Does the minimum wage kill jobs?

[Sean Renaud]

Obviously, there are a lot of people on the left who want to make sure that black teens and other youngsters are frozen out of the labor market place.

If you aren't willing to pay us we shouldn't work.

 

[Elixxxher]

Well someone's saying minimum wage doesn't kill jobs.

http://www.thestar.com/business/2014/10/20/minimum_wage_hike_does_not_kill_jobs_report.html

 

[RobDownSouth]

Obviously, there are a lot of people on the left who want to make sure that black teens and other youngsters are frozen out of the labor market place.

Obviously, there are a lot of people on the right who want to make sure that black teens and other youngsters are frozen out of the polling place.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Well someone's saying minimum wage doesn't kill jobs.

http://www.thestar.com/business/2014/10/20/minimum_wage_hike_does_not_kill_jobs_report.html

More significantly:

Instead, the report found, employment levels are largely driven by purchasing power in the economy.

 

[unregistered]

 

[unregistered]

 

[KingOrfeo]

KO would have us believe that people flock to the stores with the highest prices.

No, people flock to the stores when they can afford to.

 

[kbate]

It's relatively simple:

Higher wages = higher product prices = less product sold = less demand for labour = fewer jobs = less money in economy = socialism will take over.

Lower wages = more people hired = more product on shelves = with less money to buy = less product sold = less demand for labour = fewer jobs = less money in economy = foreigners will take over.

See?

 

[bg23]

i'm just here to say the "appeared in the october 27th edition" line really threw me.

 

[RobDownSouth]

KO would have us believe that people flock to the stores with the highest prices.

#AscriptionAgain

More intellectual dishonesty from a Vietnam-era Marine.

 

[Sean Renaud]

It's relatively simple:

Higher wages = higher product prices = less product sold = less demand for labour = fewer jobs = less money in economy = socialism will take over.

Lower wages = more people hired = more product on shelves = with less money to buy = less product sold = less demand for labour = fewer jobs = less money in economy = foreigners will take over.

See?

Well if those are our two choices I vote socialism.

However mayhaps we find the sweet spot with maximum positives and minimal negatives. I mean or we can listen to Vette and bring back slavery. I promise you that will virtually eliminate unemployment. Increase our exports too!

 

[unregistered]

 

[Sean Renaud]

Precisely! So why would a man who's business need supports the hiring of a lower paid employee, shop instead for a higher paid employee who's cost of employment cannot be supported by his business?

He shouldn't. Which is precisely why we must make him.

 

[NeverEndingMe]

If you aren't willing to pay us we shouldn't work.

why is it that your kind strives to only achieve min wage jobs?

 

[Sean Renaud]

I wouldn't get off my ass for minimum wage. That doesn't change the fact that you should be able to live, without government assistance, if you work 40 hours a week. Period. End discussion.

 

[possum123]

I don't know how people do of seem to notice.
Every time the price of labor goes up the price of what is produced goes up also. Give minimum wage workers a raise and just about all other workers get a raise. The price of everything goes up. The minimum wage worker is put farther behind as they receive the smaller raise and still have to buy the higher priced products.

 

[Sean Renaud]

I don't know how people do of seem to notice.
Every time the price of labor goes up the price of what is produced goes up also. Give minimum wage workers a raise and just about all other workers get a raise. The price of everything goes up. The minimum wage worker is put farther behind as they receive the smaller raise and still have to buy the higher priced products.

That's what SHOULD happen. But it's not what DOES happen. The reality is our minimum wage is so far below what it needs to be that prices don't really adjust to it much.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Minimum wage affects very few people, and raises payroll taxes for those who get raises. What MW does is raise wages for all which then raises prices for all. Bottom line? The poor pay more taxes.

 

[KingOrfeo]

i'm just here to say the "appeared in the october 27th edition" line really threw me.

I know! They do that all the time! Why, my latest copy of Big Black Asses is dated December!

 

[KingOrfeo]

Precisely! So why would a man who's business need supports the hiring of a lower paid employee, shop instead for a higher paid employee who's labor cannot support the costs of his emplyment?

Because it can, actually. Most American businesses could pay much higher wages without cutting into their profit margins all that much. There seems to be widespread and dishonest denial on that point.

 

[possum123]

That's what SHOULD happen. But it's not what DOES happen. The reality is our minimum wage is so far below what it needs to be that prices don't really adjust to it much.

When the minimum wage is raised those making minimum wage are not the only ones who get a raise.
Most unions have their wages tied to the minimum wage. If the minimum wage is increases all union members get a raise.

 

[RobDownSouth]

Because it can, actually. Most American businesses could pay much higher wages without cutting into their profit margins all that much. There seems to be widespread and dishonest denial on that point.

The "Profits Over People" crew has long regarded profit margins as sacrosanct.

 

[possum123]

Because it can, actually. Most American businesses could pay much higher wages without cutting into their profit margins all that much. There seems to be widespread and dishonest denial on that point.

Why should a business pay more than they have to pay?
That sounds like something the rich people say when they want people to pay more taxes. They forget to mention they do not pay the taxes they already owe and will not pay more if the tax rate is raised.

 

[Sean Renaud]

When the minimum wage is raised those making minimum wage are not the only ones who get a raise.
Most unions have their wages tied to the minimum wage. If the minimum wage is increases all union members get a raise.

While that's not true in practice which is often why people making barely more than minimum wage are against an increase, because now that punk who just showed up will be making the same as them and they won't get a raise that's however over all a good thing. The prices go up every year regardless.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Because it can, actually. Most American businesses could pay much higher wages without cutting into their profit margins all that much. There seems to be widespread and dishonest denial on that point.

There seems to be much confusion between the macroeconomic theory and the microeconomic reality. To pay your entry-level employees a higher wage entails more than profit margin. Even if you are willing to lower your profit margin and run a greater risk of failure during any sort of business slowdown, you certainly prevent future hiring because that next employee just destroys your profit margin. Plus now your trained employees are doing more valuable work for not much more than untrained workers. Now, you run the risk of losing them because, without further cutting into your profit margin, you are not in a fiscally sound enough position to raise their wages without taking into account microeconomic laws of supply and demand. If you raise wages, you must raise prices, because most businesses run a pretty thin profit margin, and while in good times you can do with less, in bad times you cannot (some of which you describe as minimal actually gets put aside for future use, maybe even expansion). Then no one has a job.

Now, the argument is that with more money in their pockets, you will increase spending and this will increase profits, but here your own argument comes back to harm you, if the slight increase in pay only effects profits marginally, then of course, its impact on spending and profit will be marginal at best (since, especially at first, most of it will be going to servicing debt). Furthermore, instead of having three workers earning minimum wage (and maybe by your argument, still sapping some resources from public assistance), you now have two earning marginally more in the short term, and one who can find no job (and needs full public assistance). In this manner, actually fewer people are spending earned money.

When you theorize on the macroeconomic level, you tend to dismiss the microeconomic, for while your theory makes great sense to you, fallaciously it allows you to dismiss the reality of the supply and demand laws rule the Human Action of the microeconomic sphere that are actually imposed upon the individual business.