Does raising the minimum wage reduce poverty?

[initforme]

We'd all be better off if employers didn't even open up low paying positions

 

[Grumblenuts]

The "average" is now tilted so far upscale by the increasingly ridiculous growth at the top that one must use the "mean" to gain any sense from it at all.

Correction: I meant to say the "median," not the "mean."

 

[Grumblenuts]

They do?

Minimum Wages Regulations - Denmark

Your rights: salary and minimum wages in Denmark – WageIndicator.org.

wageindicator.org

Sweden Minimum Wage - World Minimum Wage Rates 2025

www.minimum-wage.org

Finland

wageindicator.org

Arent the Scandinavian countries the ones you guys typically trot out as the poster children for shit like this?

Add to that group, Iceland, Switzerland, Germany, Austria.....

You should really google shit before you talk out of your ass like that....

Kidding yourself again? From your own sources:

"Since minimum wages are set through the collective bargaining, the first responsibility to ensure compliance with these wage rates lies with trade unions and employer."
"in Sweden, a minimum wage rate is set by annual collective bargaining contracts. Sweden's minimum wage was last changed in 1-Jan-2013.
"These legally binding minimum pay rates must be applied equally to Finnish and foreign workers. The employer must, in connection with the payment of wages, give the employee a calculation which indicates the amount of pay and the grounds of its determination."

Notice who isn't expected to "negotiate" their own pay? Who's never just left on their own, flapping in the breeze, faced with some corporate bureaucracy? Also, notice how rising so-called "cashless societies" correspond with rising use of cryptocurrency. Underground economies shall always exist to handle these poor, poor "teens" and "college students" desperate to make a buck on the sly, just as they've always been free to do here regardless of any nationally set MW rates.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

It's easy to judge people and tell them how to live their life from the comforts of your own circumstance, but I'm not into that.

I'm into making sure people (dopes as you call them) making just very bare minimum for honest day's work.

I can't see many circumstances that would make things different. I mean, I understand people have different blessings. I for one could never get through college. I dislike sports and while a very good musician, I'm not enough to have ever made it big time. However I'm also aware of manual labor jobs that pay a hell of a lot better than minimum wage. Just what I'm experienced with which is driving and construction, these are fields that can be learned and done by people with a little ambition.

Your philosophy is give a man a fish, and mine is teach a man how to fish.

 

[Couchpotato]

Kidding yourself again? From your own sources:

"Since minimum wages are set through the collective bargaining, the first responsibility to ensure compliance with these wage rates lies with trade unions and employer."
"in Sweden, a minimum wage rate is set by annual collective bargaining contracts. Sweden's minimum wage was last changed in 1-Jan-2013.
"These legally binding minimum pay rates must be applied equally to Finnish and foreign workers. The employer must, in connection with the payment of wages, give the employee a calculation which indicates the amount of pay and the grounds of its determination."

Notice who isn't expected to "negotiate" their own pay? Who's never just left on their own, flapping in the breeze, faced with some corporate bureaucracy? Also, notice how rising so-called "cashless societies" correspond with rising use of cryptocurrency. Underground economies shall always exist to handle these poor, poor "teens" and "college students" desperate to make a buck on the sly, just as they've always been free to do here regardless of any nationally set MW rates.

Is that the government or private trade unions………

 

[XponentialChaos]

Anytime a generic working person gets a raise there is an estimated reduction in "average family income".

To me that's not a reason to oppose people getting paid just-barely dignified pay for their work.

But hey, at least it is not a bs reason, like that nonsense about minimum wage supposedly not helping minimum wage earners.

How is a reduction in average family income a good thing?

Why should I be for something if it causes a reduction in average family income?

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

We'd all be better off if employers didn't even open up low paying positions

You won't have anyone to simply sweep up the shop.

 

[Grumblenuts]

Is that the government or private trade unions………

All legitimate unions are private organizations.

 

[justoffal]

If the answer is no, and I'm pretty sure it is, then why have a minimum wage at all? If you raise the minimum wage to $15 all you're doing is ensuring that any job worth less than that won't exist legally, and that means unskilled people will have less job opportunities and less possibilities for expanding their value in the market. Grown people should not be inhibited by the government when it comes to their ability to negotiate their own labor. It's immoral, patronizing and it doesn't actually achieve its intended effect. It does ensure less jobs and less business opportunities though.

The minimum wage is well-intentioned, and our economy can survive despite it, but all it really does is limit the people that are worth the least. The impact a $15/hr minimum wage would have on the job market, particularly in more rural states, is no doubt massive. I consider myself left wing. I support a lot of left wing ideas. This is not one of them though. There shouldn't be a minimum wage. It's not actually helping poor people. I think it's bad for everybody.

The real joke is that the minimum wage never actually changes. The number of dollar units offered out in return for one hour of human service is fully malleable by the Fed and the treasury. Force corporations to pay more and they will find ways to take it back off the books.

More dollar units don't mean anything when the unit is "inflated" to match the aggregate wealth that is available. It's just a feel good....happy←→happy dance.

 

[Couchpotato]

All legitimate unions are private organizations.

Sooooo it's not not the government artificially setting wages, it's the free market determining what labor is worth? Huh. That is some crazy ass shit.

 

[Couchpotato]

The real joke is that the minimum wage never actually changes. The number of dollar units offered out in return for one hour of human service is fully malleable by the Fed and the treasury. Force corporations to pay more and they will find ways to take it back off the books.

More dollar units don't mean anything when the unit is "inflated" to match the aggregate wealth that is available. It's just a feel good....happy←→happy dance.

Exactly. I'd rather make .50$ than a trillion a year if the cost of living were .10$ vs 500 billion.

 

[justoffal]

Exactly. I'd rather make .50$ than a trillion a year if the cost of living were .10$ vs 500 billion.

You have good math comprehension. Trying to explain to people that it's not the prices is going up but actually the dollar going down is like trying to feed rocks to a talking Twinkie. It's just not doable.....so I have stopped.

Jo

 

[Grumblenuts]

Why should I be for something if it causes a reduction in average family income?

So you're just going to keep banging on about "average family income" even though you're certainly smart enough to know that's just a meaningless categorization?

Say we had 100 poor people collecting $7.25 / hr, 100 "middle class" workers collecting $25 / hr and five billionaires collecting $2500 / hr. Then another billionaire moves here from Russia making it six. Your "average family income" just rose significantly (even though the actual median income didn't budge). What good did that do you? Now say the federal MW increased to $10 / hr and 25 of those poor saps had to go find better employment. "Average family income" could drop for a while until the precious "market" adjusted. But soon even the wages of the those "middle class" workers would begin rising significantly, increasing both median and "average family income." Now would an increase "in average family income" be a bad thing? 'Cause, you know, that's more like what really happens, both logically and historically.

 

[Grumblenuts]

Sooooo it's not not the government artificially setting wages, it's the free market determining what labor is worth? Huh. That is some crazy ass shit.

Bam. No one expects a "free market" = "unions" equation!
Doh!

 

[XponentialChaos]

So you're just going to keep banging on about "average family income" even though you're certainly smart enough to know that's just a meaningless categorization?

Say we had 100 poor people collecting $7.25 / hr, 100 "middle class" workers collecting $25 / hr and five billionaires collecting $2500 / hr. Then another billionaire moves here from Russia making it six. Your "average family income" just rose significantly (even though the actual median income didn't budge). What good did that do you? Now say the federal MW increased to $10 / hr and 25 of those poor saps had to go find better employment. "Average family income" could drop for a while until the precious "market" adjusted. But soon even the wages of the those "middle class" workers would begin rising significantly, increasing both median and "average family income." Now would an increase "in average family income" be a bad thing? 'Cause, you know, that's more like what really happens, both logically and historically.

The decreases in real family income is over a decade, not just “a while”.

I’m just going off of the report he showed me.

I don’t see how lowering real family income over an entire decade is a good thing.

 

[Grumblenuts]

The decreases in real family income is over a decade, not just “a while”.

No doubt unrelated to raising the federal MW. Historically, raising the federal MW, among other things, has lead to tremendous increases in real family income.

Raising the federal minimum wage to $15 by 2024 would lift pay for nearly 40 million workers

In 2018, the federal minimum wage of $7.25 was worth 14.8 percent less than when it was last raised in 2009, after adjusting for inflation, and 28.6 percent below its peak value in 1968, when the minimum wage was the equivalent of $10.15 in 2018 dollars. On January 16, 2019, Sen. Bernie Sanders...

www.epi.org

 

[XponentialChaos]

No doubt unrelated to raising the federal MW.

That’s not what it says.

“By boosting the income of low-wage workers who had jobs, a higher minimum wage would raise their families’ real income, lifting some of those families out of poverty. However, income would fall for some families because other workers would not be employed and because business owners would have to absorb at least some of the higher costs of labor. For those reasons, a minimum-wage increase would cause a net reduction in average family income.”

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

No doubt unrelated to raising the federal MW. Historically, raising the federal MW, among other things, has lead to tremendous increases in real family income.

Raising the federal minimum wage to $15 by 2024 would lift pay for nearly 40 million workers

In 2018, the federal minimum wage of $7.25 was worth 14.8 percent less than when it was last raised in 2009, after adjusting for inflation, and 28.6 percent below its peak value in 1968, when the minimum wage was the equivalent of $10.15 in 2018 dollars. On January 16, 2019, Sen. Bernie Sanders...

www.epi.org

I don't understand that at all. If a person is working 40 hours a week at MW, gets a dollar an hour increase through government, that's only $2,080 a year before taxes. What you consider "tremendous" I really don't know.

 

[Grumblenuts]

That’s not what it says.

“By boosting the income of low-wage workers who had jobs, a higher minimum wage would raise their families’ real income, lifting some of those families out of poverty. However, income would fall for some families because other workers would not be employed and because business owners would have to absorb at least some of the higher costs of labor. For those reasons, a minimum-wage increase would cause a net reduction in average family income.”

It argues both being possible, then mysteriously concludes with a "net reduction." Obvious BS is obvious.

 

[Grumblenuts]

I don't understand that at all. If a person is working 40 hours a week at MW, gets a dollar an hour increase through government, that's only $2,080 a year before taxes. What you consider "tremendous" I really don't know.

No mystery where you plucked that "dollar an hour increase" from.