Minimum-wage workers are cheaper than slaves

A minimum-wage worker, at today's rates, costs an employer about $320.00 for a 40-hour week.

The cost of a slave, if slavery were legal, would be much higher - over $500.00!

Here is the breakdown, based on a small employer with a workforce of less than 100 slaves and a 40-hour work week:

Purchase of slave: $19.00 (weekly cost, based on expected life span)
Housing: $48.00 (nothing fancy, window treatments consist of bars)
Food: $59.00 (nutritious, for maximum productivity)
Health care: $73.00 (insurance, medicine, dental ...)
Clothing: $11.00 (from WalMart)
Miscellaneous: $24.00 (Soap, toothpaste, deodorant, Q-tips, haircuts ...)
Guards: $297.00 (three shifts, weekends, holidays ...)
Shackles: $10.00

A case can be made that the minimum wage should be at least as high as the cost of a slave.

What do you think?

 

I think you're inflating the cost of a slave significantly:

Purchase price: $19 (The only figure I'd agree with)
Housing: $20 ( I think one could build a shed w/o floors could be done easily for $80/month per slave)
Food: $5 (no need for healthy as it only costs you $19 to get a second slave thus doubling productivity)
Health Care: $0 (Again it only costs $19 for an entirely new slave)
Clothing: $5 (From Wal-Mart but were not gonna spend $11 every week there)
Misc.: $1 (no frills here, plus haircuts are free after you buy a pair of scissors cause you have slaves to cut their hair)
Shackles: $10 (I'll agree here too sorry)
Guards: $0 (you have guns that they don't have, plus their shackled, and what the heck, even if they run away its only $19)

Cost: $55, don't be silly minimum -wage jobs are nothing like slavery, if a slave heard you say that (and was able) he'd smack the crap out of you.

 

That's why slavery would have died out without a Civil War.

It was dying in some states in the 1840s and 1850s.

Uncle Tom got sold down the river because immigrant labor was less expensive than slaves in Kentucky in 1850.

 

Slaves wouldn't be available for $19.00, that's the initial outlay divided by the working life, in weeks.

The actual price would be more like $20,000.00, so you would do a lot to protect your investment.

 

You're missing a needed calculation. Return on investment. Min wage workers you calculated them at 40 hours, slaves typically worked sun up to sun down on average 14-16 hours, so their production would be double that of someone who punches a clock. You would therefore get a larger return on your slave than you would a min wage worker, in turn making them more cost effective.

 

I want to make it clear that I'm not talking about slaves from any particular part of the world, I'm talking about slaves generically.

And this is a serious topic, even though I tried to add some humor.

Does a country lose anti-slavery cred when it allows a minimum wage so much lower than a slave would cost?

 

once again we have a ludicrous thread designed to justify increasing wages for those without any discernible skills and without the will to even attempt to learn them. those who spend their lives working for minimum wage deserve the sort of life they can afford. minimum wage jobs are, for the most part, entry level positions and are not meant to be considered a "career".

 

Oh, this was a serious thread? Who works a min wage job all their lives?

 

You have to factor-in winter.

Also needed recuperation time.

Your scenario would require more guards.

I didn't even mention supervisors!

 

Not many people. Most minimum wage workers are under age 19

http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2012tbls.htm

 

Once again we have a comment cut-and-pasted from talk radio and Fox News. America's financial elite thank you.

 

Exactly my point, and even then if they were smart they would be down at the nearest UPS or FedEx hub applying for a job. Sure its only 20 hours a week to start however if you bust your behind you can go from making 10 an hour walking through the door to 13 an hour and a guarenteed 30 hour work week in 8 months. Not to mention benefits and retirement. Friend of mine started at FedEx 2 years ago, and now makes over 20 an hour, and only works 35 hours a week. Its all a matter of ambition.

 

Did you read your own linked article?

The chart says that 49.4% of minimum-wage workers are 25 or older.

 

Used to be a much lower number. Before Obama, before nancy pelosi and before people listened to that clown Paul Krugman. Now, for the first time in my life I see 45 year old educated people bagging groceries, taking McDonald's orders. It is a crazy bad time for people, that obummer is sucking all the fun out of working.

 

One minor issue. A slave cant quit if they dont like the job. If you dont like your minimum wage job you can always quit and get a $45hr job. There is nothing holding you back except your competition who is most likely a harder worker. That means its back in your lap to decide to stay at your minimum wage job or pull yourself up and do something about it.

 

I'm not claiming this is the most reputable site on Earth, but they say the average slave only costs $90.00 and that's today in today's money...

http://freetheslaves.net/Document.Doc?id=34

 

I think I get a little ticked off when people screw with my choices. I had a high-powered, high stress job, high paying job, quit and decided I would focus on my young kids. Wanting a little extra then what my husband brought home, I was thrilled that fast food allowed me to set my own hours.

Walmart was no good because they wanted me to commit to working overtime during holiday season. I wanted to be with my kids.....during the holidays.

When other people try to control private business they screw up the market. People who work at Walmart and fast food do so for a friggin reason. Leave them alone.

 

You are barking up the wrong tree trying to explain reality of any kind to a conservative or a neoconservative.

Whether using humor, facts, statistics, history, or any other educational tool, their loyalty is only to the very rich and Big Business, and right-wingers only believe what these two groups tell them.

Read their posts here, you will see this is true.

 

Thomas Sowell once thought as you did, when he was a Marxist, trained at Harvard. He became a Conservative when he found out the minimum wage helps no one, besides maybe the Government bureaucrats who are paid to enforce it.

 

According to Measuring Worth.com the price of a single slave at the time of the Southern States’ secession would be equivalent to $130,000 in today's prices. Possibly more.

This was twice the value of an individual slave fourteen years earlier. This growth in value considers the cost of maintaining a slave over his or her lifetime as opposed to the expected labor output. Also factored in are the values as breeding stock and the use of offspring as additional slave labor or as a commodity for profitable sale.

Given the conservatives’ and neoconservatives’ admitted belief in the absolute rights of the one percent and Big Business to profit by any means, it is surprising they haven’t started petitions to reinstate slavery along with their petitions for secession in some states.

 

Must you turn every topic into a "Conservatives are radicals/lunatics/losers"? Are you paid to post that last bit or are you actually so vehemently inclined to post something concerning some political ideology? Leave that crap at the door and discuss the topic.

 

Slaves who couldn't produce past the cost to keep them were sold to cruel owners who would extract every last bit of productivity out of them, often shortening their lives dramatically in the process. What will you do with the former minimum wage workers who are, by law, prevented from producing because they cannot produce enough to overcome the the artificial minimum price of their labor? Already, millions of minority youth find it nearly impossible to find work, how many more need to be in that position?

 

A minimum wage worker has days off, doesn't work from sun up to sun down, can decide to work in a different field/area (Potential pay increase), lives where he chooses, his/her spouse is chosen by him/her not some "Overlord/Master" and they're able to freely educated themselves while in general most slaves couldn't manage to write their own names.

Would be better if a lot of things changed... changing the minimum wage to be higher won't solve the problem(s). The better solution would be to examine as to why exactly is it difficult to manage a decent lifestyle.

 

Slavery is highly impractical in the industrialized world. It would only really works in very limited industries, and even those industries are modernizing if slowly. Add the factors of the increased cost of real estate and greater urbanization and the impracticality only rises. Eh, I suppose if you leveled the employee parking in some places there might be room for barracks, but then you have to fight the zoning battle, plus all those other regulations, like OSHA and what not, nah, too much hassle these days... Plus I couldn't imagine you could treat slaves worse than say, prisoners, and look at all the luxuries they receive, nope, slavery is simply too impractical for this day and age...

 

It only works in the movies and in Government death camps.