Minimum wage is already “livable”

[colfax_m]

Threads like this are a great time to remember that the left is clueless about economics.

I'm pretty clued in. Talk with people on the right long enough and you'll uncover the fundamental problem they have here.

They want people to be poor so that they can benefit from their labor by having cheap products. When they say they want wages to go up, they want THEIR wages to go up, but everyone else can go screw themselves.

 

[Lisa558]

No, it's not. Unless you know someone who can live on $10,000 a year? Subsist, maybe, with the help of food stamps, section 8, homeless shelters and food banks, but not live.

And you're overlooking the fact that raising the minimum wage to $15.00 an hour wouldn't just raise wages for minimum $7.25 workers, but for everyone who.makes less than $15.00 an hour.

Minimum wage isn’t $5 an hour.…it’s $7.50, and only 2% of people with so little skills or experience make that. And I DID say it could be raised to $10.

At $10 an hour, people could live a livable lifestyle - with roommates.

But, and I know that this is hard for leftists to digest, raising it to $15 would drive a lot of small businesses out of existence, and then MORE people would be totally dependent on other people’s money for full support.

(Another problem is that even with $15 an hour, people don’t want to work due to all the new handouts, like the government child support checks. Another topic.)

Minimum wage is already “livable”​

Podunk Iowa, the minimum wage is livable.

New York or San Francisco, it's not.

Market forces already compensate for that. Here in my East Coast city, starting wages are $15 at the minimum, with many jobs posted at $17 or $18. That means a kid (or an unskilled adult) could earn $30,000, combine households with someone else, and bam! - livable.

So let’s run the new numbers, at $30,000. The person running items through “pick this up, scan it, and bag it” line is taking home around $2200 a month, after payroll deductions. He could share a NICE townhouse going for $2400 a month, and his share is $800.

That leaves him $1400 a month for groceries, public transportation, and some other basics. That’s livable. If he finds it’s not, he can rent the “so-so” townhouse with roommates, at a share of $600, leavong him $1600 a month. That could be $300 for groceries, $60 for public transport, $40 for Obamacare, $50 for his share of utilities, and $50 for miscellaneous. That still leaves him with $1100!

 

[Blues Man]

Productivity has ALWAYS gone up by changes in technology, but that technology still requires human intervention. The capacity to utilize the technology to increase productivity is indeed an improvement in the labor force and is indeed an increase in the skill set.

What does increasing skill set mean if not increase in productivity? They're equivalent.

Technology makes it easier for unskilled people to make high end products.

These unskilled people do not have more skill than the master craftsmen who used to make things.

The people who build and service the tech are more valuable than the monkey who pushes the button.

If you never rise above the position of floor sweeper why should you continue getting higher salaries?

 

[SweetTea]

Of course you can go in and demand more money. What's stopping you?

This kind of attitude is what's so screwed up about our attitude towards work.

I can, but better be prepared to explain why I deserve more and why I can't be replaced. I actually did so years ago and was given a hefty raise that had to be approved by the CEO.

 

[colfax_m]

Technology makes it easier for unskilled people to make high end products.

These unskilled people do not have more skill than the master craftsmen who used to make things.

The people who build and service the tech are more valuable than the monkey who pushes the button.

If you never rise above the position of floor sweeper why should you continue getting higher salaries?

How much product is made without the unskilled labor?

 

[colfax_m]

I can, but better be prepared to explain why I deserve more and why I can't be replaced. I actually did so years ago and was given a hefty raise that had to be approved by the CEO.

Great!

Now let everyone else do it too and stop bitching about it.

 

[Blues Man]

How much product is made without the unskilled labor?

There will always be unskilled labor.

 

[rightwinger]

I keep hearing the left say that minimum wage, which is what the lowest 2% of Americans earn, needs to be increased to where it provides a “livable“ wage.

I don’t think minimum wage has to provide a wage you can live off. It should provide your basic expenses and allow you to get started in life.

When I made minimum wage of $2.10 in the mid 70s, I was able to pay for college just by working summers.
You could buy a new car on six months wages
$2.10 would buy you seven gallons of gas for that car

$7.25 will take you over a year to pay for college
It will take over a year to afford a small car
You can buy two gallons of gas for that car

 

[Lisa558]

I'm pretty clued in. Talk with people on the right long enough and you'll uncover the fundamental problem they have here.

They want people to be poor so that they can benefit from their labor by having cheap products. When they say they want wages to go up, they want THEIR wages to go up, but everyone else can go screw themselves.

Hardly. We just think that people with no skills and low earnings should be willing to live the way that almost every new college grad does: with roommates.

Why should people earning a middle class salary, gotten to after a college education and years of experience, have their taxes raised so that people who didn’t try to better themselves can live practically as well? Grear way to disincentivize people!

For example, I know a young woman who has a high school diploma, and that’s it. She is living in a dumpy apartment and wants better. So she has enrolled in some on-line vocational program. That means after she gets home from her cashier‘s job, she logs on and does the coursework.

What would happen if our government said, “hey….you don’t have to apply yourself like that. Here’s some money from other people, who DID apply themselves and thus earn more, so you can get a nicer apartment.“ She’d figure, “why put myself through the class to earn enough for a better apartment when I can just use OPM to get one?”

You liberals are discouraging upward mobility and actively trying to lower the caliber of the country. Just look at the southern border.

 

[Blues Man]

I don’t think minimum wage has to provide a wage you can live off. It should provide your basic expenses and allow you to get started in life.

When I made minimum wage of $2.10 in the mid 70s, I was able to pay for college just by working summers.
You could buy a new car on six months wages
$2.10 would buy you seven gallons of gas for that car

$7.25 will take you over a year to pay for college
It will take over a year to afford a small car
You can buy two gallons of gas for that car

Less than 3% of all workers make the federal MW.

 

[rightwinger]

Less than 3% of all workers make the federal MW.

They are still being exploited while they are
Low skill jobs are still under $10

If it is only 3%, no big deal to raise it is there?

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

I'm pretty clued in. Talk with people on the right long enough and you'll uncover the fundamental problem they have here.

They want people to be poor so that they can benefit from their labor by having cheap products. When they say they want wages to go up, they want THEIR wages to go up, but everyone else can go screw themselves.

They want people to be poor so that they can benefit from their labor by having cheap products.

There are poor people whether anyone wants them to be poor or not.
Paying people more than the value they add, because wages must be "livable"
shows a misunderstanding of how economics, and business, works.

 

[colfax_m]

Hardly. We just think that people with no skills and low earnings should be willing to live the way that almost every new college grad does: with roommates.

Why should people earning a middle class salary, gotten to after a college education and years of experience, have their taxes raised so that people who didn’t try to better themselves can live practically as well? Grear way to disincentivize people!

For example, I know a young woman who has a high school diploma, and that’s it. She is living in a dumpy apartment and wants better. So she has enrolled in some on-line vocational program. That means after she gets home from her cashier‘s job, she logs on and does the coursework.

What would happen if our government said, “hey….you don’t have to apply yourself like that. Here’s some money from other people, who DID apply themselves and thus earn more, so you can get a nicer apartment.“ She’d figure, “why put myself through the class to earn enough for a better apartment when I can just use OPM to get one?”

You liberals are discouraging upward mobility and actively trying to lower the caliber of the country. Just look at the southern border.

What happens when there's not enough people who want to fill those jobs at those wages?

No matter what we do, those jobs are going to exist. They deserve to be a living wage, something you could even raise a family with rather than living in a shared apartment with other people. The middle class is being hollowed out by the lack of wage increases over the decades and these chickens are coming home to roost.

 

[colfax_m]

They want people to be poor so that they can benefit from their labor by having cheap products.

There are poor people whether anyone wants them to be poor or not.
Paying people more than the value they add, because wages must be "livable"
shows a misunderstanding of how economics, and business, works.

You're not paying them more than the value they add. You're redistributing profits from the upper end to the lower end.

 

[Blues Man]

They are still being exploited while they are
Low skill jobs are still under $10

If it is only 3%, no big deal to raise it is there?

So what?

If it's only 3% there's no need to raise it.

And no one is getting exploited because they agree to work for a person for the wage offered.

If a person has no ambition and wants to do nothing but push a broom for 30 years why should he keep getting higher and higher salaries?

 

[Grumblenuts]

Market forces already compensate for that. Here in my East Coast city, starting wages are $15 at the minimum, with many jobs posted at $17 or $18. That means a kid (or an unskilled adult) could earn $30,000, combine households with someone else, and bam! - livable.

Thanks to people like Bernie and Walmart employees raising hell. "Market forces" my ass, Scrooge. Admit it: If you could pay people less, you would.

Btw, minimum wage is $7.25/hr. Not $7.50. Doh!

 

[Lisa558]

Great!

Now let everyone else do it too and stop bitching about it.

What you don’t get is that everyone is allowed to ask for more. But if their skills and contribution don’t warrant it, they won’t get it.

I ran a business, with my highest paid $70,000 (equivalent to $100,000 in today’s dollars) and my lowest paid around $9 (now equivalent to $12j. She was a high school kid who worked part-time doing basic work - running envelopes through the franking machine, xeroxing and collating copies, etc. If she came in and said she wanted a raise, I’d tell her no. If she didn’t like it and quit, I’d just hire another high school kid. People who can do jobs like that are a dime a dozen.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

When I made minimum wage of $2.10 in the mid 70s, I was able to pay for college just by working summers.

An endless supply of government dollars has allowed colleges to
increase tuition well beyond 3 months of minimum wage.

That's the government's fault, not the fault of the employers.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

You're not paying them more than the value they add.

Paying an unskilled worker with no experience $15 an hour to bag fries
is paying them more than the value they add.

 

[Harpy Eagle]

So you tell me: what should the “livable” lifestyle of the kid who works the drive-though at McDonalds consist of?

I do not think such a thing exist and if it did it varies so much from city to city and state to state it is a meaningless term.

My daughter is 26 and makes a six figure salary with the potential for uncapped commission. She also lives in LA and has to share an Appt with 2 other girls to be able to afford to live there.

If she made that much where we live she would be living like a queen.