# Professional opponents of raising the minimum wage **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 21, 2016, 9:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professional-opponents-of-raising-the-minimum-wage/757949 "2016-06-21T09:28:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2016, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professional-opponents-of-raising-the-minimum-wage/757949/161 "2016-06-22T09:58:15Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Since the government doesn’t want to go after illegal employers anymore… Have they ever? ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2016, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professional-opponents-of-raising-the-minimum-wage/757949/162 "2016-06-22T10:16:32Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > A higher minimum wage will be a good thing for the folks who can find jobs, but raising the minimum wage will incent more automation - which will make those jobs scarcer. > > Imagine 10 years from now a self-driving pizza truck that assembles and bakes your pizza while it drives to your house. You get an automatically-generated text message: “your pizza is here.” You walk outside, swipe your card, and take your pizza out of the slot. Every few hours, the truck drives itself back to the depot, where a minimum-wage worker loads more meat/cheese/sauce/dough into the appropriate bins, clicks “reload complete,” and sends the truck back out onto the streets. Customers love it because they don’t have to tip anymore. Shop owners love it because it’s covered with streaming-video cameras that document any attempts at vandalism or theft, so robbery attempts/successes are way down. No more employee training expenses due to turnover. > > Cost-prohibitive in 2016, but as tech improves and costs come down - and minimum wage goes up - the robots will take these jobs and many others. In what universe is this a bad thing? Technology is drastically reducing the need for work. That’s a _good_ thing! It would be amazing if we could do this - it would mean that we, as a society, have moved past the need for fast food wait staff, and the people who were previously doing that could do something more productive with their lives. Ah, who am I kidding, what’s going to happen is that they all lose their job and join a permanent jobless class, along with everyone else whose job gets taken by robots, while the people making the robots get richer and richer. Star Trek my ass. > [@TipTapTwo](#): > > From Germany, the industrial powerhouse, not even having a minimum wage until 2015 (have German unions really been so strong and fair throughout their history that the people never needed a minimum wage? Yeah, actually, they were. The unions in Germany are not only incredibly strong, but their strength is actually anchored in the Grundgesetz. > [@](#): > > What changed in 2015?); The law was not made for the purpose of targeting most of the German workers. It was intended to stamp down the practice of hiring interns and trainees and paying them an absolute pittance, a practice which exploded in the last decade. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2016, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professional-opponents-of-raising-the-minimum-wage/757949/163 "2016-06-22T11:36:45Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > My, my. It has a potty mouth. I can’t help if you are too retarded to understand economic value. > > Pointing out to the feeble minded and uneducated that economic worth is what someone is willing to pay for something is not trolling. I hope you haven’t bred. We don’t need Idiocracy to be a prophecy. > > People don’t deserve anything for labor. They earn what someone is willing to pay them in exchange for that labor. If it’s too low find another buyer or learn a skill more in demand. It’s that simple. The politicians on the left just like to create dependancy in order to have a captive voting block. And yet you advocated a wage given to them merely for existing. Everyone else is advocating minimum wage, so they’d at least have to work. You are the one advocating that people get money without working. You advocate for flat out socialism and then act like being on the left is bad. You’re advocating far more dependency on the government. You can’t say people aren’t entitled to something but advocate for an entitlement. The only reason I didn’t blast you before was that you suggested the far more liberal alternative to the minimum wage, which, while impractical, would ultimately be better. These types of arguments just don’t hold up. You’ve got horrible cognitive dissonance going on here. Or, you are trolling, and just said that other alternative to be combative. It sure does seem completely out of your normal political arena to be so far on the left. Maybe it’s like “government should get out of the marriage business and only issue civil unions” or “we should only have unisex bathrooms”–things that are less likely to happen–using the perfect as the enemy of the good. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2016, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professional-opponents-of-raising-the-minimum-wage/757949/164 "2016-06-22T12:22:35Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > You are wrong if you think employers need to negotiate. They don’t. The fact that you found one who was willing to doesn’t negate my argument and it’s ludicrous for you to think it does. No, you’re wrong. (I can go back and forth, seems wasteful though) Many employers need to negotiate, the fact that you think they don’t shows your lack of knowledge regarding how people get jobs. Maybe you didn’t negotiate your salary because you suck and don’t have any skills to negotiate on. You must be one of the roving pack of homeless people begging anyone to give them some shitty job because you have no skills anyone with a business would want. The fact that you equate getting a job with the end of WWII just shows how moronic you are. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2016, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professional-opponents-of-raising-the-minimum-wage/757949/165 "2016-06-22T12:45:24Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Sometimes circumstances put you in a situation where you have to take a job that is near home because you can’t drive to work. Sometimes there are higher paying jobs, but the housing close to those jobs are out of your price range. If you have a low credit rating some companies won’t hire you. If you _do_ find a job that pays more and within your travel range you have to compete with all the other poor shlubs going after the same job…and more than likely you will have to take time off from your current job to get interviewed(if your application is one of the few that isn’t round-filed, that is), and if you do this too often you’ll have all the time in the world to look for work because your ass will be fired. I do appreciate that people can find themselves in tough situations. But other than a surprise medical problem, would you agree that it is a circumstance of their own making. Maybe someone should have stayed in school and gotten a degree or learned a trade; maybe someone shouldn’t have had a child (or children) without a plan of how to pay for them; maybe someone should have not stayed in a dying town and moved, gotten a job on a ship or oil rig or joined the military where they could not only have a job/career, but also learned skills that would give them more options when they left. The hard truth is that even being stuck in the minimum wage job pool is the result of a series of decisions and individual made—poor decisions. Would you agree with that so far. ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2016, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professional-opponents-of-raising-the-minimum-wage/757949/166 "2016-06-22T13:05:50Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > I do appreciate that people can find themselves in tough situations. But other than a surprise medical problem, would you agree that it is a circumstance of their own making. Maybe someone should have stayed in school and gotten a degree or learned a trade; maybe someone shouldn’t have had a child (or children) without a plan of how to pay for them; maybe someone should have not stayed in a dying town and moved, gotten a job on a ship or oil rig or joined the military where they could not only have a job/career, but also learned skills that would give them more options when they left. The hard truth is that even being stuck in the minimum wage job pool is the result of a series of decisions and individual made—poor decisions. > > Would you agree with that so far. Let’s assume a perfect world, one in which everyone does exactly as you propose. Everyone stays in school, and has the aptitude and opportunity to stay in school and get a degree or learn a trade. They don’t have children early; they get out of dying towns. They all become perfectly employable. Who washes dishes? Who works at Walmart? Those jobs still exist, but now there’s nobody who (in your mind) deserves to work at them. So who does them? Who works for minimum wage in your perfect world, and why is it their fault? ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2016, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professional-opponents-of-raising-the-minimum-wage/757949/167 "2016-06-22T13:29:07Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Well, their website says they “manufacture…complex printed circuit board assemblies (PCBAs) using through-hole and surface mount technology” > > What did you mean by electronics manufacturing then? > [@eulalia](#): > > I’m surprised at that, as I’ve worked in high tech manufacturing in the U.S. for the last 35 years. The majority of those jobs did go to China in the last couple of decades, but thorium had fuck-all to do with it. The suits at the top had to maximize shareholder value by minimizing labor costs, and here comes China abandoning their anti-capitalism, joining the WTO and saying “look, here is all this cheap labor” and manipulating their currency to ensure the trade deficit remained high. I was responding to Octupus’s point that everything in Wal-Mart is made in China. By the same level of hyperbole, if everything in Wal-Mart is made in China, then we have no high tech manufacturing. By the same token, as there are some goods in Wal-Mart that are produced in the US, there is some tech made here as well, but if you are talking about mass manufacturing of computers, phones, Tv’s, Hd players, gaming consoles, and other computer products, the vast bulk of that is NOT here. The manufacturing of the boards and chips that are used in assembly by the company in your cite and others like it is likely not here. My point in all of that is simply that wages only account for a small and possibly insignificant part of the reason that jobs producing these high demand consumer devices does not take place in the US. We could pay the pennies a day that people were outraged about Iphone plants a few years back, and it wouldn’t help. My point of Thorium is not on topic, so I would rather not hijack too much, but if you google “rare earth shortage”, you will find many articles like [this one,](http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060011478) which makes the point that lack of rare earths hinders our high tech manufacturing. With thorium locked up in the minerals that bear many of the common rare earths, and all of the less common more valuable ones, and Thorium being regulated as a radioactive waste, the US is severely hindered in its ability to roll out something like a high volume smartphone factory. The mines in China are not much different from the US, just our treatment of the waste from them. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2016, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professional-opponents-of-raising-the-minimum-wage/757949/168 "2016-06-22T13:29:51Z")
> [@Lightnin](#): > > Who washes dishes? Who works at Walmart? Those jobs still exist, but now there’s nobody who (in your mind) deserves to work at them. So who does them? Young people, most likely. As is the case now. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2016, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professional-opponents-of-raising-the-minimum-wage/757949/169 "2016-06-22T13:32:58Z")
> [@Lightnin](#): > > Let’s assume a perfect world, one in which everyone does exactly as you propose. Everyone stays in school, and has the aptitude and opportunity to stay in school and get a degree or learn a trade. They don’t have children early; they get out of dying towns. They all become perfectly employable. > > Who washes dishes? Who works at Walmart? Those jobs still exist, but now there’s nobody who (in your mind) deserves to work at them. So who does them? Who works for minimum wage in your perfect world, and why is it their fault? There’s nothing wrong with washing dishes or working at Walmart. The problem is simply one of supply and demand. If there are fewer people who don’t become engineers, accountants, etc., that’s fewer people who have to look for those lower paying jobs. And the lower skilled workers can get the work they want. And the better ones—show up on time, nice to customers, etc.—will be able to negotiate a higher wage. The problem is when one finds himself on the lower and of the job spectrum AND it’s crowded. But you do raise a good larger point about all this constant talk about sending everyone to college. Why the fuck would we think that is a good idea? Especially when all it will do for some people is put them in debt. I really don’t see how America bounces back to it’s former greatness without plenty of low- to medium-skilled manufacturing jobs. But that’s a rant for another thread… ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2016, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professional-opponents-of-raising-the-minimum-wage/757949/170 "2016-06-22T13:35:21Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > Young people, most likely. As is the case now. And that. Yes. I’ll add that this is not a small point. It used to be that flipping burgers was a job done by teenagers, and it was a way for them to learn about what it means to have a job. It’s becoming harder for teens to find that experience now as older and older people have those jobs. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2016, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professional-opponents-of-raising-the-minimum-wage/757949/171 "2016-06-22T13:35:24Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > No, you’re wrong. (I can go back and forth, seems wasteful though) > > Many employers need to negotiate, the fact that you think they don’t shows your lack of knowledge regarding how people get jobs. Maybe you didn’t negotiate your salary because you suck and don’t have any skills to negotiate on. You must be one of the roving pack of homeless people begging anyone to give them some shitty job because you have no skills anyone with a business would want. Oh no! I’m not indespensible to my company! Just like 99.9% of all low-wage employees (the ones we’re talking about here) ever. Newsflash, oh wise one: _people in shit jobs typically don’t have skills that make them indespensible to their parent company!_ ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2016, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professional-opponents-of-raising-the-minimum-wage/757949/172 "2016-06-22T13:42:26Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Oh no! I’m not indespensible to my company! Just like 99.9% of all low-wage employees (the ones we’re talking about here) ever. Newsflash, oh wise one: _people in shit jobs typically don’t have skills that make them indespensible to their parent company!_ A person needs to be indispensable to a company in order to negotiate for starting wages or salary? Who said that? Who THINKS that? How come someone be indispensable to a company they don’t even work for yet? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2016, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professional-opponents-of-raising-the-minimum-wage/757949/173 "2016-06-22T13:50:18Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > How do you establish this claim? How, exactly, do you figure out the objective value of labor? You can’t - there’s no such thing as the “objective value” of labor. The value of anyone’s labor is whatever you can convince someone else to pay you. That’s subjective by definition. > [@](#): > > What’s missing from your analysis is that, fundamentally, there’s a power difference here. People living on minimum wage _need to work_. They’re typically working those jobs because they can’t find anything better, and because they need to get a paycheck _right fucking now_. Again, in the US that is not true. MW workers are not supporting themselves or others, and do not live in poor households. > [@](#): > > I earn 650€ a month at a job I hate. If I had any choice, I would quit. Unfortunately, I don’t. I can’t find replacement employment, and I can’t afford to miss a paycheck or I’ll end up homeless. Go ahead, you tell me - is my work (full time) worth that much? Yes. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2016, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professional-opponents-of-raising-the-minimum-wage/757949/174 "2016-06-22T13:50:55Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > Young people, most likely. As is the case now. Bullshit. You’ve either never been to any of these places, you’re cluelessly unobservant, or you’re just plain lying. Walk into your local Walmart. Most of the staff are middle aged and older women. ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2016, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professional-opponents-of-raising-the-minimum-wage/757949/175 "2016-06-22T14:09:46Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > There’s nothing wrong with washing dishes or working at Walmart. The problem is simply one of supply and demand. If there are fewer people who don’t become engineers, accountants, etc., that’s fewer people who have to look for those lower paying jobs. And the lower skilled workers can get the work they want. And the better ones—show up on time, nice to customers, etc.—will be able to negotiate a higher wage. The problem is when one finds himself on the lower and of the job spectrum AND it’s crowded. > > But you do raise a good larger point about all this constant talk about sending everyone to college. Why the fuck would we think that is a good idea? Especially when all it will do for some people is put them in debt. I really don’t see how America bounces back to it’s former greatness without plenty of low- to medium-skilled manufacturing jobs. But that’s a rant for another thread… So in your first paragraph you admit that there are some jobs that, despite a pool of employable people, still need to pay minimum wage (or as low as the market will bear, I’m sure). And in your second, you then argue that we need low-skilled people to fill those jobs. And in neither did you address the fact that those low-paying jobs pay sufficiently that those employees don’t make enough money to survive without state assistance. Well done. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2016, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professional-opponents-of-raising-the-minimum-wage/757949/176 "2016-06-22T14:32:05Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > A person needs to be indispensable to a company in order to negotiate for starting wages or salary? Who said that? Who THINKS that? How come someone be indispensable to a company they don’t even work for yet? In order to demand a raise, it has to be a better option to raise my salary than to fire me and replace me with the next resume down. You think this is actually a thing at McDonalds or Wal Mart? ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2016, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professional-opponents-of-raising-the-minimum-wage/757949/177 "2016-06-22T14:39:39Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > You can’t - there’s no such thing as the “objective value” of labor. The value of anyone’s labor is whatever you can convince someone else to pay you. That’s subjective by definition. Fair enough. I find this morally abhorrent and practically disgusting. > [@](#): > > Again, in the US that is not true. MW workers are not supporting themselves or others, and do not live in poor households. You keep saying this, and I keep not getting what you mean. Care to explain? ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2016, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professional-opponents-of-raising-the-minimum-wage/757949/178 "2016-06-22T14:52:58Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > In order to demand a raise, it has to be a better option to raise my salary than to fire me and replace me with the next resume down. You think this is actually a thing at McDonalds or Wal Mart? You actually think nobody at McDonalds or Wal Mart ever gets raises? You are definitely living in some weird fantasy land. I think your employment situation is bleeding over into your insipid postings on this topic. Maybe you should spend less time posting idiotic messages online and more time trying to better your skills to leave your shitty paying job. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2016, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professional-opponents-of-raising-the-minimum-wage/757949/179 "2016-06-22T15:43:56Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Fair enough. I find this morally abhorrent and practically disgusting. No, it’s the way the market _works_. What is the value of a banana? Whatever shoppers are willing to pay. Substituting “labor” for a “piece of fruit” doesn’t change the economic equation. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2016, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professional-opponents-of-raising-the-minimum-wage/757949/180 "2016-06-22T16:39:42Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > You keep saying this, and I keep not getting what you mean. Care to explain? You claimed > [@](#): > > People living on minimum wage need to work. They’re typically working those jobs because they can’t find anything better, and because they need to get a paycheck right fucking now. And at least in the US, this is not true. Most people who earn minimum wage are not living on their own; they are students or teenagers working for beer or gas money or for school. And they are not living in poverty - the households in which they live are not typically below the poverty line. The notion that the typical MW worker in the US is desperately scrabbling for survival is not the case. This has been cited fairly often in the past - feel free to try the "CITECITECITELIAR!!!’ gambit, but don’t expect to be taken seriously. Regards, Shodan [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professional-opponents-of-raising-the-minimum-wage/757949.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professional-opponents-of-raising-the-minimum-wage/757949.md?page=10)