the EIC is a credit that makes certain, people working make more than welfare....but i see your point on it being us, the tax payers, footing the bill, instead of their employers who profit off of their labor....same with illegalsm the business profits from cheap labor, but WE, the tax payer, pays their medical and schools for kids etc...
We're Lowering Your Wages
- Thread starter sealybobo
- Start date
the EIC is a credit that makes certain, people working make more than welfare....but i see your point on it being us, the tax payers, footing the bill, instead of their employers who profit off of their labor....same with illegalsm the business profits from cheap labor, but WE, the tax payer, pays their medical and schools for kids etc...
Then there are the liogistics involved, Mrs. RobISHI
How much should the living wage be. You've said $12.00. Since that happens to be exactly what I make I have to say you're a bit high. Considering the extras I don't really need that I'm paying for (like HD satellite, internet, videogames, etc.) and am still able to put money in savings every month.
You shuold at the very leat be able to see that the living wage can't be just one number. Who should it pay for? A single individual like myself with no dependants? Single mother of 1? 2? 3? 4? We all consume gasoline for our cars which is a basic. What mpg rating should we set to meet the standard of living pay?
What type of living accomdations should it pay for? My rent is $440 dollars a month. Which is about as little as you're gonna find anywhere in the country I imagine. Your proposal would have the side effect of increasing the number of renters rather than paying mortgage on a home, since no equity is gained through renting you will lower peolpe's net worth.
Are you starting to see the government buearacracy that would need to be involved to facilitate all of this. Which of course will lead to yet more government spending and probably higher taxes?
It will also very based on one's geographic location as obviously cost of living is not the same in Minnesota as it is New York City. Then your back to square one. Just as businesses go overseas for labor because it costs less for them to do business there. Businesses will move to other regions within the country because they won't have to pay as much to meet your cost of living standard which will create more regional unemploment. Sure it might be from New York to Minnesota rather than NY to China, but do you really think there's a difference to the person in NY?
YOu of course did take all of this into consideration I'm sure.
How much should the living wage be. You've said $12.00. Since that happens to be exactly what I make I have to say you're a bit high. Considering the extras I don't really need that I'm paying for (like HD satellite, internet, videogames, etc.) and am still able to put money in savings every month.
You shuold at the very leat be able to see that the living wage can't be just one number. Who should it pay for? A single individual like myself with no dependants? Single mother of 1? 2? 3? 4? We all consume gasoline for our cars which is a basic. What mpg rating should we set to meet the standard of living pay?
What type of living accomdations should it pay for? My rent is $440 dollars a month. Which is about as little as you're gonna find anywhere in the country I imagine. Your proposal would have the side effect of increasing the number of renters rather than paying mortgage on a home, since no equity is gained through renting you will lower peolpe's net worth.
Are you starting to see the government buearacracy that would need to be involved to facilitate all of this. Which of course will lead to yet more government spending and probably higher taxes?
It will also very based on one's geographic location as obviously cost of living is not the same in Minnesota as it is New York City. Then your back to square one. Just as businesses go overseas for labor because it costs less for them to do business there. Businesses will move to other regions within the country because they won't have to pay as much to meet your cost of living standard which will create more regional unemploment. Sure it might be from New York to Minnesota rather than NY to China, but do you really think there's a difference to the person in NY?
YOu of course did take all of this into consideration I'm sure.
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I think basically, each state should govern their own minimum wage....
And most states do legislate it to be higher than the federal minimum wage, at least up here in the North....maine, massachusetts, connecticut, new york all had State minimum wages higher than the federal minimum wage....due to the cost of living////
BUT WE HAVE A FEW states in the SOUTH that have refused to do such, set a state minimum wage....they were used to paying nothing to slaves, so i guess a minimum wage was just unacceptable to them, noting i said i am guessing on this, because for the life of me i really can't figure out logically why these states never issued a minimum wage for their citizens....now they are just following the federal minimum wage.....
Againsheila
Gold Member
The majority of people on minimum wage are adults...if my other computer hadn't died I'd post a report showing that the last 3 times the minimum wage was raised, there was no net loss of jobs. This one is too slow to go researching.
In 1968, minimum wage had the highest spending power in history. At the same time, we had a thriving middle class. My brother worked a minimum wage job, was able to afford his own apartment, a car, and go take night classes at the local community college. Today that is impossible, you can't even afford an apartment on minimum wage, it has the lowest spending power in our history.
The income gap is now bigger than it was during the guilded age, you remember that don't you? It's what led to the great depression. Now we are facing another great depression, you don't think that's a coincidence do you?
This is the other philosphical part of the debate. What is the purpos of the minimum wage? Is it really some number someone cooked up that is suppossed to provide some basic standard of living? Is that what it even should be for? Should such a thing even exist in the first place? I think we both agree the federal minumum wage isn't going to meet a standard of liveing requirment. In fact I doubt much those various state minimum wages do either.
Why is there this conception that the purpose of the minimum wage is to provided a standard of living? Again WHO is it suppossed to provide this bare minimum to? Single, no dependants? Families? Single mothers?
Again if we assume that is the purpose of a minimum wage, we are no where near meeting that. Think of it. I mean really think about it. The amount of money required to meet your needs. Can you imagine the bearacracy that would have to be created to figure out how much should be alotted for basic needs? It would have to be different from place to place. It would have to fluctuate over time. Technically it would not only have to rise it would also be required to go down. After all gas costs less than half what a did just a few months ago, so now my need is less, shouldn't my wage be adjusted accordingly.
This logisitcal nightmare is just part of the reason we shouldn't even be going down this road.
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Shogun
Free: Mudholes Stomped
- Jan 8, 2007
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yea dude.. CLEARLY we should sink our American sol to that of a fucking begger in the streets of calcutta. duh. Hell, I mean who needs the stability of a middle class when we can pretend that a fluctuating, chaotic as fuck free market wet dream that makes a minute sample of the population rich despite everyone the fuck else works the best for ALL of us? Surely, this would be a better nation if there was a mile of beggars outside each city.. you know.. who wants to standardize a minimum value of labor while some asshole thinks this nation revolves around their investment strategy.
Wow. That may be your most over exagerated, pointless, thought free, incoherent post yet. You should be proud.
The reason I am railing against this whole standard of living mandate is because I can see it will cause more of the the very things you claim to want to end.
Perhaps you would like to take a crack at these that no one else seems to want to address under the proposal that we have a mandate a standard living wage on all busineses.
Unemployment will go up.
Many businesses, especially small businesses will fail.
The rate of high school graduation will fall, because a living wage job is a viable alternative.
Prices on everything will increase.
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Againsheila
Gold Member
Wrong on all counts...and if I had a faster computer, I'd provide the statistics to prove it.
Let's face it, if we had a true capitalistic society, people would already have a living wage. Americans have limited their birthrate so logically, as the supply of labor went down, the wages would go up, but our government increased immigration both legal and illegal to insure artificially that our wages are kept low. The income gap has been increasing exponentially every year, it's now worse than the income gap during the guilded age and the guilded age led to the great depression. If we aren't already in a new great depression, we're on the edge of it. That isn't a coincidence. It was caused by the GREED of corporations and business people who think that labor should be the lowest cost of the business.
You shouldn't need statistics to prove any of those wrong. They are all rooted in basic economic theory. Stop coppin out and have at it.
Businesses owners typically would like all costs to be lower. That fact is labor is the number one cost of almost any business.
As with others trying argue this it rests on the unproven assumption that the majority of business owners are out to screw their employees and get away with as much as they can. The facts do not bare that out where actual skilled labor is concerned.
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Insurance companies, drug companies, undertakers, all use the government to force us to live in ways and do things some of us would not do if not for their ability to influence our government.
You really ought to at least consider that the government which is your boogieman is controlled by private corporations and individuals.
Remove the government and those same people are still powerful and will have no checks like the government does with the bill of rights and the court systems and so forth.
It's not that I love governments, it's that I don't trust anarchy.
Againsheila
Gold Member
It's been 30 years since I took micro and macro economics. I'm a homemaker, you expect me to remember everything without help?
Again, supply and demand. Had our government not increased immigration both legal and illegal, the lowest paid worker in our country would be making a living wage. Americans have children at below replacement value. Immigrants have 7.5 children per family. The majority of our new workforce comes from immigrants and Americans are having to compete with them. Since we can't go to their country's and take their jobs, it's not a level playing field. Not capitalism, facism.
The last 3 times the minimum wage was raised, there was no net loss of jobs. Inflation cannot be tied to minimum wage as it's been rising faster since we haven't raised minimum wage. Labor is not a large cost of business, it's a very small cost. If they doubled the salary of those picking lettuce, the cost of a head of lettuce would go up by less than 50 cents.
Here is the Pro list i found that covers alot of what i had read earlier last year....
Support
Supporters of the minimum wage claim it has these effects:
Helps small businesses as well as big businesses.
Increases the standard of living for the poorest and most vulnerable class in society and raises average.
Motivates and encourages employee to work harder. (Contrast with welfare transfer payments.)
Does not have budget consequence on government. "Neither taxes nor public sector borrowing requirements rise." (Contrast with negative income taxes such as the EITC.)
Minimum wage is administratively simple; workers only need to report violations of wages less than minimum, minimizing a need for a large enforcement agency.
Stimulates consumption, by putting more money in the hands of low-income people who spend their entire paychecks.
Increases the work ethic of those who earn very little, as employers demand more return from the higher cost of hiring these employees.
Decreases the cost of government social welfare programs by increasing incomes for the lowest-paid.
Does not have a substantial effect on unemployment compared to most other economic factors, and so does not put any extra pressure on welfare systems.
---------------------------------------------------
I understand, how a minimum wage too high could hurt the economy and businesses...it only makes sense that it could....however, i also believe that many of these businesses have their minimum wage employee too low and in the united states, when we raise the minimum wage, we do it in increments, slightly at each interval...it is spread out over a couple of years, not done all at once.
Also, it would be nice to think that employers would automatically give their employees the most they could and still be profitable.....unfortunately, we do not live in that kind of world, at least not with many of the bigger companies that rely on minimum wage workers...
also, i found this on wikipedia as one of the concerns....
you see, the employers can keep the wages of these workers lower than what a normal market would bear, and take advantage of these workers...
also, employment will not diminish with a minimum wage as most econonmists have touted it would on example ON PAPER....they fail to recognize that we have a huge market of workers that are not regulated by the minimum wage, the self employed, service workers, farm workers etc....so those falling from let's say a small business's payroll due to the hike, could find jobs elsewere....
ideally, it would be great not to have to set the equilalent of anti trust laws for the labor market....
with the influx of illegals permitted to come in to our country by our government, it has forced us to protect those making minimum.....
if our immigration laws were FOLLOWED and illegal labor not permitted to enter, then the wages of these minimum wage earners would be naturally higher.... imho.
care
Here is the Pro list i found that covers alot of what i had read earlier last year....
Support
Supporters of the minimum wage claim it has these effects:
Helps small businesses as well as big businesses.
Increases the standard of living for the poorest and most vulnerable class in society and raises average.
Motivates and encourages employee to work harder. (Contrast with welfare transfer payments.)
Does not have budget consequence on government. "Neither taxes nor public sector borrowing requirements rise." (Contrast with negative income taxes such as the EITC.)
Minimum wage is administratively simple; workers only need to report violations of wages less than minimum, minimizing a need for a large enforcement agency.
Stimulates consumption, by putting more money in the hands of low-income people who spend their entire paychecks.
Increases the work ethic of those who earn very little, as employers demand more return from the higher cost of hiring these employees.
Decreases the cost of government social welfare programs by increasing incomes for the lowest-paid.
Does not have a substantial effect on unemployment compared to most other economic factors, and so does not put any extra pressure on welfare systems.
---------------------------------------------------
I understand, how a minimum wage too high could hurt the economy and businesses...it only makes sense that it could....however, i also believe that many of these businesses have their minimum wage employee too low and in the united states, when we raise the minimum wage, we do it in increments, slightly at each interval...it is spread out over a couple of years, not done all at once.
Also, it would be nice to think that employers would automatically give their employees the most they could and still be profitable.....unfortunately, we do not live in that kind of world, at least not with many of the bigger companies that rely on minimum wage workers...
also, i found this on wikipedia as one of the concerns....
you see, the employers can keep the wages of these workers lower than what a normal market would bear, and take advantage of these workers...
also, employment will not diminish with a minimum wage as most econonmists have touted it would on example ON PAPER....they fail to recognize that we have a huge market of workers that are not regulated by the minimum wage, the self employed, service workers, farm workers etc....so those falling from let's say a small business's payroll due to the hike, could find jobs elsewere....
ideally, it would be great not to have to set the equivalent of anti trust laws for the labor market....
with the influx of illegals permitted to come in to our country by our government, it has forced us to protect those making minimum.....
if our immigration laws were FOLLOWED and illegal labor not permitted to enter, then the wages of these minimum wage earners would be naturally higher.... imho.
care
I expect that when you make an assertion, that you understand the principles behind it.
I don't believe the competition really exists. First is the imigration that significant that it has really reduced wages for everyone. I don't think so. What I'm also fairly certain of is that hispanics are not competeing with Americans for the same jobs. That is hispanics are not competing for middle management positions. And Americans aren't really all that attracted to blue collar work anymore.
The part of this that is just plain factually incorrect is the cost of labor. As i said before that is almost always the number one cost any business. When you factor in all of things that a company must pay on behalf of it's employees, health insureance, payroll tax, not to mention just the wages it is almost always at the top.
'm not sure about your unemployment figures either. How was whoever you got that statisitc from able to tie an increase or decrease in unemployment directly to a min wage increase when so many other variable effect unemployment as well? Assuming it's accurate part of the reason may be is that the increase was little enough that companies were able to adapt and absorb it. But in this case of having a mandated living wage, we're talking about at least a doubling of that. Do you think business would be able to cope with that just as easily?
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Gunny
Gold Member
Uh huh. What you don't seem to get is I did a little comparison between union and non-union shops. After dues and insurance, you take home less than a non-union employee, and the non-unionemployees around here get to work. Union employees ride the pine.
You can keep that.
Gem
Rookie
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sealybobo wrote:
I'm not quite sure if you and people who have been saying similar things like "you hate workers," or "people are arguing for lower wages because they hate people," are just misunderstanding the opposing opinions...or are just being deliberately obtuse to try to make their point.
Questioning the wisdom of giving every full-time employee in any position a "living" wage doesn't mean that a person "hates workers" or "is jealous of auto workers" or any such nonsense...it means they are concerned about the possible outcomes of such a decision.
The auto-workers of the big 3 make very good livings. They have excellent health care, pension plans, paid vacation, excellent hourly wages, and occasionally union perks like being paid for days that they do not work. When one is looking at the fact that these companies are in financial crisis...it isn't cruel to examine whether employee salaries might be part of the problem...its just common sense. Just like we look at the amount that CEO's of those companies make and wonder how they can accept a 21 million dollar salary while youre asking the tax payer from money...we look at the fact that these employees are making more than other car companies are making and wonder if it might be a factor.
No one wants people to be hungry...and to assert that people do is just nonsense. At the same time...there are major questions about what would happen to this nation, to our economy, if all of a sudden you could make enough to live off of by taking orders at McDonalds, as some here have suggested. To ask these questions, to ponder the possible outcomes doesn't mean that we hate people, that we want them to starve...that we are jealous that an auto-worker makes a decent wage...it just means that we are asking questions.
I'm not quite sure if you and people who have been saying similar things like "you hate workers," or "people are arguing for lower wages because they hate people," are just misunderstanding the opposing opinions...or are just being deliberately obtuse to try to make their point.
Questioning the wisdom of giving every full-time employee in any position a "living" wage doesn't mean that a person "hates workers" or "is jealous of auto workers" or any such nonsense...it means they are concerned about the possible outcomes of such a decision.
The auto-workers of the big 3 make very good livings. They have excellent health care, pension plans, paid vacation, excellent hourly wages, and occasionally union perks like being paid for days that they do not work. When one is looking at the fact that these companies are in financial crisis...it isn't cruel to examine whether employee salaries might be part of the problem...its just common sense. Just like we look at the amount that CEO's of those companies make and wonder how they can accept a 21 million dollar salary while youre asking the tax payer from money...we look at the fact that these employees are making more than other car companies are making and wonder if it might be a factor.
No one wants people to be hungry...and to assert that people do is just nonsense. At the same time...there are major questions about what would happen to this nation, to our economy, if all of a sudden you could make enough to live off of by taking orders at McDonalds, as some here have suggested. To ask these questions, to ponder the possible outcomes doesn't mean that we hate people, that we want them to starve...that we are jealous that an auto-worker makes a decent wage...it just means that we are asking questions.
Zoomie1980
Senior Member
- Jan 16, 2008
- 1,658
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Minimum wage is irrelevant. Almost NO ONE makes minimum wage, anyway. These are the rates that mostly high school kids make flipping burgers, cleaning dishes, manning the checkout stand at WalGreens, greeting at WalMart, etc... Even garbage collectors make 30% or more OVER minimum wage.
Minimum wage are what those entering the job market for the first time earn. Mostly teenagers and college students in part time work. Even telemarketing reps make more than minimum wage.
If you are 30 and making minimum wage, you DESERVE to starve to death if you are that stupid and inept.
Againsheila
Gold Member
I disagree. Many people, for whatever reason end up making minimum wage later in life. Some worked good jobs for 30 years and got laid off, their pension plans stolen and ended up working low wage jobs. I have a friend who has tourette's syndrom. She has an AA degree but can't get a job in her field. She has been working as a maid for more than 20 years. She keeps getting pushed out of her job as hispanics come in and take over. When hours have to be cut, they cut the hours of the American workers and they don't make enough to pay the bills. The hispanics come into these jobs, take over and stick together and take care of their own and to heck with people like my friend. She started another job as a maid at a local casino. I'm hoping she can keep this job until she retires.
My youngest son is low functioning autistic. He makes less than minimum wage in the job he does 3 hours a day. He works hard and steady and he loves his job, he doesn't deserve to starve because you think he's lazy and stupid.
I know people that went into construction right out of highschool 30 years ago making between $9.00 and $15.00 an hour, which was a lot of money back then. Guess what, here it is 30 years later and with all the immigrants, their pay has stagnanted and they are lucky to make that $15.00 an hour today. Others have been completely pushed out of their contruction jobs and are starting over again, 30 years later.
The lowest paid worker in this country deserves a living wage and pay should go up from there. This is not a poor country, there is no excuse for the working poor.
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Skull Pilot
Diamond Member
- Nov 17, 2007
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Drug, insurance companies and undertakers, don't force you to open your wallets and pay up or throw you in jail if you don't(that is of course unless you breached a contract you voluntarily signed). those are all voluntary transactions.
The reason why corps, special interest groups and lobbyists are even involved in politics is because the government has too much power. They all go to the source and find corrupt politicians, give gobs of cash and political favors to those who wield the power.
Take that power away by slashing governments budget and lessening its role in our lives and the power hungry corps will have to find their special treatment somewhere else. they will have to come to the people, their customers, and cater to them not to some political whore who can push through a bill for them.
Government doesn't put checks on businesses. Government uses tax payer money to bail them out thereby removing the most effective check on these companies.
And there can be enforcement of laws but that's as far as government should go. No sweetheart contracts, no more pork barrels, no more free rides on corporate jets etc.
If a company can't run to good old Uncle Sam, they would be forced to succeed or close shop. We would be able to buy or not buy a company's product services or stock. We don't have that choice now do we? The government takes our money by force under threat of incarceration and tells us we are buying the most worthless stock in failing companies and we have no choice in the matter.
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