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The Minimum Wage Destroys Jobs
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Bradylama
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Feb 2006


Old Nov 1, 2006, 01:12 AM Local time: Nov 1, 2006, 01:12 AM #1 of 102
The Minimum Wage Destroys Jobs

The NCPA explains why.

Quote:
Creates Unemployment. In a free labor market, wage rates reflect the willingness of workers to work (supply) and the willingness of employers to hire them (demand). Worker productivity is the main determinant of what employers are willing to pay. Most working people are not directly affected by the minimum wage because their productivity and, hence, their pay, is already well above it.

The law of demand says that at a higher price, less is demanded, and it applies to grapefruit, cars, movie tickets and, yes, labor. Because a legislated increase in the price of labor does not increase workers' productivity, some workers will lose their jobs. Which ones? Those who are the least productive.

Minimum wage laws mostly harm teenagers and young adults because they typically have little work experience and take jobs that require fewer skills. That's why economists looking for the effect of the minimum wage on employment don't look at data on educated 45-year-old men; rather, they focus on teenagers and young adults, especially black teenagers. Paul Samuelson, the first American winner of the Nobel Prize in economics, put it succinctly back in 1970. Analyzing a proposal to raise the minimum wage to $2 an hour in his famous textbook, Economics , he wrote, "What good does it do a black youth to know that an employer must pay him $2 an hour if the fact that he must be paid that amount is what keeps him from getting a job?"
While it may sound nice that the Guvernator is raising the wage standards for Californians, the end result is that those jobs are going to be shifted to a labor force that will be able to work for less. Namely, illegals. Sorry, Black People.

The EPI throws in some research to support the conjecture.

Quote:
First, we calculate from official government employment data that the October 1, 1996, 50-cent minimum wage increase destroyed approximately 215,000 teen jobs, affecting about 3.5 percent of the 6.2 million teens that were working before the increase. In other words, employment does go down when the minimum wage goes up, and it went down after the 1996 increase despite strong performance in the economy as a whole.


Jam it back in, in the dark.

Last edited by Bradylama; Nov 1, 2006 at 01:28 AM.
Crash "Long-Winded Wrong Answer" Landon
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Feb 2006


Old Nov 1, 2006, 02:22 AM 2 #2 of 102
Those points are fair enough. My beef with minimum wage increases is that they're not unilateral for all workers; only those whose wage would be lower than the minimum receive any sort of benefit, presuming they have a job at all.

To me, this devalues those workers who've invested time and dedication into a job. Consider two scenarios:

A: James has been working for "Big Burger" for a year. In that time, he's worked hard and has earned several raises. When he began at Big Burger, he earned the minimum wage of $5.50 per hour. Now, he earns $6.80 per hour. It's not fantastic but it's a job and James is glad to have one.

B: Doug has been working for Big Burger for one month. While he's not a horrible employee, he's sometimes unmotivated and cocky. Doug figures that if Big Burger wants him to work harder, they should pay him more for the trouble. As it stands, Doug is earning minimum wage, $5.50 per hour. He thinks he's worth far more.

Doug is loafing around one day, reading a newspaper. He learns that their state has approved a raise in the minimum wage. Effective in one month, the minimum wage will become $6.75 per hour, up $1.25 from its former rate.

Doug is thrilled, since this means that Big Burger will have to pay him more for the same amount of work. On top of that, since Big Burger didn't order the raises, Doug feels no increase in loyalty to the store.

James, however, is bummed. While Doug will be getting an automatic raise, he, James, will not. James's income is already above the standard for the new minimum wage, albeit only by $.05 per hour. James is the harder, more dependable worker but his pay scale will no longer reflect this. It is a tremendous blow to James's morale to know that even the most incompetent beginner will be be earning practically the same wage he had to work long and hard to acquire. While it's not Big Burger's fault, James's loyalty plummets. He can now work any low-end job in town and get pretty much the same sized paycheck.


In each case, the business suffers. They're made to pay more for unmotivated employees, and they lose the overhead profits needed to show appreciation to the dedicated ones.

Because these raises cut into profits, businesses are forced to compensate in several ways: raise prices, discontinue services, or eliminate employees. Each of these represents a potential reduction in the gross profit base, and ultimately serves to force the inflation rate higher as customers are made to pay extra so that the store can continue operations while adhering to the wage requirements.

The alternative to raising the minimum wage is lowering it and granting businesses the extra overhead to provide new services, keep more employees and hold better sales. But the downside to this is that few unemployed would be happy taking a job for considerably less than they would've been guaranteed only months before. Businesses would have the capacity to hire more, but there would be less willingness to work.

And without production, all business grinds to a halt. Yet when mandatory wage hikes cut into profits and employers can't afford to hire a full staff, productivity suffers equally and business, once again, grinds to a halt.

If there were a way to pay people what they're worth, I'd be all for it. But that's too subjective to be a reality.

Free labor is quite the Sword of Damocles.

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BlueMikey
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Old Nov 1, 2006, 02:32 AM Local time: Nov 1, 2006, 12:32 AM #3 of 102
For the comment you made...perhaps the problem then isn't the minimum wage, but it is non-enforcement of immigration laws.


Here is why minimum wage can't be looked at as a free market item like a sweatshirt: there is no incentive for employers to pay more than minimum wage for their minimum wage employees.

I don't make minimum wage. But the amount I pay on a hamburger increases with time. The rate of increase isn't set in stone for a period it might even go down, but over a long stretch, the price goes up. But the increase in the price of my movie ticket will almost never translate to a rate increase for those making minimum wage. The rich will get richer. Which might be a good thing, you know, incentive and communism is bad and all that jazz.

But what usually gets left out of this equation is that now the minimum wage ticket tearer at the theater has to work an extra 40 minutes to be able to buy the product his company was selling. Small price increases on products massively hurts people who make minimum wage. You can't just have the entire economy moving along without the wages keeping pace.

And why would they raise their wages? There is no competition for a 17-year old popcorn filler (while there is a massive amount of competition for my entertainment dollar), so there is no incentive to ever raise the wage. Hell, they pay minimum wage and most places still treat their employees like a piece of dirt and they get away with it because the demand for jobs is higher than the supply. I don't want to use the term exploit, but the ability to do so is there sometimes.

The teenage workforce is affected, sure, but let's remember they aren't the only people who make the bare minimum: most people working off tips (people who pull lunch shifts where tips are low), janitorial staffers (no, not everyone who does that is illegal), non-teenage fast food workers (someone flips burgers during the day during the school year).

And most teenage jobs are still classified as seasonal, which of course are the first workers to go. It's not like employers are dumping off 40-hour a week employees who work 52 weeks a year. The effect on the economy is not negative, because we're losing people who work 4 months a year for 20-hour weeks.


I am mostly a fan of a free market economy, but the reality is that we have too many people to fill these low-wage jobs and a situation where corporations and business are given 400 concessions before their workers are even given 1.

Minimum wage increases are good in that it gives minimum wage workers more buying power versus those of us who make more. Prices go up for everyone, but their increase doesn't out pace the wage increase.

If you can convince me that higher profits translates to higher wages, then I'm convinced that no minimum wage is needed. Otherwise, you are saying that minimum wage is required, and, if it is, it is ridiculous not to keep up some pace with inflation.

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JasonTerminator
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Old Nov 1, 2006, 04:45 AM Local time: Nov 1, 2006, 02:45 AM #4 of 102
Honestly, Crash's argument hits it right on the head for me.

Before I got promoted, I was PISSED that Florida raised the minimum wage, because suddenly, I wasn't making more than the crappy guys on the job. Admittedly, my work paid off with a promotion into management, but that just gave me a better view of why it's not a great idea.

When I'm working, I'm expected to keep the wages we pay around a certain amount per customer. As a movie theater, we have slow weekdays and busy weekends, so weekdays give us more leeway to have a higher cost per customer, since it's to be expected. When weekends hit, however, if it turns out to be less busy that we thought it would be, we then have to start sending people home early to cut down on payroll. With an increased minimum wage, it makes us have to keep that payroll figure that much more in the forefront of our minds.

Management also allowed me to appreciate the benefits that having a motivated, hard-working and dependable staff can bring. Having a good staff makes my job that much easier, so I'm that much more inclined to recommend certain employees for raises, making them even more motivated. A staff that knows it's gonna get paid a certain amount if they work their asses off or slack off is only going to piss off customers, not get anything clean, loaf around, and some might eventually steal from you. Customers won't get mad if my staff is polite and efficient, so it's in my best interest to get staff members that have these qualities, and pay them as such so they retain said qualities.

While I do understand that due to inflation, people are, over the long run, going to have to get higher wages, but inflation is caused, in part, by minimum wage increases. A vicious cycle, indeed. This makes the minimum wage issue that much more complex, with employees needing higher wages, and employers put in the uncomfortable position of paying everyone the same wages. This reminds me of one of the major problems with communism: If everybody gets the same wages and benefits, where is the motivation to work more?

In all honesty, there is no simple or easy answer to the question. People need to get paid more, but how is anybody supposed to get ahead of the curve, when the curve keeps on moving ahead of them?

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Gecko3
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Old Nov 1, 2006, 09:18 AM Local time: Nov 1, 2006, 09:18 AM #5 of 102
Some really interesting posts here. I wish all threads (at least in PP) could be this cool and productive without having to resort to name calling lol.

Anyway, my opinion is similar to that of Crash's, but BlueMikey makes some good arguments as well (particularly his first line).

I remember reading something a few months ago from a border patrol agent, who said that there's no job an American would do if the pay was higher. Fact of the matter is, minimum wage jobs don't make enough to give you a decent standard of living (and if you disagree, go to a "ghetto" area near where you live, and look around), and when that guy who's been working in the factory for 18 years gets laid off, and can't afford to go to school to learn new stuff (cause he probably has a family to support, and big bills to pay off, so college might be a bit out of his league at that point in life), what about him (and don't say he's an exception, because of all these layoffs we keep hearing about on the news, he's going to be more of the rule than exception).

Unfortunately, there is really no easy or cheap solution. I can't think of anything atm either (if that was my job though, I sure as heck would research it like mad).

I remember something one of my professors taught me, I think it was called the "Principle of Less Eligibility". What this means basically is, poor people can't have any accomodations that are better than what someone working minimum wage could afford. For example, don't expect to go to a homeless shelter and expect beds that are hotel-quality, or meals that look like you could serve that in a rich-person restaurant. I never quite understood why things were like that until recently, cause if a poor homeless person can get something that is better than what that minimum wage person could reasonably afford, why should they bother working?

Of course, this isn't to say that I don't see the business owner's point of view either, who's only real objective is to have the highest profit margin as possible. And it's even worse if it's a corporation, because lower profits is kind of hard to explain to shareholders, who only want as much money as possible too. And when management has to say something like "well, we had lower profits because we had to pay our employees more, and give them more benefits.", you can bet they'll be out of the job shortly after (so what they do is probably just so they can continue having a high paying job).

Heck, at my Home Depot, they're now starting to cut people's hours (that aren't full time anyway), because it's starting to get cold, so not as many people are shopping there. It's kind of funny too because just a month ago, they were hiring people like mad because customers kept complaining that there weren't enough people on the floor to help them (it's true, I even had to help some customers find things that aren't in my department, and when trying to find an associate for a specific department, I couldn't find anyone who worked there either). I suppose the solution in this case would've been to hire people in the springtime, so they could actually be around when customers needed help, then let go of the ones who aren't cutting it in the fall, rather than the "recruit like mad then not give anyone enough hours". Since I need this job atm, I can't do much because if I complain too much about it, then next thing I know, I'll be out of the job completely (although for me it's not as big a deal cause I can get another job. The main reason I like Home Depot is because I can get medical benefits as a part time employee. Good luck getting that at most other places as a part-timer).

The more I think about it, the more I also begin to wonder how this current president is willing to spend gobs of cash overseas, but isn't as willing to devote that much energy to domestic issues (like part of his solution to illegal immigrants was to build a large fence, instead of hiring more border agents and enforcing immigration laws). It's too bad Lyndon B. Johnson wanted to help America, but because of Vietnam he had to divert all his resources to that. I wonder if this is what's happening today again.

I'd say if anything, force companies to pay illegal immigrants the same wages as Americans. That way, you destroy the incentive of hiring them in the first place (cause they're willing to work for less, lest the company rat them out and they get sent back). At the same time, I suppose they could grant amnesty to all illegals that are here now, but as part of that amnesty, they have to friggin learn English and study US history as well (it's kind of dumb if you live in a country, and don't know about its past at all), and work towards becoming a US citizen.

Sorry if I seem to go all over the place with my post, just wanted to rant stuff before school

I was speaking idiomatically.
BlueMikey
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Old Nov 1, 2006, 09:23 AM Local time: Nov 1, 2006, 07:23 AM #6 of 102
If you forced companies to pay illegal immigrants the same wages, they just wouldn't report they they were paying less. I mean, that's the whole point, that you can get away with paying less than minimum wage. And since they wouldn't report it, the enforcement issue for that is just as hard as it is for not allowing them to hire illegals period.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?
Bradylama
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Old Nov 1, 2006, 10:54 AM Local time: Nov 1, 2006, 10:54 AM #7 of 102
Even if you could enforce Illegal Immigration you're still faced with the conundrum of outsourcing.

Both problems are a damned if you do, damned if you don't equation, because if you kick out all of the illegals and maintain a minimum wage, then farms that can't afford to mechanize will go under. With outsourcing, American jobs are lost to foreign competitors, but if you illegalize outsourcing then you ruin businesses and increase the price of goods.

I don't really have time to address everything right now, but those are the most immediate things I'd like to point out.

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Matt
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Old Nov 1, 2006, 12:33 PM #8 of 102
I call bullshit.

Without wage increases, minimum rates included, there would be less money flowing in the economy. Without that money in the economy, the people who make minimum wages will be forced to look towards the government for help.
As more and more require gov't assistance, the tax rates would have to go up.
With higher tax rates comes less income margins ---> comes less net income ---> comes more companies losing customers ---> comes more companies cutting jobs (aka downsizing) ---> comes more Americans looking for assistance ---> comes more tax rate increases ---> etc.
The inflation is already there, without the minimum wage increasing as well we'll go into a recession and our economy will crumble.


I'd post a lot more but I don't have the time. Hopefully the above summed up what I want to say.

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BlueMikey
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Old Nov 1, 2006, 02:50 PM Local time: Nov 1, 2006, 12:50 PM #9 of 102
Your equation lacks the demand side. Less people buying things, prices go down so demand goes up. More people making less can buy more things. Downsizing is a result of poor profit margins, which usually has to do with existing inefficiencies or a company where the salaries are too top heavy.

And I don't know that not increasing minimum wage would send anything into a recession. We're talking about people with the smallest buying power anyway. Not increasing the minimum wage ever as inflation goes up does increase the poverty rate, but the money is just in different hands, so the economy is as robust as it would be anyway.

Originally Posted by Bradylama
Even if you could enforce Illegal Immigration you're still faced with the conundrum of outsourcing.

Both problems are a damned if you do, damned if you don't equation, because if you kick out all of the illegals and maintain a minimum wage, then farms that can't afford to mechanize will go under. With outsourcing, American jobs are lost to foreign competitors, but if you illegalize outsourcing then you ruin businesses and increase the price of goods.
Possibly, but I don't see much outsourcing of minimum wage jobs. Janitors, fast food people (yeah, we've all heard about the drive-through intercom stuff being outsourced), farm workers, those job require warm bodies.

If the farms that can't mechanize go under, then the prices go up, but only temporarily, because at higher prices, it becomes more lucrative to become a more efficient farmer, so larger corporations come in, buy up the farms, run them efficiently, and the price goes back down.

Jam it back in, in the dark.
Phoque le PQ
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Old Nov 1, 2006, 03:39 PM #10 of 102
An economics prof I had didn't want to admit this point:lolsign:

Of course it creates unemplyment. Since labour is among the biggest expenses for a business, raising them rises (?) the costs for the products. And we're not talking about unionized jobbs...

On the other hand, a minimum wage is, to me, essential. Otherwise, people can barely had the necessary money to buy vital commodities. However, finding the right level is hard...

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Bradylama
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Old Nov 1, 2006, 03:53 PM Local time: Nov 1, 2006, 03:53 PM #11 of 102
Which is true, but one also has to consider the appeal of the market independant farmers create. Regardless of whether or not he hires a bunch of Mexicans to pick strawberries a few weeks out of a year, Joe Blo Farmer is going to have an easier time selling his produce in some hippy Farmer's Market. It's not bad economically, but in a way it hurts consumers because it eliminates the availability of a product.

Quote:
Possibly, but I don't see much outsourcing of minimum wage jobs. Janitors, fast food people (yeah, we've all heard about the drive-through intercom stuff being outsourced), farm workers, those job require warm bodies.
This is true, but then there's also the argument presented in the article that work-related benefits are cut entirely due to raises in minimum wages. The end result, I think, would be a demand for full-time minimum wage earners superceding part-time workers like high school kids.

Those aren't the only jobs that are entry-level, though. Why do you think people make such a big stink about customer-service jobs going overseas? When there's a will there's a way, and besides, not everybody can work at a fast food joint or be a janitor for every business in the country.

Those positions, still, can be filled by illegal immigrants presuming that we don't secure our borders. People in New England may not consider it a problem, but they'll go where they can find jobs, just like anybody else.

Also, while I may support this fully, if you increase the minimum wage then it encourages industries to seek out ways to automate job functions. I know we won't have robots taking our orders, but we've already got automatic vacuums (as primitive as they are), imagine if entire industries were willing to put in finance for that kind of research to undercut costs.

There's also something I've failed to point out, and that's that people surviving on tips don't make minimum wage as it is. Granted, an employer is required to make up the difference if their tips and $2.15 wages don't add up to the minimum sum, but the majority of that, in theory, still isn't supposed to come out of the employer's pocket.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.
BlueMikey
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Old Nov 1, 2006, 08:45 PM Local time: Nov 1, 2006, 06:45 PM #12 of 102
I don't have any statistics, but I live in one of the call center hotbeds in the United States, and, while we've lost quite a few jobs to Asia, it has been my experience (at the three I've worked at) that they all pay above minimum wage.

The minimum wage in my state has matched the federal minimum wage changed 9 years ago. And these jobs still left, despite having no obligation whatsoever to raise wages. Outsourcing will happen if the minimum wage goes up or not, business owners just want an excuse to not look as bad.

Part of the problem is that you have to pay well above minimum wage in the US to get any sort of skill level that doesn't involve a mop. If they lowered their wages, they wouldn't get workers with enough skill, and their customer service would suffer. So they send it overseas, get comparable workers for a lot less because they have no good jobs there to begin with.


I've always been under the impression that people who work in the tip industry have their minimum go up if the minimum wage for non-tipped employees goes up. I could be wrong, I haven't read the Arizona proposition close enough to know if that is going up.


A discussion like this is hard to have without encompassing all of health care too. The cost of health care is so out of whack that it is basically ruining these businesses, not wages. Either you can afford to give benefits or you can't afford good workers.

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The Wise Vivi
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Old Nov 4, 2006, 03:11 AM Local time: Nov 4, 2006, 03:11 AM #13 of 102
In Ontario, there is a bill being read that will increase the minimum wage in the province to $10 an hour. Currently, it is around $7.75, to be increased to $8.00/hr soon.

$10 an hour is a lot for minimum wage.... I wonder what businesses will be able to do having to pay that much.

I was speaking idiomatically.
ionuk tomb
Ionuk_Tomb


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Old Nov 4, 2006, 06:29 AM Local time: Nov 4, 2006, 05:29 AM #14 of 102
It's a private members bill, Vivi. Meaning it has about a 15% chance of being passed. Not only will corporations and small business be against it, but also municipal governments, who, subsidize their summer student workforces with grants from the federal government through HRDC, which I believe right now, is $2.00?, of the total hourly wage. The Feds will not increase the percentage basis for Ontario just because it thinks it's labour force is special and needs help. In the end, the municipalities would end up having to foot the bill, and raise taxes to pay for it. If the NDP want to make a statement, going with Howie Hampton's plan and raise the MW to $8.00 would see a greater benefit in the long-term. Raising it to $10 is just going to create a massive ripple effect throughout the entire governmental/bureaucratic system, and will not pull Ontario out of it's "have-not" provincial status.

As with the proposed Ontario organ-donor refusal card, it's a fleeting concept. I love the NDP, but their thought process is somewhat similar to deciding who's going to cater the marriage reception, before they even ask the girl on a first date.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?
aikawarazu
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Old Nov 7, 2006, 02:50 AM Local time: Nov 6, 2006, 11:50 PM #15 of 102
while i concede that minimum wages eliminate jobs, i would urge you to find the families who are being supported by less than $6/hr and tell me their quality of life is acceptable.

now comes the argument that low pay is better than no pay -- well, that may be true. in fact, it is true for the individual worker. but at the same time, on a larger scale -- a scale closer to state or national levels, fewer jobs does mean more competition for the positions available, which means people will work harder once they have a job so that they don't lose it / so that they might get a raise. this simple concept is what drives productivity in the work force. you could imagine a world where everyone is guaranteed employment but does less work because they don't have to worry about being employed.

don't get me wrong, i'm actually a pretty socialist guy, but at the same time we do have to keep our economy afloat, or else we won't be able to sustain ourselves as a nation and have all the government services that should be inalienable to all our citizens (while this may not yet be the case in the US, as we lack things like universal health care, we could never get to a place where universal health care is a possibility with a sinking economy).

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Night Phoenix
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Old Nov 7, 2006, 08:10 AM Local time: Nov 7, 2006, 08:10 AM #16 of 102
Quote:
while i concede that minimum wages eliminate jobs, i would urge you to find the families who are being supported by less than $6/hr and tell me their quality of life is acceptable.
What kind of idiot tries to support a FAMILY on six bucks an hour? If the only job you can get is a minimum wage job and you have a wife and kids, then it's quite obvious that you have virtually no marketable job skills and you would be exactly the type of person who would be fucked over by a raise in the minimum wage because you'll be the first one to get the axe when employers have to cut costs when you raise the wage.

Quote:
don't get me wrong, i'm actually a pretty socialist guy, but at the same time we do have to keep our economy afloat, or else we won't be able to sustain ourselves as a nation and have all the government services that should be inalienable to all our citizens (while this may not yet be the case in the US, as we lack things like universal health care, we could never get to a place where universal health care is a possibility with a sinking economy).
Sinking economy? The economy hasn't been this strong in decades. Tax revenues are at an all time high, unemployment is at 4.4% (which most economists consider to be basically full employment), So what sinking economy are you talking about?

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aikawarazu
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Old Nov 7, 2006, 10:59 PM Local time: Nov 7, 2006, 07:59 PM #17 of 102
Originally Posted by Night Phoenix
What kind of idiot tries to support a FAMILY on six bucks an hour?
have you been to an urban area?

Originally Posted by Night Phoenix
If the only job you can get is a minimum wage job and you have a wife and kids, then it's quite obvious that you have virtually no marketable job skills and you would be exactly the type of person who would be fucked over by a raise in the minimum wage because you'll be the first one to get the axe when employers have to cut costs when you raise the wage.
like i said later in the post: true, sad for the individual, but better for an economy.

Originally Posted by Night Phoenix
Sinking economy? The economy hasn't been this strong in decades. Tax revenues are at an all time high, unemployment is at 4.4% (which most economists consider to be basically full employment), So what sinking economy are you talking about?
the hypothetical one in which minimum wage is never raised.

Jam it back in, in the dark.
Zio
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Old Nov 7, 2006, 11:26 PM Local time: Nov 7, 2006, 11:26 PM #18 of 102
Can you even call the USA minium wage a minium wage? Doesn't it go up when prices inflate more? I think the minimum wage is just something that goes up as prices go up. It's more so, to keep people floating/alive then to really do anything much more then that.

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Originally Posted by Zio
Heh, heh, heh. Now, now. That's the expression I want to see! A face filled with pain and anguish, begging fearfully for help, a face quivering with anger! Go, on! Get angry! Suffer! Be sad! That would truly be the ultimate offering to me and my great god!
BlueMikey
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Old Nov 7, 2006, 11:39 PM Local time: Nov 7, 2006, 09:39 PM #19 of 102
Originally Posted by Night Phoenix
Sinking economy? The economy hasn't been this strong in decades. Tax revenues are at an all time high, unemployment is at 4.4% (which most economists consider to be basically full employment), So what sinking economy are you talking about?
The unemployment number is a bit of a falsity; it doesn't represent the number of people who are underemployed. I've heard/read several times over the past year/couple years that the country is underemployed at a higher rate than any time since such measurements were made. And, not that it matters, but I can attest to that.

The economy, for the first time last year, spent more than it made. The first time ever, in the history of the country. How? By buying itself into massive credit card debt. (That, and we still had a huge Christmas retail season.) Part of this is because people believe they will have better jobs more suited to their skills/training/education, part of it is because we are in an irresponsible age.

There is going to be a time where the bills have to be paid and because the labor market is filled with such poor job offerings, they won't be. People will max their credit cards with necessities, get stuck paying off interest, and non-need good purchases will go down. The economy will fall into a recession, and the only people who will make money are the banks, because they rack up huge amounts of interest on debt that will be paid eventually by someone because of new bankruptcy laws which don't allow people to write off debt like they used to. Purchases fall, so prices dip and people get laid off, leading to higher unemployment.

It might not be so grim that it affects everything, but the day is coming. If/when it hits, a lot of us are going to see a lot of people in a world of financial hurt.

(This has nothing to do with minimum wage. This is largely a middle-class issue.)

(Also, there might come a time when we look at all the money we spent in Iraq and wonder if it might have been better spent on Americans if/when the shit hits the fan. But that's another discussion altogether.)

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.
How Unfortunate
Ghost


Member 4460

Level 13.04

Apr 2006


Old Nov 11, 2006, 12:51 AM #20 of 102
Ok, here's a good question. If raising the minimum wages reduces the number of jobs (which it does) and hurts the poor, what should governments do? You have that money you wanted to plough into helping the poor, where should you put?

I'm sure an economist would say put the money into education, but unfortunately, you gotta give something to keep people at the bottom of the ladder going as inflation chugs along. Do you help them pay off some of their bills (healthcare?) so in a way you're giving them a raise, but still making them cheap to employ?

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?
Night Phoenix
The Last Great Hope™


Member 668

Level 20.50

Mar 2006


Old Nov 11, 2006, 01:47 AM Local time: Nov 11, 2006, 01:47 AM #21 of 102
Quote:
have you been to an urban area?
Yes, several. In fact, the music I make tends to be marketed towards them.

Now play fair, I've answered yours - answer mine.

Quote:
I don't really understand just where the so-called "all time high revenues" are going since every city I've been to is quite broke.
I'm talking about federal revenues. States, counties, and muncipalities collect their own taxes which fund their operations. As such, federal revenues being at an all time high really has nothing to do with whether or not a city government itself is broke because cities have a separate revenue stream.

Quote:
You have that money you wanted to plough into helping the poor, where should you put?
Let the people you took it from keep it in the first place.

I was speaking idiomatically.
Phoque le PQ
Présentement en ligne


Member 1886

Level 9.65

Mar 2006


Old Nov 11, 2006, 08:53 AM #22 of 102
Originally Posted by The Wise Vivi
In Ontario, there is a bill being read that will increase the minimum wage in the province to $10 an hour. Currently, it is around $7.75, to be increased to $8.00/hr soon.

$10 an hour is a lot for minimum wage.... I wonder what businesses will be able to do having to pay that much.
i can see that ontario has its share of, er, cloud shovelers (pelleteur de nuages, or making irrealistic statemetns such as raising MW to 10$).

With this measure, québec solidaire (our socialist party) wants to help poverty... Is it me or socialist have absolutely no idea on how economy works?

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?
Metaconsciou§
Chocobo


Member 10873

Level 9.05

Aug 2006


Old Nov 11, 2006, 02:43 PM Local time: Nov 11, 2006, 01:43 PM #23 of 102
Increases in minimum wages wouldn't be such a bitch to the economy if CEO's weren't being such greedy bitches.

http://kennedy.senate.gov/downloads/fairsharereport.pdf

FELIPE NO
Night Phoenix
The Last Great Hope™


Member 668

Level 20.50

Mar 2006


Old Nov 11, 2006, 08:12 PM Local time: Nov 11, 2006, 08:12 PM #24 of 102
How are CEO's being greedy?

How ya doing, buddy?
Metaconsciou§
Chocobo


Member 10873

Level 9.05

Aug 2006


Old Nov 11, 2006, 08:16 PM Local time: Nov 11, 2006, 07:16 PM #25 of 102
Their income is increasing at a ridiculous rate.

Jam it back in, in the dark.
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