Minimum wage

[Modbert]

You have it backwards. Minimum wage increases poverty by preventing people from finding work. These unemployed people are then put on welfare. You have admitted that jobs will be created if minimum wage is abolished, and then you say more people will be on welfare. You cannot make both claims. Your argument is logically incoherent. And the empirical evidence supports opponents of minimum wage.

You have to seem equated the fact someone has a job if we get rid of minimum wage to someone making a living wage so they don't have to go on welfare. One can actually make both claims that the previous poster made.

 

[Wiseacre]

Minimum wage is not supposed to be a living wage, it's a starting point wage for those entering the job market without the requisite skills for commanding a higher salary. You're not supposed to be spending your entire working life on the bottom rung of the income ladder, one way or another you can and should find ways to make yourself worth more to employers, but if you don't do so then IMHO that's your call and you should live with whatever the consequences are.

 

[ShackledNation]

You have it backwards. Minimum wage increases poverty by preventing people from finding work. These unemployed people are then put on welfare. You have admitted that jobs will be created if minimum wage is abolished, and then you say more people will be on welfare. You cannot make both claims. Your argument is logically incoherent. And the empirical evidence supports opponents of minimum wage.

You have to seem equated the fact someone has a job if we get rid of minimum wage to someone making a living wage so they don't have to go on welfare. One can actually make both claims that the previous poster made.

The point was welfare payments would not increase because those getting the new jobs will have been unemployed before. If anything they will be eligible for less with a job, not more.

 

[ShackledNation]

Minimum wage is not supposed to be a living wage, it's a starting point wage for those entering the job market without the requisite skills for commanding a higher salary. You're not supposed to be spending your entire working life on the bottom rung of the income ladder, one way or another you can and should find ways to make yourself worth more to employers, but if you don't do so then IMHO that's your call and you should live with whatever the consequences are.

No that is the purpose of low wages. Minimum wage serves to prevent the most unskilled workers from getting that starting job they can use to get a better job.

 

[Supposn]

Shackled nation, a characteristic of a robust economy is cheaper priced goods and labor priced more expensively.

When I first began to work on my cars, junk dealers permitted me to search for the parts I sought and take my tool box with me. Junk dealers became more concerned with theft when used parts became more expensive. They ceased permitting tool boxes brought into their yards. Their employees removed the part from the car you selected and the part’s price included that labor. Now they shelve individual part items (and add that additional labor to the price of the used parts).

The prices of used parts have been increasing faster than the prices of labor which indicates a poorer state of our economy. Your proposal to eliminate the federal minimum wage rate would further accelerate the comparative depreciating value of labor compared to goods.

Respectfully, Supposn

 

[Supposn]

Labor compared to goods prices.

Shackled Nation, a characteristic of a robust economy is cheaper priced goods and labor priced more expensively.

When I first began to work on my cars, junk dealers permitted me to search for the parts I sought and take my tool box with me.
Junk dealers became more concerned with theft when used parts became more expensive. They ceased permitting tool boxes brought into their yards. Their employees removed the part from the car you selected and the part’s price included that labor.

Now they shelve individual part items (and add that additional labor to the price of the used parts).

The prices of used and new parts have been increasing faster than the prices of labor which indicates a poorer state of our economy. Your proposal to eliminate the federal minimum wage rate would further accelerate the comparative depreciating value of labor compared to goods.

Respectfully, Supposn

 

[ShackledNation]

Shackled nation, a characteristic of a robust economy is cheaper priced goods and labor priced more expensively.

When I first began to work on my cars, junk dealers permitted me to search for the parts I sought and take my tool box with me. Junk dealers became more concerned with theft when used parts became more expensive. They ceased permitting tool boxes brought into their yards. Their employees removed the part from the car you selected and the part’s price included that labor. Now they shelve individual part items (and add that additional labor to the price of the used parts).

The prices of used parts have been increasing faster than the prices of labor which indicates a poorer state of our economy. Your proposal to eliminate the federal minimum wage rate would further accelerate the comparative depreciating value of labor compared to goods.

Respectfully, Supposn

No. A robust economy is characterized by high production. If goods are held artificially cheap by government and nothing is being produced, the economy is not robust. If all workers are paid $2,000,000 a year but produce absolutely nothing of value, the economy is not robust. Higher production lowers prices and raises real wages. Minimum wage raises prices and lowers real wages, only increasing nominal wages for some and resulting in unemployment for many. Nominal wages do not have to increase for their purchasing power to increase. Production increases purchasing power, and when you have a policy like minimum wage that causes resources (unskilled labor) to remain idle and raise the costs of hiring other labor that would not otherwise deserve such a wage, you end up with deadweight loss and reduced production, thus prices are higher and real wages lower.

Employers hire workers at low wages because doing so allows them to expand production, and the cost of hiring the worker is less than the cost of expanding production. This will allow them to produce cheaper goods as well as give previously unemployed people work. Workers take lower paying jobs because they have little skills to offer and need to gain work experience to gain those skills and move up the social ladder. Many of these lower paid workers would be teenagers and young people trying to find a place to get their foot in the door. Both the business owner and the worker are denied the opportunity to engage in free exchange because a bureaucrat arbitrarily decides to make their free exchange illegal. What you fail to understand is that workers willingly accept these lower paying jobs because higher paying jobs are not available to workers of their skill level. You start low and work your way up. If a higher paying job was available, they would have taken it instead. The lower wage job is an improvement to the worker's current condition, for without such a job the worker would be unemployed. Both the employer and the worker mutually benefit from the lower wage. The employer gets increased efficiency and more resources to invest in capital that expand production, and the worker gains valuable experience and a wage when he otherwise would have had nothing.

Again, I cannot reiterate enough that 94% of workers make above minimum wage. None of this 94% would be paid lower wages if minimum wage were abolished. Other workers who are paid more anyway will not suddenly see their wages decrease if minimum wage is abolished. It does not logically follow that any significant number of the 6% that do make minimum wage will suddenly be paid much less. The only reason they are employed is because their skills justify the cost. If their skills were worth below minimum wage (which would have to be the case if their wages were to fall once it was abolished) then employing such workers would make no sense whatsoever for it would result in losses, not profit, for the employer. The people paid lower wages are those that were paid no wages under minimum wage laws banning them from participating in the market.

Nominal wages may decrease in value for some, but because more people will be worker and costs will be lower, real wages will increase. You are confusing nominal wages with real wages. Yes, nominal wages may fall for those bordering the minimum wage already. But real wages will ultimately rise as more people are employed who otherwise would not have been employed, thus increasing production. Those who end up getting paid nominally less than before will be able to afford the same or more goods because prices will fall due to decreased costs of production. Of course, the Federal Reserve distorts this entire picture by creating money, thus causing across the board inflation to cancel out the prosperity of free markets.

 

[Supposn]

The bolded portion makes no grammatical sense in the English language. By "minimum's" do you mean "minimum wage's?" What does "proportional affect" mean? What is that affect? You need to completely restate that because it is not coherent. I am not trying to use ad hominem, I am serious. It literally and truthfully is not a comprehensible statement.

Shackled Nation, if there were no minimum wage many additional lower wage jobs would be created.

Yes. Exactly. With minimum wage those jobs do not exist and people are unemployed and living on welfare. A low paying job is better than no job at all. And ultimately people will rise up and get higher paying jobs when they gain sufficient experience.


That is the point. Minimum wage makes certain people unemployable, and certain jobs illegal.


It is pretty inconceivable that any worker would accept a $.50 an hour wage ever, nor would it make sense that an employer would bother offering such a wage. Employers to not arbitrarily set wage rates. If people refuse to labor at $.50 an hour, nobody will force them to, and nobody will take the job, forcing the employer to raise the wage to a level somebody will accept. If somebody accepts the lower wage, it means they value working at the wage more than whatever they would have being doing without work. They are improving their condition, thus they take the job. Preventing people from choosing what they see as an improvement of their condition is unjust. Minimum wage is not only economically wrong, it is morally wrong.


That is laughable. If people would like to use rickshaws, they have every right to. But the idea that abolishing minimum wage will lead to mass use of rickshaws is absurd. Not only that, but I doubt rickshaws would be very cheap at all. I doubt anyone would prefer to use a rickshaw over a bus that could cost them a few dollars, move them faster than the rickshaw, and be more comfortable than the rickshaw. Minimum wage did not end the rickshaw. The free market did when people decided it was not a favorable means of transportation. Is this really the best argument you can make? Rickshaws?


Many? Again, only 6% of all jobs pay minimum wage. 94% pay higher than minimum wage. I posed the question regarding this number earlier. Apparently you have decided to ignore it and construct arguments around the assumption that many jobs currently pay minimum wage. This assumption is false. Out of that 6%, it is not reasonable to assume they would all have lower wages once minimum wage was abolished. If a job is worth less than minimum wage, it is not offered. You say these jobs, although worth less than minimum wage, are necessary to private enterprise. A job that is fundamentally necessary to private enterprise will likely be valued above minimum wage if it really is so necessary--if not high above minimum wage. Lower paying jobs are less valueable to private enterprise, which is why they are lower paying in the first place.

You now seem to be operating under the idea that jobs necessary to private enterprise will be paid the lowest wages. This makes no logical sense. These minimum wage jobs exist because minimum wage is a justifiable price for their services. What is more likely is that they really are not that vital at all, hence their low pay.


And with minimum wage, we have the same pool of labor and zero additional jobs. You are arguing that if minimum wage is abolished, there will be more jobs, but not enough to employ everyone. Currently, there are no jobs, and even less people can be employed. Not everyone will be employed if minimum wage is abolished, so we must keep minimum wage so even fewer people are employed? And your premise that there will not be enough jobs itself is also questionable.


Prior to being paid these low wages these people are paid nothing, or worse, welfare that further reduces the real wages of actual workers! Abolishing minimum wage will create more jobs and give people previously with no income some type of income, and you are trying to sell that as a negative affect rippling throughout the economy. Giving people jobs when they previously had nothing is not a bad thing. You say the more you're earning, the less you're hurting. Current. And because of minimum wage, an entire class of workers is earning nothing.

Lower wage earners will all then be paid in wages of extremely poor purchasing power.

Previously they had zero purchasing power because they were unemployed.

Prior to the elimination of the minimum wage rate, many of those now earning the lesser purchasing powered wages will have been unemployed or not worked steadily but they will be joined by those who already had been the working poor and some who were previously getting by slightly better. There’ll be net increased needs for public assistance and our states can’t now handle the present needs.
That’s a scenario of increased national poverty.

Respectfully, Supposn

There will be more jobs and more people will be employed so therefore there will be more poverty and need for government assistance?

You have it backwards. Minimum wage increases poverty by preventing people from finding work. These unemployed people are then put on welfare. You have admitted that jobs will be created if minimum wage is abolished, and then you say more people will be on welfare. You cannot make both claims. Your argument is logically incoherent. And the empirical evidence supports opponents of minimum wage.

Shackled Nation, creatures are complex within themselves and their interrelationships between similar and other types of creatures and within their shared environment are additional factors of complexity.
Within Your message #80 you quoted me 9 times and then followed each quote with your comment. Considered them all in entirety, it’s become apparent (to me) our view points are derived from two differing environments and your environment is simpler and less diverse than mine.

IMO low paying jobs providing extremely poor purchasing power are not preferable to increased unemployment if those jobs if they're a net detriment to the median wage and thus undermine our economy. Most particularly they would significantly decreases the median purchasing power of lower income earners. In my opinion, employees paid less than twice the minimum wage rate fall well within the lower earners’ bracket.

You mention people in time improving their own economic conditions. You make no mention of those who due to their own actions or due to no fault of their own experience serious declines of their incomes and employability. Such occurrences are not rare or particularly uncommon.

Many people are unemployed due to their lack of qualifications (rather than due to the minimum wage). We do agree it’s illegal to provide employment that’s contrary to the minimum wage regulations.

People’s behavior adapts to changing environment. Eliminating the minimum wage certainly modifies some labor markets’ environments. I do not claim to “know” what the bottom rates would be if we eliminated the minimum rate laws but a half dollar per hour is not inconceivable. I’m among those perceiving minimum wage laws as economically beneficial to the nation and the elimination of those laws as morally reprehensible.

It may be of interest that bicycle powered rickshaws have been common in mid-town Manhattan for a good number of years. I suppose due to wage scales their expensive and thus probably used almost entirely by tourists. If we eliminate the minimum wage, I’m certain that we would see many more rickshaws in NY.

I wasn’t aware of 6% of all jobs pay minimum wage. I would have guessed a much lower percentage. If that is the case, than I would suppose much more than 12% of USA jobs pay $14.50/Hr. or less. The minimum wage rate has a direct or almost direct affect upon all of those wages. All USA labor compensation is in aggregate directly or indirectly affected by the federal minimum wage rate. Most enterprises consider clean toilets as necessary to their enterprises. The person cleaning the toilet is a likely candidate to be earning wages that provide less purchasing power as the current minimum rate if that minimum is eliminated.
I don’t know what lead you to conclude that in my opinion jobs necessary to private enterprise will be paid the lowest wages? Some of those jobs may be and others won’t be paid the lowest wages.

I’m tired. I’ve responded to 5/9 of your message$#80. I’ll deal with the remainder tomorrow.
Respectfully, Supposn

 

[ShackledNation]

Shackled Nation, if there were no minimum wage many additional lower wage jobs would be created.

Yes. Exactly. With minimum wage those jobs do not exist and people are unemployed and living on welfare. A low paying job is better than no job at all. And ultimately people will rise up and get higher paying jobs when they gain sufficient experience.


That is the point. Minimum wage makes certain people unemployable, and certain jobs illegal.


It is pretty inconceivable that any worker would accept a $.50 an hour wage ever, nor would it make sense that an employer would bother offering such a wage. Employers to not arbitrarily set wage rates. If people refuse to labor at $.50 an hour, nobody will force them to, and nobody will take the job, forcing the employer to raise the wage to a level somebody will accept. If somebody accepts the lower wage, it means they value working at the wage more than whatever they would have being doing without work. They are improving their condition, thus they take the job. Preventing people from choosing what they see as an improvement of their condition is unjust. Minimum wage is not only economically wrong, it is morally wrong.


That is laughable. If people would like to use rickshaws, they have every right to. But the idea that abolishing minimum wage will lead to mass use of rickshaws is absurd. Not only that, but I doubt rickshaws would be very cheap at all. I doubt anyone would prefer to use a rickshaw over a bus that could cost them a few dollars, move them faster than the rickshaw, and be more comfortable than the rickshaw. Minimum wage did not end the rickshaw. The free market did when people decided it was not a favorable means of transportation. Is this really the best argument you can make? Rickshaws?


Many? Again, only 6% of all jobs pay minimum wage. 94% pay higher than minimum wage. I posed the question regarding this number earlier. Apparently you have decided to ignore it and construct arguments around the assumption that many jobs currently pay minimum wage. This assumption is false. Out of that 6%, it is not reasonable to assume they would all have lower wages once minimum wage was abolished. If a job is worth less than minimum wage, it is not offered. You say these jobs, although worth less than minimum wage, are necessary to private enterprise. A job that is fundamentally necessary to private enterprise will likely be valued above minimum wage if it really is so necessary--if not high above minimum wage. Lower paying jobs are less valueable to private enterprise, which is why they are lower paying in the first place.

You now seem to be operating under the idea that jobs necessary to private enterprise will be paid the lowest wages. This makes no logical sense. These minimum wage jobs exist because minimum wage is a justifiable price for their services. What is more likely is that they really are not that vital at all, hence their low pay.


And with minimum wage, we have the same pool of labor and zero additional jobs. You are arguing that if minimum wage is abolished, there will be more jobs, but not enough to employ everyone. Currently, there are no jobs, and even less people can be employed. Not everyone will be employed if minimum wage is abolished, so we must keep minimum wage so even fewer people are employed? And your premise that there will not be enough jobs itself is also questionable.


Prior to being paid these low wages these people are paid nothing, or worse, welfare that further reduces the real wages of actual workers! Abolishing minimum wage will create more jobs and give people previously with no income some type of income, and you are trying to sell that as a negative affect rippling throughout the economy. Giving people jobs when they previously had nothing is not a bad thing. You say the more you're earning, the less you're hurting. Current. And because of minimum wage, an entire class of workers is earning nothing.


Previously they had zero purchasing power because they were unemployed.

Prior to the elimination of the minimum wage rate, many of those now earning the lesser purchasing powered wages will have been unemployed or not worked steadily but they will be joined by those who already had been the working poor and some who were previously getting by slightly better. There’ll be net increased needs for public assistance and our states can’t now handle the present needs.
That’s a scenario of increased national poverty.

Respectfully, Supposn

There will be more jobs and more people will be employed so therefore there will be more poverty and need for government assistance?

You have it backwards. Minimum wage increases poverty by preventing people from finding work. These unemployed people are then put on welfare. You have admitted that jobs will be created if minimum wage is abolished, and then you say more people will be on welfare. You cannot make both claims. Your argument is logically incoherent. And the empirical evidence supports opponents of minimum wage.

Shackled Nation, creatures are complex within themselves and their interrelationships between similar and other types of creatures and within their shared environment are additional factors of complexity.
Within Your message #80 you quoted me 9 times and then followed each quote with your comment. Considered them all in entirety, it’s become apparent (to me) our view points are derived from two differing environments and your environment is simpler and less diverse than mine.

IMO low paying jobs providing extremely poor purchasing power are not preferable to increased unemployment if those jobs if they're a net detriment to the median wage and thus undermine our economy. Most particularly they would significantly decreases the median purchasing power of lower income earners. In my opinion, employees paid less than twice the minimum wage rate fall well within the lower earners’ bracket.

You mention people in time improving their own economic conditions. You make no mention of those who due to their own actions or due to no fault of their own experience serious declines of their incomes and employability. Such occurrences are not rare or particularly uncommon.

Many people are unemployed due to their lack of qualifications (rather than due to the minimum wage). We do agree it’s illegal to provide employment that’s contrary to the minimum wage regulations.

People’s behavior adapts to changing environment. Eliminating the minimum wage certainly modifies some labor markets’ environments. I do not claim to “know” what the bottom rates would be if we eliminated the minimum rate laws but a half dollar per hour is not inconceivable. I’m among those perceiving minimum wage laws as economically beneficial to the nation and the elimination of those laws as morally reprehensible.

It may be of interest that bicycle powered rickshaws have been common in mid-town Manhattan for a good number of years. I suppose due to wage scales their expensive and thus probably used almost entirely by tourists. If we eliminate the minimum wage, I’m certain that we would see many more rickshaws in NY.

I wasn’t aware of 6% of all jobs pay minimum wage. I would have guessed a much lower percentage. If that is the case, than I would suppose much more than 12% of USA jobs pay $14.50/Hr. or less. The minimum wage rate has a direct or almost direct affect upon all of those wages. All USA labor compensation is in aggregate directly or indirectly affected by the federal minimum wage rate. Most enterprises consider clean toilets as necessary to their enterprises. The person cleaning the toilet is a likely candidate to be earning wages that provide less purchasing power as the current minimum rate if that minimum is eliminated.
I don’t know what lead you to conclude that in my opinion jobs necessary to private enterprise will be paid the lowest wages? Some of those jobs may be and others won’t be paid the lowest wages.

I’m tired. I’ve responded to 5/9 of your message$#80. I’ll deal with the remainder tomorrow.
Respectfully, Supposn

I wrote a response to your argument, but I deleted it because I feel there is a better way to come through to you. You still haven't answered my question. Until you do, I will not discuss anything with you further.

Why not have a minimum wage that is $100 or $1,000? What would happen if such a wage were implemented? To factor out a radical change, assume that minimum wage simply increased gradually over the years to $1,000 an hour.

You have continually dodged this question. I refuse to let you. Minimum wage can be disproved with a simple logical argument of reductio ad absurdum. If minimum wage increases purchasing power, then higher and higher minimum wages logically must also continually increase purchasing power. If minimum wage were $10,000 an hour, very few people would be employed because 1) the resources to pay for such a wage for everyone do not exist, and 2) such a wage would be a waste unless all workers paid the wage were productive enough bring in more revenue per hour than they were paid in wages per hour.

Under such conditions, there would be mass unemployment. Economic growth would be hindered, and production would be constrained. Yes, the median income of those who are employed would be higher than if there was no minimum wage. Real wages could be higher as well. But such statement ignore the loss of production and the loss of employment. If those unemployed and making nothing were factored into wage rates and median wages, the actual situation would be clear. Those that look at such data without thinking often fail to see the fuller picture. It is possible to have incredibly high real wages and median wages and at the same time have massive unemployment and a terrible economy in which only a few have a job.

 

[KissMy]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEM4gACt6r0&feature=player_profilepage"]Obama is not working for Democrats.[/ame]

 

[Supposn]

xxx

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Excerpted from message #20:
ShackledNation, I suppose it’s feasible an excessive minimum wage rate would be detrimental to a nation’s economy; but I’m unaware of that ever occurring in any nation at any time.
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Excerpted from message #67:
Shackled Nation, I suppose it’s feasible an excessive minimum wage rate would be detrimental to a nation’s economy; but I’m unaware of that ever occurring in any nation at any time.
I certainly don’t desire that such a historic precedent be set within our nation.

Similar to the enactment of many government regulations the federal minimum wage is ALWAYS gradually rather than radically modified and it’s never modified suddenly. All enterprises must adjust change. Radical changes require more adjustment time. Many enterprises have contracts with their clients for durations of 1 or 2 years. Those contracts were based upon expectations that enterprises’ expenses would not suddenly and radically be increased.
//////////////////////////
Nation, you quoted this paragraph excerpted from message #73:
There are poisons within many medications. The drugs contain sufficient amounts of such ingredients to remedy but not excessive amounts that will injure or kill the patients and many such drugs are introduced into the patients gradually. You ignore these concepts which I mentioned in prior messages and hold to your own opinion that anything good must be better in greater quantities.
//////////////////////////////////////////////////

I wrote a response to your argument, but I deleted it because I feel there is a better way to come through to you. You still haven't answered my question. Until you do, I will not discuss anything with you further.

Why not have a minimum wage that is $100 or $1,000? What would happen if such a wage were implemented? To factor out a radical change, assume that minimum wage simply increased gradually over the years to $1,000 an hour.

You have continually dodged this question. I refuse to let you. Minimum wage can be disproved with a simple logical argument of reductio ad absurdum. If minimum wage increases purchasing power, then higher and higher minimum wages logically must also continually increase purchasing power. If minimum wage were $10,000 an hour, very few people would be employed because 1) the resources to pay for such a wage for everyone do not exist, and 2) such a wage would be a waste unless all workers paid the wage were productive enough bring in more revenue per hour than they were paid in wages per hour.

Under such conditions, there would be mass unemployment. Economic growth would be hindered, and production would be constrained. Yes, the median income of those who are employed would be higher than if there was no minimum wage. Real wages could be higher as well. But such statement ignore the loss of production and the loss of employment. If those unemployed and making nothing were factored into wage rates and median wages, the actual situation would be clear. Those that look at such data without thinking often fail to see the fuller picture. It is possible to have incredibly high real wages and median wages and at the same time have massive unemployment and a terrible economy in which only a few have a job.

Shackled Nation in this last post you included what I consider an additional intelligent qualifier, “To factor out a radical change, assume that minimum wage simply increased gradually over the years to $1,000 an hour”.

I do not have an answer for that qualifier but I have my suspicions.

Since the minimum wage rate affects all labor compensation inversely to the difference between the minimum and the job’s rate, your suggestion is the minimum’s rate be eventually increased to an amount that far exceeds our current median job rates. I would suppose that would induce all job rates to be increased to reflect that new reality.

I see no advantage to such a radically higher minimum wage, so why attempt it?

I agree with those perceiving significant economic and social disadvantages due to an insufficient minimum wage rate. (The most extreme insufficiency would be the elimination of the minimum rate).

We agree that reduction of the minimum wage rate would increase the number of lower wage jobs and you may have accepted that almost all of those additional jobs will provide (in proportion to the minimum’s reduction) lesser purchasing power than the eliminated minimum wage rate.

We’re discussing the contention that reduction of the minimum rate would additionally to some extent be detrimental to the purchasing power of all jobs whose existence is not attributable to the reduction of the minimum rate.

A minimum wage rate reduction would be a net detriment to our entire nation's social and economic welfare. It's harm to wage earners is inversley related to the job's wages. Those earning less will be hurting more. The additional jobs created do not compenate for the harm due to reducing the minimum wage rate.

Shackled Nation, these are the differences between us that we're now discussing?

Respectfully, Supposn

 

[Supposn]

.........................Minimum wage can be disproved with a simple logical argument of reductio ad absurdum. If minimum wage increases purchasing power, then higher and higher minimum wages logically must also continually increase purchasing power. If minimum wage were $10,000 an hour, very few people would be employed because 1) the resources to pay for such a wage for everyone do not exist, and 2) such a wage would be a waste unless all workers paid the wage were productive enough bring in more revenue per hour than they were paid in wages per hour.

Under such conditions, there would be mass unemployment. Economic growth would be hindered, and production would be constrained. Yes, the median income of those who are employed would be higher than if there was no minimum wage. Real wages could be higher as well.

But such statement ignore the loss of production and the loss of employment. If those unemployed and making nothing were factored into wage rates and median wages, the actual situation would be clear. Those that look at such data without thinking often fail to see the fuller picture.

It is possible to have incredibly high real wages and median wages and at the same time have massive unemployment and a terrible economy in which only a few have a job.

Increasing the minimum wage’s rate does not necessarily increase the rate’s purchasing power. On any particular date the minimum’s rate amount is determined by the U.S. Congress and its purchasing power’s determined by the U.S. Federal Reserve Board (due to their regulation of the dollar).
I’m a proponent of an annually cost of living adjusted federal minimum wage because an sometimes the increased amount has lost purchasing power since the prior rate’s modification and purchasing power is generally lost in the durations between modifications.

I have no intention to discuss sudden and/or radical changes of the minimum rate’s amount. If such sudden or radical modifications were ever induced by the U.S. dollar’s modified purchasing power, the minimum wage’s rate would be among the least economic concerns of our nation.

There is no logical reason for the median wage to increase due to the reduction of the minimum wage rate but the median wage certainly would decrease more than otherwise due to such a reduction.
I can conceive of only one condition where the purchasing power of nations’ median wages could be high while their GDP was low; if domestic labor was insufficient and/or incapable to produce.

Respectfully, Supposn

 

[Supposn]

And with minimum wage, we have the same pool of labor and zero additional jobs. You are arguing that if minimum wage is abolished, there will be more jobs, but not enough to employ everyone. Currently, there are no jobs, and even less people can be employed. Not everyone will be employed if minimum wage is abolished, so we must keep minimum wage so even fewer people are employed? And your premise that there will not be enough jobs itself is also questionable.


Prior to being paid these low wages these people are paid nothing, or worse, welfare that further reduces the real wages of actual workers! Abolishing minimum wage will create more jobs and give people previously with no income some type of income, and you are trying to sell that as a negative affect rippling throughout the economy. Giving people jobs when they previously had nothing is not a bad thing. You say the more you're earning, the less you're hurting. Current. And because of minimum wage, an entire class of workers is earning nothing.

Previously they had zero purchasing power because they were unemployed.
There will be more jobs and more people will be employed so therefore there will be more poverty and need for government assistance?

You have it backwards. Minimum wage increases poverty by preventing people from finding work. These unemployed people are then put on welfare. You have admitted that jobs will be created if minimum wage is abolished, and then you say more people will be on welfare. You cannot make both claims. Your argument is logically incoherent. And the empirical evidence supports opponents of minimum wage.

Shackled Nation, I’ve responded to 5/9 of your message #80. I’m now returning to the remaining 4/9 of that message.

We agree that elimination of the minimum wage rate would create many more additional jobs that not justify our current minimum wage rates. This enables the employment of a great many more persons that are currently unemployed because there are insufficient minimum wage jobs or those persons’ abilities do not justify the current minimum wage.

Some persons are now employed because although the tasks they perform do not fully justify the minimum wage rate, those tasks are necessary to the employing enterprises; cleaning toilets for example. So now we have a substantial number of people that are now capable of performing minimum wage work but are unemployed, and a substantial number of people that are now employed at tasks that are necessary but do not justify the minimum wage, and a much more substantial number, (possibly a vast number) of people who are not capable of performing minimum wage tasks, all competing for these additional jobs of sub-minimum tasks and the existing sub-minimum tasks that will now drop down to sub-minimum pay scales.
The elimination of the minimum wage enables a much greater labor pool of prospective minimum and sub-minimum labor to compete for such jobs. If there was not sufficient jobs/applicants ratio with the minimum wage, that ratio would be greatly reduced and there’s no longer an absolute minimum pay rate.

Although some people who were previously unemployed will now be employed the effect upon the purchasing power of what were minimum wage paying jobs will be devastating, [and many of those jobs have fallen through to what was previously considered as sub-minimum tasks.]

Remember the minimum rate affects job’s rates, that affect’s inverse and proportional to the difference between the job’s rate and the minimum rate. We’ve eliminated the federal minimum but that concept still holds true if you use what we’re now describing as minimum task as a ‘bench mark”. I’d prefer to consider the minimum as the bench mark because there’s no “bottom” to the sub-minimum.

More people are employed but the purchasing powers of all wages have been reduced. The great reduction of purchasing powers among the segment of our population that previously had earned no more than twice the median wage rate would be devastating. There will be a far greater need for public assistance among the working poor.

I would suppose that a poor third world nation which cannot enforce a minimum wage or has proportionally few wage earners may not have such a law. Saudi Arabia imports much of their domestic labor; they may not have one? Otherwise I supposed almost every nation has a minimum or some other legal provisions that serves their purposes as a minimum wage. The lack of such a law would be devastating to the nation’s lower wage earners.

Respectfully, Supposn

 

[ShackledNation]

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Excerpted from message #20:
ShackledNation, I suppose it’s feasible an excessive minimum wage rate would be detrimental to a nation’s economy; but I’m unaware of that ever occurring in any nation at any time.
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Excerpted from message #67:
Shackled Nation, I suppose it’s feasible an excessive minimum wage rate would be detrimental to a nation’s economy; but I’m unaware of that ever occurring in any nation at any time.
I certainly don’t desire that such a historic precedent be set within our nation.

Similar to the enactment of many government regulations the federal minimum wage is ALWAYS gradually rather than radically modified and it’s never modified suddenly. All enterprises must adjust change. Radical changes require more adjustment time. Many enterprises have contracts with their clients for durations of 1 or 2 years. Those contracts were based upon expectations that enterprises’ expenses would not suddenly and radically be increased.
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Nation, you quoted this paragraph excerpted from message #73:
There are poisons within many medications. The drugs contain sufficient amounts of such ingredients to remedy but not excessive amounts that will injure or kill the patients and many such drugs are introduced into the patients gradually. You ignore these concepts which I mentioned in prior messages and hold to your own opinion that anything good must be better in greater quantities.
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I wrote a response to your argument, but I deleted it because I feel there is a better way to come through to you. You still haven't answered my question. Until you do, I will not discuss anything with you further.

Why not have a minimum wage that is $100 or $1,000? What would happen if such a wage were implemented? To factor out a radical change, assume that minimum wage simply increased gradually over the years to $1,000 an hour.

You have continually dodged this question. I refuse to let you. Minimum wage can be disproved with a simple logical argument of reductio ad absurdum. If minimum wage increases purchasing power, then higher and higher minimum wages logically must also continually increase purchasing power. If minimum wage were $10,000 an hour, very few people would be employed because 1) the resources to pay for such a wage for everyone do not exist, and 2) such a wage would be a waste unless all workers paid the wage were productive enough bring in more revenue per hour than they were paid in wages per hour.

Under such conditions, there would be mass unemployment. Economic growth would be hindered, and production would be constrained. Yes, the median income of those who are employed would be higher than if there was no minimum wage. Real wages could be higher as well. But such statement ignore the loss of production and the loss of employment. If those unemployed and making nothing were factored into wage rates and median wages, the actual situation would be clear. Those that look at such data without thinking often fail to see the fuller picture. It is possible to have incredibly high real wages and median wages and at the same time have massive unemployment and a terrible economy in which only a few have a job.

Shackled Nation in this last post you included what I consider an additional intelligent qualifier, “To factor out a radical change, assume that minimum wage simply increased gradually over the years to $1,000 an hour”.

I do not have an answer for that qualifier but I have my suspicions.

Since the minimum wage rate affects all labor compensation inversely to the difference between the minimum and the job’s rate, your suggestion is the minimum’s rate be eventually increased to an amount that far exceeds our current median job rates. I would suppose that would induce all job rates to be increased to reflect that new reality.

I see no advantage to such a radically higher minimum wage, so why attempt it?

So you are saying that all wages would be increased in proportion to the radically higher minimum wage?

I agree with those perceiving significant economic and social disadvantages due to an insufficient minimum wage rate. (The most extreme insufficiency would be the elimination of the minimum rate).

We agree that reduction of the minimum wage rate would increase the number of lower wage jobs and you may have accepted that almost all of those additional jobs will provide (in proportion to the minimum’s reduction) lesser purchasing power than the eliminated minimum wage rate.

We’re discussing the contention that reduction of the minimum rate would additionally to some extent be detrimental to the purchasing power of all jobs whose existence is not attributable to the reduction of the minimum rate.

A minimum wage rate reduction would be a net detriment to our entire nation's social and economic welfare. It's harm to wage earners is inversley related to the job's wages. Those earning less will be hurting more. The additional jobs created do not compenate for the harm due to reducing the minimum wage rate.

Shackled Nation, these are the differences between us that we're now discussing?

Respectfully, Supposn

Those new jobs have more purchasing power than the nonexistent jobs before they were created. There is more purchasing power because there are more jobs than there otherwise were before. Prices are lower because of increased productivity, thus raising real wages and increasing purchasing power even more.

You are assuming that minimum wage causes people to be paid higher. No. It causes certain people not to be paid at all. I have stated this and argued why plenty of times.

Say I am a company. I have $100 to use to hire workers. Say I hire 20 workers at $5 dollars an hour. Then minimum wage law requires I pay $10 an hour. I do not keep the 20 workers and give them raises. That would put me in the red by $100. I fire them all, or the least productive ones, and hire 10 that are more skilled. So I have 10 workers earning $10 an hour. Yes, 10 workers do have an increase in purchasing power. But 10 more have an equal reduction in purchasing power. There is no logical way to say purchasing power is increased. The same amount of goods (if not less) are being produced. The same amount of money is given to workers. All that has changed is that now some workers make more, and others make nothing. It decreases the purchasing power of workers because all of those workers previously employed making $5/hour are now making $0/hour. They future purchasing power is decreased because they have less chance to get their foot in the door, get promotions, and advance.

You never responded to that point of mine, really. You just restated the same thing. This is how the debate has been:
You: Minimum wage increases purchasing power, abolishing it would decrease purchasing power.
Me: My argument against that.
You: No, because minimum wage increases purchasing power. Abolishing it would decrease purchasing power.
Me: ... -_-

 

[Supposn]

Shackled Nation, there will be a very substantial number of additional jobs created due to the elimination of the minimum wage; and they almost entirely will provide extremely less purchasing power than that eliminated minimum wage rate.

Due to the creation of a new lowest wage bracket with no discernable “bottom”, the purchasing power of all remaining wages will be somewhat decreased. The reduction of purchasing power due to a reduction of minimum wage is inversely and proportionally related to difference between the minimum rate’s reduction and the jobs’ rate. Those who were previously earning the least are proportionally harmed the most.

Many of the previously existing lower wage jobs would drop down to this newly created “sub-minimal” wage rate bracket even if the elimination of minimum wage did not affect all labor compensation rates. Those jobs’ tasks didn’t justify the minimum wage but their employers deemed them necessary.
We’ve created additional jobs which provide extremely lesser purchasing powers than the eliminated minimum wage and thus reduced unemployment.

Although many lower income earners have been demoted to the sub-minimal wage bracket, Due to a ”ripple effect” some middle income earners will be demoted to lower incomes. We have reduced our populations’ proportion of middle income wage earners and a greatly increased our proportion of lower and sub-minimal income earners.

We’ve slightly reduced the public assistance needs for those sub-minimal earners who were previously unemployed but due to the reduced purchasing power of wages, the remaining increased numbers of sub-minimal and lowest income earners will have greater need for public assistance.
Eliminating the federal minimum wage would be detrimental to our nation’s social and economic welfare.

Respectfully, Supposn

 

[Supposn]

...................

Since the minimum wage rate affects all labor compensation inversely to the difference between the minimum and the job’s rate, your suggestion is the minimum’s rate be eventually increased to an amount that far exceeds our current median job rates. I would suppose that would induce all job rates to be increased to reflect that new reality.

I see no advantage to such a radically higher minimum wage, so why attempt it?

So you are saying that all wages would be increased in proportion to the radically higher minimum wage?

Shackled Nation, the affect of increasing the minimum rate is proportional to the AMOUNT of rate increase and jobs’ rates prior to the increase. The affect is NOT proportional to the proportional increase of the minimum rate.

What’s your point?

If the minimum wage rate were annually cost of living adjusted, (i.e. COLA’d), the minimum rate would never be too suddenly or radically updated relative to the dollar’s changing values. If the index itself ever too suddenly or radically changes, the minimum wage rate will be among the nation’s lesser economic concerns. It’s that simple.

Respectfully, Supposn

 

[ShackledNation]

Since the minimum wage rate affects all labor compensation inversely to the difference between the minimum and the job’s rate, your suggestion is the minimum’s rate be eventually increased to an amount that far exceeds our current median job rates. I would suppose that would induce all job rates to be increased to reflect that new reality.

I see no advantage to such a radically higher minimum wage, so why attempt it?

So you are saying that all wages would be increased in proportion to the radically higher minimum wage?

Shackled Nation, the affect of increasing the minimum rate is proportional to the AMOUNT of rate increase and jobs’ rates prior to the increase.

All you just said is that the affect of minimum wage will be greater if it is increased by a larger proportion. That says nothing about what you believe the affect of minimum wage to be. It appears you believe minimum wage will increase purchasing power. So would not increasing it radically simply radically increase purchasing power? You keep avoiding the question. If minimum wage increases purchasing power, why not raise it much higher? There must be a reason.

The affect is NOT proportional to the proportional increase of the minimum rate.

You are making no sense whatsoever.

 

[Supposn]

The affect is NOT proportional to the proportional increase of the minimum rate.

You are making no sense whatsoever.

Shackled Nation, the affect of an increase to the minimum wage rate upon jobs' rates ARE NOT proportional to the proportional increase of the minimum rate.

Let’s suppose the minimum wage is increased from $7.25 to $10 within a 3 year duration.

These are my guesstimates. Even if we had statistical data to analyze, we’d have to make assumptions of what portions of wage and salary increases were due to the increase of the minimum wage rather than other factors affecting the prices of labor.

Those who had been earning $7.25/Hr. will have their wages increased to $10/Hr. Those who had been earning no more than $10/Hr. prior to the first incremental raise might be expected to receive more or less than the $2.75 increase of the minimum rate. It might be an average increase of $3/Hr. But no one will earn less than $10/Hr.

The increases for those whose earnings were between $10.01 to $15/ Hr. may be expected to receive an average of $4 increase; those who who’s earnings were between $15.01 to $25/ Hr. may be expected to receive an average of $4.50 increase,

Those who who’s earnings were between $25.01 to $50/ Hr. may be expected to receive an average of $3 increase (because so many of them will receive no increase at all due to the increase of the minimum wage rate.
In aggregate the minimum wage affects ALL labor compensation (but aggregate doesn’t necessarily apply to every individual).

Respectfully, Supposn

 

[Supposn]

...............All you just said is that the affect of minimum wage will be greater if it is increased by a larger proportion. That says nothing about what you believe the affect of minimum wage to be. It appears you believe minimum wage will increase purchasing power. So would not increasing it radically simply radically increase purchasing power? You keep avoiding the question. If minimum wage increases purchasing power, why not raise it much higher? There must be a reason.........

Excerpted from message #92:

Increasing the minimum wage’s rate does not necessarily increase the rate’s purchasing power. On any particular date the minimum’s rate amount is determined by the U.S. Congress and its purchasing power’s determined by the U.S. Federal Reserve Board (due to their regulation of the dollar).
I’m a proponent of an annually cost of living adjusted federal minimum wage because an sometimes the increased amount has lost purchasing power since the prior rate’s modification and purchasing power is generally lost in the durations between modifications.

I have no intention to discuss sudden and/or radical changes of the minimum rate’s amount. If such sudden or radical modifications were ever induced by the U.S. dollar’s modified purchasing power, the minimum wage’s rate would be among the least economic concerns of our nation.

Respectfully, Supposn

 

[ShackledNation]

...............All you just said is that the affect of minimum wage will be greater if it is increased by a larger proportion. That says nothing about what you believe the affect of minimum wage to be. It appears you believe minimum wage will increase purchasing power. So would not increasing it radically simply radically increase purchasing power? You keep avoiding the question. If minimum wage increases purchasing power, why not raise it much higher? There must be a reason.........

Excerpted from message #92:

Increasing the minimum wage’s rate does not necessarily increase the rate’s purchasing power. On any particular date the minimum’s rate amount is determined by the U.S. Congress and its purchasing power’s determined by the U.S. Federal Reserve Board (due to their regulation of the dollar).
I’m a proponent of an annually cost of living adjusted federal minimum wage because an sometimes the increased amount has lost purchasing power since the prior rate’s modification and purchasing power is generally lost in the durations between modifications.

I have no intention to discuss sudden and/or radical changes of the minimum rate’s amount. If such sudden or radical modifications were ever induced by the U.S. dollar’s modified purchasing power, the minimum wage’s rate would be among the least economic concerns of our nation.

Respectfully, Supposn

I am not talking about increasing the nominal minimum wage, but the real minimum wage. Tell me what would happen if Congress decided to raise the minimum wage to $100 an hour (not just nominally, but real wages as well). Assume the dollar's purchasing power is constant, so the real minimum wage rate will be higher. This can be done gradually over time or quickly. That is not the question. The question is what will this change bring. I see this question as central to the minimum wage debate, and your refusal to answer it, in my eyes, reveals the weakness of your position.