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 Evolving
Resident Cynic
Registered: 10/01/02
Posts: 5,385
Loc: Apt #6, The Village
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 A couple of questions on the minimum wage 
#2013755 - 10/16/03 03:36 AM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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If raising the minimum wage will raise the standard of living and the plight of the working poor, why stop there? Why not raise their standard of living to be middle class by increasing the minimum wage to $25 an hour? Hell, if we raise it to $350 an hour there would be no more poor, just wealthy workers!
What to all of you liberals think?
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To call humans 'rational beings' does injustice to the term, 'rational.' Humans are capable of rational thought, but it is not their essence. Humans are animals, beasts with complex brains. Humans, more often than not, utilize their cerebrum to rationalize what their primal instincts, their preconceived notions, and their emotional desires have presented as goals - humans are rationalizing beings.
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 Baby_Hitler
Errorist
Registered: 03/06/02
Posts: 27,652
Loc: To the limit!
Last seen: 9 hours, 15 minutes
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Re: A couple of questions on the minimum wage [Re: Evolving]
#2013872 - 10/16/03 05:19 AM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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I'd be all for it if I thought it would work, but It wouldn't.
I think there should be some type of limiter preventing the rich from getting richer unless the poor also get richer. I mean let's face it, the rich controll the money and the resources, and decide just how much wealth they will allow the lower and middle class to have.
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This space for rent
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Innvertigo
Vote Libertarian!!
Registered: 02/08/01
Posts: 16,296
Loc: Crackerville, Michigan U...
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Re: A couple of questions on the minimum wage [Re: Evolving]
#2013884 - 10/16/03 05:33 AM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
Hell, if we raise it to $350 an hour there would be no more poor, just wealthy workers!
great analogy, too bad many here on this site just don't get it. When candy bars go for $5.00 a pop they might begin to understand
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America....FUCK YEAH!!!
Words of Wisdom: Individual Rights BEFORE Collective Rights
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -- Thomas Jefferson
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Phluck
Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 11,394
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Re: A couple of questions on the minimum wage [Re: Innvertigo]
#2014607 - 10/16/03 12:58 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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"great analogy, too bad many here on this site just don't get it. When candy bars go for $5.00 a pop they might begin to understand "
Yeah, the minimum wage is the single factor that creates inflation.
Certainly there is a limit to what the minimum wage should be, but increasing it a bit certainly won't crumble the economy. It also needs to be increased to reflect inflation.
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"I have no valid complaint against hustlers. No rational bitch. But the act of selling is repulsive to me. I harbor a secret urge to whack a salesman in the face, crack his teeth and put red bumps around his eyes." -Hunter S Thompson
http://phluck.is-after.us
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silversoul7
Chill the FuckOut!
Registered: 10/10/02
Posts: 27,301
Loc: mndfreeze's puppet army
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 Re: A couple of questions on the minimum wage [Re: Evolving]
#2014648 - 10/16/03 01:08 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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Minimum wage is a sort of safety net. Minimum wage should be enough to afford the basic means of living(it's not, unfortunately). Like Phluck said, it's not the only contributing factor to inflation. Not everyone needs to be middle class, but everyone should be able to afford food, clothes, and preferably shelter.
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"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."--Voltaire
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Baby_Hitler
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Re: A couple of questions on the minimum wage [Re: silversoul7]
#2014801 - 10/16/03 01:45 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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The rich getting richer is the main source of inflation.
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This space for rent
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Innvertigo
Vote Libertarian!!
Registered: 02/08/01
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Re: A couple of questions on the minimum wage [Re: Phluck]
#2014828 - 10/16/03 01:54 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
Yeah, the minimum wage is the single factor that creates inflation.
It is for small businesses but true, it's not the single factor but the analogy was pretty good.
What do you think would happen if the minimum wage got boosted to lets say $10 an hour, do you think the cost of goods would be the same? The only way the minimum wage should be raised is annually with the cost of inflation as you mentioned.
Quote:
but increasing it a bit certainly won't crumble the economy
tell that to the small business owners who live paycheck to paycheck.
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America....FUCK YEAH!!!
Words of Wisdom: Individual Rights BEFORE Collective Rights
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -- Thomas Jefferson
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Phluck
Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 04/10/99
Posts: 11,394
Loc: Canada
Last seen: 5 months, 22 days
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Re: A couple of questions on the minimum wage [Re: Innvertigo]
#2015034 - 10/16/03 02:55 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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"tell that to the small business owners who live paycheck to paycheck. "
What about the minimum wage earners who live paycheck to paycheck?
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"I have no valid complaint against hustlers. No rational bitch. But the act of selling is repulsive to me. I harbor a secret urge to whack a salesman in the face, crack his teeth and put red bumps around his eyes." -Hunter S Thompson
http://phluck.is-after.us
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PsiloKitten
Ganja Goddess
Registered: 02/12/99
Posts: 1,617
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Re: A couple of questions on the minimum wage [Re: Evolving]
#2015206 - 10/16/03 03:34 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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Yer obviously just being sarcastic and attempting to instigate an arguement with liberals.
Troll on.
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pattern
multiplayer
Registered: 07/19/02
Posts: 2,185
Loc: Canada
Last seen: 4 years, 1 month
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Re: A couple of questions on the minimum wage [Re: Evolving]
#2015526 - 10/16/03 04:56 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
If raising the minimum wage will raise the standard of living and the plight of the working poor, why stop there? Why not raise their standard of living to be middle class by increasing the minimum wage to $25 an hour? Hell, if we raise it to $350 an hour there would be no more poor, just wealthy workers!
The minimum wage system is dependent on a variable (price per hour). Just because the system will not work with any variable doesn't mean the system doesn't work at all. You simply must pick the proper setting.
The other problem with your implied argument is that the middle class don't need their standard of living raised. The middle class, by definition, have all their needs fulfilled. Upper class are the people who have alot more than they need. There are not enough resources to make everyone upper class, but if there were, your minimum wage theory might actually work.
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man = monkey + mushroom
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mntlfngrs
The Art of Casterbation
Registered: 07/18/02
Posts: 3,937
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Re: A couple of questions on the minimum wage [Re: Evolving]
#2016606 - 10/16/03 10:24 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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It is all relavent. You will still have poor, middle and rich. Often when the minimume is raised so also unemployment rises. Why employ a ditch digger for $25/hr when I can buy a machine that does not call in ir get sick or cost me money for bennies or workmans comp?
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Be all and you'll be to end all
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Xlea321
Stranger
Registered: 02/25/01
Posts: 9,134
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Re: A couple of questions on the minimum wage [Re: mntlfngrs]
#2016738 - 10/16/03 11:34 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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http://www.nathannewman.org/other/howwelfarehelpsus.html
HOW WELFARE HELPS "THE REST OF US"
-- Nathan Newman, newman@socrates.berkeley.edu
The current debate on welfare is stale, tired and, ultimately,
missing the economic point.
Let's be clear what welfare is and is not. Welfare is not charity.
Welfare is a system of payments made to the poor not to take any job if
its pay is so low that it underbids wages for those who have jobs. When
linked to other policies like the minimum wage, welfare is (and should be
seen as) an economic tool by society to keep wages high.
Progressives need to stop appealing just to the compassion of the
public in defending welfare and start playing on their self-interest. The
economic reality is that decent wages for "the rest of us" depend on
having a decent welfare system. Without that welfare system, all wages go
down under a flood of workers desperate to take jobs at any wage in order
to keep their families from starving.
Conservatives try to argue that even if kicking people off welfare
causes some erosion in wages, it's cheaper than increasing the taxes
needed to pay people on welfare. The obvious response is to point out how
small a portion of the federal budget is taken up by programs like AFDC
and other payments to the non-working poor. Out of a $1.6 trillion
federal budget, only $19 billion goes to AFDC, just over 1% of every
federal dollar spent.
But that's a defensive argument and progressives have to get off the
defense and on the offense. We have to sketch exactly how supporting the
welfare system, even expanding it, can be used to reverse the wage erosion
workers have faced in the last two decades.
Let's start with the minimum wage. Conservatives use the fear of
unemployment to oppose it. In the recent debate on the minimum wage,
opponents of raising the minimum wage from $4.25 to $5.15 per hour have
argued that employers would lay off hundreds of thousands of workers
(roughly 1-2% of minimum wage workers in their estimates) if forced to
raise wages for the rest. Now, a number of solid economic studies, most
recently by economists David Card and Alan Krueger, have shown that modest
raises in the minimum wage actually have no effect on employment.
But, for the sake of argument, let's ignore those economic studies
and target our economic program at those who might buy conservative
arguments that 1-2% of minimum wage jobs will be lost if the minimum wage
is raised. Even with that assumption, if we create a strong welfare
system, everyone, including the taxpayer, gains from the increase in the
minimum wage. Follow the math on this and you'll have the strongest
argument in countering conservatives attacks on both welfare and the
minimum wage.
Buying the conservatives' assumptions of 2% unemployment, it means
that for every 100 minimum wage workers initially making $4.25 per hour,
we will end up with 98 workers making the new minimum wage of $5.15 per
hour and 2 workers unemployed.
Breaking that down by hour, week and year, for every 100 workers
who initially make $4.25 per hour ($170 per 40-hr week, $8840 per year),
the total combined wages of all 98 workers who stay employed initially
equals: $866,320 per year ($8840 per year x 98 workers).
After the raise in the minimum wage to $5.15 per hour ($206 per
week, $10,712 per year), total wages will increase to $1,049,776 per year
($10,712 per year x 98 workers). Those 98 workers will see an individual
gain of $1872 per year in wages and an com bined gain of $165,776 in
wages.
If the two newly unemployed people are supported with welfare
payments equal to their previous yearly wage of $8840 (much more generous
than present welfare systems), the total cost will be $17,680--far less
than the $165,776 net gain in wages for the other 98 workers. In fact,
that $17,680 is far less than what the federal government would receive in
increased income and payroll taxes on those increased wages.
So even using the conservatives' own estimates of job loss, the
minimum wage with a strong welfare system can be used to increase wages
while protecting the incomes of those left unemployed.
To translate this into the slightly messier real numbers of the
overall US economy, there are 12.3 million workers who make less than the
proposed new minimum wage of $5.15 per hour. They make an average of
$4.67 per hour, so if 98% of those workers have their wages increased to
the new minimum wage, the aggregate increase in wages will be $12 billion
yearly. This is far more than any welfare costs that might be needed for
income and training funds if any workers are left unemployed.
These numbers have all assumed the rather miserly increase in the
minimum wage proposed by Clinton. If instead of $5.15 per hour, we
increased the minimum wage another dollar to $6.15 per hour (about the
inflation-adjusted level back in 1969), we can see even more dramatic
effects.
There are 20.8 million Americans making less than $6.15 per hour. If
all of these workers (with an average wage of $5.10 per hour) had their
wages increased to a $6.15 per hour minimum wage, the net increase in
wages would be $45.6 billion annually. Even if we assumed a worst-case
assumption of 10% of those workers were left unemployed, this would still
leave a potential $40 billion for welfare and retraining funds--an amount
DOUBLE the entire present AFDC budget.
In fact, all these numbers understate the overall gains in wages,
since it ignores the effect of the minimum wage on higher wage workers.
But the reality is that the mass of workers making a bit more than any new
minimum wage are able to demand a wage increase to maintain a "spread"
between them and less skilled workers now making what they used to make.
So where are these increased wages coming from? Some of it comes
from increased growth due to higher consumer demand, some from increased
costs passed onto consumers, but in the end, in highly competitive markets
employing minimum wage workers, the largest chunk come out of the profits
and executive compensation of corporate stockholders. And there's the
reason why both welfare payments and the minimum wage are opposed so
vociferously by corporations and their legislative allies.
It's no coincidence that conservatives support both eliminating
welfare payments and lowering the minimum wage. Moving people from
welfare into the workplace drives down wages, and the last thing
conservatives (supported massively by low-wage employers) want is to have
the government prevent wages from falling. And by keeping welfare payments
low or non-existent, they can create fear of unemployment from raising the
minimum wage or supporting other policies to raise wages.
Of course, there are ways to improve welfare, including providing
work instead of income payments, but that work has to be at a living wage
that, instead of driving down wages, helps to bolster wages in society
while delivering services that the market fails to provide.
Look at the debate over Wisconsin's proposed welfare plan, a plan to
end welfare for everyone in the state and replace it with work
requirements. Where is the headline-grabbing debate over the fact that
this flood of new additions to the workforce will be making less than
minimum wage and even replacing workers who previously made much higher
wages?
The enthusiasm for welfare "reform" would chill significantly if
people recognized that shredding the safety net also meant shredding their
own wages. If the Wisconsin-style plan was extended nationally, the
effects would trash wages across the coun try. Even as welfare payments
have declined in the last two decades, average hourly wages have dropped
by over 10% and wages for less-skilled job have fallen even more. Imagine
all four million plus adult recipients of AFDC being dumped in the labor
market tomorrow on top of present unemployment, or even gradually over a
year or two.
The key thing for progressives to argue is that unless the policy
is to spend MORE to provide real jobs for all, it's cheaper for working
families to pay people not to work than to force them to work at wages
that drive down pay for all of us.
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Don't worry, B. Caapi
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mntlfngrs
The Art of Casterbation
Registered: 07/18/02
Posts: 3,937
Last seen: 5 years, 7 months
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Re: A couple of questions on the minimum wage [Re: Xlea321]
#2016763 - 10/16/03 11:49 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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The cost of higher wages are passed on to the consumer in the form of higher costs for products and services. This effectivly lowers my wage wich is above minimum.
How does raising the minimum help me?
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Be all and you'll be to end all
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Xlea321
Stranger
Registered: 02/25/01
Posts: 9,134
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Re: A couple of questions on the minimum wage [Re: mntlfngrs]
#2016783 - 10/17/03 12:05 AM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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Read the article above. Without a minimum wage and welfare, wages for everyone drop through the floor.
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Don't worry, B. Caapi
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mntlfngrs
The Art of Casterbation
Registered: 07/18/02
Posts: 3,937
Last seen: 5 years, 7 months
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Re: A couple of questions on the minimum wage [Re: Xlea321]
#2016857 - 10/17/03 12:49 AM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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I did and I'm not saying to get rid of it. Just minimize it. Please answer my question. As someone who earns more than minimum, my wage is effectivly lowered when businesses raise prices of products and services to cover the cost of higher min. wages. Business is not going to absorb that cost, they pass it on to me.
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Be all and you'll be to end all
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silversoul7
Chill the FuckOut!
Registered: 10/10/02
Posts: 27,301
Loc: mndfreeze's puppet army
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Re: A couple of questions on the minimum wage [Re: mntlfngrs]
#2016882 - 10/17/03 01:00 AM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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I agree that raising minimum wage is only good to a certain extent, and if we do so excessively we will really be screwing ourselves, but I believe we could easily cope with raising a little bit.
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"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."--Voltaire
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Innvertigo
Vote Libertarian!!
Registered: 02/08/01
Posts: 16,296
Loc: Crackerville, Michigan U...
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Re: A couple of questions on the minimum wage [Re: Phluck]
#2017177 - 10/17/03 04:37 AM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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who do you think employs those minimum wage earners?
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America....FUCK YEAH!!!
Words of Wisdom: Individual Rights BEFORE Collective Rights
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -- Thomas Jefferson
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GernBlanston
unintended sideeffect
Registered: 05/28/03
Posts: 842
Loc: OR
Last seen: 2 years, 6 months
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Re: A couple of questions on the minimum wage [Re: Innvertigo]
#2017575 - 10/17/03 09:58 AM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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People for whom enough is rarely enough.
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There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.
-- Howard Zinn
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DoctorJ
Registered: 06/30/03
Posts: 8,846
Loc: space
Last seen: 1 year, 5 months
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Re: A couple of questions on the minimum wage [Re: GernBlanston]
#2017689 - 10/17/03 11:01 AM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
tell that to the small business owners who live paycheck to paycheck
(DoctorJ looks out his window: Blockbuster, Starbucks, Subway, McDonalds...)
Sorry. Dont see any small businesses here!
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Phluck
Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 04/10/99
Posts: 11,394
Loc: Canada
Last seen: 5 months, 22 days
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Re: A couple of questions on the minimum wage [Re: DoctorJ]
#2017843 - 10/17/03 12:13 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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That's a good point, a lot of places that are paying people minimum wage are huge corporations.
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"I have no valid complaint against hustlers. No rational bitch. But the act of selling is repulsive to me. I harbor a secret urge to whack a salesman in the face, crack his teeth and put red bumps around his eyes." -Hunter S Thompson
http://phluck.is-after.us
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