Asking for a raise is completely different than making McDonald's pay their employees 2 dollars more per hour/quote]
Not economically. In both cases you are demanding that they continue to express the same demand for a good or service (labor), despite a 35-40% increase in its price. You are making the same claim in both instances about elasticity for labor.
That's right, and most employers who pay minimum wage offer fairly quick pay increases as people grow in experience and their labor becomes worth more. But they have to get that experience for their labor to be worth more. If you simply demand that introductory personnel be paid at the same rate (or higher) than current experienced personnel, all you do is reduce the employers' ability to offer people introductory positions.
Ah, no. What the National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper states is "the studies that focus on the least-skilled groups provide relatively overwhelming evidence of stronger disemployment effects for these groups. What they referred to as "not always (you left that out for some reason) statistically significant" is the effect across the entire workforce. Since only ~2% of the workforce is minimum wage to begin with, that is precisely what you would expect - a slight, though barely noticeable at all decrease in employment across the entire workforce, which is nonetheless concentrated and highly visible once you stop looking at the effect across all wage earners, and just look at what happens to the minimum wage earners.
Well, no, because babies can't read. If babies could read, however, they would note that this chart is "Teenage Unemployment Rate Minus the Overall Employment Rate", meaning that the bad economy is already factored in.
See?
I said only what you told me. My "assumption" was that you were not lying. If that was in error, let me know.
A 35-40% increase? That is a complete exaggeration and not at all true according what I've read.
You're funny. You seem to think that employers and businesses are so nice and fair to their employees. How many jobs have you had and in what fields? It seems odd that anyone with any type of experience in the working world, especially the minimum wage working world, would think that employers are always fair. There are a lot of different jobs where you are not offered any opportunities.
Is this data you gleaned from the chart, or did you post a link to this? I don't remember seeing a link.
Well, no, because babies can't read. If babies could read, however, they would note that this chart is "Teenage Unemployment Rate Minus the Overall Employment Rate", meaning that the bad economy is already factored in.
See?
Okay, so I didn't pay much attention to your chart. :lol:
I don't understand how you come to this conclusion.
That's an interesting point, but I they would have no choice if it was a mandated minimum wage. You do realize that people still need to survive while they're finding their "dream job" right cpwill? They still have bills to pay, perhaps families to feed. Do actually expect that people can survive on less than 10.00 an hour, or that just because they can't live up to your expectations they should suffer?
Whatever the cause of a minimum wage was, that is not the reason why we have it now and it does protect workers from being raped by their employers wage wise. You cannot tell me that employers would not take advantage if there was no minimum wage. That is just naive.
They most certainly are worth it. We need those people to do those jobs, whether you want to admit it or not.
Greed is no excuse for breaking the law and hiring illegals. Those companies that do should be punished harshly IMO.
Edit: I timed out replying to this post. Thankfully, I remembered to cut it so I could just paste it back on in reply. Also, I had to remove your emoticons because it said there were too many. Editing this reply was a real bitch! :lol:
NBER Working Paper 12663 said:
Fair nuff.
true story.
:lol: Okay, I"m at the gym wasting my time here instead because I'm obsessive when it comes to this stuff, but it'll still have to be shorter.
You are not suggesting a $2 increase. You are suggesting a $2.50 increase. This is important because:
Well, you are suggesting an increase from $7.50 to $10.00.
10-7.50=2.50 2.50/7.5=.3333 .3333*100%=33.33% for a 33% immediate increase in wages, but the employer pays more than just wages when they purchase labor.
Employer Fica = 7.65% of Employee Income, and is added into the increase as well.
Employer portion for Unemployment Insurance = 6.2% of Employee Income and is added to the increase as well.
(And that's just the two side-increases that happen to come immediately to mind.)
So: 7.65%+6.2%=13.85% (13.85%*33.33%)= 4.62% 4.62%+33.33% = a minimum total of 37.95% to the employer, with a fudge factor (because states are probably going to differentiate, etc), and so 35-40% was a good range. You are suggesting that employers will respond to a 35-40% increase in labor costs without reducing their demand; this is ridiculously unlikely to be true.
Because labor has worth. Some labor is worth more than other labor - depending on the skill set, experience, etc of the worker. Some labor is not worth $7.50+the added costs of employing someone (see above). Additionally it is worth noting that the Small Business Association has calculated that the regulatory burden imposed by the federal and state governments comes out to around $10k for an employee. So, in order to get a job, a persons' labor has to be representable by (value added by individuals' labor) > (Wages+Taxes+($10,000/year)). When you increase the cost of Wages, you reduce the number of people whose labor is going to be able to come out on the positive side of that equation, and those people are going to be heavily concentrated in our poorest demographics.
Naturally. But they will hire fewer of them, and prove more risk-resistant in who they hire. Middle Class kids with two parents will do well - statistically the employer will know that they are more likely to have been raised to show up on time, honor their commitments, have good reading skills, decent work ethics. Inner city kids who were raised by a single parent? Not so much.
Remember how it was a few months after the last minimum wage hike that we started seeing all those self-check out machines in Wal-Marts, and then other stores? What do you think happened to the positions that used to be open for running those lanes? What do you think happened to the people who filled or hoped to fill those positions?
When you increase the cost of low-value-added labor, you increase the relative benefit of investing in labor-replacing capital, or high-value-added labor capable of leveraging capital to replace many lower-value-added workers.
People (including employers) have a natural aversion to paying more for things than they are worth. I couldn't be hired as a CEO because I would be a complete waste of that company's money - I do not have the skills nor experience to justify a CEO salary nor a CEO's responsibilities.
That's funny, because that is precisely what you said - specifically you stated that I wanted to keep them poor and trap them in poverty.
...and you think you're the only person who has ever done this?
FWIW, I spent three years working landscaping. You want to talk about backbreaking minimum wage labor? Haul rocks so that doctors can have a nice pathway through their backyard. Then I spent another two years as a waiter, in precisely the same situation that you were in. Then I got promoted to manager, and picked up an above-minimum-hourly wage that worked out to barely more than I had been making before. Then I enlisted into the Marine Corps as a Private First Class. Had our first child a year and a half later, though I was a Lance-Corporal (E3) then. Our pay charts are publicly available, though agreeably it wasn't minimum wage - divided by the hours we worked it came out to about $9.50.
I don't know what it's like? This is my family we are talking about. When you talk about low-education low-skilled minority kids that's my in laws. When you talk about single mothers that's my sister, my cousin, my aunts...
I understand the low-income point of view. I've been there. But you are pretending that employers are static entities, and non-responsive to the laws of economics. That is simply not true. The real minimum wage is "zero", and every time you increase the legal minimum wage, you increase the populace who has to default to that number because they cannot pass the new threshold.
See below, though I think your reply was "it doesn't matter because that's not why we support it now". No. Unions and other members of the coalition post-FDR-election needed a better set of arguments, especially once Eugenics was so thoroughly discredited after WWII. So you simply drop a word from the argument, and instead of talking about "the white worker" you talk about "the worker".
But the effects of the policy are the same, and remain today - to deny opportunities to the most vulnerable portions of our populace, who are disproportionately made up of minorities.
I linked a paper to you that was an amalgamation of the literature across the subject, and cited its' key findings.
However, the chart is particulalry poignant - because the effects should be more muted than that. Since teenagers are more likely to have the option of simply ceasing to look for work and going to play sports in high school with their free time (as they depend on their parents for sustenance), they are more likely to respond to losing work by simply dropping out of the labor force. That the effect is that strongly causal indicates that it is A) determinative and B) probably stronger than is demonstrated, due to the hidden numbers of those who would work, but went back to live on mom and dad instead.
Why not? Don't you want them to have the additional money?
.....okay. You are aware that I have been arguing that employers will respond to employees becoming too expensive by firing or refusing to hire them?
Then you are free to leave that employer and get hired by his competitor, who will pay you what you are worth, and you can help him run your old boss into the dirt. Companies that do not pay their employees roughly what they are worth get wiped out by their competition, which does, and is therefore better able to attract and keep talent.
I linked it for you in the original post, but here it is again
Because I start from the assumption that labor - like other goods and services - has to obey the laws of supply and demand.
Well, tell me which is easier, Chris. $7.50 an hour? Or $0.00 an hour? My point is simply that in seeking to transit these workers from 7.50 an hour to 10.00 an hour, you are going to end up shoving many of them off to 0.00 an hour.
of course they would seek to minimize their costs - which is precisely what they are doing now. Just as employees will seek to maximize their income - which is precisely what they are doing now. What would happen without a minimum wage is that many workers currently unable to attain employment would suddenly become cheaper than finding other ways to meet (or not) the services they can provide, and so they would be hired. The idea that all current minimum wage earners are going to be shoved down to $3.50 an hour or something like that simply doesn't fit the facts - they are already worth $7.50 an hour. If an employer threatens to reduce their income, they can simply go to work for his competitors. See earlier piece about how employers stupid enough to do that get to watch their businesses die and be replaced by companies that don't.
We need a few of the services performed, and want some of the services performed. We do not 'need' the current number of minimum wage positions filled by people - and if you make it too expensive to maintain them there, then they won't be there any more. They will instead be replaced by labor-saving capital or some other arrangement that is now cheaper than the newly-unemployed worker was going to be.
:shrug: again, you're not going to get much argument from me over the fact that we should enforce the law.
Gosh, this is like a novel! I don't feel like spending another half an hour right now, so I'll look at this one tomorrow if you don't mind.
Actually finding ways to improve the condition of our working poor is important to me, and I tend to get rather passionate about it. No worries.
:lol: Okay, I"m at the gym wasting my time here instead because I'm obsessive when it comes to this stuff, but it'll still have to be shorter.
You are not suggesting a $2 increase. You are suggesting a $2.50 increase. This is important because:
Well, you are suggesting an increase from $7.50 to $10.00.
10-7.50=2.50 2.50/7.5=.3333 .3333*100%=33.33% for a 33% immediate increase in wages, but the employer pays more than just wages when they purchase labor.
Employer Fica = 7.65% of Employee Income, and is added into the increase as well.
Employer portion for Unemployment Insurance = 6.2% of Employee Income and is added to the increase as well.
(And that's just the two side-increases that happen to come immediately to mind.)
So: 7.65%+6.2%=13.85% (13.85%*33.33%)= 4.62% 4.62%+33.33% = a minimum total of 37.95% to the employer, with a fudge factor (because states are probably going to differentiate, etc), and so 35-40% was a good range. You are suggesting that employers will respond to a 35-40% increase in labor costs without reducing their demand; this is ridiculously unlikely to be true.
Because labor has worth. Some labor is worth more than other labor - depending on the skill set, experience, etc of the worker. Some labor is not worth $7.50+the added costs of employing someone (see above). Additionally it is worth noting that the Small Business Association has calculated that the regulatory burden imposed by the federal and state governments comes out to around $10k for an employee. So, in order to get a job, a persons' labor has to be representable by (value added by individuals' labor) > (Wages+Taxes+($10,000/year)). When you increase the cost of Wages, you reduce the number of people whose labor is going to be able to come out on the positive side of that equation, and those people are going to be heavily concentrated in our poorest demographics.
Naturally. But they will hire fewer of them, and prove more risk-resistant in who they hire. Middle Class kids with two parents will do well - statistically the employer will know that they are more likely to have been raised to show up on time, honor their commitments, have good reading skills, decent work ethics. Inner city kids who were raised by a single parent? Not so much.
Remember how it was a few months after the last minimum wage hike that we started seeing all those self-check out machines in Wal-Marts, and then other stores? What do you think happened to the positions that used to be open for running those lanes? What do you think happened to the people who filled or hoped to fill those positions?
When you increase the cost of low-value-added labor, you increase the relative benefit of investing in labor-replacing capital, or high-value-added labor capable of leveraging capital to replace many lower-value-added workers.
People (including employers) have a natural aversion to paying more for things than they are worth. I couldn't be hired as a CEO because I would be a complete waste of that company's money - I do not have the skills nor experience to justify a CEO salary nor a CEO's responsibilities.
That's funny, because that is precisely what you said - specifically you stated that I wanted to keep them poor and trap them in poverty.
...and you think you're the only person who has ever done this?
FWIW, I spent three years working landscaping. You want to talk about backbreaking minimum wage labor? Haul rocks so that doctors can have a nice pathway through their backyard. Then I spent another two years as a waiter, in precisely the same situation that you were in. Then I got promoted to manager, and picked up an above-minimum-hourly wage that worked out to barely more than I had been making before. Then I enlisted into the Marine Corps as a Private First Class. Had our first child a year and a half later, though I was a Lance-Corporal (E3) then. Our pay charts are publicly available, though agreeably it wasn't minimum wage - divided by the hours we worked it came out to about $9.50.
I don't know what it's like? This is my family we are talking about. When you talk about low-education low-skilled minority kids that's my in laws. When you talk about single mothers that's my sister, my cousin, my aunts...
I understand the low-income point of view. I've been there. But you are pretending that employers are static entities, and non-responsive to the laws of economics. That is simply not true. The real minimum wage is "zero", and every time you increase the legal minimum wage, you increase the populace who has to default to that number because they cannot pass the new threshold.
See below, though I think your reply was "it doesn't matter because that's not why we support it now". No. Unions and other members of the coalition post-FDR-election needed a better set of arguments, especially once Eugenics was so thoroughly discredited after WWII. So you simply drop a word from the argument, and instead of talking about "the white worker" you talk about "the worker".
But the effects of the policy are the same, and remain today - to deny opportunities to the most vulnerable portions of our populace, who are disproportionately made up of minorities.
I linked a paper to you that was an amalgamation of the literature across the subject, and cited its' key findings.
However, the chart is particulalry poignant - because the effects should be more muted than that. Since teenagers are more likely to have the option of simply ceasing to look for work and going to play sports in high school with their free time (as they depend on their parents for sustenance), they are more likely to respond to losing work by simply dropping out of the labor force. That the effect is that strongly causal indicates that it is A) determinative and B) probably stronger than is demonstrated, due to the hidden numbers of those who would work, but went back to live on mom and dad instead.
Why not? Don't you want them to have the additional money?
.....okay. You are aware that I have been arguing that employers will respond to employees becoming too expensive by firing or refusing to hire them?
Then you are free to leave that employer and get hired by his competitor, who will pay you what you are worth, and you can help him run your old boss into the dirt. Companies that do not pay their employees roughly what they are worth get wiped out by their competition, which does, and is therefore better able to attract and keep talent.
I linked it for you in the original post, but here it is again
Because I start from the assumption that labor - like other goods and services - has to obey the laws of supply and demand.
Well, tell me which is easier, Chris. $7.50 an hour? Or $0.00 an hour? My point is simply that in seeking to transit these workers from 7.50 an hour to 10.00 an hour, you are going to end up shoving many of them off to 0.00 an hour.
of course they would seek to minimize their costs - which is precisely what they are doing now. Just as employees will seek to maximize their income - which is precisely what they are doing now. What would happen without a minimum wage is that many workers currently unable to attain employment would suddenly become cheaper than finding other ways to meet (or not) the services they can provide, and so they would be hired. The idea that all current minimum wage earners are going to be shoved down to $3.50 an hour or something like that simply doesn't fit the facts - they are already worth $7.50 an hour. If an employer threatens to reduce their income, they can simply go to work for his competitors. See earlier piece about how employers stupid enough to do that get to watch their businesses die and be replaced by companies that don't.
We need a few of the services performed, and want some of the services performed. We do not 'need' the current number of minimum wage positions filled by people - and if you make it too expensive to maintain them there, then they won't be there any more. They will instead be replaced by labor-saving capital or some other arrangement that is now cheaper than the newly-unemployed worker was going to be.
:shrug: again, you're not going to get much argument from me over the fact that we should enforce the law.
takes one to know one
hah reminds once when the wife was lookin' through her DSM-IV-TR and said: oh look 301.4 that's YOU!
I gave up on cardio today. Maybe tonight I'll recapture that time.
No. I have too much faith in:
Problem is when you turn 21 you will be laid off.
