Any owner who pays minimum wage is un-American - here's why

Even the most conservative estimates point to a $14/hr wage to be above the poverty line. Currently the minimum wage is less than $8 in most states. My question is, how does any CEO or even small business owner who pays a full time employee less than the $14/hr sleep at night ?

The very idea of unregulated capitalism will result in the rich squeezing their employees for everything they are worth (max input, minimize output) and minimum wage is an example of that.

Wal-mart's undeserving heirs make billions by paying their millions of hard working full time employees minimum wage with a horrific health care plan.

I want a fiscally conservative American to tell me why it's not treason for a CEO/business owner to pay their fellow American a below-the-poverty wage.

 

Middle and lower income conservatives and neoconservatives have been pushing for the very unregulated capitalism you describe. They believe it will lead to prosperity for all, even though years of empirical data exists showing this to be false.

Their faith in the ethics and benevolence of Big Business and the top income Americans is misguided. This has been proven ever since their King and Lord, Ronald Reagan sold the country on the scam of supply side economics.

With over thirty years of failed economic (and other) policies, these people never learn.

 

Conservative America sleeps well, in nice homes in nice beds. They sleep because they believe everyone has a choice and can choose a better job or improve themselves. Only thing is people can't always improve themselves. And frankly our economy needs people who get paid min wage or even worst work illegally. We as a society depend on the cheap labor. We are all responsible, but some of us choose to believe we can do better. Conservatives don't want to change the status quo... they are making too much money.

 

Ya, most folks don't take people serious, when they start labeling people un-American.

Just saying.

 

Maybe because he is offering products and services that many people desire enough to pay for, which allows him to make a living and offer jobs to his employees.

We don't have "unregulated capitalism". A huge part of the problem is the kind of cronyism that your beloved President engages in with his pals in big business.

Workers and employers negotiate things like wage. If a worker has more valuable skills, he gets paid more. If he does a better job and brings value to his employer, he'll be rewarded with more incentive. Contrary to popular opinion, employers like hiring and retaining employees who bring value to their company. It isn't cheap or easy to bring in someone else and train them.

Unfortunately right now, in this economy it's an employer's market, at least at the "low skill" end of the pool. They can afford to be selective, because there are too many people who need a job and not enough demand for goods and services. There are many reasons for why this has occurred.

Such simplistic arguments against capitalism are usually made by college students who've never had a real job. Have you ever taken an economics course, at least?

They have every right to earn as much money as they can. If they get forced to increase prices as a result of tax increases, regulations, and minimum wage hikes, they'll increase the cost of their products accordingly. That will harm the people who shop at Walmart who save a lot of money by purchasing there as opposed to elsewhere. This extra money helps these consumers.

Are the employees at Walmart better off not having a job? Those employees don't need to work there. They can find another company.

It's not treason simply because of your warped world view on how the world should operate.

Just think for one second. Let's say we do what you want... set the minimum wage at $14 an hour. What happens to the people who are currently making $14 an hour? The veterinary technician who assists the Veterinarian at the animal hospital... should she be ok with a Taco Bell employee making the same amount of money as her, even though her job requires more skill and training? Or does she deserve an increase, also? Let's say we double her salary... why is the accountant now making the same as a veterinary assistant? Should he be earning more money?

In your mind, every CEO is a rich greedy billionaire exploiting the poor, poor masses. That's the result of your MSNBC education. Most owners of companies are small businesses, who hire the majority of workers in the country. Many, if not most of these owners, are simply trying to build their business and are not rich by any stretch of the imagination. They are the ones who are taking all the risk in opening up a new business based on nothing but an idea and drive to succeed. As they grow, they hire new people, and this helps the economy. If the business fails, the employee loses their job, but the owner, in many cases, goes bankrupt. Should the owner not be paid more for being the one with the idea, and assuming all the risk?

What's your end game, here? Is it really to increase the minimum wage? That will increase unemployment. What about all those people who get priced out of the work force? Or are you just advocating for a fully socialist society where some Government mastermind decides a "fair price" for someone's labor?

 

Apparently you do not know what the poverty line is because 40 hours at MW by 1 person puts you slightly under it for 2 person household by a few hundred dollars.

 

The average liberal household actually makes more than the average conservative household.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/11/who_really_cares.html

What's your next theory, champ?

 

How many people do you socialist hire ? Do you know anything about starting a business with little money? Why do you think every wage paid has to be a career wage?

Do any of you pay more then the asking price on anything? How are you different then a pwrson buying labor then?

 

Their idea of a "living wage" is to have room and board, plenty of food, iPhones, iPads, wi-fi, money for pot, etc.

 

Yet most people make above the poverty line. Since free markets apparently destroy wages, then the reason for this has to be government, by your reasoning. Can you tell me what regulations have forced companies to pay most workers above minimum wage?

 

The real choices are hiring illegal aliens, outsourcing overseas, or using automation. Under the existing political order prevailing in the US it generally doesn't make sense to hire American citizens at any wage. Reality is amoral. It is neither good nor bad.

 

over 15% live below the poverty line yes, but about 50% live within the 130% of poverty that will qualify them for federal programs in most states. source

 

So why is the 50% not being paid the bare minimum then, if free markets result in everyone being paid the bare minimum?

 

Much of american enterprise has decided that it is necessary to keep most of their workers at near poverty wages to discourage them having the ability to save enough to build a warchest which would enable them to get out of the wage-slave trap.

 

That doesn't answer the question at all. Why are most American workers not paid the bare minimum? If these companies don't want workers to save money, why do most make above minimum wage?

 

If you are making less than about $15 an hour you are barely sustaining yourself. The reality is that the median wage for a family of 4 (which most likely has to earner's in it) makes less than $52 thousand. Those that make more than that are either highly skilled or risen in the system by brown nosing their way.

An example. I am very good at what I do. I make more myself than most two income households. I have also been doing it for more than 30 years. My job can't be outsourced. When I retire in 3 years the person who takes over will be lucky to make 1/3rd of what I do under the pay policies of my employer. Why don't they lay me off and replace me, because they know I would sue their asses to kingdom come for age discrimination and win. But in reality, very few people are in my position, I have far greater bargaining power than most. I am grandfathered into an older system. Those younger than 50 or 55, don't have the protections I do. I think they should.

 

Raising the minimum wage increases the cost of goods, which increases the cost of living, which raises the poverty line.

Simple economics.

 

You still aren't answering the question. $15 is still not the bare minimum allowed by government. So why do companies not just pay everyone the bare minimum wage? Why do most people make above minimum wage? Why do 20% of households make above 100k (according to the 2010 census bureau) , more than double minimum wage? Again,the original argument responded to was that free markets tend to reduce wages to the bare minimum. If that is the case, the government must be the reason wages are not all at that bare minimum. So what government policy causes wages to be above minimum wage?

 

What an ignorant bucket of hogwash the OP is.

 

And you want to fix that by destroying the lowest rungs on the ladder, so the least experienced workers can't get experience when their young, and work themselves up to that.

Your solution, is the problem. You do not create prosperity by pricing the least productive workers out of the market. White South Africans used minimum wage to discriminate against blacks, here, it's celebrated as "progressive" for some asinine reason.

GDP per capita is below that, $47,000. So the Families are doing well, considering $47,000 alone leaves us as 7th in the world.

You also have to account living costs based on where in the U.S. you live.

A family in Kansas can have a single source income of $70,000 and live well with a house, while a combined income in New York over $100,000 struggles just to keep an apartment.

They'll have less experience, and it sounds to me whatever you do isn't as useful or as difficult to find people to do as it was when you came in.

And turn us into France, with it's over 25% youth unemployment figure. People must earn that bargaining power, economics is based on wealth creation, not based what you think you or I need, but whether or not other people value what you can do for them.

If you force employers to keep people on even when it isn't in their interest, you get vast amounts of ill-qualified people who get to keep their jobs, while the young and other prospects who would have otherwise replaced them are left twisting in the wind. Just like in France.

 

republicans want to do away with the min wage and overtime, I just don't get them sometimes

 

The minimum wage in 1965 was $1.25 per hour, you could actually live on that. If the minimum wage had kept pace with inflation it would be $9.24 today.

 

Not all Republicans want that. Conservatives and libertarians generally like less unemployment as opposed to more unemployment, so eliminating the minimum wage is one way to do that.

The confusion you have is related to your lack of education in the subject of economics. It's not a required class in most liberal arts degree programs.



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And if Obama's recovery was anything like Reagan's recovery we'd have millions more jobs than we have now. What's your point?

 

Cute how you imply that unemployment would drop if min wage was abolished, but you don't mention what good is a job that pays $3/hr. Could you live on that or even min wage? I know I couldn't.

But more importantly, what are these jobs that employers are not offering because min wage requirements?

 

Of course like All lefties you like to pretend that people will be there forever, that they arent gaining job skils and an employment history, or that wages will tend to rise overtime as supply pool of people willing to work for that wage is consumed. But again, no idea about supply and demand, so we have an artificially high supply of labor at all times, making it harder to ask for a raise because it is always a buyers market. Well done libbers. What is worse, the jobs producing below the minimum wage do not just get paid more, they simply disappear, and "go offshore" when "made illegal" is more accurate.