Ideology attempting to replace reality is the only means that opponents to the MW have to use. - - - Updated - - - Who says they'd lose their jobs? As Anikdote pointed out, the research says the minimum wage rising doesn't harm employment.
Who says? Mathematics. If a worker can produce $8.00 of value to an employer, but can't produce $9.00, an employer won't pay him $9.00, even if that is the required wage.
So your comment is an expression of pure ignorance? I can accept that some people could be that ignorant although I'd recommend they spend a few minutes every day becoming informed instead of expressing ignorant beliefs. Instead of "knowing" something not supported by anything factual why not learn some facts so to avoid expressing ignorant statements.
CORRECTION: I do not know how anyone in America can live COMFORTABLY on less than $125 per hour. I have lived on less that $6,000 per year (adjusted for devaluation of the dollar). Try to stop and think before criticizing someone.
The Mafia offering to protect an enterprise from the criminal acts of independent gangs or individuals in the neighborhood is not threatening any violence against the enterprise. It's promising to prevent violence against the enterprise. It's still a "protection racket" based upon the negative affects that the enterprise would face if it doesn't accept the protection and pay for it. This is no different than the employer that requires an employee to work for less than what it costs the employee to survive. If the applicant doesn't accept the employment they will starve to death almost immediately but if they except the employment they can delay starving to death a little bit longer. It is still the threat of "unemployment" that forces the person to accept employment at below the costs they must pay to provide the labor. Let me provide an analogy. I own a business that sells goods. I do not sell those goods at a price below what it costs me to produce them and I can't be forced to do that because I'd simply shut the business down instead. I don't have to operate at a loss because I can always close the business. Most people cannot afford to not sell their labor at loss if they're unemployed. Outside of committing suicide they have no option but to accept the wages offered to them by the employer. Few have the financial resources to survive long without being employed and when they reach the point that they must accept employment to provide temporary relief (e.g. food and shelter) they're forced to accept that employment even if it doesn't provide enough income for other necessities such as clothing or transportation. We would never expect an enterprise to operate indefinately at a loss but for some bazaar reason we do expect individuals to operate indefinately at a loss. As I've also noted there is no rational reason why an enterprise cannot provide adequate compensation for labor by including it in a viable business plan.
The statement is still an expression of ignorance because you "don't know how" and yet people can live not just in comfort but in lavish luxury for far less than $125/hr. Before my "retirement" I earned about 1/2 of that $125/hr and lived a most lavish lifestyle of luxury including, but not limited to, drinking alcoholic beverages that costs over $200/bottle. I could afford to take limosines whenever I wanted and could afford to fly to vacation spots anywhere in the world. I never concerned myself with ever balancing my checkbook because I always earned far more than I could spend. I owned numerous Mercedes to drive even though I could only drive one at a time. I purchase Harley motorcycles for cash and never needed to borrow money. I was able to literally give away tens of thousands of dollars to worthy charities and to help the less fortunate. No, I didn't just live comfortably but instead lived lavishly so obviously you need to do a little more research so you know the difference between "basic support and comfort" and the income requirements to live a lavish lifestyle. The fact that you "don't know" is just an expression of ignorance on the subject.
I doubt your claims, in America, especially not after adjusted for the devaluation of the dollar. That sound like pure bull (*)(*)(*)(*). You probably still live in your mother's basement and get an allowance. I've been poor and less poor, I'll take less poor, thank you.
There's nothing wrong with a legitimate security service, such as ADP or Brinks. A protection racket, however is nothing more than extortion. An offer of employment is nothing at all like the crime of extortion, since the employer is not making any kind of threat of aggression.
Because the minimum wage is below the cost of living. The question is not whether the amount that they are paid is above minimum wage, its whether the amount they are paid is sufficient. If it is not sufficient, then the minimum wage needs to be raised so that the workers are not exploited. You seen to have this idea that people will not work for less than they need. Of course they will, because something is better than nothing. They will work 2 jobs or even more if they have to in order to survive.because the alternative is starvation and homelessness. Its survival, not living. This costs all of us, because these people are not consuming and so the transactions rate within the economy is slower. This make the economy smaller. If the minimum wage was $0.01, there would be no one on the minimum wage. There would also widescale starvation.
Longshot: Why do employers pay 97% of workers more than they need to? Latherty: Because minimum wage is below the cost of living. What?
Oh, work it out Longshot. Read the entire entry and apply some intellect. It means nothing what the existing minimum wage is nor how many are on it. That is just the limit of exploitation permitted and the most exploited that people are. Now if that limit is above the level of sufficiency, OK. If it is below the level of sufficiency, then it's not OK. Let's look at your argument another way. In industrial England, there was no minimum wage (main wage =0). People were paid more than nothing. Therefore (according to your argument) there was no exploitation of workers. Yet we know there was horrific exploitation.
ADP and Brinks don't send "Bruno" to beat the crap out of anyone that messes with one of their "clients" and aren't nearly as effective as Mafia protection. You're right. The employment isn't at all like to crime of extortion. The coercion is much more invidious.
Yes, I know. That's what I said. One is a legitimate and valued service, the other is extortion. Coercion is the practice of persuading someone to do something bu using force or the threat of force. An employer doesn't do that.
97% of people are currently being paid above the minimum wage. You haven't explained why their employers don't pay them minimum wage, since that is the current floor. Also, lets say that someone is currently earning $8.00 an hour, which is above the minimum wage of $7.25. If you raise the minimum wage to $10, this person will no longer be a viable employee and will lose his job. Why do you want to throw people out of work? In fact, why do you want to continue to force unemployment on a person who might be able to be hired for $5.00. You would rather this person remain unemployed, gaining no work experience that might allow him to increase his value to an employer?
Presuming economic rationality, they will pay the least someone is willing to work. Your argument fails because people are willing to work below the level of sufficiency. Perhaps you can explain why an 8-year old would work at a factory for less than the cost of a day's food. http://www2.needham.k12.ma.us/nhs/cur/Baker_00/2002_p7/ak_p7/childlabor.html
I am not arguing that people are unwilling to work below the level of sufficiency, so that's a strawman on your part. My argument is this: Let's say that someone is currently earning $8.00 an hour, which is above the minimum wage of $7.25. If you raise the minimum wage to $10, this person will no longer be a viable employee and will lose his job. So the question then is: Why do you want to cause this person to become unemployed? I would imagine it was to earn money.
You included tithing to a church? By a minimum wage earner? You also forgot taxes. You still need to pay taxes even at that income. Granted, you will not pay much in FICA but all the rest still apply. In California, the only place where you can rent a room for 400 bucks is in a complete hell hole somewhere in Merced or Bakersfield. make the minimum at least 10 bucks an hour, hell, make it 15 bucks an hour. Remember that when everyone is on the same level, all incomes rise accordingly because everyone spends most of what they earn at this income.
I did miss taxes, but as you stated that will only be about 10% +/- at that income level. People move all the time because the cost of living is too high. Retirees move to Florida to escape high taxes, Long Islanders move into Pennsylvania for lower cost of living. So it isn't unreasonable for an unskilled, high school drop out to move to be able to live within their means. Tithing and saving is easy when one pays God then themselves first (after taxes).
You cannot move low wage jobs, they are needed everywhere unless you expect to have a machine flip burgers for you in SoCal or have a robot clean your hotel room. High touch jobs are the economy of the future. It is time we start paying them something they can live on because that is the only type of work you cannot outsource.
No one forced the employees to work at these so-called low wage job. If no one will work for the business, then the business will necessarily raise the incentive to work. The workers can move out of the area with the high cost of living. Then just like any other time in history, if the employment rate is high, wages naturally increase to lure the best and the brightest. Socialism has been proven to be a failure all over the world every time.
Nonsense. using that logic, if we lowered minimum wage to 1 penny, everyone would be employed and life would be grand. The minimum wage must be linked to what it takes to live in a country or region without being destitute. In addition, that job should not be available at a lower price via illegal hiring (under the table) or by some lower cost area within the same economy. This is how states in the south get factories to move there. While it may seem good for a state, it does nothing for the nation. One job at 10 bucks moves to Alabama and the same job now pays 7 bucks. Who wins here? Not the employee nor the national economy. Look at it another way. Say everyone had a million dollar job and it costs 2 million to live. is that good? Or it costs 500 grand to live and every one of us could either save 500 grand or spend it. Which is a better situation?
it doesn't work that way. Employers don't employ people they don't need. Rather than sack the person and lose production/ market share, they are more likely to transfer the cost onto price. Their domestic competitors have the same problem. So it potentially causes cost-push inflation, but not unemployment. It was to not starve.
Yes, it does work that way. If the marginal revenue product of a worker is $8.00, the employer will not pay him more than $8.00, otherwise the employer would be actually losing money by employing that worker. If you raise the minimum wage to $9.00, that employee will lose his job.
Only if employer's margin on the final product was insufficient to cover the $1 and the product demand was entirely price elastic. Look back to my industrial revolution 8 yo factory worker working for below-subsitence wages. Meanwhile, these factory owners built some of the most impressive mansions ever built. The margin was available to pay higher wages. Why was the margin available? Because the product sale is a different transaction to the employment of workers. It has its own demand-driven pricing point determined by the product's desirability and availability. The business has, presumably, the minimum amount of workers it needs to produce the product. Sacking people will affect its production. It will not sack people unless it is losing money on the product sales. It will lose money on the product sales as a consequence of the wage rise only if its margins are insufficient to absorb the cost and it cannot raise prices (it usually can raise prices because every other competing producer has the same problem and product categories as a whole are usually price inelastic).
A business employs people for the purpose of generating profit. It a worker only contributes $7.25 to the bottom line, won't pay him any more than $7.25, otherwise he would end up losing money.
