimum for Moore Oklahoma should be different.

It’s not just fast food. It’s retail. It’s restaurant workers. It’s movie theaters. It’s lots of places. (wait staff wages are too weird to go into and deserve a separate thread)

I think annual cost of living allowances should be built into minimum wage law and be automatic so we don’t have this lag in raise of the MW it just moves up.

91

Washington has the highest minimum wage of all of the states. As I said earlier, I think I could live on $10/hour in a full-time job. After taxes, that would be about $1,200/month. My mortgage is about $600/month. Utilities vary throughout the year, but let’s say they average to $300/month. Internet access is a necessity, but I could do without the entire cable package I have. Pare it down, and call it $100/month. That leaves $200/month for gas and groceries. I eat well, but I could change my diet such that I get the fuel needed more cheaply – and it would no doubt be a healthier diet to boot. I wouldn’t be commuting to Seattle twice a week, so the expenditure for gasoline would be lower.

I would not be able to pay credit card bills that already exist, and saving for car insurance would be a small problem. My $10/hour job would have to provide health insurance; or else I’d have to use the much more expensive services, paid for by the people who do have insurance, at the ER. Currently, I’m paying for pretty much everything here. The SO would have to pitch in.

So here, in Washington, a single person could survive on a full-time job that pays $10/hour. Many can save money by living in an apartment, where some things are provided and other things are less expensive. (e.g., it’s cheaper to heat an apartment than a house.) In a rural part of the state, or in other states where the cost of living isn’t so high, $10/hour would be a boon to the minimum-wage worker. People in those places can attend a two-year college and improve their prospects for a better position. Those who are not so ambitious can continue working for minimum wage, and leave better employment slots open for those who aspire to them.

$15/hour for fast-food workers across the country? As I said earlier, that seems generous. $15/hour in Seattle or another metropolitan area? Possibly a bit generous. $10/hour in Seattle or another metropolitan area? About right, according to shimmery post – for full-time employment. I wouldn’t mind seeing $10/hour for full-time employment, and $12/hour for part-time employment.

92

When Capitalism and Market Forces are discussed, it’s suggested that the “ecology” of the marketplace will establish and maintain a healthy economy, because folks will charge as much as they can sell something for and their consumers will try to pay as little as possible, and it’ll balance out in the end … a sort of “evolution” of best supply/ demand ratios. It’s a “greed works” philosophy.

I think if the Government taxes you a specific percentage based on what it thinks it will need to operate, it should also set a minimum wage based on what YOU will need to operate.

“Survival of the Fittest” is too simplistic to function absent informed guidance.
Paying the least possible in order to maximize profits definitely benefits the wealthy business men and perhaps the stockholders, but if we throw the workers to the “Law of the Jungle”, in the end, who will buy the product? We can’t make fast-food in China, it’s US we’re screwing, we are the workers and the customers … we’re screwing ourselves if we play the corporations’ game. Power to the People. Cue “One Tin Soldier”. Sit in starts at 11am. I’ll bring the pot brownies.

93

That is an interesting idea - make the minimum wage higher for part-time compared to full-time work. That would provide an incentive for employers to create full-time positions instead of filling up each one with a mixed bag of part-timers. It also seems more fair because some fixed costs like commuting and buying any needed job equipment like uniforms negatively affect part-time pay disproportionately.

94

That’s pretty much my point. Just about EVERYONE I’ve ever known, if they worked at minimum wage at all, only worked at that wage for a very short period of time until they got raises and/or found better paying jobs.

Being effectively useless in an employment sense and then griping about how they don’t pay you enough to support a family is the worst sort of entitlement. That guy should be totally embarrassed to even say that out loud, much less on national radio.

95

I’m having trouble finding the original study, but here is a different study showing even lower price increases of a 1% price increase if wages were increased by about $2-3/hr.

http://www.alternet.org/story/150685/if_walmart_paid_its_1.4_million_u.s._workers_a_living_wage,_it_would_result_in_almost_no_pain_for_the_average_customer

Costco offers a living wage with benefits and is competitive. Kroger offers a living wage and benefits and is competitive.

96

$15 an hour for fast food is downright stupid, but yes, minimum wage is way too low. I agree MW should be set by city or county.

Playing with numbers, (which I’m not great at) and using the national $7.35, raising it $1.50 gives $240 extra a month, about $190 after taxes. Problem is, this increase is over 20%, and I seriously doubt any employer in the fast food industry wants to hear that right now. And that’s still well below the proposed living wages in most cities.

97

Thats great and all, but there are no jobs. Jobs that used to be taken up by kids like fast food restaurant worker, paperboy, lawn care, etc. are now taken by adults since jobs are so scarce.

And most people do not have the skill set or capital to start up a high paying home business. Home businesses are closing left and right due to a lack of demand.

So make the best of what we’ve got. If we are going to be a nation of service sector work, we should make it high paying service sector work. If there are only X numbers of good jobs, but the population is far higher, then you aren’t going to move up the ladder since there aren’t enough openings. Something like only 1/6 of jobs pay $20/hr or more. So that leaves 5/6 of the workforce earning $19/hr or less. Even if they get the training to find something better, there is a chance there aren’t any jobs. Even if there are, so many people could get trained it ends up flooding the market. That happened in nursing. About 10 years ago nursing was considered a golden ticket. But now in between the recession causing nurses to stay in the field and an increase in people trained, even many nurses are unemployed.

98

There are people who are so desperate that they are willing to take any job. Even jobs that are illegal (drug dealing, prostitution, child laborer, etc.) We have deemed these jobs illegal because we recognize that there is a high social cost to them. If we let the most desperate people write the rules, anything goes.

Social costs attend low-paid jobs, too. These costs are fairly low and managable when then the economy is diverse and performing well. But when low-paid jobs are all that’s available, then costs become quite taxing on society. Food stamps, Medicaid, housing vouchers, free-lunch programs…all of these are literally taxing. Thus, it is everyone’s “business” to make sure that wages are livable. No one is operating on their own private island. We’ll all drawing on public resources. So the public has every right to question what employers and employees are doing.

What I hear people saying is that we shouldn’t penalize the businessman’s profit-making abilities by mandating a minimum wage. But as a taxpayer, why should I be asked to subsidize his profit margin through social welfare spending? How should I feel about this guy’s business if the food stamp office and food pantry are packed with his employees day after day? If his wages aren’t enough to keep them fed and their light bills paid, then those wages aren’t reflective of the true worth of those employees. A person who works full time should be able to support themselves independently of the government. Otherwise, it’s a waste on their time and the resources the community has invested in these people. I don’t pay my taxes just to make a couple of already lucky people even luckier. I expect my monies to be used to generate wealth for all of us.

For me, one test for whether something is “good” or “bad” is how I would feel if it were the norm rather than the exception. If the median hourly wage was $10-15, things would suck, but it wouldn’t be a total dystopia. As a society, we’d be able to grow, though at a slow clip. We’d still have aspirations and some reason to be optimistic. We’d have to cut a whole lot of corners, but we would still be able to pursue happiness in a legal, resourceful manner.

But if the median wage was the current minimum wage? Yeah, I don’t even want to think about that. Everything would fall apart. Responsible people couldn’t raise families. Irresponsible people would try. And fail. Over and over and over again. And we would deteriorate.

Maybe back in the day, the “responsible” person would be motivated to work hard and avoid minimum wage-type work completely. But nowadays, being responsible simply isn’t enough. There are plenty of responsible people who are filling out applications for Walmart and Target and McDonald’s. These people have children or would like to have them one day. Keeping their wages unreasonably low, in hopes that doing so will inspire them to be even MORE responsible? Is this what other developed countries do?

If the rich keep getting richer, why isn’t society as a whole seeing any of that largess? Mr. Rich Guy who doesn’t want a minimum wage and also doesn’t want to be taxed? IMHO he can burn in hell. He wants something for nothing. A person like this is a goddamned leech on society.

99

Depends on where you are and what you do, I suppose. There sure seem to be a lot when you look here:

100

The part you are missing here is the understanding of automation. That has been going on forever but it is a simple cost/benefit problem and it will only get greater over time. If you can automate a process for less cost than it would take a person to do then a business has to do it. Anything else is irresponsible and suicidal from a business standpoint.

That is a large part of my job as an industrial IT engineer. We work hard to keep the number of people-steps down as low as possible because people are expensive and unreliable. As human expenses increase, automation becomes incrementally more attractive and we run projects to decrease human labor costs continuously. There is no legislation that can fix that. It is simple efficiency and technology is just about up to it now. It benefits me but not any of the millions of low skilled workers in the U.S.

The huge and glaring problem with the socialized plan is that $15 an hour translates to 30K plus a year plus benefits (about 45K a year total). At that pay scale, low-skilled workers will not win overall. Most of them will simply be unemployed completely. We can and will automate those jobs as the human factor becomes uncompetitive with alternate processes.

Is that what you want because there are not any other realistic options? I would rather have a job for $8 an hour rather than be unemployed completely and I think that is best for society as well.