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Raising the minimum wadge a good idea.

J

James D Hill

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Why does the right wing hate the idea of raising the minimum wadge so much? Have you seen the price of food,housing,utilitities and the overall cost of living lately? If not raising wadges then lets cut the cost of everything across the board. During the great depression the cost of everythig went down but we are not seeing that during the great recession. Why not? I seems live anything that might help the poor in this country the right is against. It it any wonder the GOP keeps losing national elections.
 
James D Hill said:
Why does the right wing hate the idea of raising the minimum wadge so much? Have you seen the price of food,housing,utilitities and the overall cost of living lately? If not raising wadges then lets cut the cost of everything across the board. During the great depression the cost of everythig went down but we are not seeing that during the great recession. Why not? I seems live anything that might help the poor in this country the right is against. It it any wonder the GOP keeps losing national elections.
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Because it's government interference on the labor market. If the jobs offered were worth more, they would pay more... :doh
 
AlabamaPaul said:
Because it's government interference on the labor market. If the jobs offered were worth more, they would pay more... :doh
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Negotiating power, not "worth", determines wages. Unskilled workers at the bottom of the economic ladder have none, so we must force employers to provide mimum wages.

This is further evidence of the tendency of conservatives and market evangelists to moralize economic relations, when in fact there is nothing moral or rational about them. It involves power, and not much else.
 
Good news for me working my ass off and this is a good reward. Now I will have more money bunked away for college when I get out of high school in two years and attend college.
 
James D Hill said:
Why does the right wing hate the idea of raising the minimum wadge so much? Have you seen the price of food,housing,utilitities and the overall cost of living lately? If not raising wadges then lets cut the cost of everything across the board. During the great depression the cost of everythig went down but we are not seeing that during the great recession. Why not? I seems live anything that might help the poor in this country the right is against. It it any wonder the GOP keeps losing national elections.
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Because the costs to the business are rising as well. How is it that people believe a business has more money to spend on labor when the business is experiencing the same rise in costs as everyone else? Regulatory costs are going up, utilities are going up, healthcare costs are going up, raw material costs are going up, time for raises?

What people can't seem to understand is that while wages have stagnated over the last 20 yrs the cost of employing some one has continually risen and risen dramatically.

The poor in this country don't need more govt largess they need a job. Now if we can just get this adm to stop waging war on the private sector we might get somewhere. Of course, this adm seems to think that what we need to create jobs is more regulation, more taxes, more debt, more bureaucrats and higher labor costs.
Doesn't bode well for anyone.
 
James D Hill said:
Why does the right wing hate the idea of raising the minimum wadge so much? Have you seen the price of food,housing,utilitities and the overall cost of living lately? If not raising wadges then lets cut the cost of everything across the board. During the great depression the cost of everythig went down but we are not seeing that during the great recession. Why not? I seems live anything that might help the poor in this country the right is against. It it any wonder the GOP keeps losing national elections.
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The price of food, rent, utilities etc has been rising for quite a while, and everyone has noticed that. Do you honestly believe that an additional $1.75 per hour, which is not immediate, but phased in BTW, is going to help? I suspect the price of everything will go up at the same time, so what would that accomplish? You'll have a little more money in your pocket, perhaps, but you still won't be able to afford anything that you couldn't afford before. Price controls have also been tried in the past, but only resulted in either underground black market buying, or reduced supply, and didn't last long . Ration cards during WorldWarII restricted the supply of certain items, and it didn't matter how much income you had, unless you had "connections."

Employers are either going to have to limit hiring, or lay people off, because the cost of everything increasing in cost is going to affect them too. I don't know what the solution is, but people thinking they are going to have more money are only half right...they aren't considering that they will be paying more for everything at the same time. Little or no gain, IMO, for a lot of paperwork to get everyone's minimum wage updated. :(
 
James D Hill said:
Why does the right wing hate the idea of raising the minimum wadge so much? Have you seen the price of food,housing,utilitities and the overall cost of living lately? If not raising wadges then lets cut the cost of everything across the board. During the great depression the cost of everythig went down but we are not seeing that during the great recession. Why not? I seems live anything that might help the poor in this country the right is against. It it any wonder the GOP keeps losing national elections.
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What is a "wadge" and why is it minimum?:confused:
 
polgara said:
The price of food, rent, utilities etc has been rising for quite a while, and everyone has noticed that. Do you honestly believe that an additional $1.75 per hour, which is not immediate, but phased in BTW, is going to help? I suspect the price of everything will go up at the same time, so what would that accomplish? You'll have a little more money in your pocket, perhaps, but you still won't be able to afford anything that you couldn't afford before. Price controls have also been tried in the past, but only resulted in either underground black market buying, or reduced supply, and didn't last long . Ration cards during WorldWarII restricted the supply of certain items, and it didn't matter how much income you had, unless you had "connections."

Employers are either going to have to limit hiring, or lay people off, because the cost of everything increasing in cost is going to affect them too. I don't know what the solution is, but people thinking they are going to have more money are only half right...they aren't considering that they will be paying more for everything at the same time. Little or no gain, IMO, for a lot of paperwork to get everyone's minimum wage updated. :(
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Well said. Good evening, Polgara.:2wave:
 
People forget that part of the reason the cost of food and utilities and everything else is because of government-imposed price controls on labor.

When it becomes more expensive to make things, it becomes more expensive to buy them. Assuming you still have a job because your employer can't afford to employ as many people.

We oppose raising the minimum wage because it is a stupid feel-good law that doesn't improve the lives of the working poor in the least.
 
James D Hill said:
Why does the right wing hate the idea of raising the minimum wadge so much? QUOTE]

All of the business owners I know who employ minimum wage workers are mostly registered Democrats.

I wasn't suppose to reveal that information was I ?
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James D Hill said:
Have you seen the price of food,housing,utilitities and the overall cost of living lately? ... During the great depression the cost of everythig went down but we are not seeing that during the great recession. Why not?
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Simple economics, when you have a President who spends trillions of dollars that we don't have and you have the Feds printing up trillions of dollars to prop up Obama's economy for four years with nothing to back it up with, the dollar declines in value and it takes more to buy less.

Compare the prices on the supermarket shelves today to when Obama first entered the White House. Look at the price of gas today. Look at how the value of gold doubled under the policies of Obama. When the price of gold increases, the value of the dollar decreases.
 
A few people are saying prices would rise if labor costs went up. But what problem is our economy having right now? A good case can be argued that the biggest problem our economy faces is too little demand (see: Macro and Other Market Musings: Is There Really An Aggregate Demand Problem?). If this is the case, raising the minimum wage would stimulate demand (if consumers' incomes go up, consumption rises and thus aggregate demand increases). On top of that, raising the minimum wage is correlated with an increase in total employment (see: http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/306735/aib74703_1_.pdf). As the agricultural bulletin shows, a 50 cent increase in the minimum wage increases food prices by 1% or less. And the consumers who normally would be hurt most by ANY rise in food prices (the lowest earners) would have more than enough money per month to cover such an increase.
 
penn said:
A few people are saying prices would rise if labor costs went up. But what problem is our economy having right now? A good case can be argued that the biggest problem our economy faces is too little demand (see: Macro and Other Market Musings: Is There Really An Aggregate Demand Problem?). If this is the case, raising the minimum wage would stimulate demand (if consumers' incomes go up, consumption rises and thus aggregate demand increases). On top of that, raising the minimum wage is correlated with an increase in total employment (see: http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/306735/aib74703_1_.pdf). As the agricultural bulletin shows, a 50 cent increase in the minimum wage increases food prices by 1% or less. And the consumers who normally would be hurt most by ANY rise in food prices (the lowest earners) would have more than enough money per month to cover such an increase.
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It's the quality of the demand, not the demand itself. Think about it...
 
APACHERAT said:
Simple economics, when you have a President who spends trillions of dollars that we don't have and you have the Feds printing up trillions of dollars to prop up Obama's economy for four years with nothing to back it up with, the dollar declines in value and it takes more to buy less.

Compare the prices on the supermarket shelves today to when Obama first entered the White House. Look at the price of gas today. Look at how the value of gold doubled under the policies of Obama. When the price of gold increases, the value of the dollar decreases.
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ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/cpi/cpiai.txt

You realize we've lived in a period of deflation, right?
 
penn said:
Please explain.
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Demand provided through a government mandate only provides for the status quo (and could possibly hurt it), it does nothing to expand the overall productive output of our economy. There are many who whine about the rich getting richer, yet these types of policies are what facilitates that...
 
head of joaquin said:
Negotiating power, not "worth", determines wages. Unskilled workers at the bottom of the economic ladder have none, so we must force employers to provide mimum wages.

This is further evidence of the tendency of conservatives and market evangelists to moralize economic relations, when in fact there is nothing moral or rational about them. It involves power, and not much else.
Click to expand...
What an incredibly ignorant post. As someone who actually employs people--which you clearly do not--the wage I pay is well above minium and based soley upon their worth and they value to me an my business. I enter into voluntary agreements with those I employ and it is thugs like you who wish to inject, by force,your own arbitrary standards. But that is how thugs always operate--what they cannot gain thrrough voluntary, honest action they seek to gain through force. No wonder you are so oppsed to moral action. You believe might makes right.
 
Fletch said:
What an incredibly ignorant post. As someone who actually employs people--which you clearly do not--the wage I pay is well above minium and based soley upon their worth and they value to me an my business. I enter into voluntary agreements with those I employ and it is thugs like you who wish to inject, by force,your own arbitrary standards. But that is how thugs always operate--what they cannot gain thrrough voluntary, honest action they seek to gain through force. No wonder you are so oppsed to moral action. You believe might makes right.
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Hopefully, you'll learn quickly that responding to it is not worth your time...
 
AlabamaPaul said:
Demand provided through a government mandate only provides for the status quo (and could possibly hurt it), it does nothing to expand the overall productive output of our economy. There are many who whine about the rich getting richer, yet these types of policies are what facilitates that...
Click to expand...

"Demand provided through a government mandate" is Government Purchases. It increases Aggregate Demand. When aggregate demand increases, the point at which the Aggregate Demand curve and the Short Run Aggregate Supply Curves intersect shifts up and to the right, possibly causing an increase in prices, an increase in output, or an increase in both, depending on whether or not we are in a recession. ADASSRequilADright.webp On this graph, the shift in aggregate demand caused a moderate shift in prices and a moderate increase in real Gross Domestic Output. That is because the equilibrium point is the intersection of all three graphs (Long Range Aggregate Supply, Short Range Aggregate Supply, and Aggregate Demand). Our economy's current equilibrium point is currently much farther to the left on the Short Range Aggregate Supply graph, and as such an increase in Aggregate Demand will shift the equilibrium closer to the Long Range Aggregate Supply, which is exactly the point of Government Stimulus Spending. Government transfer payments (Social Security, Food Stamps, Welfare, etc.) work in a similar way, except instead of increasing Aggregate Demand through Government Purchases, they increase consumers' consumption.

Now, is a raise in the minimum wage a transfer payment or a government purchase? TRICK QUESTION! It's neither. A rise in the minimum wage will cause a shift in Aggregate Demand to the right (as consumers' incomes rise) and a slight leftward shift of Short Run Aggregate Supply, bringing the economy's equilibrium point closer to Long Range Aggregate Supply.

This is Economics 101 Paul.
 
penn said:
"Demand provided through a government mandate" is Government Purchases. It increases Aggregate Demand. When aggregate demand increases, the point at which the Aggregate Demand curve and the Short Run Aggregate Supply Curves intersect shifts up and to the right, possibly causing an increase in prices, an increase in output, or an increase in both, depending on whether or not we are in a recession. View attachment 67142630 On this graph, the shift in aggregate demand caused a moderate shift in prices and a moderate increase in real Gross Domestic Output. That is because the equilibrium point is the intersection of all three graphs (Long Range Aggregate Supply, Short Range Aggregate Supply, and Aggregate Demand). Our economy's current equilibrium point is currently much farther to the left on the Short Range Aggregate Supply graph, and as such an increase in Aggregate Demand will shift the equilibrium closer to the Long Range Aggregate Supply, which is exactly the point of Government Stimulus Spending. Government transfer payments (Social Security, Food Stamps, Welfare, etc.) work in a similar way, except instead of increasing Aggregate Demand through Government Purchases, they increase consumers' consumption.

Now, is a raise in the minimum wage a transfer payment or a government purchase? TRICK QUESTION! It's neither. A rise in the minimum wage will cause a shift in Aggregate Demand to the right (as consumers' incomes rise) and a slight leftward shift of Short Run Aggregate Supply, bringing the economy's equilibrium point closer to Long Range Aggregate Supply.

This is Economics 101 Paul.
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So you agree with the government setting a floor on wages and think this is a good thing?
 
Fletch said:
What an incredibly ignorant post. As someone who actually employs people--which you clearly do not--the wage I pay is well above minium and based soley upon their worth and they value to me an my business. I enter into voluntary agreements with those I employ and it is thugs like you who wish to inject, by force,your own arbitrary standards. But that is how thugs always operate--what they cannot gain thrrough voluntary, honest action they seek to gain through force. No wonder you are so oppsed to moral action. You believe might makes right.
Click to expand...

I believe Mr. Joaquin's point, and he can come and correct me if I misinterpret him, is that you have the power as the employer to determine how to compensate your employees. Most, if not all, employers and firms have a large power advantage over the workers they employ with regards to compensation negotiations. You may enter into voluntary agreements with those you employ, but that's more your choice than any employee's, as you hold the "bargaining chips", so to speak, in the form of a steady income for the employee.

AlabamaPaul said:
So you agree with the government setting a floor on wages and think this is a good thing?
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I agree that the government setting a floor on wages will help the economy.
 
penn said:
I believe Mr. Joaquin's point, and he can come and correct me if I misinterpret him, is that you have the power as the employer to determine how to compensate your employees. Most, if not all, employers and firms have a large power advantage over the workers they employ with regards to compensation negotiations. You may enter into voluntary agreements with those you employ, but that's more your choice than any employee's, as you hold the "bargaining chips", so to speak, in the form of a steady income for the employee.

I agree that the government setting a floor on wages will help the economy.
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Then we have two points of contention. The first is that you wold lend any credence to the head of jack asses, and the second is that you would support government interference in the labor market...
 
AlabamaPaul said:
Then we have two points of contention. The first is that you wold lend any credence to the head of jack asses, and the second is that you would support government interference in the labor market...
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Okay. Are you talking about President Obama? And I supported some basic economic theory, as well as hard statistics, showing the positive effects of what you call "government interference in the labor market". I'm waiting for data rebutting my conclusion that an increased minimum wage would benefit the economy.
 
penn said:
Okay. Are you talking about President Obama? And I supported some basic economic theory, as well as hard statistics, showing the positive effects of what you call "government interference in the labor market". I'm waiting for data rebutting my conclusion that an increased minimum wage would benefit the economy.
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No, I'm not posting about Obama, and you are free to do your own research...
 
penn said:
ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/cpi/cpiai.txt

You realize we've lived in a period of deflation, right?
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Do you see a problem what the federal government is saying and what your paying at the store ? I sure do.

The CPI comes from the prices of tens of thousands of products that are sold in the urban areas of America and it's mostly non food items that are imported, mostly by the Peoples Republic of China. I'm more concerned with the inflation of prices at the grocery store for food and the price at the pumps and the cost of utilities. I don't shop at Harbor Freight or at Target so I don't support the Peoples Liberation Army that much.

And for American made goods, just the price of guns and ammunition have significantly increased under Obama !!!
 
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