Can minimum wage ever be too high?

[Maxdeath]

If so, how would you make the call? If not why not raise it to the point that we're all rich?

I take it you are unfamiliar with economics even on an elementary level.
Part of the cost of any product, whether it is labor such as digging a ditch, to making a hamburger, to a private jet is dependent on the cost of people to do the job. That cost is not just pay but there are government payroll taxes, in some states, state taxes. There is the cost of unemployment insurance, workers compensation. There may also be costs for health and other insurance. Pay for payed time off.

So every time the price of doing something or making something goes up the price for that item must go up.

So you could raise a wage to $20.00 an hour for making a hamburger but then the price will go up to reflect that $20.00. In the end you may get an increase for a short period but then the increase will be eroded by the increase in goods, so you end up with what is called run away inflation.

Why do you think so many things are built overseas? Because wages are low and taxes are not so high. A Chinese factory worker makes about $2.00 an hour. Imagine what your flat screen or cell phone would cost if it was built by someone at $20.00 an hour.

While I appreciate your attempt to insult me, you failed to answer the question.

What would make a given minimum wage too high?

Was not an attempt to insult was simply an observation.

Your question was answered. I will answer it another way that you might be better able to understand. After the First World War Germany experienced rampant inflation. At one point it required a wheelbarrow to buy a loaf of bread. It was cheaper to use money to wipe your but then to buy toilet paper. It all depends on how much you wish to pay for a product.

If you want to pay $1.00 for a hamburger then what we have now is sufficient. If you want to pay more for the same hamburger then increase the minimum wage. It is just a matter of how much more money you or anyone else is willing to pay for the same goods or services.

 

[Slyhunter]

If we're gonna raise it to 15, then, what's to say we can't raise it to 100 an hour?

There's a real answer to this question.

Everybody who works for a living should earn a living. What is so hard to understand about that. What is the point of working if you can't afford an apartment, a car, and food. Force to make this choice I'd turn to bank robbery and retire in jail and let the tax payers pay that way.

 

[dblack]

Everybody who works for a living should earn a living. What is so hard to understand about that.

It's not that it's hard to understand, it's that it's utterly subjective. Why should you get to decide what someone else's standard of living should be? Why should that have to be unemployed if they can't earn what you think is the "minimum"?

 

[Brain357]

The republican mantra:

“Fuck the Worker!”

If that was true, Hillary would not have lost Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

Given our stagnant wages it seems like Republicans aren't really helping the worker.

Is it not true that recent wage increases have been the best in 10 years, just under 3% annually? That ain't what I'd call stagnant, and the Repubs are sure as hell doing more for the average worker than the Dems did under Obama.

Average hourly wages jumped 9 cents, or 0.3%, to $26.74, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That means wages have increased 2.9% over the last year — the biggest gain since the end of the Great Recession in June 2009.

Here’s one big reason wages increased at their fastest pace in 9 years

Nobody 10 years ago was talking about how great wages are. And just under 3% isn't good when inflation is 3%.

 

[dblack]

Was not an attempt to insult was simply an observation.

Your question was answered. I will answer it another way that you might be better able to understand. After the First World War Germany experienced rampant inflation. At one point it required a wheelbarrow to buy a loaf of bread. It was cheaper to use money to wipe your but then to buy toilet paper. It all depends on how much you wish to pay for a product.

If you want to pay $1.00 for a hamburger then what we have now is sufficient. If you want to pay more for the same hamburger then increase the minimum wage. It is just a matter of how much more money you or anyone else is willing to pay for the same goods or services.

If your reading comprehension lived up to your pomposity, you might have noticed that's exactly the point I'm making.

 

[Maxdeath]

Was not an attempt to insult was simply an observation.

Your question was answered. I will answer it another way that you might be better able to understand. After the First World War Germany experienced rampant inflation. At one point it required a wheelbarrow to buy a loaf of bread. It was cheaper to use money to wipe your but then to buy toilet paper. It all depends on how much you wish to pay for a product.

If you want to pay $1.00 for a hamburger then what we have now is sufficient. If you want to pay more for the same hamburger then increase the minimum wage. It is just a matter of how much more money you or anyone else is willing to pay for the same goods or services.

If your reading comprehension lived up to your pomposity, you might have noticed that's exactly the point I'm making.

Perhaps learn the English language

 

[Slyhunter]

Everybody who works for a living should earn a living. What is so hard to understand about that.

It's not that it's hard to understand, it's that it's utterly subjective. Why should you get to decide what someone else's standard of living should be? Why should that have to be unemployed if they can't earn what you think is the "minimum"?

Because life wouldn't be worth living if it got any harder to live than it is.
Bastion of Capitalism, Hong Kong, and they live like this

. Is that what you want for your fellow Americans?

 

[Natural Citizen]

What is so hard to understand about that.

Don't ever say that to me again. K? Especially not in an economics thread. Because I'll tell you what's so hard to understand. And you won't like the answer.

I'm cutting you a break here. Take it.

 

[dblack]

Everybody who works for a living should earn a living. What is so hard to understand about that.

It's not that it's hard to understand, it's that it's utterly subjective. Why should you get to decide what someone else's standard of living should be? Why should that have to be unemployed if they can't earn what you think is the "minimum"?

Because life wouldn't be worth living if it got any harder to live than it is.
Bastion of Capitalism, Hong Kong, and they live like this

. Is that what you want for your fellow Americans?

As I said, it's not my call. I shouldn't be able to tell my fellow Americans they can't work, just because they're not making as much as I think they "should".

 

[Slyhunter]

Everybody who works for a living should earn a living. What is so hard to understand about that.

It's not that it's hard to understand, it's that it's utterly subjective. Why should you get to decide what someone else's standard of living should be? Why should that have to be unemployed if they can't earn what you think is the "minimum"?

Because life wouldn't be worth living if it got any harder to live than it is.
Bastion of Capitalism, Hong Kong, and they live like this

. Is that what you want for your fellow Americans?

As I said, it's not my call. I shouldn't be able to tell my fellow Americans they can't work, just because they're not making as much as I think they "should".

Minimum wage is not the same thing as telling people they can't work. They can work, for a living wage.

 

[dblack]

Everybody who works for a living should earn a living. What is so hard to understand about that.

It's not that it's hard to understand, it's that it's utterly subjective. Why should you get to decide what someone else's standard of living should be? Why should that have to be unemployed if they can't earn what you think is the "minimum"?

Because life wouldn't be worth living if it got any harder to live than it is.
Bastion of Capitalism, Hong Kong, and they live like this

. Is that what you want for your fellow Americans?

As I said, it's not my call. I shouldn't be able to tell my fellow Americans they can't work, just because they're not making as much as I think they "should".

Minimum wage is not the same thing as telling people they can't work. They can work, for a living wage.

But not for less. If they can't find a job earning your idea of a minimum wage, they're not allowed to offer their labor for less (they're forced to go on the dole, or go underground). That's anti-competitive. It's the point you made earlier. You don't want to have to compete with people who are more desperate than you are.

 

[Bootney Lee Farnsworth]

Minimum wage is not the same thing as telling people they can't work. They can work, for a living wage.

Completely missed the point. Not surprised.

.

 

[Cellblock2429]

The republican mantra:

“Fuck the Worker!”

If that was true, Hillary would not have lost Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

Given our stagnant wages it seems like Republicans aren't really helping the worker.

/——/ It’s up to the worker to improve his/her/it skill set to earn more money like I did in my early 20s when I went to College part time and worked my way into a high paying profession. It’s not up to a political party to do the heavy lifting for you.

 

[initforme]

If one doesntdoappkyafor minimum wage jobs one won't have to settle for minimum wage. Employers don't expect much if any productivity for a low paying wage. So one has to find a job that equals more productivity. Work ethic and wages and effort are closely tied together. The more one gets aid the harder they work.

 

[Denizen]

If it gets to $ 50 million a year per person that might be an overshoot.

 

[Wyatt earp]

If it gets to $ 50 million a year per person that might be an overshoot.

Why?


It's still zero.


And everyone would make the same .


.

 

[Denizen]

If it gets to $ 50 million a year per person that might be an overshoot.

Why?


It's still zero.


And everyone would make the same .


.

Why? Because it jerks your chain.

 

[basquebromance]

minimum wage seems like a pittance to Americans, something teenagers get for a summer job, but if you've just arrived from a slum in El Salvador, its a huge improvement over what youre used to