Living on minimum wage, 50s to present

[dblack]

If a company doesnt need a worker, $0 is still cheaper than minimum wage, so if you raise minimum wage, you dont cause unemployment.

???

Can you rephrase that? Not sure what you're saying.

 

[Underhill]

This comes up every time a politician talks about raising the wage.

And every time it has happened it did not mean mass lay offs and companies closing their doors.

 

[ConHog]

And that is exactly who most minimum wage workers are, teenagers, not adults, not people supporting a family, but teenagers.

Some would like to claim (pretend) that there is some large class of people trying to support a family on minimum wage, but that just isn't reality.

Most minimum-wage workers are not teenagers | Economic Policy Institute

Actually that's not true. Only about 20% of min wage earners are teenagers.

I'll give you that.
What I said is still mostly true. By the way, minimum wage earners make up about 2.3 percent of all hourly workers. Include all workers and that number drops. Doing anything for minimum wage workers is naught but a feel-good move.

That's not entirely true, because a whole group of workers who earn more than minimum wage also get their wages based in relation to minimum wage. So if minimum wage goes up $1 then theoretically at least so to do their wages.

 

[ConHog]

If a company doesnt need a worker, $0 is still cheaper than minimum wage, so if you raise minimum wage, you dont cause unemployment.

???

Can you rephrase that? Not sure what you're saying.

I'll give it a go.

If you need a person to ring up the extra value meals, you need them. Doesn't matter if their pay is $7/hr or $10.

Conversely, if you don't need a person you don't need them, even if they will work for free.

 

[GHook93]

Minimum Wage and What It Buys You: 1950s to Now

Interesting to see what minimum wage bought/buys now.

What happen during the 90s that made rent unaffordable? CLINTON'S BONE-HEADED revival of CARTER'S Community Reinvestment Act, which was supposed to make everyone on America a homeowner. Forcing the hands of banks and lender, giving free money to everyone had the effect of SKYROCKETING home prices, home values, mortgage payment and of course RENT. Combine this with an increase in gas prices caused inflation to stream out of control!

Blame the worse fiscal President in history - Bill Clinton!

 

[AmyNation]

If a company doesnt need a worker, $0 is still cheaper than minimum wage, so if you raise minimum wage, you dont cause unemployment.

???

Can you rephrase that? Not sure what you're saying.

I'll give it a go.

If you need a person to ring up the extra value meals, you need them. Doesn't matter if their pay is $7/hr or $10.

Conversely, if you don't need a person you don't need them, even if they will work for free.

Which is true for some positions. However there are plently of jobs that are discretionary. At $4 an hour, I may hire someone to man the pumps at my gas station, believing having that curtsey for my customers is worth it, but at $7, that's too high and my pumps will just have to be self serve.

 

[ConHog]

???

Can you rephrase that? Not sure what you're saying.

I'll give it a go.

If you need a person to ring up the extra value meals, you need them. Doesn't matter if their pay is $7/hr or $10.

Conversely, if you don't need a person you don't need them, even if they will work for free.

Which is true for some positions. However there are plently of jobs that are discretionary. At $4 an hour, I may hire someone to man the pumps at my gas station, believing having that curtsey for my customers is worth it, but at $7, that's too high and my pumps will just have to be self serve.

Certainly true. But most jobs don't work that way. Even with the service station analogy. The gas stations still employ people , they have just expanded and started selling things other than gas and the employee is now inside baking bread for your sandwich rather than outside filling your tank.

Those who don't evolve are left in the dust. Employees and employers alike.

 

[PaulS1950]

There are two components to the president's increase in minimum wage.
1. raise it to $9 / hr by 2015
2. increase it annually by the inflation index.

Lets take buisinesses that most often pay minimum wage for this thought experiment: fast food restuarants
1. the wages for all employees goes to $9 /hr
2. the prices of their burgers, fries, onion rings, shakes and soft drinks are increased to make up for the cost of labor.
3. because prices increase for the same product inflation rises - marginally.
4. because inflation rises, the wages go up.
5. because the wages increase the cost of the food goes up.
6. because prices go up, inflation rises again.
7. because inflation goes up the wages increase.
Repeat until there is no longer an incentive to buy fast food.
With no business the fast food place closes and those jobs are lost.

 

[ReallyMeow]

chickfila does just fine and they charge like $10 a meal, the sky isnt falling chicken little. maybe a society needs to be based on things that people NEED, not on whims and luxury items.

Prioritize these two items:
Having gas pumped for you.
Someone who spent their whole life working and living frugally not living under a bridge when theyre too old to work.

 

[PaulS1950]

I don't know if you were talking to me or not ReallyMeow but I pump my own gas and I have lived my life frugally, am retired, and not living under a bridge. I have owned four businesses, three of which were successful and sometimes worked a "normal" job while operating my own business.
I am not too old to work but I have enough money to live and I like spending the time with my wife and family.

I don't know what a chickfila is but the local national fast food chains like McD's, and Jack-in-the-Box charge that price ($10) for a three piece meal here. when I was a bit younger you could get that same 3 piece meal for under $1 - granted that was in the 60s but when you consider the wages have only gone up by 2.5 times that fast food meal has rocketed to 10 times what it was.

It won't hurt my feelings if all the fast food places close down but it will hurt those who work for them.

 

[Deepbluediver]

That's an interesting little slideshow, but you should keep in mind that things besides wage change over time as well. The average size of a home in the U.S. has also increased dramatically, so perhaps a better survey would have been to see how much square footage can be rented today, on minimum wage, versus 50 years ago.

 

[ReallyMeow]

the 60's huh? allow me to repost this from a page ago

OOPS: GOP Rep. Inadvertently Makes The Case For Nearly Doubling The Minimum Wage | ThinkProgress

now tell me why someone serving you a burger doesnt deserve the same dignity that you enjoy?

 

[Deepbluediver]

now tell me why someone serving you a burger doesnt deserve the same dignity that you enjoy?

Whether are you making $8 an hour or $40 an hour, flipping burgers (or data entry, or punching tickets, etc) isn't really a fulfilling career. But the method to getting people moving on the track to higher paying jobs is better education and a healthy economy.

Employee wages are not a perfectly flexible measure, but there is some correlation between the cost to the employer and the number of people they higher. The argument coming from the left is that at best, the same amount of money will be changing hands, but fewer people will be working, and the increased costs to businesses will hinder the economic recovery more than it will help.

Personally, I take the view that everything will balance out in the long term, because companies who want good workers will need to pay decent wages (and HR costs mount when you have high turnover), but I recognize that in the short term the business tends to have more power at the barganing table. So I'm not certain where I fall on this issue.

 

[ReallyMeow]

There isnt a limitless ocean of fulfilling careers which people need only reach out and take, look at these underemployment numbers:
One in Three Young U.S. Workers Are Underemployed

 

[Deepbluediver]

There isnt a limitless ocean of fulfilling careers which people need only reach out and take, look at these underemployment numbers:
One in Three Young U.S. Workers Are Underemployed

No, there certainly aren't, but the way you get more and better jobs is to having a thriving economy. The most immediate, short term effects of raising the minimum wage are to increase costs for employers, and/or put more people out of work. Neither one seems likely to help the overall economic situation, so at best the end result would be a wash.

 

[PaulS1950]

The minimum wage was never supposed to be a living wage. It was supposed to provide money to those working while going to school or for spending money from an after school job. It doesn't even apply to businesses with fewer than a certain number of employees.

 

[ReallyMeow]

Ive debunked the claim that raising the minimum wage will cause unemployment, thoroughly. youll have to do better than repeating the assertion.

 

[Deepbluediver]

Ive debunked the claim that raising the minimum wage will cause unemployment, thoroughly. youll have to do better than repeating the assertion.

I did not read through the entire thread before posting, sorry for that. I'll go back and read what you wrote now.


This article seems to be the most relevant:
A 2011 Study Exploded One Of The Biggest Fears About Raising The Minimum Wage - Business Insider
It does say that only a small number of managers think that firing existing workers is important in the face of minimum wage changes. But it also acknowledges that managers will (amongst other things) change hiring practices, cut weekly hours, and delay pay raises. So it's hardly like everything is roses and sunshine.

There was also this article, a little further back:
Working, but still poor - The Week
One of it's first assertions is that "Some 46.2 million Americans now live in families where someone is working but earning less than the poverty line: $11,702 a year for an individual or $23,021 for a family of four. "
It doesn't specify that these workers are necessarily the primary breadwinners of the household, or even that they have dependents, so it seems likely that it includes a large percentage of teenage or student workers.

It goes on to say "...the working poor are those whose incomes do not cover basic needs: food, clothing, housing, transportation, child care, and health care. By that standard, there are more than 146 million Americans in the poor-but-working class." I wonder where it gets this assertion from, and how it determines what people can afford.
Also, this is about 100 million more than the people making below the poverty line; how much are they earning, and yet still ending up in such dire straights? I'm not disagreeing, yet, but it seems to demand further elaboration.

Next, it states that "In the U.S., unions have dwindled partly because poor leadership has damaged their image, and partly because of "right-to-work" laws, now in place in 24 states, which effectively bar unions from organizing workers. " Having browsed Wikipedia's description of Right to Work laws, that's not what they do at all. If the author is being misleading, that threatens his credibility on other sections.

Near the end of the article, it give the example that "A single mother earning $18,000 a year loses tax credits and benefits as she climbs the income scale, so for each additional dollar she makes, she effectively keeps only 12 cents. She has little incentive to increase her hours and her income unless she can make a major jump in salary." Wouldn't increasing minimum wage have the same effect of reducing benefits, essentially zeroing out any gain?


While checking around on google, I also stumbled across this brief little blurb.
Freakonomics » Does Raising the Minimum Wage Increase Unemployment?
That piece gives some examples as to how the same policy can have different effects depending on numerous other factors. And unfortunately, economics is hard to figure out, because society is tough to model, and people tend to frown on sticking a few hundred people in a metal dome and observing them like lab rats.

And then there is this:
Characteristics of Minimum Wage Workers: 2011
Which states that in 2011, (assuming I'm reading this correctly) workers making exactly at or less than the federal minimum wage composed only 5.2% of all hourly-paid workers.


As I said in my first post, I'm not certain where I really stand on this issue. Normally I'm a die-hard capitalist, but I realize that having a crappy job at low wages isn't fun, and if you are trying to support some one else it's truely sucky. However, I like to think that if increasing wages could benefit a business, then companies would figure out to do it on there own.

 

[Wiseacre]

Ive debunked the claim that raising the minimum wage will cause unemployment, thoroughly. youll have to do better than repeating the assertion.

Oh, I don't think so. Using a far left leaning organization for proof isn't what some might call thorough debunking.

 

[Noomi]

???

Can you rephrase that? Not sure what you're saying.

I'll give it a go.

If you need a person to ring up the extra value meals, you need them. Doesn't matter if their pay is $7/hr or $10.

Conversely, if you don't need a person you don't need them, even if they will work for free.

Which is true for some positions. However there are plently of jobs that are discretionary. At $4 an hour, I may hire someone to man the pumps at my gas station, believing having that curtsey for my customers is worth it, but at $7, that's too high and my pumps will just have to be self serve.

Petrol store owners will turn over a fair bit of money. They can more than afford to employ a part time person to man the pumps - the only reason they won't is because they are too tight.