Democrats, how do you expect Biden to raise minimum wage while bringing in more immigrants?

Discussion in 'Economics & Trade' started by kazenatsu, Nov 29, 2020.

  1. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Democrats, how do you expect the minimum wage to go up when Biden is likely going to bring in a bunch more low-skilled migrants from other poorer countries?

    The main problem with a higher minimum wage is that it will cause higher unemployment.
    How does increasing the number of low-skill workers help this situation?

    There will be more people competing for minimum wage jobs, and fewer of these minimum wage jobs to go around.

    Seems like you haven't really thought this one through.

    Very likely they will say that they can't increase the minimum wage level any more because they are concerned it would increase unemployment rates.
     
    Last edited: Nov 29, 2020
  2. Capt Nice

    Capt Nice Well-Known Member

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    There are people smarter than you or me on matters like this. Let's wait and see what they say.
     
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  3. lemmiwinx

    lemmiwinx Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Immigrants get all the minimum wage jobs and the laid off workers get expanded welfare checks. In a perfect world that is.
     
  4. modernpaladin

    modernpaladin Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    More unemployment will help achieve the goal of overburdenning the social safety nets to promote redistribution of wealth via UBI.

    Cloward–Piven strategy

    Cloward and Piven's article is focused on forcing the Democratic Party, which in 1966 controlled the presidency and both houses of the United States Congress, to take federal action to help the poor. They stated that full enrollment of those eligible for welfare "would produce bureaucratic disruption in welfare agencies and fiscal disruption in local and state governments" that would: "...deepen existing divisions among elements in the big-city Democratic coalition: the remaining white middle class, the working-class ethnic groups and the growing minority poor. To avoid a further weakening of that historic coalition, a national Democratic administration would be constrained to advance a federal solution to poverty that would override local welfare failures, local class and racial conflicts and local revenue dilemmas."[2]

    They further wrote:

    The ultimate objective of this strategy—to wipe out poverty by establishing a guaranteed annual income—will be questioned by some. Because the ideal of individual social and economic mobility has deep roots, even activists seem reluctant to call for national programs to eliminate poverty by the outright redistribution of income.[2]

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloward–Piven_strategy
     
    Last edited: Nov 29, 2020
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  5. Kyklos

    Kyklos Well-Known Member Donor

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    Neoliberalism’s Flawed Arguments against Higher Minimum Wages

    Free Market Neoliberal ideologues argue against higher wages claiming increased wages will raise “costs” for employers. I want to add a few counter arguments against this Neoliberal position of keeping wages low as the employer desires. They make empirical claims, and mostly pose questions and then play the skeptic in response to arguments to raise wages.

    Framing is an important strategy in debating economic issues. Neoliberal economists frame the rise in wages as a “cost” to producers. But wages can also be seen as investment that leads to higher productivity directly by raising aggregate demand that spurs further investment in technology that also raises productivity indirectly.

    There are also hidden costs to having a wage structure that is too flexible with many unskilled jobs paying low wages and skilled jobs paying relatively higher wages. And again this frame narrows the debate to being between skilled and unskilled labor. A more insightful analysis to reveal the hidden costs of low wages is to view the debate in terms of income inequality. Below is the summary of their arguments in support of maintaining low minimum wages for unskilled labor:
    • ”The fact is unskilled labor today is worthy much less than unskilled labor was one hundred years ago. The economy is not an unskilled economy anymore. It used to be unskilled wage labor where relatively higher because unskilled work was a bigger part of the economy.”
    • ”Why should not wages be set competitively? If someone is willing to work at this job for fifty cents an hour less than me? Why shouldn’t they get the job? Why shouldn’t the wages be determined by the level at which people are willing to do the work?”
    • ”Why should every job pay enough to live on? The whole idea of the diverse economy is that there are many, many jobs on which you can make a living and there are many jobs which are not intended, they are at the bottom of the scale, they are not jobs you should be able to live on.”
    • ”When you are unskilled you should not expect to be able to make a living off of your ordinary day’s labor…combine your income so that you can have enough income to support your household if you are unskilled, or you can get some skills and no longer be unskilled.”
    I find it amazing that free-market ideologists actually argue for jobs that pay non-subsistence wages. It doesn’t seem productive for the employer to hire a non-surviving employee. Many Americans have already combined their incomes with a spouse’s income and now it takes two incomes to support what one income earner could support in the past. And get skills for higher wages? Well, it has been the trend for business to make every job an unskilled job. This is true in manufacturing where each process is broken down to the simplest task so an employee is unskilled, paid low, exchangeable, and replaceable. Even a skilled profession like teaching is reduced to training students for a standardized test making the teacher just a monitor for upcoming exams—again low paid, and replaceable by any minimally literate person. So the number of skilled jobs will be massively outnumbered by unskilled jobs making an education less essential for most jobs resulting in unemployed highly skilled workers. We are already seeing this trend now as college degrees are seen as less valuable. Who does that benefit? Corporations benefit of course.

    And that is what Neoliberal think tanks are about: defending the interests of the corporations with fallacious economic arguments about wages, inflation, profits, and employment. How are they fallacious arguments? James K. Galbraith has done studies on income inequality in many nations and presented some of his finding in a lecture entitled, James K. Galbraith on “Inequality and Instability: What’s Ahead for the World Economy.” I found his economic arguments so powerful that I decided to transcribe some of his key findings because they address many of the false arguments that Neoliberalism present over and over again about wages and unemployment.

    Neoliberalism often argues that the inequality of incomes between skilled and unskilled labor is the result of technological change.
    Alternatively, labor economists saw globalization increasing the supply of unskilled labor and increasing inequality. There are measures of economic inequality that can be gleaned from national administrative data like payroll, employment, and industry categories. Galbraith, and his poor graduate students, has done Theil's statistical calculations of inequality for many countries, and for the United States from 1920 to 2004. For Galbraith, inequality is not an issue of “either/or,” but one of balance. True to his Keynesian roots, Galbraith constructs a medical metaphor to explain the existence of inequality. There is definitely a difference between skilled and unskilled labor with each having its own pay range—Neoliberal economists argue this distinction tautologically ad infinitum. But the question here isn’t about definition, but the macro-economic question of the influence low wages has on economic stability. Again, Neoliberals like to keep the debate focus as narrow as possible.
    Another favorite argument of Neoliberalism used in both the United State and Europe is that high wages creates chronic unemployment. (My bold highlight for emphasis)
    Galbraith argues that higher wages increases efficiency and has found empirically that higher wages does in fact increase productivity and efficiency.
    So the raising of minimum wages, eliminating extremely low wage subsistence jobs, has proven to be a successful strategy. It’s not just theory, but actual economic history.
    But since 2000 Europe has been facing high unemployment. Why? What has changed in Europe?
     
    Last edited: Nov 30, 2020
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  6. Hey Nonny Mouse

    Hey Nonny Mouse Well-Known Member

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    If a higher minimum wage is a legal requirement, it's a legal requirement. Same as always. As long as the economy can stand the drain, we can set the minimum wage as high as we like.

    It likely will raise unemployment levels.

    Help with unemployment? I've never heard anyone claim that it would. I've heard plenty of arguments for the immigration of low-skilled workers and plenty of arguments that it's good for the country, but that immigration would help with unemployment would be a new one on me.

    You haven't addressed any of the arguments people actually give for immigration (or minimum wage). Before you claim to have thought the issue through, you'd have to do that.
     
    Last edited: Nov 30, 2020
  7. FatBack

    FatBack Well-Known Member

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    So far, no actual answer.
     
  8. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    Supply and Demand applies to the labor market as well. Higher minimum wages add to unemployment, but also add the incentive to flout the law and hire people under the table. This provides employment for illegal (although not legal) immigrants and screws the native born Americans at the bottom of the skills level. I'm starting to miss the Trump era already.
     
  9. Daniel Light

    Daniel Light Well-Known Member

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    It's not just Democrats who want higher minimum wages. In Florida, they voted for Trump, but they also passed a $15 minimum wage by
    over a 60% margin.
     
  10. Daniel Light

    Daniel Light Well-Known Member

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    Miss the Trump era? Americans started worshipping Trump and God brought a Plague down upon their heads.

    I've mixed feeling on minimum wages. On the one hand, it's tough to ask people to work for a wage that doesn't meet their minimum costs to keep
    going back to the job - on the other hand, when you raise the wage, it invites inflation, which eventually eats up the increase. The poor stay poor.

    The great thing about our system is that anyone can excel in life and better themselves. The bad thing is that while there is opportunity, there will
    always be those in the bottom 20% who not be making enough to live on.
     
  11. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I don't mean to criticize you personally or specifically, but I can tell you're not actually that good at logically analyzing things.

    I mean you're not able to take separate concepts and properly see how they connect together.
    It's a problem that's definitely not unique to just you. I see plenty of professional economists and policy advisers doing the same thing.

    What should be obvious is that minimum wage increases will only hurt other minimum wage earners insofar as they rely on labor costs from other minimum wage earners. So that's only one component.
     
    Last edited: Nov 30, 2020
  12. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    We don't know what the next minimum wage might be? $8/hour...$10/hour...$15/hour? Last I read 1% of full-time workers earned MW and 6% of part-time workers earned MW. About 1.5 million Americans actually earn MW. So, if MW is increased to $10/hour, basically effecting 1.5 million full and part time workers, it's unlikely this will have any negative effects. The idea of a $15/hour MW is another question because 40-50% of current workers in the US are earning $15/hour or less.

    The US cannot grow long term without allowing migrants into the US. The best thing we could do is allow more and educate them...
     
  13. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Well, what about those other countries where these migrants are coming from? Don't they need to "grow" too?

    Your statement seems like a particularly disingenuous one.

    Sorry, I get frustrated when I read statements coming from people that have very little semblance of logic.
     
    Last edited: Dec 1, 2020
  14. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    I share your frustration. In fact, I almost replied to that post but then I figured, "what's the point?" That mentality can't be reasoned with.
     
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  15. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I know this thought would completely never occur to you, but you are basically making my argument for me.
     
  16. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    Logic says the US cannot grow without immigrants! The US requires more manpower and if the US cannot create that manpower then the US must outsource it.

    Who cares about where migrants come from? It's their choice where they wish to live and work.

    I don't appreciate your personal attacks! Disingenuous? Lack logic?

    Why don't YOU use some of that logic and calculate how the US would look today without immigrants?
     
  17. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    China's economic growth outstrips ours, and they import few to no immigrants. In fact, the history of industrialization shows Europe advancing without immigration. I can't think of a single modern industrialized nation that needs immigrants.
     
  18. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Come on, the US can't even educate all of their own (see thread: Percent of Americans who actually have a college degree ) and has been feeling a hangover from the College Education bubble (many threads have been posted on that in this forum in the past).

    You're completely not based in reality if you think the solution is going to be to just educate them, when the majority of Americans right now do not have this "education" you are referring to, and when many new grads have found the labor market is already oversaturated with degrees.
     
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2020
  19. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The US "needed" immigrants in the past when there were vast areas of unsettled territory that needed to be settled, and immigrants were moving out to places like Nebraska and the Midwest. Today that is no longer the case. Immigrants are not settling in new areas, they are moving to already overcrowded areas.

    Another member here also in the past pointed out how the second wave of immigration from about 1903 to 1915 may have strongly contributed towards causing the Great Depression, by helping to create a bubble.
    I realize that's something that's too complicated to go into and argue about here in this thread, but I'm just quickly pointing that out.
     
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2020
  20. Bowerbird

    Bowerbird Well-Known Member

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    There are so many assumptions here that it is just one giant

    upload_2020-12-4_9-59-10.jpeg
     
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  21. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I should start keeping a list of the ways Progressives use to dismiss irrefutable arguments from the other side.
    Extremely vague criticisms, that are painted with such a broad brush stroke they are impossible to even rebut, seem to be one of them.

    Now, what exactly is your claim? That Biden is not planning to bring in lots of low-skill immigrants?
     
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2020
  22. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    I suggest you study immigration in the US and it's impact on our culture, economy, etc.

    The US didn't need much outside help a couple of decades ago but things change. China will go through the same issues.

    Maybe you would be happy if the US paralleled your European advancements?
     
  23. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    Speaking of reality...one of the reasons why US business goes off-shore and/or outsources labor and brings in green-card workers is precisely because the US has not developed enough high quality and educated workers! Duh.

    Every American kid has the opportunity to attend public education. It is 100% up to the kids what they do with this education...
     
  24. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    How many green card immigrants are in the USA today because the USA cannot develop enough quality workers? Many of these are professional and high-tech.

    Again, try to understand how the US would look today if the US did not have immigrants?

    Immigrants had nothing to do with the Great Depression?? There was a stock market crash...banks in panic mode...I think horrific drought...
     
  25. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    I would be happy if the US had policies that were to the benefit of Americans rather than foreigners.

    In an era in which AI and automation are threatening so many jobs, it seems the height of folly to import more people, for no apparent reason other than to drive current wage rates down for the natives.
     
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