Can we have a civil, thoughtful discussion on this?

I've done the calc. Take the MW in 1968 and blow it out at an average of 3 or 3.5%. You come to around $10.

 

THAT IS irrelevant to the discussion of how an employer assesses the worth of employees. WHY does an employer offer a prospective employee $12/hour? He offers it because he knows he can most likely get more than $12 of value out of the person's work.

 

I went back and corrected an error in my spreadsheet, and recalculated.
Initially I had used 1936 as the initial year when it was 1938, so the minimum wage beginning with $0.25/hr if kept up to inflation should be $4.17 in 2017. Nice trick, picking 1968 as your base year, and that would result in a minimum wage of $11.50 in 2017, but the fact is that the minimum wage has always outpaced inflation. Not single year since 1938 has the minimum wage NOT exceeded the inflation increase.

 

But my original question was "What is a person worth?" Recognize as fact that not all persons are employed.

 

The point is that in 1968 the wage stagnation of the 1970s had not begun and the economy at that time was doing fine with workers wages going up and everyone having access to "the American Dream" of improving lifestyles. Parents had realistic expectations that their children could have a better life than they had. One full time income could support a family of four. College for the kids was possible. It was an economy that is worth preserving. And the MW at that level had been proven to be of no harm to the economy.

So then you are using an average inflation rate of just a bit over 4.1% per year. Using that rate even back in 1963 would give a MW in 2017 of $10.95. Nice trick of going back to 1938, before The New Deal, as your base year.

 

In my spreadsheet I used the annual average inflation rate published by the BLS for each year which varied from -2.1% to +13.5%.
The New Deal began in 1933, and the Second New Deal began in 1935 while the Federal minimum wage law began in 1938 setting it to $0.25/hr. which would make 1938 the base year, and well after the New Deal. Clinton raised the minimum wage to $5.15 in 1997 which would result in an inflation adjusted MW of $7.88 today.
I, at one time worked for $0.75/hr. and have worked for much less for short periods of time in my youth while seeking more permanent employment. How many career jobs start at and/or never pay more than the minimum wage? The 60's were the toughest years of my life, and it wasn't until the 70's that I found permanent employment and paid my way through college which looking back was money I could have put to better use.

 

Well, you know what? We could go back and forth all day and most of tomorrow about what the minimum wage should be based on inflationary adjustment of past numbers. But plenty pf people in their later 20s and in their 30s work for minimum wage or barely more, and that income is low enough that they qualify for Food Stamps and other public assistance. That is wrong. No one who works 40 hours a week should earn so little that it qualifies them for assistance. This is the norm if you work for Walmart. They instruct their low-paid employees in how to apply for assistance. So what does that mean? It means that taxpayers are subsidizing Walmart employees who earn low wages. It's interesting that the right gripes about wasteful spending and taxes they think are too high, but they don't call for an increase in the MW so that their tax dollars aren't spent subsidizing wages for businesses like Walmart. That's wrong. And the solution is not to change qualifications for assistance so they don't qualify any longer and take it away from them. That doesn't solve anything. It just makes conditions worse.

 

But I suppose we diverge as soon as I insist on a minimum wage that is above poverty level? (I note you and Kode slugging it out over the minimum wage).
After all, that's what the fighting is all about, ie, why and who 'must' live in poverty. (I recall Trump's comments about the outrage of poverty, in the campaign: eg, on education, the "tragedy of lovely minds denied access to knowledge" etc etc. He was eloquent, at times!)

A problem only solvable by public sector intervention (both national and supra-national) in private sector processes, given that no-one wants to see the limitations placed on individual freedoms that actual soviet-style communism involved (even China has moved past that model).

AFM (who can't distinguish between the two concepts in the above sentence) is waiting for supply-side free-trade to work its magic, in a world with massive youth underemployment (a bit like a person of religious faith insisting that the disadvantaged will be rewarded in heaven; but we have seen how some people are impatient to hasten the process through religious radicalisation, for example).

 

You wouldn't call what privilege? Privilege by definition is granted by law.

 

.

'A supra-national body' can have many different forms. Arguing that Stalin was attracted to 'supra-nationalism', and that consequently the concept itself is bad, is fallacious. Keynes' concept of an international (supra-national) 'Clearing Union' is light-years away from Soviet Collectivism

Of course that statement is simplistic in the extreme. His achievement in economic thought is remarkable, given the world in which he lived, with two world wars claiming more than a 100 million lives, the rapid industrialisation of Russia under Stalinist communism, and the Great Depression. Indeed, several eminent economists (eg, Blackford, Skidelsky) are urging revisiting of Keynes' ideas, post the GFC.

But you said in a previous post that "globalisation and protectionism' destroyed the city. Protectionism is indeed a misguided response to competitive pressures resulting from global free-trade, but there has to be a better way to manage these competing factors (such as oversight by a supra-national body).
BTW, is Pittsburg a good example of successful transition? Apparently the population of that city peaked at over 600, 000 between 1930 and 1960, and has declined to around half that since, with recent stabilisation in the last decade around the 320,000 mark (and the very latest figures apparently showing a slight contraction - certainly not expansion).

4% growth, with most of the gains accruing to the top, is useless. That's why political dysfunction and division are present everywhere. Trump was elected partly by the casualties of the rust-belt phenomenon . Le Pen in France is riding the same movement. Supply side and free-trade alone will not eliminate the problem.

BTW, even the authors of your Bible "the Commanding Heights", recognised that the collateral damage associated with some aspects of 'free-trade' would be unacceptable.

 

So, I saw Nanook's dog in your avatar, and I noticed I had not yet replied to this thread, so I took a look at it.

Long.

Very long.

Your query is, how did we get here ??

From a long term perspective throughout history, it all started with free land in the 1700's and 1800's. Plow it, plant it, wear it out, then move along.

Did you have to memorize that in middle school history too for the test?

Then the USA was very poor until Henry Ford and the Industrial Revolution.

Then the Roaring 1920's happened based on pure speculation in the stock market.

Then the crash.

The world crashed right after the USA did in 1929.

Then Adolf started the German recovery same as Reagan later did by rearming and with deficit spending and a big military buildup.

Then he invaded Poland and Russia. Then he declared war on the USA for declaring war on Japan.

After that there were boom years from 1942 to about 1972.

Then we got hit by recessions in the USA again and inflation to boot after Viet Nam.

It has been touch and go ever since.

I know I know .... this is getting long too.

But the tricks that Adolf and Reagan tried worked for a while.

Now DJ Trump wants to try the Reagan tricks again.

That's why Trump gave all those Nazi rallies -- which worked for him same as they had for Adolf.

Any further questions ???

 

Yes, we could go back and forth perpetually, but the fact of the matter is that the minimum wage was created in 1938, after the New Deal and the Second New Deal and was set initially at $0.25/hr. The BLS provides annual inflation figures, and based upon those figures the minimum wage has NEVER reduced below the effects of inflation. Had the minimum wage began in 1938 as $0.65/hr. it would have risen to $1.60/hr. in 1968 if kept up with inflation.

What should the minimum wage be?
Should there be a minimum wage?
Any discussion on those questions would be fruitless considering we cannot agree on a provable fact.

 

If you list your facts out in a numbered list then they are easier to verify than in a crammed-together paragraph that looks like crappy writing.

Did you take technical writing in college?

Did you pass?

Did you have a good professor?

Or did the class suck?

 

The minimum wage is going to be like any other political issue.

If you live in a state with a high cost of living the min wage will be high.

If you live a low cost of living state it will be low.

A Federal min wage seems unconstitutional to me -- not an interstate issue -- but certainly a bleeding heart issue.

http://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/state-minimum-wage-chart.aspx

 

In the late 1960's and early 1970's we (the USA) had pissed away so much tax money on the Viet Nam War that there was no improvement to infrastructure and the skimming away of tax monies depressed the economy even more.

 

Supply and demand.

 

I've simply been trying to get Kode to recognize the fact that the minimum wage has outpaced inflation, and if it had been tied and adjusted to annual inflation it would only be $4.17/hr. today.
And yes, you're correct, a minimum wage should be determined as a result of agreement between the employer and the employee.

No one 'must' live in poverty, while that does not mean that poverty should/could not exist at times for many of us.
IMO, the ONLY rational solution is for government to step aside and allow each and every individual society to recognize their problems at the source and resolve them as they find most rational, reasonable, efficient, and cost effective.

 

Yeah but that's not the point. The point is that if someone works 40 hours a week and still has to depend on public assistance, the MW is too low.

 

Supply and demand.

 

How's this?
1st column = BLS inflation rate
2nd column = Year
3rd column = Minimum wage adjusted for Inflation

0.979 1938 0.25
0.986 1939 0.24
1.007 1940 0.24
1.05 1941 0.24
1.109 1942 0.26
1.061 1943 0.28
1.017 1944 0.30
1.023 1945 0.31
1.083 1946 0.31
1.144 1947 0.34
1.081 1948 0.39
0.988 1949 0.42
1.013 1950 0.41
1.079 1951 0.42
1.019 1952 0.45
1.008 1953 0.46
1.007 1954 0.46
0.996 1955 0.47
1.015 1956 0.47
1.033 1957 0.47
1.028 1958 0.49
1.007 1959 0.50
1.017 1960 0.51
1.01 1961 0.51
1.01 1962 0.52
1.013 1963 0.52
1.013 1964 0.53
1.016 1965 0.54
1.029 1966 0.55
1.031 1967 0.56
1.042 1968 0.58
1.055 1969 0.60
1.057 1970 0.64
1.044 1971 0.67
1.032 1972 0.70
1.062 1973 0.73
1.11 1974 0.77
1.091 1975 0.86
1.058 1976 0.93
1.065 1977 0.99
1.076 1978 1.05
1.113 1979 1.13
1.135 1980 1.26
1.103 1981 1.43
1.062 1982 1.58
1.032 1983 1.67
1.043 1984 1.73
1.036 1985 1.80
1.019 1986 1.87
1.036 1987 1.90
1.041 1988 1.97
1.048 1989 2.05
1.054 1990 2.15
1.042 1991 2.27
1.03 1992 2.36
1.03 1993 2.43
1.026 1994 2.51
1.028 1995 2.57
1.03 1996 2.64
1.023 1997 2.72
1.016 1998 2.78
1.022 1999 2.83
1.034 2000 2.89
1.028 2001 2.99
1.016 2002 3.07
1.023 2003 3.12
1.027 2004 3.19
1.034 2005 3.28
1.032 2006 3.39
1.028 2007 3.50
1.038 2008 3.60
0.996 2009 3.74
1.016 2010 3.72
1.032 2011 3.78
1.021 2012 3.90
1.015 2013 3.98
1.016 2014 4.04
1.001 2015 4.11
1.013 2016 4.11
TBD 2017 4.17

 

I may have found your problem. What was the inflation rate in 1939? Please express it in words and not numbers.

 

Very good.

The other problem is that the cost of living is different in different locations.

My own personal view is that while a min wage is a good idea, it is only a good idea at the state level.

It is not a good idea at the Federal level.

And it may even be bleeding heart unconstitutional at the Federal level.

 

And from another perspective, the labour being performed is not worth more than being paid making 40 hours inadequate to acquire the needed means. Perhaps a second job, or a different job would be a better solution than requiring the tax paying public, many of whom work much more than 40 hours a week, to subsidize and effectively reduce the necessity/incentive to improve ones condition by their own effort.

 

Would you legislate that or let people just rely on public assistance?

But please answer post 546.

 

In 1939 the BLS reported an inflation rate of -1.4%
Or put into words, the average inflation rate for the year 1939 was negative one point four percent.

Year__January________through__________December_Year Average
1939 -1.4 -1.4 -1.4 -2.8 -2.1 -2.1 -2.1 -2.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 -1.4