Poll: Solid majority (71%) of Americans support Obama’s increase of the minimum wage

[Dubya]

"Let's see the math, because the sequester is suppose to be in the 80 billion dollar range."

And by that, I presume you are saying it's a 2% reduction in the GROWTH of government. It certainly won't mean that ANY part of government will have fewer dollars to spend than they did last year. You realize that, right?

If 2% represents only growth and it's $80 billion, then the growth is $4 trillion. That's called math!

 

[Dubya]

Can you explain why right-wingers believe any business hires people who aren't absolutely needed to do that business? McDonald's can't get rid of people and function as a business.

I know of no right-wingers who believe any business hires people who aren't needed to do the business. I do know that as costs rise, a way must be found to deal with those costs and typically employees are cut to manage those costs.

So they stop making french fries and lose all those sales and customers who want french fries! Any business hiring people they don't need is being managed by a fool. When you're in business, you don't waste $5 per hour. You only hire the people you need.

 

[Dragonlady]

When W came under pressure to raise the minimum wage, his response was to expand the food stamp program and to introduce the "earned income credits" that the right now derides are "taking" from hard working Americans to give to the lazy. But W introduce this form of assistance to the poor as a sop for NOT raising the minimum wage in any meaningful way, saying it would cost jobs. The reality is that food stamps, Medicaid and earned income credits which benefit the working poor, are nothing more than wage subsidies given by the government to their employers. If you are in the 47% who do not pay income tax and receive earned income credits, your boss is receiving a government subsidy to keep you employed, because otherwise, you'd have to find a job which paid you enough to live on.

It's no accident that those sectors of the economy which are most dependent upon minimum wage workers, like big-box retailers, are enjoying record profits. Walmart posted their highest profits in history, while American taxpayers subsidized every Walmart store in the US with an average $400K in in food stamps and Medicaid paid to Walmart employers, per store. Walmart boasts of paying out record dividends last year, while every American taxpayer contributed $2500 to the costs of government assistance paid to Walmart employees.

Raising the minimum wage will causes some prices to go up, but not as much as people think it will because the number of minimum wage employees as a % of workers overall, is relatively small except in retail and fast food outlets, where MW predominates. Walmart could pay each of its MW workers $100 a week more, removing the need for food stamps, and book enormous profits, but just not the highest profits in the company's history.

The costs of administering the food stamp program are enormous: means testing the applicants, issuing approvals, EBT cards, funding the cards, reimbursing the merchants. From the Brookings Institute:

The Costs of Benefit Delivery in the Food Stamp Program | Brookings Institution

The Food Stamp Program is one of the nation’s largest programs providing benefits directly to low-income families. In 2006, the program provided benefits to 26.7 million people in an average month, at a combined federal and state cost of $35.8 billion. While most of these funds were spent on food stamp benefits for families, administrative costs totaled $4.8 to $5.7 billion, depending on how such costs are defined.

Each food stamp recipient receives, on average, $131 and change per month. Using the 2006 figures cited by the Brookings Institute, administration costs run somewhere between 13.4 and 15.9%, depending on how such costs are defined, so let's split the difference and call it 14.7%. Each $131 paid to a recipient costs the government $150.

Not only are food stamps a government subsidy to corporations paying minimum wage, but they also provide benefits to supermarkets and super-stores, and manufacturers of packaged foods. Mom and pop grocery stores don't benefit, nor do farmer's markets which is sad because farmers real food. Only "prepackaged food" can be purchased with your food stamps. You can't buy food which corporate America hasn't handled or sold to you. Another government subsidy to corporate America, which excludes small business retailers and one-offs.

If you want less government, then stop letting the government subsidize big corporations in the guise of social programs. You rail at people buying chips and pop with their food stamp money, but not at the idea that you can't go to a farmer's market with your EBT card.

Wouldn't it be cheaper to have the employers pay their workers more so that the government doesn't have to give them money for food? Wouldn't people then be free to spend their money where they can get the best food at the best prices and not at a corporate outlet?

You have to follow the money and who is really benefitting here and it sure isn't the MW wage workers who make so little they have to maximize government benefits in order to survive. The Walton family doesn't need more billions, but their workers sure do, and so do the taxpayers of America who are subsidizing their dividends with billions of taxpayers dollars.

 

[eflatminor]

Minimum wage is cruel and immoral to the most vulnerable citizens in our society whose skills, education and/or intelligence does not permit them to qualify for the jobs infected by central price controls. Preventing a person from working is about as cruel as you get. Shame on you.

 

[Redfish]

Can you explain why right-wingers believe any business hires people who aren't absolutely needed to do that business? McDonald's can't get rid of people and function as a business.

I know of no right-wingers who believe any business hires people who aren't needed to do the business. I do know that as costs rise, a way must be found to deal with those costs and typically employees are cut to manage those costs.

So they stop making french fries and lose all those sales and customers who want french fries! Any business hiring people they don't need is being managed by a fool. When you're in business, you don't waste $5 per hour. You only hire the people you need.

right, and if a business needs 5 employees it hires 5 employees. If the business pays them $7 /hour and makes an acceptable profit all is well. If the business is mandated by the govt to pay them $11 / hour then the business either has to raise its prices or find a way to manage with 4 employees.

If it raises prices its sales may decrease, when sales decrease the business does not need as many employees.

If it fires one employee and tries to manage with 4 then the 4 will have to work longer or more efficiently--or--the business will not be able to give the same quality of service and its sales will drop.

None of this is complicated, its mostly common sense.

 

[Dragonlady]

right, and if a business needs 5 employees it hires 5 employees. If the business pays them $7 /hour and makes an acceptable profit all is well. If the business is mandated by the govt to pay them $11 / hour then the business either has to raise its prices or find a way to manage with 4 employees.
em
If it raises prices its sales may decrease, when sales decrease the business does not need as many employees.

If it fires one employee and tries to manage with 4 then the 4 will have to work longer or more efficiently--or--the business will not be able to give the same quality of service and its sales will drop.

None of this is complicated, its mostly common sense.

If, if, if. The reality is that in countries where US corporations are required by law to pay higher wages, they don't have a problem doing so. MacDonald, Walmart, Target, Burger King, are all companies with profitable divisions all over the world, and they pay the prevailing wages wherever they are located, including France. And yet all of these companies manage, not only to be profitable, but to be VERY profitable, all while being forced to pay wages as high as $10.25 an hour in Canada.

How do they do it, and yet their wages in the richest country on earth, where they make the MOST money, they can't do it?

 

[Dubya]

I know of no right-wingers who believe any business hires people who aren't needed to do the business. I do know that as costs rise, a way must be found to deal with those costs and typically employees are cut to manage those costs.

So they stop making french fries and lose all those sales and customers who want french fries! Any business hiring people they don't need is being managed by a fool. When you're in business, you don't waste $5 per hour. You only hire the people you need.

right, and if a business needs 5 employees it hires 5 employees. If the business pays them $7 /hour and makes an acceptable profit all is well. If the business is mandated by the govt to pay them $11 / hour then the business either has to raise its prices or find a way to manage with 4 employees.

If it raises prices its sales may decrease, when sales decrease the business does not need as many employees.

If it fires one employee and tries to manage with 4 then the 4 will have to work longer or more efficiently--or--the business will not be able to give the same quality of service and its sales will drop.

None of this is complicated, its mostly common sense.

A business may have to raise it's prices, but only a small amount of the cost of doing business is labor and that business will be getting more profit from more sales with existing employees. If the business has to charge 10% more for a burger and the person buying the burger has to pay it, instead of all taxpayers paying for food stamps, then so what? The people buying the service should pay for it and not the people who just pay taxes.

 

[Dubya]

right, and if a business needs 5 employees it hires 5 employees. If the business pays them $7 /hour and makes an acceptable profit all is well. If the business is mandated by the govt to pay them $11 / hour then the business either has to raise its prices or find a way to manage with 4 employees.
em
If it raises prices its sales may decrease, when sales decrease the business does not need as many employees.

If it fires one employee and tries to manage with 4 then the 4 will have to work longer or more efficiently--or--the business will not be able to give the same quality of service and its sales will drop.

None of this is complicated, its mostly common sense.

If, if, if. The reality is that in countries where US corporations are required by law to pay higher wages, they don't have a problem doing so. MacDonald, Walmart, Target, Burger King, are all companies with profitable divisions all over the world, and they pay the prevailing wages wherever they are located, including France. And yet all of these companies manage, not only to be profitable, but to be VERY profitable, all while being forced to pay wages as high as $10.25 an hour in Canada.

How do they do it, and yet their wages in the richest country on earth, where they make the MOST money, they can't do it?

People like Redfish don't have a mind. They believe that business does better as the purchasing power of the workers gets smaller, because the business can pay less for labor. They don't have the sense to see that the opposite is true and businesses will do better as workers get more purchasing power, because the customers to that business are the workers from some other business.

 

[Samson]

right, and if a business needs 5 employees it hires 5 employees. If the business pays them $7 /hour and makes an acceptable profit all is well. If the business is mandated by the govt to pay them $11 / hour then the business either has to raise its prices or find a way to manage with 4 employees.
em
If it raises prices its sales may decrease, when sales decrease the business does not need as many employees.

If it fires one employee and tries to manage with 4 then the 4 will have to work longer or more efficiently--or--the business will not be able to give the same quality of service and its sales will drop.

None of this is complicated, its mostly common sense.

If, if, if. The reality is that in countries where US corporations are required by law to pay higher wages, they don't have a problem doing so. MacDonald, Walmart, Target, Burger King, are all companies with profitable divisions all over the world, and they pay the prevailing wages wherever they are located, including France. And yet all of these companies manage, not only to be profitable, but to be VERY profitable, all while being forced to pay wages as high as $10.25 an hour in Canada.

How do they do it, and yet their wages in the richest country on earth, where they make the MOST money, they can't do it?

Sympomatic of your tunnelvision is that all profitability must necessarily be a function of costs.

I suppose we are obligated to school the ignorant; After all, it takes a village:

Profit = Revenue - Cost.

If Canadians are willing to pay a higher price, or if MORE sales occur through DEMAND, or BOTH then this will create profits despite higher relative costs that may be associated with labor.

 

[Derideo_Te]

right, and if a business needs 5 employees it hires 5 employees. If the business pays them $7 /hour and makes an acceptable profit all is well. If the business is mandated by the govt to pay them $11 / hour then the business either has to raise its prices or find a way to manage with 4 employees.
em
If it raises prices its sales may decrease, when sales decrease the business does not need as many employees.

If it fires one employee and tries to manage with 4 then the 4 will have to work longer or more efficiently--or--the business will not be able to give the same quality of service and its sales will drop.

None of this is complicated, its mostly common sense.

If, if, if. The reality is that in countries where US corporations are required by law to pay higher wages, they don't have a problem doing so. MacDonald, Walmart, Target, Burger King, are all companies with profitable divisions all over the world, and they pay the prevailing wages wherever they are located, including France. And yet all of these companies manage, not only to be profitable, but to be VERY profitable, all while being forced to pay wages as high as $10.25 an hour in Canada.

How do they do it, and yet their wages in the richest country on earth, where they make the MOST money, they can't do it?

Those other nations provide universal healthcare which means that even someone making minimum wage does not have the burden of paying out of pocket for medical bills. In the USA corporations like Walmart are parasites that suck up taxpayer funds. If Walmart provided healthcare benefits then taxpayers would not have to subsidize the medical costs of their MW employees. Of course this concept seems to be beyond the grasp of those who struggle to understand that underpaying employees is actually increasing their own taxes and/or national debt.

 

[Samson]

In the USA corporations like Walmart are parasites that suck up taxpayer funds.

Your socialist babblings are at least entertaining.

Walmart is a taxpayer.
U.S. federal: $5.3 billion
U.S. state and local: $677 million
International: $1.1 billion
Before taxes, the world's largest retailer banked $22.1 billion in profit. After deductions and factoring in its international operations, the company still paid just under a third of that back in taxes to various governments.

The federal tax rate for corporations is 35%. Wal-Mart's effective income tax rate came in just under that, at 32.4%

It works the same way for individuals. Just as a person can lower his or her tax rate through deductions and credits, so too can major corporations, said Scott Hodge, president of the Tax Foundation.

But remember, income taxes aren't the only payments major companies make to the IRS. "Wal-Mart probably collects and pays more sales taxes than any other company on earth," Hodge said.

 

[The Rabbi]

right, and if a business needs 5 employees it hires 5 employees. If the business pays them $7 /hour and makes an acceptable profit all is well. If the business is mandated by the govt to pay them $11 / hour then the business either has to raise its prices or find a way to manage with 4 employees.
em
If it raises prices its sales may decrease, when sales decrease the business does not need as many employees.

If it fires one employee and tries to manage with 4 then the 4 will have to work longer or more efficiently--or--the business will not be able to give the same quality of service and its sales will drop.

None of this is complicated, its mostly common sense.

If, if, if. The reality is that in countries where US corporations are required by law to pay higher wages, they don't have a problem doing so. MacDonald, Walmart, Target, Burger King, are all companies with profitable divisions all over the world, and they pay the prevailing wages wherever they are located, including France. And yet all of these companies manage, not only to be profitable, but to be VERY profitable, all while being forced to pay wages as high as $10.25 an hour in Canada.

How do they do it, and yet their wages in the richest country on earth, where they make the MOST money, they can't do it?

Those other nations provide universal healthcare which means that even someone making minimum wage does not have the burden of paying out of pocket for medical bills. In the USA corporations like Walmart are parasites that suck up taxpayer funds. If Walmart provided healthcare benefits then taxpayers would not have to subsidize the medical costs of their MW employees. Of course this concept seems to be beyond the grasp of those who struggle to understand that underpaying employees is actually increasing their own taxes and/or national debt.

Other nations like Italy and Greece? Got it.

 

[alan1]

WOW! 9 dollars an hour x 40 hours a work week = $360. dollars a week. Multiply that by 4 weeks a month = at least $1440. a month. Hmmm, now many Americans would thank God for that liveable, decent wage.




Strong support continues for minimum wage - First Read

A solid majority of Americans support President Obama’s proposal in his most recent State of the Union to increase the minimum wage.

Some 71 percent of those surveyed said they supported raising the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour from $7.25, while 27 percent opposed it, according to a Gallup Poll released Wednesday.

The results attest to the popularity of Obama’s plan, wrote Gallup’s Lydia Saad in the poll’s release...

Unfortunately, the majority seems to be lacking in economic intelligence.

Let’s work through an example. Suppose 100 yards of fence could be built using one of two techniques. You could hire three low-skilled workers for $15 each, or you could hire one high-skilled worker for $40. Either way, you get the same 100 yards of fence built. If you sought maximum profits, which production technique would you employ? I’m guessing that you’d hire one high-skilled worker and pay him $40 rather than hire three low-skilled workers for $15 each. Your labor costs would be $40 rather than $45.

Suppose the high-skilled worker came into your office and demanded $55 a day. What would be your response? You’d probably tell him to go play in the traffic and hire the three low-skilled workers. After all, hiring the three low-skilled workers for $45, to get the same 100 yards of fence, would be cheaper than the $55 a day now demanded by the high-skilled worker.

The high-skilled worker is not stupid and knows that’s exactly what you’d do. He will do a bit of organizing first, convincing decent, caring people that low-skilled workers are being exploited and not earning a living wage and that Congress should enact a minimum wage in the fencing industry of at least $20. After Congress enacts a minimum wage of $20, what then happens to the chances of a high-skilled worker's successfully demanding $55 a day? They go up because he’s used the coercive powers of Congress to price his competition out of the market. Because of the minimum wage, it would cost you $60 to use the three low-skilled workers.

Read the rest here,
http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/wew/articles/13/MandatedWagesAndDiscrimination.htm

 

[Dragonlady]

People like Redfish don't have a mind. They believe that business does better as the purchasing power of the workers gets smaller, because the business can pay less for labor. They don't have the sense to see that the opposite is true and businesses will do better as workers get more purchasing power, because the customers to that business are the workers from some other business.

Yes, getting more money into the hands of the people who spend every $$ they make would seem to be a no brainer. Talk about an economic stimulous. They're not going to sit on this money until a good investment opportunity comes along, and even if they blow it on pizza and beer, the pizza maker gets paid, and so does the beer store operator, plus they earned it.

Conservatives want people to take responsibility for themselves, and they don't want these same people spending "their tax dollars" on junk food and lotteries, but they don't want to pay a few pennies more for their hamburgers and french fries to see people off the public teat. It makes no sense.

I want corporations to take responsibility for their workers. If you can't pay your employees enough money to keep them off government assistance, you don't deserve to be in business. You certainly don't deserve on ongoing government wage subsidy to continue to allow you to be in business.

If Walmart cant pay it's employees a living wage, it should be allowed to fail. If that happens, thousands of stores will spring up to replace it, and they will not be dependent on government handouts to pay their corporate dividends.

 

[The Rabbi]

People like Redfish don't have a mind. They believe that business does better as the purchasing power of the workers gets smaller, because the business can pay less for labor. They don't have the sense to see that the opposite is true and businesses will do better as workers get more purchasing power, because the customers to that business are the workers from some other business.

Yes, getting more money into the hands of the people who spend every $$ they make would seem to be a no brainer. Talk about an economic stimulous. They're not going to sit on this money until a good investment opportunity comes along, and even if they blow it on pizza and beer, the pizza maker gets paid, and so does the beer store operator, plus they earned it.

Conservatives want people to take responsibility for themselves, and they don't want these same people spending "their tax dollars" on junk food and lotteries, but they don't want to pay a few pennies more for their hamburgers and french fries to see people off the public teat. It makes no sense.

I want corporations to take responsibility for their workers. If you can't pay your employees enough money to keep them off government assistance, you don't deserve to be in business. You certainly don't deserve on ongoing government wage subsidy to continue to allow you to be in business.

If Walmart cant pay it's employees a living wage, it should be allowed to fail. If that happens, thousands of stores will spring up to replace it, and they will not be dependent on government handouts to pay their corporate dividends.

You're not really what we call "economically literate" are you?

 

[Soggy in NOLA]

Why not $20/hr? $25?

 

[Soggy in NOLA]

People like Redfish don't have a mind. They believe that business does better as the purchasing power of the workers gets smaller, because the business can pay less for labor. They don't have the sense to see that the opposite is true and businesses will do better as workers get more purchasing power, because the customers to that business are the workers from some other business.

Yes, getting more money into the hands of the people who spend every $$ they make would seem to be a no brainer. Talk about an economic stimulous. They're not going to sit on this money until a good investment opportunity comes along, and even if they blow it on pizza and beer, the pizza maker gets paid, and so does the beer store operator, plus they earned it.

Conservatives want people to take responsibility for themselves, and they don't want these same people spending "their tax dollars" on junk food and lotteries, but they don't want to pay a few pennies more for their hamburgers and french fries to see people off the public teat. It makes no sense.

I want corporations to take responsibility for their workers. If you can't pay your employees enough money to keep them off government assistance, you don't deserve to be in business. You certainly don't deserve on ongoing government wage subsidy to continue to allow you to be in business.

If Walmart cant pay it's employees a living wage, it should be allowed to fail. If that happens, thousands of stores will spring up to replace it, and they will not be dependent on government handouts to pay their corporate dividends.

What's a living wage? How is that even possible? It is inanimate.

 

[eflatminor]

Yes, getting more money into the hands of the people who spend every $$ they make would seem to be a no brainer.

While getting NO money into the hands of our most vulnerable citizens who cannot qualify for the artificially inflated minimum wage. How cruel to keep a person from working.

Conservatives want people to take responsibility for themselves

I suppose so. Why wouldn't everyone?

and they don't want these same people spending "their tax dollars" on junk food and lotteries,

Couldn't care less how you spend YOUR money.

but they don't want to pay a few pennies more for their hamburgers and french fries to see people off the public teat. It makes no sense. .

Minimum wage forces more people on the dole. Young people trying to get a start. Older citizens hoping to engage in a workplace. Unskilled and uneducated workers that don't qualify for a minimum wage. Central control over the price of labor puts these folks on the dole. That's the point.

I want corporations to take responsibility for their workers.

Then invest in companies that do so. Or, start your own corporation.

If you can't pay your employees enough money to keep them off government assistance, you don't deserve to be in business.

No, if you can't pay your employees enough money compared to what your competitors are offering, you will go out of business.

You certainly don't deserve on ongoing government wage subsidy to continue to allow you to be in business.

Wage subsidies? You support a minimum wage that forces our most vulnerable citizens on the dole...and then complain about workers taking advantage of the same entitlements your support. The hypocracy is overwhelming.

If Walmart cant pay it's employees a living wage, it should be allowed to fail.

Someone being forced to work at Walmart? If they're paying lower wages than their competitors, workers are free to seek employment elsewhere.

If that happens, thousands of stores will spring up to replace it, and they will not be dependent on government handouts to pay their corporate dividends

You really are one confused puppy.

Say, anything else you think the price of which should be dictated by government?

 

[eflatminor]

Why not $20/hr? $25?

Hell, let's make it $1,000 per hour!

 

[Soggy in NOLA]

Why not $20/hr? $25?

Hell, let's make it $1,000 per hour!

Exactly... these goofs don't even get that minimum wage is not designed to be lived on... it is an entry level, bare minimum. Prediction: The more you raise it, the more people who will be content to do nothing but exist on MW.

But, that seems to be the plan.