Actually Mr. President, we should get rid of the minimum wage

[iguanaman]

Minimum wage worker:
In 2003 minimum wage was $5.15 in 2013 $7.25 40% increase

Average American
in 2003 the wage was $42,484 in 2013 it is $49,638 17% increase.

It would seem to me the minimum wage worker is fairing better than the "average" American.

You liberals continue to push stuff like this on businesses and wonder why they move over seas. A company that is forced to provide health benefits and wage increases, is not getting a more productive worker in return (because lets face it, if they were a good worker they would have moved up to management of found a better paying job). I see the net result of this in the long run is that businesses will just hire less people.

Maybe in the end that is the plan though, push people out of their jobs so the governent can sweep in and rescue them with sweet welfare packages and ensure that they are dependent on the government for the rest of their lives.

Not getting a productive worker? US workers are among the most productive in the world. Too bad their wages have not kept up.

 

[humbolt]

I recently had an employee trip on an untied shoelace. I'm expecting OSHA to supply shoelace inspectors any day now. They will of course have to be federally certified and be well versed in all shoelace types and will eventually be able to inspect velcro as well, after a week long, $800,000 seminar in Taos of course. With my luck someone will show up in loafers, my lord the havoc that will create.

Of course it's your fault for allowing an employee to work in a possibly dangerous situation. You should've tied that shoelace yourself at the very least, and perhaps you should consider doing the economy a favor, and actually HIRE someone to tie such shoelaces for you and your employees. And furthermore, I suspect that nowhere in the hiring process have you ever mentioned that employees, as part of their no doubt already substantial duties, should have to tie their own shoelaces. Was that ever mentioned as a requirement of the job? I suspect not. Hmmmm.....

 

[radcen]

Minimum wage worker:
In 2003 minimum wage was $5.15 in 2013 $7.25 40% increase

Average American
in 2003 the wage was $42,484 in 2013 it is $49,638 17% increase.

It would seem to me the minimum wage worker is fairing better than the "average" American.

You liberals continue to push stuff like this on businesses and wonder why they move over seas. A company that is forced to provide health benefits and wage increases, is not getting a more productive worker in return (because lets face it, if they were a good worker they would have moved up to management of found a better paying job). I see the net result of this in the long run is that businesses will just hire less people.

Maybe in the end that is the plan though, push people out of their jobs so the governent can sweep in and rescue them with sweet welfare packages and ensure that they are dependent on the government for the rest of their lives.

What has inflation done in the same time frame?

Real inflation, I mean... increases on what I actually pay at the checkout. Not some government chart that excludes half of what I and everybody else typically buys.

The middle-class person, while still taking a hit as well, is able to better (relatively) absorb price increases than a MW person. Your statement that the MW worker is fairing better is ridiculous.

 

[phattonez]

Not getting a productive worker? US workers are among the most productive in the world. Too bad their wages have not kept up.

 

[iguanaman]

LOL Income per capita has nothing to do with median wages.

 

[Master PO]

1. I did not say, nor did I imply, that we are a democracy. In fact, I clearly and specifically used the word "representatives".

2. Within the framework of the Constitution, of course. Please don't tell me that you are one of those people who needs to have every single nuance and disclaimer spelled out to them in every single post to understand a point in a conversation. Since you joined DP I have liked your posts and thought you were better than that.

in communicating post (text) it is not always possible for complete understanding, of exactly how a person wishes to covey what he wants to says, so if i have misinterpreted you incorrectly, then the fault is mind, and i withdraw the democracy statement, and if you felt i was insulting you, not my intention and i beg your pardon..sir.

in going back to my statement, i was conveying government has no authority to do things i cannot do in the matters of....... life, liberty, and property, i cannot steal, kill, make someone a slave, nor can government do any of these things, making a economic or social contract with another person (which does not involve third person or entity) which we mutually agree is no business of government.

 

[gingern44]

Of course it's your fault for allowing an employee to work in a possibly dangerous situation. You should've tied that shoelace yourself at the very least, and perhaps you should consider doing the economy a favor, and actually HIRE someone to tie such shoelaces for you and your employees. And furthermore, I suspect that nowhere in the hiring process have you ever mentioned that employees, as part of their no doubt already substantial duties, should have to tie their own shoelaces. Was that ever mentioned as a requirement of the job? I suspect not. Hmmmm.....

".

Guilty as charged. Unfortunately I've been to busy running a business to go back to school to get my "shoe tying degree", thus making me unqualified to train my employees in the correct shoe tying methodology. I'm certain however that there are former OSHA personnel now working in the private sector (or as we like to put it, raping us from the other side) who would be glad to help us out with a 2 day $2800 shoe tying seminar. No doubt I will have to pay them every year so I can be to sure to keep up on advances in shoe tying technology and the accompanying 1000 pages of new standards.

In the mean time I will take your comments to heart and get my attorneys to stop by so that we can amend our employee policy handbook to incorporate shoe tying. That of course won't do any good as any mishaps will obviously be due to our not being thorough enough in our training. Maybe I should opt for the weeklong $8200 dollar seminar, what the heck we're not doing anything else like working.

 

[humbolt]

".

Guilty as charged. Unfortunately I've been to busy running a business to go back to school to get my "shoe tying degree", thus making me unqualified to train my employees in the correct shoe tying methodology. I'm certain however that there are former OSHA personnel now working in the private sector (or as we like to put it, raping us from the other side) who would be glad to help us out with a 2 day $2800 shoe tying seminar. No doubt I will have to pay them every year so I can be to sure to keep up on advances in shoe tying technology and the accompanying 1000 pages of new standards.

In the mean time I will take your comments to heart and get my attorneys to stop by so that we can amend our employee policy handbook to incorporate shoe tying. That of course won't do any good as any mishaps will obviously be due to our not being thorough enough in our training. Maybe I should opt for the weeklong $8200 dollar seminar, what the heck we're not doing anything else like working.

Heh. That's ample proof that you may not know what you may have done wrong until more aware people point it out to you. There's no escape. You're culpable. If I were you, I'd staple the damn shoes with the laces to each employees feet as they enter work. I had a guy once who got hit by lightening on a construction jobsite an hour after I shut it down. He claimed it was my fault. I had no idea I had such power at the time. Had I known, I might have chosen a different target. $10,000 later, it was dismissed.

 

[Heebie Jeebie]

Absolutely. Soon they'll be checking to see whether your toilet paper comes off the top of the roll, or the bottom, with fines attached to the undesirable method.

Well it's not like they aren't already up my butt checking other things, they may as well check the TP too!

 

[Heebie Jeebie]

Hmmm. Every time the matter of raising the minimum wage comes up, dullards start babbling the same old half-baked theories and predictions that have never come to pass on any of the occasions when the minimum wage actually was increased in the past. The minimum wage should be raised and then indexed. That would solve the matter. Then we could move on to how to boost the paychecks of the middle class so as to put the economy back on track from the right-wing inspired disasters of the past 30 years.

View attachment 67142757

What would it solve?

 

[Heebie Jeebie]

I recently had an employee trip on an untied shoelace. I'm expecting OSHA to supply shoelace inspectors any day now. They will of course have to be federally certified and be well versed in all shoelace types and will eventually be able to inspect velcro as well, after a week long, $800,000 seminar in Taos of course. With my luck someone will show up in loafers, my lord the havoc that will create.

Your employees can afford shoes?

 

[cpwill]

They don't care if it works. They're just trying to win votes from people who don't know better. It's feel-good legislation at its worst.

Or (cynically) everyone dependent upon handouts is a sure-fire voter. People who are self-improving and moving up the economic ladder, not so much.

:shrug:

 

[ttwtt78640]

They don't care if it works. They're just trying to win votes from people who don't know better. It's feel-good legislation at its worst.

It is simply taking the unfunded mandate, the basis for PPACA, to a new level. Traditionally the minimum wage (MW) is raised after it is generally exceeded in the "free market", basically it is only adjusted for inflation. This idea of using the MW as a "free" stimulus program is indeed clever, it transfers part of the expense of low income based entitlements from the gov't to the employer. To the uneducated sheeple it looks like it is free, simply mandate that all full time, MW workers get a $3,700/year raise and magically they will "need" less welfare (in all of its many forms). What is overlooked is that the resulting inflation (all rents, prices and wages will creep up as well) resulting in the need for matching COLA adjustments in SS and gov't retirement benefits. Rinse and repeat...

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0774473.html

 

[RGacky3]

First, I would like to establish that the minimum wage is supposed to be a starting point.
The two richest men in the history of our species, John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie started their careers making less then 50 cents a day. Obviously they didn't become the richest men in the world by continuously making half a dollar a day. Low-paying employment is supposed to be for younger workers who are likely to not have the skills to accept any other type of employment.

It doesn't matter what it's "supposed" to be, what it is depends on the labor market ....

Second, I would like to establish that the real minimum wage is zero. Unemployment.
While a "living wage" or "minimum wage" sounds like some sort of compassionate instrument, what it really is is productivity discrimination. You see, the minimum wage prevents anyone who produces less then the minimum wage in value from being able to participate in the labor market. Driving up the minimum wage lowers employment for said individuals.

Unemployment isn't a minimum wage, its no wage ...

Also no one produces less than the minimum wage, infact most workers making minimum wage don't "produce" anything, they work in retail.

Also any company making a profit can afford to pay their workers more.

Also no company will hire more people than they need no matter what, if a company NEEDS a worker they'll hire them no matter what the minimum wage.

In other countries we have much higher minimum wages (in Norway its around $20) and better employment.

 

[Oceandan]

Also any company making a profit can afford to pay their workers more.

This statement and this statement alone is proof positive, liberals and socialists will always fail. It's also the reason America will undergo economic calamity prior to ever righting herself. The 47% have truly become the 50% plus one. A non democrat will not win another national election until the economy collapses.

 

[Danbury]

This statement and this statement alone is proof positive, liberals and socialists will always fail. It's also the reason America will undergo economic calamity prior to ever righting herself. The 47% have truly become the 50% plus one. A non democrat will not win another national election until the economy collapses.

Huh? From where do you think payroll funding comes? Trees?

Economic calamity: 1929 (Repub president); 2008 (Repub president);

Trickle-down economics, aka Reaganomics, aka GushUPonomics, aka redistribution of wealth to the top 1%, necessarily creates an impoverished 99%.

 

[RGacky3]

This statement and this statement alone is proof positive, liberals and socialists will always fail. It's also the reason America will undergo economic calamity prior to ever righting herself. The 47% have truly become the 50% plus one. A non democrat will not win another national election until the economy collapses.

Its by definition true ....

 

[Oceandan]

Its by definition true ....

That is why you have no idea how realville works.

 

[Oceandan]

Huh? From where do you think payroll funding comes? Trees?

Economic calamity: 1929 (Repub president); 2008 (Repub president);

Trickle-down economics, aka Reaganomics, aka GushUPonomics, aka redistribution of wealth to the top 1%, necessarily creates an impoverished 99%.

Revisionist doesn't work. Both periods after your citations undergo prolonged malaise due to democrat socialists.

 

[RGacky3]

That is why you have no idea how realville works.

... No, profit is all the revenue after all costs are taken into account, since wages are a cost, if there is profit then you could pay more in wages.

 

[Oceandan]

In a true free market capitalist economy, there is no need for "minimum wage" it's set by the market. If a business needs an employee they hire one at the prevailing wage. If the wage is too low the employee leaves for better pay. The business needs to hire again. Intelligent business owners understand the biggest cost to their business is labor. Continually hiring and not retaining employees is a vicious destructive circle. In order to escape same, given the above, they would increase the wage offered. Wages are simply a market factor self regulated by supply and demand. Artificial manipulation via regulation such as minimum wage, only serves to reduce business ability to hire before absolute necessity. Of course the aspect liberals are never truthful regarding minimum wage is it's forces the entire supply and demand of wages higher. Thus business not only pass along the "cost" of minimum wage they also simply stop hiring as many.

Wages presently are falling and have been since the current occupier of the White House was immaculated. Increasing the minimum wage at this juncture in a non recovery with a depressed job market would only serve to exacerbate unemployment and slow the economy, which is already teetering on retraction.

 

[Heebie Jeebie]

... No, profit is all the revenue after all costs are taken into account, since wages are a cost, if there is profit then you could pay more in wages.

Can they cut wages next year when there are no profits?

 

[RGacky3]

Can they cut wages next year when there are no profits?

Absolutely and they do, infact they cut them when there ARE profits and they CAN cut wages.

 

[Danbury]

Revisionist doesn't work. Both periods after your citations undergo prolonged malaise due to democrat socialists.

Revisionist? You're unaware that we've lived under trickle-down for 30 years? Well, you absolutely should not trust a stranger on a blog. So check for yourself the pattern of distribution of wealth in the US over the last 30 years.

from your argument I gather you have no problem with the policies that CAUSE economic crashes to begin with and that you are more bothered by how LONG they take from which to recover? That doesn't make sense. For one thing, there is no way to prove that other policies would have caused a faster recovery. They might have even caused a more slow recovery.

Also, the policies up to now have continued to benefit the top 1%, so I'm not sure how you get to a conclusion that it's been Democratic, socialist policies that have done anything.

Thirdly, whether implemented by a Dem or Repub, it's actually been conservative policies (deregulation, lax government oversight, redistribution of wealth to a tiny percentage of the population) that got us into the mess we're in.

It is not enough to just say buzzwords, like "Socialists". It actually has to make sense, and making sense mean rooting your argument in reality and evidence, NOT in feeling something and repeating what you're told to repeat by FOX and Limbaugh and Frank Luntz.

See?

The US is hardly a socialist country. I mean, wow.

 

[RGacky3]

In a true free market capitalist economy, there is no need for "minimum wage" it's set by the market. If a business needs an employee they hire one at the prevailing wage. If the wage is too low the employee leaves for better pay. The business needs to hire again. Intelligent business owners understand the biggest cost to their business is labor. Continually hiring and not retaining employees is a vicious destructive circle. In order to escape same, given the above, they would increase the wage offered. Wages are simply a market factor self regulated by supply and demand. Artificial manipulation via regulation such as minimum wage, only serves to reduce business ability to hire before absolute necessity. Of course the aspect liberals are never truthful regarding minimum wage is it's forces the entire supply and demand of wages higher. Thus business not only pass along the "cost" of minimum wage they also simply stop hiring as many.

Wages presently are falling and have been since the current occupier of the White House was immaculated. Increasing the minimum wage at this juncture in a non recovery with a depressed job market would only serve to exacerbate unemployment and slow the economy, which is already teetering on retraction.

That's nonsense, your assuming that there are just tons of Jobs so workers can just leave for better pay ... they can't, they need to eat and there are not plenty of jobs around, also capital can withhold, labor cannot, if capital does'nt invest it can wait, or just keep it in a bank, labor needs to work or else the worker doesn't eat.

Wages are a market factor, but different from others, because wages end up being someones food and the demand in an economy, so you cut wages you'r gonna let loose a big problem, lack of demand, dwindling profits which end up cutting more wages.

Inceasing the minimum wage will bring people out of poverty and increase aggrigate demand.