Higher Minimum Wage Coming Soon

[Sandybestdog]

Quote from flytiger: Right now, there are tens of thousands of small businesses looking at this going, "something's got to give." Guess what it is? Last raise, a friend of mine owns a small sub shop w/ a couple of buddies. The shop makes enough to pay his families health insurance, and I guess some pocket money for the others. They let two people go,. and the owners covered the hours. it doesn't sound like much, but having owned a smalll business myself, I'm telling you tens of thousands will hurt over this. Maybe it doesn't show up in any numbers, but it hurts.

If your friend’s business cannot afford to pay $100 more per week every couple of years, then it is not a sustainable business anyways. I had a small store in a mall for a few months a couple of years ago. I put up all the money and took responsibility for everything. I had a friend that was going to run it with me and split the profits. After a month or so, it wasn’t making any money and I was in fact losing a lot. He found another job and I ran it by myself. It didn’t matter what minimum wage was. The business wasn’t making any money to hire anybody, so I as the owner worked it by myself. Anyways, why would I want to pay someone minimum wage to work at a business that was failing? I had the incentive to make it profitable, not some guy making minimum wage, he would have ruined it more. Bottom line is, if your business can’t afford to pay its employees a decent wage, it’s not a legitimate business anyways and should look at it’s business model and prospects.

Quote from flytiger:
And it's stupid. What do the Dems always say? "You can't feed a family on minimum wage!!!" Duh! I thought that's why we built all those Community colleges.

It’s a simple question that I have asked many times on ET and nobody will answer it. Over the past 30 years the percentage of people with a college degree has significantly risen. However, real wages have been steadily decreasing in the past 30 years. Why is this? More education = less wages?

 

[PragmaticIdeals]

Quote from Arnie:

An hour of labor is like any other commodity. It is subject to supply and demand.

Most min wage jobs are held by people that are transitioning from one economic level to another. My first job was at a burger joint. I got $1/hour (min wage). You know how long I was there? Less than 6 months. Found another job washing dishes, making salads etc...at a full service resturaunt, and I made more money.

If the government is going regulate minimums in wages, then they should do the same with goods, right? After all, what good does it do to raise wages, if the cost of goods keeps going up. It's the same logic. Where does it end?

By setting the wage higher than where it should be (the market) they just make it more likely that people will stay in low paying jobs. If you look at this as a function of the "market" it's easy to see that the government has no business telling someone A: how much you're worth, and B: How much to pay for labor.

The comparison with regulations that cover age, etc... is so far off the mark it doesn't even deserve a response.

Read 'The Grapes of Wrath' by Steinbeck.

When depression strikes and there is a vast over-supply of labour, desperate men are taken advantage of by ruthless employers.

I mean, you could conceivably not enforce a minimum wage. But you would either have to provide an effective and efficient welfare system for the needy or let there be mass starvation and illness. The former proposal would likely be more costly to society than a minimum wage both in direct costs and indirect (evaporation of dignity/morale for some people accepting handouts).

And sure, business owners could pass on the costs of minimum wage (easier done in theory than reality, since most industries are not perfectly competitive to begin with), but the majority of these minimum wage jobs are not inputs for the bare necessities of life, and generally serve to increase the price of higher-end goods and services.

So stop thinking in linear, disproven neo-classical terms, and instead consider the micro-structure of society and how various groups diverge and operate given different sets of preconditions and requirements.

 

[Scataphagos]

Quote from Arnie:

An hour of labor is like any other commodity. It is subject to supply and demand.

A point which most "entitlement-minded" Americans seem to miss.

When globalization brought 500 million former peasants into the jobs market (to compete with the 20-30 million "good jobs" in America), our "middle class wage" group's fate was sealed.

 

[Sandybestdog]

Quote from flytiger: Ask any contractor about Workman's Comp. Especially in an economy like this, it costs jobs.

Yea exactly. We should drop workman’s comp, because of course all employers are so concerned about the safety of their employees. And when one of them gets hurt, well who cares about them? That’ll affect the bottom line and we wouldn’t that, now would we?

 

[Cesko]

When depression strikes and there is a vast over-supply of labour, desperate men are taken advantage of by ruthless employers.

As much as employers are taking advantage of by ruthless employees (read unions) when conditions are right.
This idea that proletariat is moraly superior to "rich" folks is plain stupid, naive at best.

 

[Humpy]

If the "illegals" suddenly disappeared, wages at the bottom of the heap would treble overnight. Who else would clear the garbage for peanuts

 

[Scataphagos]

Quote from Humpy:

If the "illegals" suddenly disappeared, wages at the bottom of the heap would treble overnight. Who else would clear the garbage for peanuts

Any American who cares to eat.

At some point, "entitlement-minded" Americans will wake up and accept whatever job they can get.

 

[PragmaticIdeals]

Quote from Cesko:

When depression strikes and there is a vast over-supply of labour, desperate men are taken advantage of by ruthless employers.

As much as employers are taking advantage of by ruthless employees (read unions) when conditions are right.
This idea that proletariat is moraly superior to "rich" folks is plain stupid, naive at best.

Nice strawman.

I never stated that unions are a necessarily positive force; in fact I am personally outraged at the action various unions have taken at the behest of unwitting employers.

That said, it is delusional to fail to see the basic economics underpinning the forces guiding employers to take advantage of an excess and DESPERATE supply of labour when there is economic recession.

In the 20's, masses of farmers and their families forced into bankruptcy were subjected to various lines of alienation and subjugation by the well-to-do because the only option available besides working for pennies-per-day was to starve.

Sure, you could argue that forcing a minimum wage would put the businesses out of business or be forced to fire people, but such an argument is naive to the basic micro-economics underlying monopoly/oligopoly market structures.

When employers have dominant market position over the labourers, the situation is ripe for profit-maximizing, welfare-reducing behaviour. When the only alternative for labourers is to starve to death, the situation becomes riper still.

When Goldman Sachs "bankers" are making record bonuses, and CEO's are still making millions of dollars, society has the fundamental duty to ensure the survival and health of every single human being.

 

[Scataphagos]

Quote from PragmaticIdeals:

"... When Goldman Sachs "bankers" are making record bonuses, and CEO's are still making millions of dollars, society has the fundamental duty to ensure the survival and health of every single human being.

BULLSHIT! Grandpa's Wisdom... "Make something of yourself. The world doesn't owe you a living".

Everybody is "entitled" to EXACTLY WHAT THEY EARN... NOTHING MORE. Produce enough to support yourself or starve to death. The world would be better off without social parasites.

Libtard politicos may grant benefits to many in exchange for their vote, but that doesn't mean they DESERVE it for simply being alive.

 

[ByLoSellHi]

If you look at Craigslist, there are all kinds of hard working people that are experts in their fields, and will work for you or do specific jobs for far less than market prices.

I just hired a guy who worked at a BMW/VW dealer for 9 years, and is BMW certified, to do a 60,000 mile service to a 5 Series.

He changed and flushed the coolant, changed radiator hoses, one of the belts, changed the read differential fluid, flushed and changed the brake fluid, checked the spark plugs though he said they were fine (as they had been changed at 40,000 miles), changed the oil and oil filter, and changed the transmission oil.

I supplied all the materials and fluids. He charged $175 and gave me a signed receipt. I watched him do all the work, which he did properly, at a shop he is renting for a nominal sum. His small shop is fully equipped with tons of tools. He didn't have a hydraulic lift, but used jack stands, and told me he has access to a lift a transmission shop nearby for serious repairs.

If I had this done at a BMW dealer, it would have cost me $800 to $1,000.

He still will profit (it took him 2 1/2 hours, so he made $70 gross per hour but didn't have to buy the fluids or materials, which cost me about $92), I still got the work done by a certified BMW mechanic, and all labor and materials cost me $267.

This guy is fast, competent, efficient, and if word spreads, he will make more now than he did at his old job, drawing a check each week from a boss.

Welcome to the new economy, where smart consumers and smart workers hook up, and transact business without all the inefficiencies of past business practices inflate prices, and both are way better off for it.