Doesn't raising the min wage raise the min livable wage?

[Matt1970]

More bullshit. If you are relying on minimum wage for a living then the problem is your choice of work. Learn a trade.

 

[buckshot24]

Does anybody think it is a good thing that black teen unemployment is over 40%? Do you think lowering the minimum wage would allow more of these teenagers to work?

 

[Matt1970]

Do you think if you ask your boss he will double your wage overnight?

Even when I had a factory union job I never made $15 an hour.

Maybe the problem is in their white guilt some people are just overpaid. Maybe Mcdonalds and whereever should put a tip jar on the counter and if you want you can put some extra money in there and the workers can split it up. Feel free to leave a $20.00 tip.

Good point. How many of these people bitching about all the good jobs that went overseas drive an import car, can't remember the last time they saw a Made In America sticker on something they own and never tip people serving them food?

 

[ivwshane]

Does anybody think it is a good thing that black teen unemployment is over 40%? Do you think lowering the minimum wage would allow more of these teenagers to work?

The correlation between raising minimum wage and a reduction in employment opportunities does not exist even for that age group.

http://aneconomicsense.com/2013/03/...nimum-wage-on-unemployment-no-evidence-of-it/

 

[ivwshane]

Good point. How many of these people bitching about all the good jobs that went overseas drive an import car, can't remember the last time they saw a Made In America sticker on something they own and never tip people serving them food?

Ah, crisis diverted. You must feel better now that you have found a good way to down play the issue.

 

[Matt1970]

Ah, crisis diverted. You must feel better now that you have found a good way to down play the issue.

Well, we can treat the cause or we can keep treating the symptom. And this is a cause we were warned about.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

Good point. How many of these people bitching about all the good jobs that went overseas drive an import car, can't remember the last time they saw a Made In America sticker on something they own and never tip people serving them food?

I drive a ford and almost always tip *flex* although I hold no allegiance. Those kinds of issues should be handled by careful lawmaking (well thought out tariffs, trade treaties and regulations(instead of the cluster fuck we have locked into place now))

 

[Matt1970]

I drive a ford and almost always tip *flex* although I hold no allegiance. Those kinds of issues should be handled by careful lawmaking (well thought out tariffs, trade treaties and regulations(instead of the cluster fuck we have locked into place now))

We sell a bit of our soul every time we opt for an import of a US made product just to save some change. I guess we need tariffs to make up for it. No worries, the government will step in when we don't know what's best for ourselves right?

 

[shady28]

The jobs have to be done. McDs and other fast food chains won't shut down or increase prices if they pay their employees more.

...

While I agree the min wage should be raised, what you state is patently ridiculous.

Increases in the cost of doing business is always passed on to the consumer, and raising minimum wage would affect that cost for any business paying below whatever the new minimum wage 'would be' if raised.

You might be surprised at the types of businesses would *not* be impacted by a moderate minimum wage increase.

Current minimum wage is $7.25/hr. Lets say it increased to $8/hr, a healthy 10.3% increase.

Wal-mart's base rate is 7.97/hr, so it would need to increase by .03c/hr for its lowest paid associates.

Lowes, Home Depot, CVS - no effect, their base rate is well above 8/hr already.

Best Buy - a .09c/hr increase at their lowest rate.

Mostly it looks like it would affect some dept stores like Macys.

Even checkout clerks, like a Chevron, make over $8/ hr. At shell, the lowest looks to be 8.60/hr.

Reference :
http://www.payscale.com/index/US/Employer

Now I'm assuming we're referring to a moderate increase like to 8/hr.

If we're talking about an increase to something like 12 or 15 /hr, I guarantee you will see that translate directly into higher prices, higher unemployment, and thousands if not tens of thousands of failed small businesses.

 

[shady28]

The correlation between raising minimum wage and a reduction in employment opportunities does not exist even for that age group.

http://aneconomicsense.com/2013/03/...nimum-wage-on-unemployment-no-evidence-of-it/

Really?

 

[ivwshane]

Really?

Lol are you seriously using a chart that includes the 2008 recession as proof that minimum wage increases affected unemployment? Not only that but it doesn't even include the general unemployment rate to compare it to. It's a disengenuos chart at best!

Find another chart that at least covers several decades before you start jumping to conclusions.

Propaganda strikes again!

 

[buckshot24]

The correlation between raising minimum wage and a reduction in employment opportunities does not exist even for that age group.

http://aneconomicsense.com/2013/03/...nimum-wage-on-unemployment-no-evidence-of-it/

I'm more concerned with the existence of any minimum wage. Increasing 10% isn't going to have a huge effect all by itself.

If employers have the option to hire people at $5 or even lower an hour you'll see more black teens with jobs than if they have to be hired at $7.25

 

[shady28]

Lol are you seriously using a chart that includes the 2008 recession as proof that minimum wage increases affected unemployment? Not only that but it doesn't even include the general unemployment rate to compare it to. It's a disengenuos chart at best!

Find another chart that at least covers several decades before you start jumping to conclusions.

Propaganda strikes again!

So I guess data applies if you look at the years and data that you want people to look at, right? If someone has conflicting data, they're an idiot?

I guess all these studies, some well before 2008, are just wrong and stupid too huh? In fact, anything that doesn't match with your view is just stupid, right?



http://www.epionline.org/study/r98/

"Using government data from January 1979 to December 2004, the effect of minimum wage increases on retail and small business employment is estimated. Specifically, a 10 percent increase in the minimum wage is associated with a 0.9 to 1.1 percent decline in retail employment and a 0.8 to 1.2 percent reduction in small business employment."

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12122-007-9038-6

"The relationship between minimum wage increases and youth employment is investigated using county-level data and spatial econometric techniques. Results that account for spatial correlation indicate that a 10% increase in the effective minimum wage is associated with a 3.2% decrease in youth employment..."


http://www.epionline.org/study/r57/
"Using state-level data spanning 1979-1992, Dr. Neumark is able to estimate the impact of a higher minimum wage — $5.15 an hour, as proposed by the President — on today’s young workers. He finds that the least skilled of these workers would suffer employment losses while the better skilled members of the cohort could enjoy employment gains."

 

[berzerker60]

I'm more concerned with the existence of any minimum wage. Increasing 10% isn't going to have a huge effect all by itself.

If employers have the option to hire people at $5 or even lower an hour you'll see more black teens with jobs than if they have to be hired at $7.25

Say I'm a McDonald's manager. I need 15 employees to cook and man the registers week-to-week. But hey, the minimum wage is low, let's hire 40 people! The rest can stand around doing nothing!

No wait, it's reality. If I need 15 employees, I'll hire 15 employees. If they cost me half as much, great! If they cost me 20% more, that's less profit, but if I didn't need 15 I wouldn't have them in the first place. If they cost me 50000% more, my business model will probably collapse, but literally no one is actually suggesting that.

 

[buckshot24]

Say I'm a McDonald's manager. I need 15 employees to cook and man the registers week-to-week. But hey, the minimum wage is low, let's hire 40 people! The rest can stand around doing nothing!

Ok lets say you are a McDonald's manager. First thing you'll find out that you don't get a limit on people you get a limit on labor cost. If you can pay high school students $5 an hour you can hire more of them which will let you run the restaurant more efficiently. Having more employees helps you as a manager cover call offs more efficiently.

No wait, it's reality. If I need 15 employees, I'll hire 15 employees. If they cost me half as much, great! If they cost me 20% more, that's less profit, but if I didn't need 15 I wouldn't have them in the first place. If they cost me 50000% more, my business model will probably collapse, but literally no one is actually suggesting that.

I've run a restaurant and labor cost is tied for first with food cost on expenses that you have to consider. You don't get to say I need x amount of employees no matter how much they cost. That isn't reality that is fantasy.

 

[berzerker60]

Ok lets say you are a McDonald's manager. First thing you'll find out that you don't get a limit on people you get a limit on labor cost. If you can pay high school students $5 an hour you can hire more of them which will let you run the restaurant more efficiently. Having more employees helps you as a manager cover call offs more efficiently.
I've run a restaurant and labor cost is tied for first with food cost on expenses that you have to consider. You don't get to say I need x amount of employees no matter how much they cost. That isn't reality that is fantasy.

Fair enough, I overstated my case, but both principles are at operation. Cutting the minimum wage in half won't mean twice as many employees, doubling the minimum wage won't mean half as many employees. There's not a set, exact number of employees you need like I over-simplified to last post, but there are both maxima and minima of reasonable rosters, and raising the minimum wage has complex interactions with the labor market far beyond the simple Econ 101 supply/demand curve.

 

[Zaap]

People always use the examples like McDonalds in these arguments. Let's say you're a McDonald's manager....?

Well, more realistically, let's say you're a McDonalds franchise owner/operator. (According to McDonalds, that's who really owns 80% of their restaurants worldwide: http://www.aboutmcdonalds.com/mcd/franchising.html)

Regardless of what it says on the sign, you're probably really more like a small business. Unless the larger company is lending you all kinds of money all the time (and really, I don't think that's the way owning a franchise works) if you have to hire 15 employees at 20% higher cost- it is NOT just something you can do on autopilot unless you're moneybags.

Now, again, I know people think that owning a restaurant franchise is a license to print money, but once more, I don't believe it is for most people. I think people make a comfortable living running a franchise depending on a lot of factors, but I don't buy that a 20% cost increase "out of profits" is something everyone can just take willy-nilly.

Also- I'm personally not against raising the minimum wage per-se, I'm just not in favor of people that don't know WTF they are doing and don't know jack-squat about what effect it will really have on people's businesses or the economy do it willy-nilly because it 'feels good' and may get some bonehead elected. I think it probably makes more sense to do on a state and local level, than at a national level, which is pretty much the way it works now.

Also, it should be factored in that minimum wage jobs aren't the same as a decent high paying career job, and they *NEVER WILL BE*. That's just a fact of life. So whatever level it gets raised to is eventually going to settle back to being... minimum wage, IE: crap wages.

A better way is to focus on increasing the spending power of the currency itself. (IE: forget dicking around over the physical amounts that is the minimum, make every single dollar worth more because it's actually backed by something substantial.) It's much more effecient and works for a longer term than just jacking numbers around.

But of course we can't even have that discussion in this country so long as we allow our politicians to fleece us out of most of the value of every dollar we earn by deficit-spending it into oblivion and just printing more that's more worthless than before- so politicians playing that shell game will continue to fool everyone by getting them to focus on distractions like fretting over dollar amounts rather than look at what's actually happening to the currency itself.

 

[buckshot24]

Fair enough, I overstated my case, but both principles are at operation. Cutting the minimum wage in half won't mean twice as many employees, doubling the minimum wage won't mean half as many employees. There's not a set, exact number of employees you need like I over-simplified to last post, but there are both maxima and minima of reasonable rosters, and raising the minimum wage has complex interactions with the labor market far beyond the simple Econ 101 supply/demand curve.

Ok, but what is your point?

Given that almost all jobs are above minimum wage the current minimum wage don't you think the job market has already set a functional minimum wage?

 

[ivwshane]

So I guess data applies if you look at the years and data that you want people to look at, right? If someone has conflicting data, they're an idiot?

I guess all these studies, some well before 2008, are just wrong and stupid too huh? In fact, anything that doesn't match with your view is just stupid, right?



http://www.epionline.org/study/r98/

"Using government data from January 1979 to December 2004, the effect of minimum wage increases on retail and small business employment is estimated. Specifically, a 10 percent increase in the minimum wage is associated with a 0.9 to 1.1 percent decline in retail employment and a 0.8 to 1.2 percent reduction in small business employment."

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12122-007-9038-6

"The relationship between minimum wage increases and youth employment is investigated using county-level data and spatial econometric techniques. Results that account for spatial correlation indicate that a 10% increase in the effective minimum wage is associated with a 3.2% decrease in youth employment..."


http://www.epionline.org/study/r57/
"Using state-level data spanning 1979-1992, Dr. Neumark is able to estimate the impact of a higher minimum wage — $5.15 an hour, as proposed by the President — on today’s young workers. He finds that the least skilled of these workers would suffer employment losses while the better skilled members of the cohort could enjoy employment gains."

I didn't call you an idiot, I just suggested the chart you were using was rediculous.

For every study that supports your claim there is a counter study that says the opposite, which is why using a larger data set (ie a longer time period) is important when trying draw a correlation.

http://www.elon.edu/docs/e-web/students/ipe/volumes/Atanova 2009.pdf

http://www.irle.berkeley.edu/workingpapers/166-08.pdf


But even if we concede the point, the impact on young workers is small (most studies showed a negative impact of less than 2% in terms of a raise in unemployment).


Personally speaking I see nothing wrong with raising the minimum wage to the historical average of around $9, I don't think a higher wage than that will help the income inequality issue.

 

[diesbudt]

1 Thing people have to seriously consider IS the robots. Robots are expensive, in not only capital, but also the maintenance to keep them going. Robots are also getting more and more complex in what they can do, and how well they can do it. Look at Japan, they have so many vending machines, and even resturants that are run on vending machines.

However, Robot prices would only go up with model changes. Hence the same model would be the same price if not cheaper as time passes (like most expensive tools). So if minimum wage keeps going up, it will finally reach a point where learning, using and maintaining a robot would be cheaper than employing someone at that price for simple jobs like fast food.

 

[buckshot24]

If we're going to have a minimum wage don't you think there should be exemptions for those under the age of 18?

 

[HumblePie]

More bullshit. If you are relying on minimum wage for a living then the problem is your choice of work. Learn a trade.

This to a degree.

I don't personally see a problem with paying low wages for people that want to accept that work. I see a problem with areas that only have jobs available at those wages. Which is not so much a minimum wage issue but a drive to succeed issue. Why don't people go out of their way today to pick up a trade by apprenticing themselves to something that will provide a skill that will endure. The whole point to min wage jobs, like burger flipping, is that it's a job literally anyone can do. It's not meant to be a job people depend on for their lives. It's a stop gap or a stepping stone job. Nothing more. The vast majority of people in this country have done a min wage job at one point, including myself.

But people just don't have that drive anymore. They rather work at a min wage job or two, collect food stamps and other government subsidies, and just "get by" while making lamenting complaints about their lot in life hoping someone else will fix it for them.

I agree some people are screwed over a bit by location for jobs available, but that is the minority and not the majority.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

The jobs have to be done. McDs and other fast food chains won't shut down or increase prices if they pay their employees more.

The labor market is shit so they pay as little as they can.

No, raising the min wage wouldn't raise the livable wage, it would simply bring it closer to a livable wage.

This is about income inequality, fixing it doesn't move the inequality to a different set of numbers.

That being said, as always, power is in the consumer. Legislators will never get this or other meaningful issues like education right.

Raising the Min. Wage is a straight ticket for Over 9000 to unemployment.

Those people in NY wanting to double their wages magically overnight without contributing any extra work? Yeah, if they actually managed to do a $15 min. wage, those jobs would be gone within 5 months. Because the prices for those cheap fast food burgers/fries would be going up the wazoo. Thus there is no reason to go to cheap fast food anymore.

The customers they have would plummet from either
1) Not being able to afford going out at all anymore, so eating at home. Or...
2) Customers abandoning cheap fast food because it will cost the same as mid-grade food (Chipotle, for example, or Chili's). The cost would be the same due to the massive increase in labor cost - yet the food prices would rise.

So after all those customers leave - what is left? Straight downshot of revenue/profits, which equals layoffs, which equals job loss. Congrats democrats on your failure to put logic into a situation. All you can see is the straight answer but not what the answer will bring you in the future.

 

[HumblePie]

I understand the burden that people feel about working min wage jobs in places with a high cost of living like NYC and feeling trapped. The thing is that there is nothing stopping those people from picking up and moving. I've done it before. That USED to be the America way. That's how this country was founded. People had a bad situation where they were at and picked up to move somewhere else to make a better life for themselves. Fewer and fewer people do that anymore. I did and have a few times when I had to. I did it again just recently a few times in Texas. Go to where the opportunity is at. But people would rather stay in their "miserable" jobs and hope someone else will come along and fix their lives for them.

 

[Tylanner]

Min. wage is at its core, IMHO, a mechanism to uphold the american definition of employment.

General employment, by our standards, is a basic agreement that the employed will show up and perform duties on a regular frequency in exchange for compensation.

That level of compensation has everything to do with the minimal standard of what we perceive as a basic level of 'human' existence.

So raising the min. wage should raise the min. standard of living but not necessarily the min. livable wage.

The problem will be that decision makers in large companies that are affected greatest by a change in min. wages will take immediate action to maintain profit margins and protect its earning per share. A significant change in wage rate for a large portion of a companies workforce will have a direct affect on its profits. They can not sit back and accept that the profit baseline has changed (more revenue is returned to the companies workforce). However, I am not convinced that such a change will necessarily lead to a higher min. livable wage.