So What Do You Think Is A Fair And Decent Wage?...

[gallantwarrior]

A fair and decent wage would be determined by what type of job you have the skills needed to that job and of course how well you do the job it would vary from profession to profession and person to person.

That means the employer chooses how much you are paid. You could be an excellent worker and work 8 hours a day at a concreting job but be paid less than $5 an hour because the employer thinks that is all you are worth, when the employee should be paid at least five times as much.

That is correct. That's exactly how it should be. Employers who underpay probably won't find and retain good-quality workers, wither. If you're that great a worker, I'm sure you would be able to find someone willing to pay what you are worth. Last time I looked, none of us have been forced to work the jobs we have. Every one of us has the ability to stand up on our hind legs and walk away.

 

[Papageorgio]

A fair and decent wage would be determined by what type of job you have the skills needed to that job and of course how well you do the job it would vary from profession to profession and person to person.

That means the employer chooses how much you are paid. You could be an excellent worker and work 8 hours a day at a concreting job but be paid less than $5 an hour because the employer thinks that is all you are worth, when the employee should be paid at least five times as much.

If you're that great a worker, I'm sure you would be able to find someone willing to pay what you are worth. Last time I looked, none of us have been forced to work the jobs we have. Every one of us has the ability to stand up on our hind legs and walk away.

I don't know to many great concrete layers that make minimum wage, they are valued higher than that. My cousin gives raises to his crews all the time, he knows he has to pay to keep them.

 

[gallantwarrior]

A fair and decent wage is one that makes it so that taxpayers don't have to help pay the employees of multinational corporations that make billions of dollars every year.

McDonald's even has a McResource Help Line for its employees, which steers them right into Food Stamps, Welfare, Medicaid, etc.

I find that ridiculous.

If minimum wage were $15, taxpayers would save billions, it would help lower our deficit, and would reduce healthcare costs since millions of people would have the means to afford all of their own healthcare instead of being partially subsidized.

It's a no-brainer: we need to raise the minimum wage. It's a moral imperative and it makes good business sense.

How does raising the mandatory minimum wage make good business sense?

 

[ScienceRocks]

I think there needs to be a law that ceo/board member can only make 200 times that of his employee's. If there's more it either has to go back into the business towards growing(hiring, building or improving) or paying the employee's more.

We could do this as we currently regulate business either from growing too big(monopoly) or miss treating their employee's.

 

[gallantwarrior]

Project much Mac? They said the same things to Henry Ford after he raised wages for his workers.

But it is so nice to see you so concerned that CEO's and other executives that you worship might have to take a cut in their more than sufficient pay checks so that their employees could make a little better wages.

Yea i can see the suffering that a man or woman making a million dollars a year would have if they only made $900,000k.

Why I just don't think an executive can get by on 900,000 thousand dollars a year. Or even 750,000. How would they do it Mac?

Face it Mac, you make your living (financial planning?) working with the more affluent among us. You don't want to say anything bad about them (rich people). That's how you make YOUR money. But really. Have a little more empathy for people like me who work for a living.

If your beloved executives made a little less so their employees could make a little more, it would be alright Mac. The world wouldn't end if the top 1% had a decrease in their income. Really. And some things (like the economy) would actually improve.

For the record, a couple dozen of my clients are small business owners, people who are busting their ass seven days a week to run and grow their businesses. You know, the same people who "didn't build that". Since you're so concerned about people making too much money, I'd think a good idea would be for Our Great & Glorious Leaders in Central Planning to impose income caps. Would you like that?

But I'm glad you didn't dispute my points, you evidently realized you could not and decided instead to throw a few straw men at me. Good, I appreciate that.

Raise the minimum wage to $50 an hour, I truly don't care. I've pretty much completed my grieving process for this country and I'm happy to observe.

.

Dispute what point Mac. The fact that low wage workers with more money to spend is good for the overall economy. That is a fact. Nothing to dispute. Why don't you know this stuff?

And an executive making 900,000 k a year will survive just fine Mac. That is a fact also.

So what is it that you think I ignored in your "points"? And how come you ignored ole Henry Ford. He raised wages and things worked out well for the Ford Motor Company. You want to dispute that statement?

You know what a "reduction to the ridiculous" close is Mac? If not, look it up. But people like you that hate the idea of raising minimum wages always do the opposite of the reduction to the ridiculous. You do the "increase to the ridiculous."

WELL IF 15 DOLLARS IS GOOD JUST RAISE IT TO 50 DOLLARS. What bullshit. That's the kind of stuff you do when you don't have a good argument, isn't it?

You understand how petty that makes you sound? No one that is an advocate of raising the minimum wage has said anything about 50 dollars an hour for minimum wage.

But look at it this way mac. If people made at minimum 50 dollars an hour, you would have more clients. And more than likely, the people you work with make close to 50 an hour now. More money for YOU Mac. Would that be a bad thing?

Why not demand that the minimum be mandated at $50/hr? Really, if the po'fo'k have more to spend with a $15/hr minimum, just think of the money they'd throw around if they got paid $50/hr?! Government mandated minimum wage is arbitrary, so why not shoot for the moon and demand $500/hr?
Now, explain to me how mandating an arbitrary 'minimum' makes good business sense.

 

[gallantwarrior]

For the record, a couple dozen of my clients are small business owners, people who are busting their ass seven days a week to run and grow their businesses. You know, the same people who "didn't build that". Since you're so concerned about people making too much money, I'd think a good idea would be for Our Great & Glorious Leaders in Central Planning to impose income caps. Would you like that?

But I'm glad you didn't dispute my points, you evidently realized you could not and decided instead to throw a few straw men at me. Good, I appreciate that.

Raise the minimum wage to $50 an hour, I truly don't care. I've pretty much completed my grieving process for this country and I'm happy to observe.

.

Dispute what point Mac. The fact that low wage workers with more money to spend is good for the overall economy. That is a fact. Nothing to dispute. Why don't you know this stuff?

And an executive making 900,000 k a year will survive just fine Mac. That is a fact also.

So what is it that you think I ignored in your "points"? And how come you ignored ole Henry Ford. He raised wages and things worked out well for the Ford Motor Company. You want to dispute that statement?

You know what a "reduction to the ridiculous" close is Mac? If not, look it up. But people like you that hate the idea of raising minimum wages always do the opposite of the reduction to the ridiculous. You do the "increase to the ridiculous."

WELL IF 15 DOLLARS IS GOOD JUST RAISE IT TO 50 DOLLARS. What bullshit. That's the kind of stuff you do when you don't have a good argument, isn't it?

You understand how petty that makes you sound? No one that is an advocate of raising the minimum wage has said anything about 50 dollars an hour for minimum wage.

But look at it this way mac. If people made at minimum 50 dollars an hour, you would have more clients. And more than likely, the people you work with make close to 50 an hour now. More money for YOU Mac. Would that be a bad thing?

Were you planning on addressing what I actually said? Just curious.

And if you're not happy with how much executives make, what is your fix for that? Precisely?

.

Long on complaints but notably short of solutions...

 

[gallantwarrior]

.

Of course, the first thing the companies will have to do is downsize their minimum wage workforce, cut the hours of many others, and heap more responsibilities on those who remain. It should be interesting to see how much work a low-skilled minimum wage worker can stand. Kinda like a science experiment, cool.

Then, of course, those who have lost their jobs and those who had their hours cut and those who didn't get the jobs because the employers aren't hiring will end up on welfare.

I guess then the government can step in again and force companies to hire minimum wage workers whether they need them or not. Because that's the job of government: Step in and force.

More and more and more power to Our Great & Glorious Leaders In Central Planning, because they love us and they care.

Great stuff, let's do it, this should be fun.

.

OK. One by one. First, you are projecting. If a company has 50 minimum wage workers and they have a pay increase of 3 dollar an hour. Lets see, thats 150 dollars times 8 hours equals 1200 dollars a day times 365 equals 438,000 dollars a year. ( I know its on the high side because they won't work 365 days. But it balances out the FICA increase.)

So the company has had an increase in wages for minimum wage workers of 438,000 dollars. Now how to pay for that you might ask.

Well the executive payroll totals 3.5 million dollars for lets say 10 people.

So for a reduction in executive payroll of about 12%, this hypothetical company can give 50 of it's lowest paid workers a nice increase and STILL be paying their executives a really NICE salary.

And the government didn't have anything to do with it. Just the good will of the companies executives who realized they were way overpaid and that their minimum wage workers were worth more money.

Did I address the first point or was that to hysterical for you?

Thank you Zeke, while Betty continues to avoid you step up. Not hysterical at all.

Your premise appears to be that a company is going to simply reduce its executives pay to pay for the increase of its minimum wage workers. That the executives are going to practice goodwill so that other people can have more.

That's not going to happen, for any number of reasons. Any company will tell you that they are paying market rate for their executives and cannot just arbitrarily cut the pay of those people because it would risk losing those executives in the free market. Now, my guess is that this would anger you because you feel these people are paid too much, and that may be true, but it's simply not going to happen.

What will happen is that the company will make cuts at street level first. These people are far more easy to replace than executives, and if they don't like it, they are free to find employment elsewhere. This is just fundamental business economics at its most basic level. So this notion that execs will just take a pay cut to pay for minimum wage people is just not gonna happen.

Unless we do as I said - some kind of government mandate about pay.

So, I hope that answers your question. I'm not making value judgments on how much execs make, I'm just pointing out reality.

So, a question for you: Should the government mandate how much those execs can make? That would take their money and give it to the minimum wage workers with no cost increase to the company, as you said.

.

I would venture to suggest that, if forced to pay a higher minimum wage, the employers would be much more likely to increase the amount charged for the goods or services they provide, thereby increasing the cost to their customers. Those customers would, in turn, increase their charges to cover increased costs, and so on. Pretty soon, guess what happens to all those wage increases?

 

[gallantwarrior]

Just curious. I'm really interested in hearing what you all consider a fair & decent Wage. I'd like to get some straight-forward answers without the Political debates and diatribes. I'm only interested in the numbers. Just list the numbers you think an average American should be able to survive on. I think it's a very interesting and important question. It should be fascinating in terms of numbers, seeing what Americans think an average American can or should be able to survive on. Thanks all for your participation.

It is the wrong question to ask.

More appropriate question would be what value does my labor bring to the worker/employer relationship.

That is the bottom floor of all and any discussion regarding wages. Fair is far to subjective an issue. I can bring zero value to an employer and think that for me, a fair wage is 25 dollars an hour.

You cannot disassociate the value returned with the value paid. That is the fallacy of the 'living wage' argument.

This is true. Sometimes I hire minimum wage workers for clean up when doing a roof. But I end up paying them more USUALLY. You know why? Just what you said. Value.

When a roof job is going on, all the neighbors in that area are watching. And if they need a roof, they are watching closely. And if that minimum wage clean up guy is doing a real good job keeping the mess cleaned up, that's a good thing.

You know why? The neighbors love it when the job is done right. And cleanly. And the neighbors will come up and either ask for a business card and an estimate or they say how good the job looks.

But the interest in a roof is not based on what I pay the guys shingling. It's based on the lowest paid worker I have. The ground clean up guy. Now that is adding value and is worth more than minimum wage and I pay more than minimum wage. Usually.

Ain't that weird?

What do you do if that minimum wage clean-up guy does a shitty job? The neighbors are watching.

 

[bigrebnc1775]

A fair and decent wage is one that makes it so that taxpayers don't have to help pay the employees of multinational corporations that make billions of dollars every year.

McDonald's even has a McResource Help Line for its employees, which steers them right into Food Stamps, Welfare, Medicaid, etc.

I find that ridiculous.

If minimum wage were $15, taxpayers would save billions, it would help lower our deficit, and would reduce healthcare costs since millions of people would have the means to afford all of their own healthcare instead of being partially subsidized.

It's a no-brainer: we need to raise the minimum wage. It's a moral imperative and it makes good business sense.

How does raising the mandatory minimum wage make good business sense?

You're asking the wrong person. I believe in my opinion that he believes obama's money really is obama's money.

 

[usmcstinger]

It depends on your education, skill sets and work ethic. If you are a high school dropout with no skills, you can't expect much of a salary. However, if you get a GED work hard you will do better. No one owes you anything.

 

[Foxfyre]

A fair and decent wage is one that makes it so that taxpayers don't have to help pay the employees of multinational corporations that make billions of dollars every year.

McDonald's even has a McResource Help Line for its employees, which steers them right into Food Stamps, Welfare, Medicaid, etc.

I find that ridiculous.

If minimum wage were $15, taxpayers would save billions, it would help lower our deficit, and would reduce healthcare costs since millions of people would have the means to afford all of their own healthcare instead of being partially subsidized.

It's a no-brainer: we need to raise the minimum wage. It's a moral imperative and it makes good business sense.

How does raising the mandatory minimum wage make good business sense?

You're asking the wrong person. I believe in my opinion that he believes obama's money really is obama's money.

That's what makes Paulician's original question so impossible to answer. There are so many variables, that it is impossible to state a number. (I'm pretty sure he'll have additional questions if we would all agree on a number though. )

But I can't give him a number because of all those variables.

What would a living wage be in a strong, healthy economy rather than the shitty one we have had for the last five years?

What would it do to the economy if everybody was provided with a 'fair and decent" wage according to some government formula?

And there is the follow up question that I and many others of us simply can't leave out of the mix: Where does the money to provide that "fair and decent" wage come from?

But the bottom line remains: the only reasoned answer to the question is that a 'fair and decent' wage is whatever a person's labor is worth to an employer.

 

[alan1]

Just curious. I'm really interested in hearing what you all consider a fair & decent Wage. I'd like to get some straight-forward answers without the Political debates and diatribes. I'm only interested in the numbers. Just list the numbers you think an average American should be able to survive on. I think it's a very interesting and important question. It should be fascinating in terms of numbers, seeing what Americans think an average American can or should be able to survive on. Thanks all for your participation.

"a fair & decent Wage" and "list the numbers you think an average American should be able to survive on" are two entirely different things. A crap job that includes saying "would you like fries with that?" was never meant to be a job that one supports a family on. The seven or eight bucks an hour it pays is over compensation for the work performed and resulting benefit to the company.

McDonald's operates over 34,000 restaurants worldwide, lets assume all 34,000 locations run two shifts (some run three shifts), now lets assume 4 cashiers per shift (includes drive through), that equates to 272,000 cashiers. A simple job that anybody is capable of, thus it pays crap wages for all 272,000 of them. Compare the McDonald's franchise to another franchise, let's say the NFL. The NFL has 32 teams and only one starting quarterback per team. Only 32 people with the skills needed to be a starting QB versus 272,000 people that hold McDonald's cashier positions (and the millions more that have enough skills to be a cashier at McDonald's).

A starting QB in the NFL makes a heck of a lot more than a cashier at McDonald's.
Common sense tells me that is because only 32 people in the entire nation are skilled enough to be a starting QB versus the millions qualified to be a cashier. People are paid for their skillset and performance. In general, the more rare and valuable your skillset, the more you get paid. If your skillset is common to all, you get paid less.

 

[alan1]

A fair and decent wage is one that makes it so that taxpayers don't have to help pay the employees of multinational corporations that make billions of dollars every year.

McDonald's even has a McResource Help Line for its employees, which steers them right into Food Stamps, Welfare, Medicaid, etc.

I find that ridiculous.

If minimum wage were $15, taxpayers would save billions, it would help lower our deficit, and would reduce healthcare costs since millions of people would have the means to afford all of their own healthcare instead of being partially subsidized.

It's a no-brainer: we need to raise the minimum wage. It's a moral imperative and it makes good business sense.

Hey, I have an idea.
Let's set the minimum wage at $481 an hour.
If we did that, everybody with a job would have a millionaire income.
Think of all the tax revenue also, all those millionaires paying their fair share.
I'm betting that if every employed person was pulling in a cool million bucks the deficit would disappear in no time.
It's brilliant, isn't it?

 

[Foxfyre]

Exactly Alan. We all agree that $7.25/hour is not a 'living wage' for most people. But then is that what a minimum wage is supposed to accomplish? A living wage? Or is a living wage what one aspires to achieve via gaining experience, expertise, and acquiring marketable skills?

If everybody is provided a "living wage", whatever that is, whether their work ethic or experience or expertise or skills merit that or not, then what will that do to the incentive for people to acquire a work ethic, marketable skills, and good references?

And you raise a good point. If a 'living wage" is considered the amount necessary for a family to afford housing, food, clothing, healthcare, transportation, internet, a college education for the kids, etc. etc. etc., then $36/hour would provide a modest $75k per year if the person works a 40-hour week, and with a little careful budgeting, he/she should be able to pay for all of that.

But I wonder how many employers can operate their businesses when they pay those kinds of wages?

How long do you think your local McDonalds, for example, would stay in business if they paid their people $36/hour? And if McDonalds finds that people won't buy their product at a sustantially higher cost--or the new affluence causes people to reject McDonalds sufficiently that they are no longer profitable--what happens to the several million people who will be laid off throughout the country? Most of these folks don't WANT or NEED a living wage or even a full time job, but work for spending money or to supplement other income. Who will hire them at $36/hour?

But lets just set common sense and the economic realities aside and go with Alan's tongue-in-cheek plan. By simply mandating a living wage--and that realistically, considering Obamacare and all, should be around $36/hour, with one simple piece of legislation and a swipe of the Presidential pen, we could wipe out all poverty instantly. And we would all be able to afford everything we need. Life would be good.

Yes?

 

[Mac1958]

OK. One by one. First, you are projecting. If a company has 50 minimum wage workers and they have a pay increase of 3 dollar an hour. Lets see, thats 150 dollars times 8 hours equals 1200 dollars a day times 365 equals 438,000 dollars a year. ( I know its on the high side because they won't work 365 days. But it balances out the FICA increase.)

So the company has had an increase in wages for minimum wage workers of 438,000 dollars. Now how to pay for that you might ask.

Well the executive payroll totals 3.5 million dollars for lets say 10 people.

So for a reduction in executive payroll of about 12%, this hypothetical company can give 50 of it's lowest paid workers a nice increase and STILL be paying their executives a really NICE salary.

And the government didn't have anything to do with it. Just the good will of the companies executives who realized they were way overpaid and that their minimum wage workers were worth more money.

Did I address the first point or was that to hysterical for you?

Thank you Zeke, while Betty continues to avoid you step up. Not hysterical at all.

Your premise appears to be that a company is going to simply reduce its executives pay to pay for the increase of its minimum wage workers. That the executives are going to practice goodwill so that other people can have more.

That's not going to happen, for any number of reasons. Any company will tell you that they are paying market rate for their executives and cannot just arbitrarily cut the pay of those people because it would risk losing those executives in the free market. Now, my guess is that this would anger you because you feel these people are paid too much, and that may be true, but it's simply not going to happen.

What will happen is that the company will make cuts at street level first. These people are far more easy to replace than executives, and if they don't like it, they are free to find employment elsewhere. This is just fundamental business economics at its most basic level. So this notion that execs will just take a pay cut to pay for minimum wage people is just not gonna happen.

Unless we do as I said - some kind of government mandate about pay.

So, I hope that answers your question. I'm not making value judgments on how much execs make, I'm just pointing out reality.

So, a question for you: Should the government mandate how much those execs can make? That would take their money and give it to the minimum wage workers with no cost increase to the company, as you said.

.

I would venture to suggest that, if forced to pay a higher minimum wage, the employers would be much more likely to increase the amount charged for the goods or services they provide, thereby increasing the cost to their customers. Those customers would, in turn, increase their charges to cover increased costs, and so on. Pretty soon, guess what happens to all those wage increases?

It's been my experience -- this is anecdotal evidence only -- that the typical business hates increasing prices, and it will only do so after they have minimized costs everywhere else. So rather than increase prices, the first thing they'd look to do is decrease hours.

Increasing prices is bad, bad, bad, especially as you get larger and more visible.

Just my two cents, but either way, artificially increased wages will cause damage in one or both directions. Simply increasing minimum wages is the naive, simplistic approach, and we certainly have more than enough of that right now. I could make a much better case for collective bargaining, because if executed properly in can be advantageous for both parties.

.

 

[Foxfyre]

Thank you Zeke, while Betty continues to avoid you step up. Not hysterical at all.

Your premise appears to be that a company is going to simply reduce its executives pay to pay for the increase of its minimum wage workers. That the executives are going to practice goodwill so that other people can have more.

That's not going to happen, for any number of reasons. Any company will tell you that they are paying market rate for their executives and cannot just arbitrarily cut the pay of those people because it would risk losing those executives in the free market. Now, my guess is that this would anger you because you feel these people are paid too much, and that may be true, but it's simply not going to happen.

What will happen is that the company will make cuts at street level first. These people are far more easy to replace than executives, and if they don't like it, they are free to find employment elsewhere. This is just fundamental business economics at its most basic level. So this notion that execs will just take a pay cut to pay for minimum wage people is just not gonna happen.

Unless we do as I said - some kind of government mandate about pay.

So, I hope that answers your question. I'm not making value judgments on how much execs make, I'm just pointing out reality.

So, a question for you: Should the government mandate how much those execs can make? That would take their money and give it to the minimum wage workers with no cost increase to the company, as you said.

.

I would venture to suggest that, if forced to pay a higher minimum wage, the employers would be much more likely to increase the amount charged for the goods or services they provide, thereby increasing the cost to their customers. Those customers would, in turn, increase their charges to cover increased costs, and so on. Pretty soon, guess what happens to all those wage increases?

It's been my experience -- this is anecdotal evidence only -- that the typical business hates increasing prices, and it will only do so after they have minimized costs everywhere else. So rather than increase prices, the first thing they'd look to do is decrease hours.

Increasing prices is bad, bad, bad, especially as you get larger and more visible.

Just my two cents, but either way, artificially increased wages will cause damage in one or both directions. Simply increasing minimum wages is the naive, simplistic approach, and we certainly have more than enough of that right now. I could make a much better case for collective bargaining, because if executed properly in can be advantageous for both parties.

.

The only sustainable healthy economy is provided via private sector activity. And the only honest and reasoned minimum wage is that negotiated between the employer and the employee. When there is full employment in a thriving, healthy economy, labor is much more scarce and the employer will need to pay more to acquire the best employees. In our shitty economy, there are often hundreds of applications for a single job, and also fewer buyers for a product or service, and the employers will offer less.

If government was truly compassionate and gave a damn about any of us, it would be doing whatever it could to encourage private sector economic activity and it wouldn't pretend that more government spending--spending that results in more siphoned out of the economy than is added to it--will accomplish that.

But whatever the economy or conditions that exist on any given day, it is still a pure fact that a 'fair and decent' wage is what the person's labor/expertise/skill set/work ethic is worth to an employer.

 

[Mac1958]

The only sustainable healthy economy is provided via private sector activity. And the only honest and reasoned minimum wage is that negotiated between the employer and the employee. When there is full employment in a thriving, healthy economy, labor is much more scarce and the employer will need to pay more to acquire the best employees. In our shitty economy, there are often hundreds of applications for a single job, and also fewer buyers for a product or service, and the employers will offer less.

If government was truly compassionate and gave a damn about any of us, it would be doing whatever it could to encourage private sector economic activity and it wouldn't pretend that more government spending--spending that results in more siphoned out of the economy than is added to it--will accomplish that.

But whatever the economy or conditions that exist on any given day, it is still a pure fact that a 'fair and decent' wage is what the person's labor/expertise/skill set/work ethic is worth to an employer.

I agree with you in principal. In an open, dynamic economy people would be paid their value, providing incentive for them to increase their skills and value to their employers. And maybe we'll one day we'll get back to more of that (full disclosure, I really doubt it).

But at this point in our history, our culture and the level of competence of our students and graduates have decayed to the point where it probably isn't possible right now (Confident Idiots: American Students Growing More Confident, Less Capable), not to mention the victimhood/entitlement mentality that has so polluted our culture. I can see it taking at least one or two generations for that to change even if we made the decision to, and we won't.

Right now it looks like artificial wage compression is the only way to deal with the massive imbalance in the system. I hate to say that, but I don't see an alternative. So the strategy has to be something that causes the least damage possible. Simply and simplistically increasing the minimum wage to $XX would be the wrong direction.

As for the government being "truly compassionate and gave a damn about any of us", only the most naive or deluded actually believe that.

.

 

[Foxfyre]

The only sustainable healthy economy is provided via private sector activity. And the only honest and reasoned minimum wage is that negotiated between the employer and the employee. When there is full employment in a thriving, healthy economy, labor is much more scarce and the employer will need to pay more to acquire the best employees. In our shitty economy, there are often hundreds of applications for a single job, and also fewer buyers for a product or service, and the employers will offer less.

If government was truly compassionate and gave a damn about any of us, it would be doing whatever it could to encourage private sector economic activity and it wouldn't pretend that more government spending--spending that results in more siphoned out of the economy than is added to it--will accomplish that.

But whatever the economy or conditions that exist on any given day, it is still a pure fact that a 'fair and decent' wage is what the person's labor/expertise/skill set/work ethic is worth to an employer.

I agree with you in principal. In an open, dynamic economy people would be paid their value, providing incentive for them to increase their skills and value to their employers. And maybe we'll one day we'll get back to more of that (full disclosure, I really doubt it).

But at this point in our history, our culture and the level of competence of our students and graduates have decayed to the point where it probably isn't possible right now (Confident Idiots: American Students Growing More Confident, Less Capable), not to mention the victimhood/entitlement mentality that has so polluted our culture. I can see it taking at least one or two generations for that to change even if we made the decision to, and we won't.

Right now it looks like artificial wage compression is the only way to deal with the massive imbalance in the system. I hate to say that, but I don't see an alternative. So the strategy has to be something that causes the least damage possible. Simply and simplistically increasing the minimum wage to $XX would be the wrong direction.

As for the government being "truly compassionate and gave a damn about any of us", only the most naive or deluded actually believe that.

.

It would not be a painless or easy fix, but the fix is simple. Siimply pass a law--a constitutional amendment if necessary--that prohbits the government from passing out attractive free stuff to supplement and/or encourage those who lack the incentive, work ethic, or skill sets to stay in that situation.

Provide sufficient welfare to provide group shelters and all the rice, beans and powdered milk people can consume to ensure that nobody starves or freezes to death, but stop giving dignity and encouragement to poverty along with a full ban on all federal charity or payoff of any kind to any person, group, or entity and a relaxation on all unnecessary taxation and regulation. That would restore a thriving, healthy economy with employers clamoring for people to apply for work.

And if you make poverty unpleasant and boring enough, there will be private sector jobs out there to encourage people to do what they have to do to escape it. And I am convinced that with the federal government out of the charity business, there will be sufficient private sector charitable organizations who will offer a hand up to those who need one.

And meanwhile--even though Kaz is quarreling with me on this --set the minimum wage at say $3/hour to ensure that employers cannot totally steal labor from anybody and then turn the U.S. economy loose to provide the opportunity to earn that 'fair and decent' wage.

And let the people themselves determine what a 'fair and decent' wage is that they will aspire to earn.

 

[1776]

Liberals being idiots...regulate and tax companies to death which in turns causes their product prices to be raised to stay profitable....so then liberals complain that the minimum wage is too low to afford those products, then the companies raise their product prices to cover the wage increases......wash, rinse and repeat until minimum wage is $200/hr decades from now.

 

[ScienceRocks]

While the fat pig at the top takes 5,000 times the amount of cash home as the avg worker under him. How is that fair? It isn't fair and either is it good for this country.