There's very little evidence of that overall. Look, if good paying jobs were more available, and the GOP hadn't blocked everything they could that would have increased job growth, and conservative policies weren't decimating wages, these people would be far less likely to be on welfare. The average time on welfare for families was always a short amount of time, like a year, until the families were able to move onto better paying jobs. And really, since most of our welfare dollars go to banks and corporations, I think a low wage worker isn't where I'd want to focus my efforts of disparaging people. When some billionaire is on the government teat, and paying (*)(*)(*)(*) wages, then that is something to be upset about. YMMV The debt is as high as it is because conservatives talk out of both sides of their mouth. They call themselves "business friendly" then have lower economic and job growth. http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-surprise-probusiness-20140506-column.html They call for lower deficits, yet in crease deficits and debt by hurting economic performance and cutting taxes when they know the tax cuts makes it impossible to pay for necessary spending. And the income tax works pretty well, when it's progressive and has moderate (say up to 50-60% top marginal tax rates on the highest income and capital gains earners).
Sure they can. They need a willingness to place value in their employees and customers. We're starting to see companies like Gap and others making commitments to pay better wages. Raising wages usually has an extremely minimal impact on prices of goods and services sold.
And I forgot to add that keeping employees for longer periods of time, by paying them good wages, means that a company is most often more profitable, as you're not constantly training new people (training new people in low wage jobs is an added expense) and customer satisfaction is higher, as customers have more competent sales people, or employees are more productive depending on the job.
Labor is a significant cost for most all business. I'll guess labor on average is 15-20% of total business costs. And even if a particular business can afford to pay higher labor costs, if their vendors are paying higher labor costs and increasing their prices of materials and services, this impacts the cost of doing business. Nothing is free! If we increase the cost of doing business, eventually this forces prices to rise, or forces offshore sourcing, etc. Recently on Bill Maher, and I don't know how correct it was, but he talked about a study recently done that said $130K annual income is required to live a reasonable life in the USA. In the desirable areas of the US, where the jobs exist, where technology exists, where education exists, where infrastructure exists, it costs a lot of money to live! Increasing wages at any level exacerbates the increasing cost of living. BTW; if an employee is not a happy camper, giving the employee higher wages might make them happier for about ten minutes. A company needs more than higher wages to keep employees...
I believe, reserving labor through the market friendliness of unemployment compensation in at-will employment States could lead to Capitalists seeking cost savings potentials from better products at lower cost, in the way of advances in technologies; instead of feeling a sense of entitlement to cheap labor.
It used to be considered true. But in today's world, most have come to believe that such traditional thinking was foolish, irrelevant and immaterial. Today, America for example, is over 17 trillion dollars in debt. In debt to whom? And what difference does it make? What impact and affect on the people of America does the debt have? A 17 trillion dollar national debt notwithstanding, Americans continue to get up every morning. The lights and television are still on; the internet works; the coffee brews; the cars still run; workplaces, including Facebook (and Political Forum) are operating normally; restaurants, supermarkets and shopping malls are doing business as usual; the Department of Defense is still running around the world imposing American democracy on everyone -- nothing has changed, everything is still the same. Debt? What debt? What difference does it make? Why not continue to ignore the so-called debt and deficit -- be happy and keep on shopping. Why not run the deficit up even more -- much more -- and shop more?
Moderate inflation is good for economic growth. Money is hoarded by the wealthy during times of low inflation and deflation. When there is inflation, each dollar is losing value relative to the larger economy, and to keep that wealth, or to grow it, the money is invested. Now, there comes a point where inflation can get too high, of course. But historically, 4%-6% isn't excessive, and incentivizes investment. People are still hung up on the stagflation caused by the oil shocks and Nixon/Ford policies of the 1970s. So, increasing the inflation via better wages is a good idea. To slow or stop the outsourcing, monetary policy to lower the value of the dollar, or making trading partners end their currency manipulation, would make our exports more competitive, and imports less of a flood to drown in. Further reducing the overall health care costs than even the ACA has done by slowing health care inflation, would also go a long way to reducing costs for businesses, making them competitive.
I realize that people now are alot dumber than they used to be. << That does not make a valid argument. Well as you might have noticed recently, the corps that assess credit worthiness almost downgraded us (which would've had sweeping effects on our credit dependent economy) and if we don't start paying down our debt the next time we come up for review they WILL downgrade us. People are losing confidence in the Dollar. Eventually they will find a new reserve currency and when that happens our economy will fail harder than it did in the Great Depression. Let's keep spending and spending: While we're at it let's do a few speed balls as well!
Simply because some on the Left believe those on the Right should have more Faith in Capitalism and in making more money; we have an official Mint to work with. Only the right doesn't seem to understand the implications for capitalism.
Simply reserving some labor and solving for a natural rate of unemployment through a form of minimum wage could engender an economic climate where capital is used to find and purchase better products at lower cost even if through advancing technologies.
Why is that? We had massive budget surpluses, for a while; why didn't the right insist we pay down the debt then, like they are now?
because people can be fooled into thinking they are bad and the wealthy can then USE it as a issue to get people to vote against their own best interests. People DIE countries are NOT DESIGNED to DIE. If you were NEVER going to die you would have a line of credit that went on as long as you were alive huh. only things like people who will die need to plan to pay everything off at some point huh
Dude, it is part of our historical record; why not read up on the issues so that you are more well informed.
I'm quite familiar with the historical record, perhaps you should look into the details a little more closely. In 1999, eliminating social security taxes collected, there was a $1.9 billion surplus yet the Federal debt increased $130,077,892,717.81. And in 2000 there was a $86.4 billion surplus with the Federal debt increasing $17,907,308,271.43. Neither, in my opinion would be considered 'massive', which is what I was questioning about your post. You have to go back to post WW II and the Eisenhower presidency to find a record of actual debt reduction and real budget surpluses. Don't forget the dot com bubble and how it contributed to the short lived appearance of a budget surplus.
The point was, where was the right when they could have been claimoring to pay down th debt with surpluses instead of deficits.
maybe, because the right is obnoxious regarding social spending on the least wealthy in our republic under our form of Capitalism.
Meh... What the press/media have to do is stop throwing out numbers that don't mean anything to anyone. Put it in context of debt:GDP ratios.
