$15 minimum wage...I know I'm poking the bear, but...

[Rageaholic]

So, what happens to the "underachievers" or the ones that can't perform? I mean, I would assume that if MW is $15/hour that a lot of employers would look for "higher quality" employees. I mean, I'd hate to see a job for a cashier at McDonalds say "Bachelors Degree".

It's already like that. There really are no entry level jobs anymore and jobs which anyone should be able to get require experience that you can't get without working at that job.

I think something needs to change. College should not hold such a monopoly on credentials. All it's doing is putting people in a situation where they either pay buttloads of debt or be unqualified for so many jobs. It wouldn't solve all the problems, but it would be a step in the right direction.

[Crazedclerkthe2nd]

I'm of the opinion we should do a basic income thing. The idea is adults get $12,000 a year, $1000 per month in other words, and that is it. If you want to make more, you can, but basic needs are taken care of.

$12000 is nowhere near enough to cover minimum basic needs in most places in America. Heck, full time minimum wage pay would be around $14000 and most people on MW have trouble making ends meet.

[HYHYBT]

$12000 is nowhere near enough to cover minimum basic needs in most places in America. Heck, full time minimum wage pay would be around $14000 and most people on MW have trouble making ends meet.

It's *something,* though, to which you'd add whatever you go out and earn. I don't know that the idea would work; the money has to come from somewhere. But it's worth exploring.

An interesting idea I heard in an introductory macroeconomics class a few years ago: that it's become usual for both people in a couple to work means a lot more people in the workforce (or trying to be) which pushes wages down and unemployment up. I don't know how strong that effect would really be.

[Nyoibo]

I try to wrap my head around this concept of such low wages in the US and don't understand it, a 15 year old kid at McDonalds gets over $15 an hour here.

[Andara Bledin]

An interesting idea I heard in an introductory macroeconomics class a few years ago: that it's become usual for both people in a couple to work means a lot more people in the workforce (or trying to be) which pushes wages down and unemployment up. I don't know how strong that effect would really be.

I've brought it up in other threads here and elsewhere that if you raised the minimum so that a single 40-hour work-week could support a family of 4 at basic subsistence level, then you could have more people working as opposed to using up federal assistance.

The fact is that we all pay the wages of every worker. Just that in the case of those who can't find work because the market is saturated, we spend more - a lot more - just to keep them from starving than if we just raised the minimum wage.

If the cost of living requires that a person earn $15 per hour to survive but the minimum wage is only $10, then that person is working two jobs to survive. At that rate, although you could employ 15 people if you had $150 worth of wage hours to allot, that only provides for the subsistence of 7.5 of those people because they all have to have second jobs to fill in the gaps. However, if you had that same $150 wage hours but the minimum was $15 per hour, then you would only have 10 people hired, but those 10 people would not require additional employment, meaning that you have another 2 full households covered with the same wages.

Plus, since nobody is being required to work excessive hours just to make ends meet, that means that all of them will be less prone to making mistakes in their jobs and their personal affairs, they have more time to spend with their families, which generally results in better health in the home as well reducing stress and allowing for better decision making.

There is just no reasonable excuse to keep wages below subsistence level. It doesn't make sense financially or socially. It looks good on the books when you keep payroll down, but depressing the working class means that they spend less, so a company's bottom line is actually worse despite the fact that their prices are lower than they might otherwise be, because some of the cost of raising prices to cover a higher payroll would be absorbed by those who make better than the minimum.

[Hyena Dandy]

It looks good on the books, and a lot of the calculation seems to come from people who really don't seem to realize that raising the minimum wage means that EVERYONE pays more. If I pay my workers $15 an hour now, and everyone else is going for the federal $7.25, I'm at quite a disadvantage. But if I go for $15, and SO DOES EVERYONE ELSE, my position won't change much. Especially when you consider that for a lot of businesses,that would mean more customers.

[NecCat]

It looks good on the books, and a lot of the calculation seems to come from people who really don't seem to realize that raising the minimum wage means that EVERYONE pays more. If I pay my workers $15 an hour now, and everyone else is going for the federal $7.25, I'm at quite a disadvantage. But if I go for $15, and SO DOES EVERYONE ELSE, my position won't change much. Especially when you consider that for a lot of businesses,that would mean more customers.

I'm not saying it wouldn't work out in the long term, but in the short term companies that currently pay around $15 are going to be at a significant disadvantage to companies that currently pay minimum wage. If minimum wage increases by more than 50%, all the companies that currently pay minimum wage will have to review their payroll and adjust prices to maintain profit accordingly, almost in unison. Companies that currently pay above minimum wage usually do so for a reason: that is the wage at which you can hire people to do the work. That means that any direct competitors are probably also paying in that wage range. So how much do you raise wages by to continue finding eligible employees? How much do your prices go up to reflect your payroll increases? I could see a lot of small business not being able to manage that balance to keep employees and stay competitive on the market and going under, leaving more markets monopolized by big businesses.

I'm not against raising the minimum wage to a proper living wage, but I like the idea of a planned wage increase ($1.50/year until it meets cost of living increase or something similar) rather than a sudden shock to the market.

[Andara Bledin]

It looks good on the books, and a lot of the calculation seems to come from people who really don't seem to realize that raising the minimum wage means that EVERYONE pays more.

You're already paying more. That's the thing.

People who don't make enough from wages to survive get public assistance or resort to crime or go hungry and end up in the medical system. These are costs we're paying right this minute in the US that we just sort of overlook because it's not a direct cost of buying goods, but a diffuse cost that is collected in myriad taxes to support a burgeoning bureaucracy that is required merely because we refuse to require that our businesses pay enough in wages for our populace to survive.

But if we had a livable minimum wage, we'd all pay a mere pennies more for our goods, and far less would be required of our tax dollars to support people who should be supported through their income.

If I pay my workers $15 an hour now, and everyone else is going for the federal $7.25, I'm at quite a disadvantage.

You probably wouldn't be at nearly the disadvantage you'd think.

Take the difference between Costco and Sam's Club. They're both big-box membership warehouses. But Costco has higher pay and higher benefits and greater employee support starting from the bottom up, and as a result, they actually require significantly fewer workers to do the same amount of work due to the fact that workers who feel valued work harder and better for the company they work for. Plus, workers who aren't overworked and stressed over money don't make as many mistakes and are more likely to catch those that do get made. Plus, happy workers are better customer service and will attract repeat business in ways that unhappy workers just plain can't.

I do agree with NecCat, however, that any increase to bring wages up to something reasonable needs to be incremental, just to avoid system shock and people overreacting because that's what people do when hit with large=ish changes.

[s_stabeler]

if nothing else, an incremental change means less businesses will decide to have massive layoffs out of spite. ( by that, I mean situations where they could easily absorb the increase, or raise prices, but choose not to. I am NOT saying that every business that makes layoffs due to a rise in the minimum wage is acting out of spite.)

also, for people who say that the minimum wage being an actual living wage would drive businesses out of business: Then that business was being artificially propped up. Do you seriously think that requiring people to work 60-80 hours weeks is fair? ( to give some perspective: there are 7 days a week. allow for 1 day off. Then, take 2 days off to account for time spent sleeping. that's 4 days, or 96 hours. Allow for up to an hour's commute each way on the 6 days you are working, so subtract 12 hours. (that's 82 hours) Then subtract 1/2 an hour for lunch each day. That's 3 hours, giving 79 hours left you can work. Allow time to get ready in the morning- it usually takes me 1/2 an hour if I'm in a rush- and you have another 3 hours gone. 76 hours. Allow an hour a day for people to prepare and eat dinner, and you have 70 hours. AKA, someone making minimum wage, if that results in needing two jobs to pay the bills, pretty much has to go from work, straight to cooking dinner, then straight to bed. The only time they have to do things like grocery shopping, relaxing, making sure the bills get paid, everything BUT working, is their day off. Oh, and when you inevitably collapse from exhaustion, since, due to your two full-time jobs, you are losing 1-2 hours of sleep per night, you don't get paid sick leave, and if you drag yourself into work, end up fired because you ended up screwing up from sheer exhaustion.

It puts the situation into perspective, doesn't it?

[AccountingDrone]

$12000 is nowhere near enough to cover minimum basic needs in most places in America. Heck, full time minimum wage pay would be around $14000 and most people on MW have trouble making ends meet.

Just did our taxes - Rob gets $11,280 as his Navy retirement pay [half base pay] and that *just* covers our mortgage. <oddly, when we were house hunting back in 1990, he went for a mortgage payment of what his retirement pay would be> so in the theoretical sense, he could do a McJob and we would be really crunched for money, but we could manage [no internet or cable tv, only 2 cell phones, on a tracphone/pay as you go account and really restrictive diet, and no pets - all the dump offs would get captured and turned over to animal control] Though many people would consider that we actually do live a fairly stripped down life - we don't have credit cards, and only buy what we actually need - we finally *just* replaced our old tube TV with a flat screen - the tv finally died after 18 years and they had the after-christmas sales on electronics so we got it about half off. I have 4 pair of shoes, and haven't bought clothing other than to replace worn out stuff in a long time. My historic clothing I hand-make because if I bought it it would cost 4-6 times the material cost +)

[Food Lady]

AD, I am the same as you as far as what I will spend on. I just bought 2 new pairs of shoes today because of tax refund, and I honestly can't remember how long it's been since I did that, save the $12 pair of runners I bought last spring.

As far as whether I want to make $15 an hour, that depends. I don't actually know if the raise in the MW causes the poverty line to go higher. If it doesn't, then the "extra" money I make can be garnished and I am then down to the current poverty line, which is where I am now, before the MW hike. (I hope I'm making sense; it's late.) It wouldn't do me any good 6 months out of the year, though for the other 6 months when there legally has to be a reprieve from garnishment, I might be able to save some money to get me through the leaner times. I have no idea what a raised minimum will do to the food share program, since it's based on income.

[BlaqueKatt]

*warning long, random, rambling rant ahead*


ugh, one of my FB friends* has had several rants on this issue, and her attitude is quite simply, appalling, and elitist(and oh so fundamentally american). The gist of it is if MW gets raised "everyone should be raised an equal amount because they have 'better' jobs, and shouldn't be making the same as a lowly burger flipper." She just today posted a meme about what the military makes, in cash wages, yes they are underpaid, however they do get other benefits such as housing, health care, food allotment, and tuition assistance(classes taken while enlisted are only 25% tuition, you get 75% off, and can use the GI bill which you pay $1200 and get back up to 50k), that should be counted as compensation. And their being underpaid has exactly zero to do with other people being underpaid,and is an unsound argument against raising MW, that's a logical fallacy in and of itself(tu quoque if anyone cares).

No one ever says a peep about the CEO compensation(one commentor in a thread actually said they deserved it because CEOs are *highly skilled*), they just tear each other apart over scraps and don't see that that's what the politicians and the 1% are hoping for.

What is with the attitude that people hate the poor so much that any possible advantage must be met with an equally striking disadvantage to "even things out" and keep them poor unless they "work hard, and get a college education to escape poverty" they somehow "deserve" to be poor, because they "obviously made bad life decisions"?

I pointed out that 44% of minimum wage worker have college experiance, and her response was: "well they chose the wrong field then, minimum wage jobs shouldn't be a career."

Even worse Mike Rowe recently had a column on it that made me see red from how out of touch he is(and towing the line of, "MW workers are just lazy"), while claiming to be an "everyman".

The Jist was this:
Back in the 70s he worked as a ticket taker in a cinema making the MW of $3.25. within two years he was a projectionist making $10, because of "hard work."
When he last went to a cinema both ticket taker and projectionist jobs were automated. He attributed this not to progress and digital recording being the the new standard, but to the hike in MW. Which is very faulty logic. He assumed that because in 40 years the MW doubled, all other wages had as well, and it was cheaper to automate than pay exorbitant wages. (last projectionist I knew made, $11 an hour, so a dollar more than Mr. Rowe made 40 years ago for the same job). He actually believes that "service sector" jobs pay based on skill and effort, not small percentage based raises like actually occurs. And if the MW workers just "worked harder" their bosses will give them raises, but because they're obviously lazy, they get the wage they "deserve", and any attempt to raise the MW will result in the workers being replaced by machines, because it's cheaper.

The comments were horrible.


*friend in question is a CNA, took an 8 week class 20 years ago, currently makes around $14 an hour, and believes her job is "more valuable" so if MW goes up she's "entitled" to be making $28 an hour(and actual nurses should get closer to $100) because of her specialness, and "higher standing" than a "lowly" janitor or service sector worker. It makes me ill to think people, lots of people think like that.

[AccountingDrone]

I was randomly surfing for funny cat pictures [well, I go to a number of photo based sites because I like to put odd pictures on my desktop for variety] and found a picture that mentioned that Bill Gates could give everybody in the US a million bucks and still have 30 billion left [or some such nonsense. I can't remember how much he owuld have left but it was tens of billions of dollars.]

I have to wonder how much better off the economy would be pumping that kind of money into the 99% economy. It seems that the 1% just stash any money they get somewhere and really do not actually do as much spending as one would think. It does seem that any time us poor scum get any great amount of money, it gets pumped back into the economy, which actually helps the economy overall.

Seems that it would probably improve the economy better than all his vaunted charity work which I seem to remember gives more to the poor overseas than in the US ...

[Andara Bledin]

I have to wonder how much better off the economy would be pumping that kind of money into the 99% economy.

Much better. Very much better.

Some group did a study that basically amounted to giving a random selection of homeless people a bunch of money, no strings attached, and then seeing what they did with it.

Of the group, one remained homeless because that was his chosen lifestyle. All of the others got themselves cleaned up, got places to sleep, got work, and got off the streets.

There are a surprising number of things surrounding poverty that can literally be changed merely by throwing money at the problem. Specifically, throwing money at the people who need it and not bothering with the bureaucracy. We spend more on the administration than we do on actually helping people.

Some study by a couple of Nobel winners found that up until about $75k/year, earning more makes people happier. Above $70k/year, more money stops translating into more happiness.

It's not so much that money buys happiness, but that lack of money robs people of the happiness they would have.

Dan Price, CEO and founder of Gravity Payments (a credit card processing service) heard about that study and chose to cut his own salary down and gave everybody working for him raises so that their new minimum was $70k/year. He knows that he doesn't need all of that extra money, but the people who work for him do.

[Hyena Dandy]

Back in the 70s he worked as a ticket taker in a cinema making the MW of $3.25. within two years he was a projectionist making $10, because of "hard work."

So being as generous as I can and saying he was in 1979...

He started making (by today's standards) $9.50 an hour. And by 1981, was making $20 an hour.

I'm sure he did work hard. I don't blame him for it.

But the minimum wage today is less than it was in 1979. And he clearly worked hard to get that promotion, I applaud him for that. Good work. But he was in a different situation.

Of course, naturally, he blames these awful 'entitled' people who would like to actually be paid to work and treated fairly as workers. >_>