Victory in the Fight for a ($15hr) Living Wage!

[JohnnySavage]

So you raise the floor 10%... everyone up the ladders gets a raise too because if one scale is raised, they all get raised. That may cost the business an extra 15-20% in labor costs once its burdened up.

The business is in business to make money, so they raise prices 20-25%, because they want a taste of the gravy as well.

Now the guy that got a 10% raise is paying 25% more for the product.

 

[Chobham]

So you raise the floor 10%... everyone up the ladders gets a raise too because if one scale is raised, they all get raised. That may cost the business an extra 15-20% in labor costs once its burdened up.

The business is in business to make money, so they raise prices 20-25%, because they want a taste of the gravy as well.

Now the guy that got a 10% raise is paying 25% more for the product.

The Ouroboros effect.

 

[TrailerHitch]

That was a direst result of the inflation created by fiat currency and the government's proclivity to chase bad spending decisions to buy votes with even worse spending mistakes in order to try and get out of the mess they created. What you should be doing in talking about the cost of any commodity is to do it in terms of inflation-adjusted prices.

Since you have such a good memory, just what was the minimum wage for MickeyD's burger flippers, you know, back in the day when you could cruise all night in a muscle car drinking beer and engaging in other mischiefs for $5.00?

Well I do know that my first job paid $2.20 an hour in 1976. That was minimum wage then.

 

[XersesRayCyrus]

I hope you get the point made.

 

[TrailerHitch]

I hope you get the point made.

I guess I wonder why the minimum wage is still only $7.25 forty seven years later while corporate CEOS make salaries in the millions every year, even if the business lost money that year. My point is the cost of labor hasn't risen at even a close percentage to the cost of executive salary and other compensation.

 

[JohnnySavage]

Only 16 States follow the Federal minimum wage

 

[XersesRayCyrus]

I guess I wonder why the minimum wage is still only $7.25 forty seven years later while corporate CEOS make salaries in the millions every year, even if the business lost money that year. My point is the cost of labor hasn't risen at even a close percentage to the cost of executive salary and other compensation.

Because to often the minimum wage is conflate with a living wage instead of understanding that it is only an introductory wage for those ho have yet to acquire any skills or have no proven track record. If you look around, when the labor market gets tight and competition for jobs goes up, employers will pay above a set government artificial price floor (which is even lower for broad segments of the service industry).

 

[TrailerHitch]

Because to often the minimum wage is conflate with a living wage instead of understanding that it is only an introductory wage for those ho have yet to acquire any skills or have no proven track record. If you look around, when the labor market gets tight and competition for jobs goes up, employers will pay above a set government artificial price floor (which is even lower for broad segments of the service industry).

And yet if the minimum wage had kept up with inflation, as was the original intent, it would now be somewhere between $11 and $13 an hour.

 

[XersesRayCyrus]

Yeah. You're missing the basic point here.

If you artificially raise the wage ceiling to more than what the market will bear, it resorts to two damaging strategies for the people the minimum wage is pure altruism on the part of politicians, again, just to buy votes: They hire fewer workers, to keep their prices lower, or they simply replace them with automation.

We lavish money on education. There are opportunities to provide a track record by graduating. Most people who do not graduate some sort of post high school program are a pure crap shoot for the employer who should not be being forced to pay them the wages of a graduate.

 

[TrailerHitch]

Yeah. You're missing the basic point here.

If you artificially raise the wage ceiling to more than what the market will bear, it resorts to two damaging strategies for the people the minimum wage is pure altruism on the part of politicians, again, just to buy votes: They hire fewer workers, to keep their prices lower, or they simply replace them with automation.

We lavish money on education. There are opportunities to provide a track record by graduating. Most people who do not graduate some sort of post high school program are a pure crap shoot for the employer who should be being forced to pay them the wages of a graduate.

Right now a 4 year degree is a saddle that doesn't get taken off for decades with student loan debt. Educators need to stop pushing everyone to get a 4 year degree and start encouraging some students to look at technical colleges and apprenticeships. Some jobs, like plumber, electrician, and HVAC, all have the ability to pay more than some jobs with a degree. Assuming of course that the student with a degree gets a meaningful degree in an employable area.

 

[XersesRayCyrus]

Well, here's my advice: DON'T TAKE OUT STUDENT LOANS YOU CANNOT AFFORD!

I worked my way through college and then worked my way down easy street because as soon as I graduated, I was pretty much debt-free and able to pretty much set my own wages by two expediences: employer-shopping and working for myself. That's because I had a track record (and a solid employment history).

And I'm a minority! So I know that it can be done, it takes some sacrifice at first, which is why I have so little sympathy for some people out there who just won't put in the effort.

 

[TrailerHitch]

I received an AD from a tech college and was employed in my field until I retired. Less than $3000 worth of student loan debt.

 

[XersesRayCyrus]

That's what everyone should aspire to, even if it means starting out at the local, low-cost community college.

We've spent two or three generations now, at least, working on children's self-esteem, excuse making and wealth envy.

 

[Rightguide]

Libertarians swear by F.A. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom. I wonder how many of them have actually read it.

----------

"F.A. Hayek Opposed laissez fair capitalism," by John Engelman

During and after the Second World War socialism was a popular ideal in the West. It was clear to many that socialism had enabled the Soviet Union to industrialize fast enough to build the weapons the Soviets needed to defeat the Nazi invasion. (The human cost of that industrialization was not yet sufficiently clear.) It was also clear that reform in a socialist direction had ended the Great Depression in the United States and enabled American industry to produce even more weapons than Soviet industry.

Consequently, when F.A. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom was published in 1944 many educated people in the West responded with incredulity, and even anger. How could someone who wrote so well have so many discredited ideas?

Business owners and business executives, on the other hand, were grateful that someone so articulate had championed their economic interests.

Since 1944 the economies of the western democracies have moved to the left, particularly with the adoption of public health care. Nevertheless, the intellectual consensus has moved to the right. Consequently, much of The Road to Serfdom reads like something that could have been written today by a moderate Democrat.

To begin with, Hayek opposes laissez faire capitalism. This comes as a shock to those libertarians who urge me to read his book without having read it themselves. (When reading Hayek one should realize that when he mentions “liberals” he means nineteenth cent liberals, or contemporary economic conservatives.)

The flaw in your presentation. Contemporary conservatives of today exist in a political and economic environment unimaginable to Hayek. They have never contemplated "laissez faire" capitalism in its purest form. Contemporary conservatives recognize that markets have to be regulated in some form but they do not believe that markets should be dominated and controlled by government through regulation, or that government is entitled to the majority of what is produced by those markets and more. Hayek did understand however that there really is a "road to serfdom," and now that we're finally in the fast lane, we do too.

 

[Littletoo]

Why not $20.

Seriously.

$15 is already enough to knock out every "starter" job I ever had. $20 wouldn't knock out that many more, and it sounds so much better. $800 for a 40hr week, i could have supported my XBF's coke habit on that and I wouldn't of gotten raped by that stupid payday lender.

 

[RobDownSouth]

So you raise the floor 10%... everyone up the ladders gets a raise too because if one scale is raised, they all get raised. That may cost the business an extra 15-20% in labor costs once its burdened up.

The business is in business to make money, so they raise prices 20-25%, because they want a taste of the gravy as well.

Now the guy that got a 10% raise is paying 25% more for the product.

Hillbilly Johnny thinks profit margins are sacrosanct.
Remember a few years back when Washington state raised it's minimum wage and AJ announced the sky was falling?
There were two McDonalds five miles apart at the Washington/Idaho border, one in Washington, the other in Idaho. Each of them offered a Big Mac Meal for $5.91.
After the mean ole state government raised the minimum wage, the Washington franchise sold its Big Mac Meal for.....$5.91.
How was this possible?

 

[LLCox]

Fifteen dollars an hour... I was making that in the early eighties. A single person can not live on that now.

 

[ll74]

Fifteen dollars an hour... I was making that in the early eighties. A single person can not live on that now.

The value of the dollar is what makes up the value of the job.

If the job hasnt changed, the value of the job hasn't changed. People who say otherwise are idiots.

There is absolutely no reason a person doing a job for $7 an hour in 1985 is the same as a person making $7 an hour in 2023.

 

[LLCox]

The value of the dollar is what makes up the value of the job.

If the job hasnt changed, the value of the job hasn't changed. People who say otherwise are idiots.

There is absolutely no reason a person doing a job for $7 an hour in 1985 is the same as a person making $7 an hour in 2023.

Whatever, I am talking making a living and fifteen $ don't.

 

[ll74]

Whatever, I am talking making a living and fifteen $ don't.

I am talking about the value of a job.

 

[LLCox]

I am talking about the value of a job.

And yet you keep quoting me.

 

[ll74]

And yet you keep quoting me.

I quoted you once to add to your comment and then again for a reply.

Sorry you don't like it.

 

[LLCox]

I quoted you once to add to your comment and then again for a reply.

Sorry you don't like it.

You first

 

[ll74]

You first

Yah, poor guy.

 

[TrailerHitch]

The value of the dollar is what makes up the value of the job.

If the job hasnt changed, the value of the job hasn't changed. People who say otherwise are idiots.

There is absolutely no reason a person doing a job for $7 an hour in 1985 is the same as a person making $7 an hour in 2023.

So the obvious question is this. Have you ever received a raise at your job? Why, if the job hasn't changed then the value of your job hasn't changed and you didn't deserve that raise now did you?