Why the $15 minimum wage will cost California 400,000 jobs

[Rightguide]

I must. I can't perceive why $15/hour is magic, and no one seems to be suggesting the obvious: make it $45 and everbody would be three times as prosperous.

The one thing that is clear to me is that there's no way that government and businesses would prosper from any scheme that encourages inflation. Inflation is just a tax on the rich, right?

In this case legislation that inflates the market value of productivity means less productivity will take place. In order for the opposite to be true one has to believe that high prices actually increase demand.

 

[Hypoxia]

I must. I can't perceive why $15/hour is magic, and no one seems to be suggesting the obvious: make it $45 and everbody would be three times as prosperous.

Sounds like a strawman argument.

I've suffered much lower minimum wages. I worked daily jobs (cf Manpower) when minimum was US$1.65, at sites that paid $1/hr in cash or check daily, and the balance 65¢/hr on Friday if I showed up every day. (Cash that check by buying a beer at the next-door bar run by the work-agent's brother.) A buck sixtyfive per hour didn't buy much more than bare survival. That is not a route to prosperity and productivity.

WalMart is infamous for paying so little that employees qualify for welfare benefits. Taxpayers subsidize the Walton family's gigawealth. Nice, hey?

The one thing that is clear to me is that there's no way that government and businesses would prosper from any scheme that encourages inflation. Inflation is just a tax on the rich, right?

Inflation is a tax on everyone with the poor suffering most. Tromp's plans will boost inflation while driving investments and jobs overseas. Not nice. Meanwhile, see how the economies of low-minimum-wage states are doing. Also not nice.

 

[Que]

Why do you believe that inflating wages will not inflate the costs of goods and services?

separately even Paul Krugman who I agree with virtually nothing about has pointed out the fallacy of the Henry Ford argument. The only advantage to Henry Ford was Raising wages above his competitors if everyone has to raise wages there is no advantage to any of those employers.

Henry Ford paying workers $5 a day so they can afford his product is an urban legend probably caused by Ford's publicity Department.

He raise wages so that he could reduce turnover and keep his calf Factory running without work stoppages. Work stoppages cost him more money than the actual wages.

the workers were making two and a quarter an hour before the extra money that they made with the Rays was barely enough to buy one car per year. one car per year for 10 to 15,000 employees does not translate into one car of pure profit. Each one of those units still cost whatever it was that it cost and surely they did not make $700 profit per car. So the idea that he's going to make a profit selling cars to employees that he gave extra money to buy the car is ridiculous on its face.

 

[Que]

Also it wasn't $5 a day; it was the regular wage plus bonuse which were only paid to men whose whose wife did not work or to women who were the sole breadwinners in their household.

It was both social engineering and it was welfare. This theory was if the employees earned the bonuses based on Henry Ford's prescribed moral regimin that included monitoring to ensure that these workers receiving bonuses were avoiding such things as alcohol. It was done to improve what Ford felt was good moral fiber. It was to improve employee retention and reduce absenteeism. You can't be missing workers on an assembly line or the whole thing grinds to a halt.

 

[Rightguide]

Why do you believe that inflating wages will not inflate the costs of goods and services?

...after all increased costs of production has to be recouped either by cutting other overhead or raising the prices of goods produced.

 

[Que]

...after all increased costs of production has to be recouped either by cutting other overhead or raising the prices of goods produced.

Naw.. just take it out of "excess" profits.

Not that we begrudge success that's fairly earned. I mean, I do think at a certain point you've made enough money.

 

[warrior queen]

One or two facts:-

Most of the weekend penalties in OZ have been agreed reductions to be phased in over the next 5 years. There will still be some penalty rates remaining in hospitality where Sunday hourly rates will be reduced from 150% to 125%.

Minimum rates are still there and are generally at or slightly less than the proposed California rate.

Jobs growth in Australia has been at its best growth level in the last nine months since the mining boom of 2011/2012.

Prices have not gone down or up .

Retail services businesses in particular, especially franchised businesses far from making record profits are going broke at unprecedented rates. Starbucks for example has sold or closed 80% of its Aussie outlets in the past two years. (Hooray! )

Oz is a bit odd because we never had a recession after the GFC.

WQ's view may understanably be a bit more pessimistic, because she lives in Australia's poorest State with about 2.5% of the population and about 1.5% of the GDP.

I employ a small group of unskilled/semiskilled workers in Sydney. They are permanent casual, and paid piece rates + an accuracy bonus. For most of them they earn the equivalent of the hourly minima -10 to +30%. Their main concern is to not be required to work regular hours, so piece work and variable shift times suit them.

Where my son works (a franchise) the legislation triggered an immediate change to pay rates. All people employed since that date have been on reduced pay, and everyone will be required to sign the new agreement as theirs become due, if they want to keep their jobs.
All prices at the franchise have also gone up by around 10%.

 

[cowslinger64]

Naw.. just take it out of "excess" profits.

Not that we begrudge success that's fairly earned. I mean, I do think at a certain point you've made enough money.

Unfortunately.... not everyone shares your thoughts.. and herein lies a huge problem.. Tho I'm sure some of you dummies will see nothing at all wrong with it.

http://fortune.com/2015/06/22/ceo-vs-worker-pay/


Top CEOs make more than 300 times the average worker

 

[BotanyBoy]

You should spend more time on the treadmill, fatass. Less time "winning" on here.

LOL....you can't even touch my PT chairforce.

You couldn't in the military, along with most of the military, and you couldn't today.

If you could you'd be a paratrooper.

As long as you're too much of a fuckin pussy to survive without a gun where you live in the meth head ghetto, you got Nuthin.

Says the guy that lives in the biggest ghetto in the country to the guy that lives in a global tourist destination!! LOL!!

I don't need a gun to survive any more than I need an internal combustion engine to travel or a lighter to start a fire.

I'm just not dumb enough to start all my fires with a bow drill when there is lighter fluid and a bic available.

Because better tools are better.

Gun = better tools for violence than hands, feet, knives, clubs and even more primitive projectile weaponry, no matter how badly you wish to think otherwise.

You and vette just keep making yourselves look stupid and yanking on your tiny peepees.. Losers.

You resort to dick insults to support your arguments and shit talk northern California from Detroit.....LOL

Check this article about how 30 years of democrat rule has left black family net worth at $8.

https://www.rt.com/usa/412898-black-bostonians-net-worth-8-dollars/

Yep....lot of red shit holes too so I don't get partisan with that topic, government at large has been corrupted, perverted and abused to the extent it's all but broken the US spirit and turned the latest generation of adults against itself.

Fuck it...I'm getting mine so I can be one of the privileged who gets to sit back and watch it burn.

 

[Que]

Unfortunately.... not everyone shares your thoughts.. and herein lies a huge problem.. Tho I'm sure some of you dummies will see nothing at all wrong with it.

http://fortune.com/2015/06/22/ceo-vs-worker-pay/


Top CEOs make more than 300 times the average worker

That is unconscionable. Corporate excess has got to stop. I have heard tell of major corporations paying speakers hundreds of thousands of dollars for a short speech. What's up with that?

No one's time is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars per hour. What could they possibly do to be able to bill that kind of freight??

 

[BotanyBoy]

Unfortunately.... not everyone shares your thoughts.. and herein lies a huge problem.. Tho I'm sure some of you dummies will see nothing at all wrong with it.

http://fortune.com/2015/06/22/ceo-vs-worker-pay/


Top CEOs make more than 300 times the average worker

No.

What's wrong with making 300 times the average worker?

I thought the goal of life is to do better than average? 300 x better sounds like they are killin' it.

 

[Rightguide]

LOL....you can't even touch my PT chairforce.

You couldn't in the military, along with most of the military, and you couldn't today.

If you could you'd be a paratrooper.



Says the guy that lives in the biggest ghetto in the country to the guy that lives in a global tourist destination!! LOL!!

I don't need a gun to survive any more than I need an internal combustion engine to travel or a lighter to start a fire.

I'm just not dumb enough to start all my fires with a bow drill when there is lighter fluid and a bic available.

Because better tools are better.

Gun = better tools for violence than hands, feet, knives, clubs and even more primitive projectile weaponry, no matter how badly you wish to think otherwise.



You resort to dick insults to support your arguments and shit talk northern California from Detroit.....LOL



Yep....lot of red shit holes too so I don't get partisan with that topic, government at large has been corrupted, perverted and abused to the extent it's all but broken the US spirit and turned the latest generation of adults against itself.

Fuck it...I'm getting mine so I can be one of the privileged who gets to sit back and watch it burn.

It probably isn't like you didn't earn it.

 

[Rightguide]

No.

What's wrong with making 300 times the average worker?

I thought the goal of life is to do better than average? 300 x better sounds like they are killin' it.

Comrade Cow has a Soviet way of looking at economics.

 

[cowslinger64]

That is unconscionable. Corporate excess has got to stop. I have heard tell of major corporations paying speakers hundreds of thousands of dollars for a short speech. What's up with that?

No one's time is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars per hour. What could they possibly do to be able to bill that kind of freight??

No.

What's wrong with making 300 times the average worker?

I thought the goal of life is to do better than average? 300 x better sounds like they are killin' it.

The difference between a good reply and an idiotic one... thanks lard ass

 

[Hypoxia]

Just a reminder: Count Otto von Bismarck built the world's first national social security / healthcare system, not because he loved grubby German proles, but because 1) a healthier workforce produces more and pays more taxes to the Kaiser, 2) he stole an issue from Socialists to exploit, and 3) it dissuaded oppressed masses from rising up and slaughtering the aristos.

Historically illiterate Gups didn't learn that lesson. They might, when the lynch mobs start hanging legislators.

 

[Rightguide]

The difference between a good reply and an idiotic one... thanks lard ass

You probably didn't understand Que's comment.

 

[cowslinger64]

You probably didn't understand Que's comment.

Giving qbert the benefit of the doubt for a change.. If he was being facetious, oh well... Then he's as big a dumbass as you.

 

[Rightguide]

Giving qbert the benefit of the doubt for a change.. If he was being facetious, oh well... Then he's as big a dumbass as you.

Intellectually, you're in preschool in comparison.

 

[wheres_the_beef]

The fact that one has more training and qualifications doesn't negate the fact that both should be paid the minimum needed to live on.

A discussion of how much resources they need to live doesn't mean that is what their job needs to pay. We've got a host of poverty reduction programs that can help people who can't meet basic needs on their pay. Some like the Earned Income Tax Credit and the associated CA EITC are even pretty efficient economically and specifically target the working poor. Incidentally those programs become even less effective for those who lose jobs or lose hours because of higher minimum wages since they are based on earned income.

Some people aren't productive enough to be worth living wages in the labor market. Even the most cold hearted should consider helping them.Eeven if it's only to avoid the other social issues that cost a lot to address if we don't simply help them up front. That does not mean the only, or best, way to help them is price controls in the labor market.

EITC is one of the most economically efficient ways and boasts low administrative overhead. There are other ways that we can look at as well. Under the Bush Adminstration there was a move to make government assistance more portable. Making it easier for someone to move, without losing something like their HUD voucher, someplace they will be better off because of a better job and/or lower cost of living is a way to help. (Obama continued working on portability issues almost as quietly as Bush.) CA could look at expanding or imprioving job training/retraining programs that would increase productivity among the current working poor; their labor would be worth higher pay if they are more productive. CA could also review their programs that address some of the root causes of poverty - drug addiction, teen pregnancy that interferes with education, etc. CA could also look at reducing or eliminating their highest in the nation state sales tax rate. Although flat,sales taxes are effectively regressive since the poor have to spend bigger chunks of their income on goods subject to them. Replacing revenues with higher income tax rates in their progressive state income tax or higher property taxes would let the working poor increase how much their money buys. A review of state fees and traffic fines might be in order (A lot of states increased fees/fines to deal with recession budget shortfalls without unpopular tax increases. Those can be brutal on the poor since they are flat rates and can involve them in the criminal justice system when they can't afford to pay.)

There are a lot of ways to address poverty among the working poor. High minimum wages aren't necessarily the most efficient way. They don't directly address root causes or increase labor productivity. Price controls most certainly aren't the only way to address the issue. Ignoring everything else locks out solutions that might be better or more politically viable. Trump thought a better healtcare plan would be simple and found out it was complicated. Mitigating poverty is complicated too, if we want to do it well.

 

[BotanyBoy]

It probably isn't like you didn't earn it.

That depends on who you ask.

Comrade Cow has a Soviet way of looking at economics.

Clearly, making money is a HORRIBLE thing.

Must be why he lives in fuckin' Detroit LOL!

The difference between a good reply and an idiotic one... thanks lard ass

Oh so you can't answer the question, once again resorting to fat jokes, one of the most puerile ways to admit you don't have shit.

 

[Hypoxia]

Some people aren't productive enough to be worth living wages in the labor market.

Especially WalMart workers, paid so little they qualify for welfare benefits. Taxpayers get to subsidize the multi-billionaire Walton family. Groovy.

 

[BotanyBoy]

Historically illiterate Gups didn't learn that lesson. They might, when the lynch mobs start hanging legislators.

They won't even get up to go vote them out of office...what makes you think they will show up and hang anyone?

Especially WalMart workers, paid so little they qualify for welfare benefits. Taxpayers get to subsidize the multi-billionaire Walton family. Groovy.

And I bet you blame the Walton family for it don't ya?

 

[Sean Renaud]

They are to blame.

 

[Rightguide]

Especially WalMart workers, paid so little they qualify for welfare benefits. Taxpayers get to subsidize the multi-billionaire Walton family. Groovy.

Tough shit, they should educate themselves and seek out better employment.

 

[Sean Renaud]

Tough shit, they should educate themselves and seek out better employment.

Which would do no good for anybody.