The rhetoric of the minimum wage

[Cap’n AMatrixca]

Uk is about 4.7% at the moment - about the same as yours

Europe on the whole is running at about 9.9%

Well I stand corrected. Europe outside of England has a high unemployment rate.

 

[RightField]

What's that Canadian M?



Then it should be easy to prove me wrong, that this is no more than "feel good" legislation and a reward to the unions.

First challenge: Find employers who pay minimum wage.
Second challenge: Find employees trying to raise a family on minimum wage.

Give me some numbers that are real and I will change my mind.

I tried to make a living during the Ford and Carter Administrations and I see NO REASON to start monkeying with what is working! How did your portfolio do over the last year?

Many people don't remember how abysmal things were under Carter. What a nightmare and what a fool he was. It kills me that so many are willing to embrace the liberal economic dogma and return to those days of massive unemployment and malaise.

 

[bare_pussy]

It's a net wash. And it does effect the COL.

Simple economics. I'm not about to pay someone $7/hr. that is only returning $5/hr. worth of labor. To do so would put me out of business. Not a question of if, merely when. So I have two choices to make. I can reduce my staff (labor overhead) and squeeze more productivity out of the existing employees, or I can raise my prices. Or a combination of the two.

Regardless, the net effect of a raise in the minimum wage is BOTH a slow down in hiring AND price increase. Most companies will opt for a combination of smaller staff and higher prices. For those companies/enterprises that are labor intensive, only a price hike saves the business.

On the day of the last staged hike in the minimum wage I was in a 7-11 buying a hot dog. The price of the hot dog had been raised, by mere coincidence that very day, by 20 cents. I asked the clerk if she was going to enjoy her new raise and she replied that she was VERY happy about it. And I'm sure she was until I pointed out that every price in the store had taken an 'up tick' and that she was going to find the same at the local grocery store, etc. And sure enough, all the items on the shelves had moved up in price a notch.

The nut of it is that the cumulative price hike was first applied to those goods most sensitive to labor costs and those goods tend to be those goods that effect the out of pocket costs of the very people the minimum wage hike was supposed to help. Net gain? Zero.

Ishmael

1) you do not determine the cost of someone's labor.

2) the COL has increased drastically since the last raise of the minimum wage. How are people supposed to live when inflation doesn't match their income? this isn't just for minimum wage earners, incomes have been roughly the same for a while.

3) by saying people do no deserve a living wage, you are passing judgement on their labor and type of employment. You scrub shit for a living and see how you like earning $5/hr without insurance.

 

[Cap’n AMatrixca]

He's not shitting you at all.

The minimum wage worker

Ishmael

Truthiness...

 

[Cap’n AMatrixca]

1) you do not determine the cost of someone's labor.

2) the COL has increased drastically since the last raise of the minimum wage. How are people supposed to live when inflation doesn't match their income? this isn't just for minimum wage earners, incomes have been roughly the same for a while.

3) by saying people do no deserve a living wage, you are passing judgement on their labor and type of employment. You scrub shit for a living and see how you like earning $5/hr without insurance.

The minimum wage is not a living wage nor is the newly proposed base a living wage, it's and entry-wage.

But if it is to be a living wage and will have no impact, why not be really generous and caring and make it $27.75? The proposed new wage is not enough to live on either. Do the math.

 

[Ishmael]

Truthiness...

Facts are your friend.

Ishmael

 

[veryblueeyes]

What's that Canadian M?



Then it should be easy to prove me wrong, that this is no more than "feel good" legislation and a reward to the unions.

First challenge: Find employers who pay minimum wage.
Second challenge: Find employees trying to raise a family on minimum wage.

Give me some numbers that are real and I will change my mind.

I tried to make a living during the Ford and Carter Administrations and I see NO REASON to start monkeying with what is working! How did your portfolio do over the last year?

I am deeper in the South than KS. There are locals that still are doing yardwork for less than minimum.

Want numbers from the net?

I really should stay out of politic threads.

 

[bare_pussy]

Many people don't remember how abysmal things were under Carter. What a nightmare and what a fool he was. It kills me that so many are willing to embrace the liberal economic dogma and return to those days of massive unemployment and malaise.

FYI: It was a global economic crisis and oil issue, not solely a Carter issue. When you get OPEC saying "nnaaahhh no more oil for you", shit hits the fan. President takes the blame. All western economies were in the toilet because of oil and the shifting tides of economic needs (i.e. outsourcing beginning and the change from a manufacturing economy to a service one).

Blaming Carter, or "progressive" economic policies is naive...social democracies have been growing at a faster pace than conservative economies in the EU.

 

[Plasmaball]

Bought into this whole "living wage" BS huh KSMY? It's a myth. No one expects anyone to raise a family on mimimum wages except some really stupid Democrats. Minimum wage is a starting wage for the unskilled, the transient worker, and the second wage earner. It was never intended to be a 'living wage' nor should it be.

When you get right down to it, it's the government giving itself a raise by raising the revenues collected by the most repressive tax of all, the payroll tax.

Ishmael

This is you -----------------------------------------------------Reality is over here

 

[Myrrdin]

Well I stand corrected. Europe outside of England has a high unemployment rate.

Would have come over better, if you hadn't confused England with the UK.

 

[Cap’n AMatrixca]

Many people don't remember how abysmal things were under Carter. What a nightmare and what a fool he was. It kills me that so many are willing to embrace the liberal economic dogma and return to those days of massive unemployment and malaise.

It SOUNDS good and noble and we are a caring and compassionate people and now that we have wrested government from the rich Christian neo-con Republicans who like to keep the working class down-trodden and oppressed just so they and they alone can live the good life, we're going to demonstrate to the world just what a swell bunch of people we are, which is why we're going to give the Mexicans Amnesty, they just want to have what we have. (Don't make them have to take it away! Sir Paul)

 

[bare_pussy]

The minimum wage is not a living wage nor is the newly proposed base a living wage, it's and entry-wage.

But if it is to be a living wage and will have no impact, why not be really generous and caring and make it $27.75? The proposed new wage is not enough to live on either. Do the math.

You're right - but in my mind it should be a living wage but that will never happen at the federal level.

 

[RightField]

1) you do not determine the cost of someone's labor.

2) the COL has increased drastically since the last raise of the minimum wage. How are people supposed to live when inflation doesn't match their income? this isn't just for minimum wage earners, incomes have been roughly the same for a while.

3) by saying people do no deserve a living wage, you are passing judgement on their labor and type of employment. You scrub shit for a living and see how you like earning $5/hr without insurance.

If those who are doing the hiring don't "pass judgement" on what a person should get paid, then who does? Some government weenie sitting at a cube in a big grey building on Independance Avenue in Washington DC?

Part of the point is that as soon as you raise the minimum wage, prices go up so it's a net, net AND it causes inflation and it reduces the number of jobs available (because the business owner, who makes the decisions) is going to do his or her best not to take a decrease in pay. The irony is that the dems know all this too, it's basic economic theory, they know it will hurt the economy, but they smile, lie and play their little political game.

 

[Cap’n AMatrixca]

I am deeper in the South than KS. There are locals that still are doing yardwork for less than minimum.

Want numbers from the net?

I really should stay out of politic threads.

In KANSAS, everybody works for less than anywhere else, but then, land, housing, and food are a helluva lot cheaper...

And that's another point. In KANSAS, this will be a windfall. What does it do for a resident of NYC?

 

[bare_pussy]

Well I stand corrected. Europe outside of England has a high unemployment rate.

"Europe's unemployment rate" is brought up by east germany's very very high rate which has little to do with it's economic policy and everything to do with it's post-soviet reconstruction (or lack of) AND Southern Europe's traditionally high unemployment.

 

[RightField]

FYI: It was a global economic crisis and oil issue, not solely a Carter issue. When you get OPEC saying "nnaaahhh no more oil for you", shit hits the fan. President takes the blame. All western economies were in the toilet because of oil and the shifting tides of economic needs (i.e. outsourcing beginning and the change from a manufacturing economy to a service one).

Blaming Carter, or "progressive" economic policies is naive...social democracies have been growing at a faster pace than conservative economies in the EU.

It was the federal reserve who was expanding the money supply and new spending initiatives that caused the problem more than the OPEC price increases. Oil has been rising again lately and we've dealt with it.

I have to go to work, so if you guys could cite some facts to dispel the comment about the socialist economies of the EU, I'd greatly appreciate it.

 

[Cap’n AMatrixca]

FYI: It was a global economic crisis and oil issue, not solely a Carter issue. When you get OPEC saying "nnaaahhh no more oil for you", shit hits the fan. President takes the blame. All western economies were in the toilet because of oil and the shifting tides of economic needs (i.e. outsourcing beginning and the change from a manufacturing economy to a service one).

Blaming Carter, or "progressive" economic policies is naive...social democracies have been growing at a faster pace than conservative economies in the EU.

The malaise began under Nixon with price controls. The oil embargo only exacerbated it (and has never been repeated as the Arabs at least finally got the old tax-cutting Kennedy addage: A rising tide floats all boats [the converse of course being, when you pull the plug, rubber ducky ends up on the same level as the submarine]).

 

[bare_pussy]

If those who are doing the hiring don't "pass judgement" on what a person should get paid, then who does? Some government weenie sitting at a cube in a big grey building on Independance Avenue in Washington DC?

Part of the point is that as soon as you raise the minimum wage, prices go up so it's a net, net AND it causes inflation and it reduces the number of jobs available (because the business owner, who makes the decisions) is going to do his or her best not to take a decrease in pay. The irony is that the dems know all this too, it's basic economic theory, they know it will hurt the economy, but they smile, lie and play their little political game.

Yes, you're right, I'm a "government weenie" who in order to make ends meet in a very expensive city has to work two jobs. So yeah, I think the government should practice what it preaches. I don't earn enough to survive and won't get a "raise" when the minimum wage goes up. I'm lucky, though - there are people on the Hill who make WAY less than I do.

If people get angry at the way the economy goes, there's an election in 2006. Maybe we'll all get a refund from KBR and Halliburton.

 

[bare_pussy]

It was the federal reserve who was expanding the money supply and new spending initiatives that caused the problem more than the OPEC price increases. Oil has been rising again lately and we've dealt with it.

I have to go to work, so if you guys could cite some facts to dispel the comment about the socialist economies of the EU, I'd greatly appreciate it.

what do you want to know about social democracy?

I wrote a book chapter on a specific social democracy so I can give you the info and you can go to the library and read what I'd write here on your own.

 

[Cap’n AMatrixca]

"Europe's unemployment rate" is brought up by east germany's very very high rate which has little to do with it's economic policy and everything to do with it's post-soviet reconstruction (or lack of) AND Southern Europe's traditionally high unemployment.

Do you have anything to offer other than excuses because Airbus could use something positive in its competion with Boeing.

 

[Plasmaball]

Yes, you're right, I'm a "government weenie" who in order to make ends meet in a very expensive city has to work two jobs. So yeah, I think the government should practice what it preaches. I don't earn enough to survive and won't get a "raise" when the minimum wage goes up. I'm lucky, though - there are people on the Hill who make WAY less than I do.

If people get angry at the way the economy goes, there's an election in 2006. Maybe we'll all get a refund from KBR and Halliburton.

2008? its 2007 now dear

 

[veryblueeyes]

In KANSAS, everybody works for less than anywhere else, but then, land, housing, and food are a helluva lot cheaper...

And that's another point. In KANSAS, this will be a windfall. What does it do for a resident of NYC?

Pardon, as I was trying to make light.

My sibling would starve.

 

[Plasmaball]

Do you have anything to offer other than excuses because Airbus could use something positive in its competion with Boeing.

lol last person saying someone is using excuses is you.

 

[Ishmael]

1) you do not determine the cost of someone's labor.

2) the COL has increased drastically since the last raise of the minimum wage. How are people supposed to live when inflation doesn't match their income? this isn't just for minimum wage earners, incomes have been roughly the same for a while.

3) by saying people do no deserve a living wage, you are passing judgement on their labor and type of employment. You scrub shit for a living and see how you like earning $5/hr without insurance.

1.) As an employer I determine exactly what labor costs me and I determine what I'm willing to pay for that labor. The ONLY modifier is the wage I have to pay to compete for employees in the local market. This is rarely a decision point when talking about unskilled labor.

2.) The CPI has increased less than 3% per annum since the last minimum wage hike except for 2005 which was just at 4%. These are NOT drastic increases. Get your facts right before you post. Opinion don't count for squat.

3.) Ahhhhh, the ole' "passing judgment" on people. Isn't that what you just did? *chuckle* If you don't want to scrub shit for $5/hr, then don't scrub shit for $5/hr. Housekeepers (room cleaning shit scrubbers) at Disney start at over $10/hr with full benefits and you don't even have to read or write that well. Bottom line, no one HAS to scrub shit for $5/hr and no benefits. Go blow that smoke up someone elses ass.

Ishmael

 

[Myrrdin]

Who can get the UK minimum wage?

Most adult workers who:

Are working legally in the UK
Are not genuinely self-employed
Have a written, oral or implied contract

Apprentices
Apprentices under age 19 will not qualify for the national minimum wage
Apprentices over age 19 and in the first 12 months of their apprenticeship will not qualify for the national minimum wage.

There are three levels of minimum wage, and the rates from 1st October 2006 are:

£5.35 per hour for workers aged 22 years and older
A development rate of £4.45 per hour for workers aged 18-21 inclusive
£3.30 per hour for all workers under the age of 18, who are no longer of compulsory school age.

(Americans, just double the hourly rate to get the dollar equivalent.)