WallStreetVixen
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There's that phrasing again. "Supposed to."
Why do people keep declaring that minimum wage isn't "supposed to" let you feed yourself?
Forget theoretical. Why not? Some will do well, others will discover a different path they never considered, and still others will struggle, perhaps forever. For me, handing me $3-4/hr more, and in effect telling me to go away, all is well now, is a significant insult. This "living wage" crap is one of the most insulting and arrogant agendas I've seen come down the pipe in a long time.
The minimum wage is an arbitrary price floor set to prevent employers from paying for labour below a certain level. All it means is that it is illegal to hire an employee who earns an hourly wage below that arbitrary level, with certain exceptions. That's it. You can't tie it to inflation, nor would it make sense to do such a mundane thing. It's not tied to the cost of living. If you want to make sure people have the ability to feed themselves, there are plenty of intelligent ways of doing that aside from indexing the minimum wage to inflation.
The idea that people should be able to feed themselves on a full time job is arrogant and insulting? The idea that fast food workers are worth more than the pittance that you deem them worthy of is insulting?
Sure buddy. Sure.
The minimum wage is an arbitrary price floor set to prevent employers from paying for labour below a certain level. All it means is that it is illegal to hire an employee who earns an hourly wage below that arbitrary level, with certain exceptions. That's it. You can't tie it to inflation, nor would it make sense to do such a mundane thing. It's not tied to the cost of living. If you want to make sure people have the ability to feed themselves, there are plenty of intelligent ways of doing that aside from indexing the minimum wage to inflation.
No, I was referring to the arrogance and insulting attitude of someone like yourself defining for another what a living was. "Here's another $30/day. Now you have a living, because I said so". Disgusting.
Ok. As opposed to what you are doing, which is saying "you don't even deserve to feed yourself because I deem you not worthy of it."
That's it? It's arbitrary? Just because? Nobody had any reason for it?
Ok. As opposed to what you are doing, which is saying "you don't even deserve to feed yourself because I deem you not worthy of it."
If there is a need for it to exist at all, which of course is arguable, then there is a need for it to be tied to inflation.
Made up numbers. Math 101.
I never wrote that. Don't you look foolish.
I think it's ridiculous to get a minimum wage job and assume you can live on it. I had 4 roommates in college. We split expenses and sometime pooled money together to get food. At no time, ever, did I see the job I had at the time as anything but a temporary thing. I added a job as a night janitor in an office building when I realized I would need more money. I didn't go to my day job employer and demand he pay me a "living wage". That would have been arrogant and extremely greedy and lazy of me.
Actually, the reason for it was to price child labour out of the marketplace. During the Great Depression, men were so desperate for work that they were willing to take wages children normally got. Any other time before that, attempts to create a minimum wage was always struct down by the Supreme Court and was declared unconstitutional.
In the UK, we didn't have a national minimum wage until 1999, decades later after the US first instituted theirs, but this only applied to people over the age of 22, so people under 22 wouldn't be affected.
This is because the minimum wage prices labour out of the marketplace. Most people understand this, except for minimum wage advocators...
You have never asked or negotiated for a raise?
Personally, I don't see anything wrong with asking for a raise if you feel that you are worth more. Obviously, you didn't feel that you were worth much. There's also nothing greedy or lazy about asking for a raise, it might be foolish to not do so. Someone who wasn't lazy might have asked for more working hours, or they might have asked what additional responsibility they could assume to merit a raise. It almost sounds to me that you knew you were a slacker and weren't worth more.
At my third, and last job out of college, when I was promoted without a raise. When I asked for a raise, I was told that I should have negotiated a better deal before they hired me. I had no clue that it was possible to negotiate salary. Yes, I was a fool, but most people are when they are young.
I am defining productivity by it's definition. Many people can start calling a banana a Camaro...but the official definition of the yellow fruit in question is still a banana.
I simply do not believe that if the government forces a company to pay minimum wage worker 'X' 50 cents more per hour that worker 'X' will work any harder.
Why should he? The company is not rewarding him for anything, they do not want to give him the extra money and are only doing so because they have no choice. He might feel more loyalty to the government and vote for them next election, but not the company...which is EXACTLY, btw, why most governments do it. Votes.
The way I see it is that a higher minimum wage would actually allow us to lower taxes to a reasonable level, since welfare programs would not be as prominent or necessary. You'd think the fiscal conservatives would be all over that. :shrug:
Actually, the reason for it was to price child labour out of the marketplace. During the Great Depression, men were so desperate for work that they were willing to take wages children normally got. Any other time before that, attempts to create a minimum wage was always struct down by the Supreme Court and was declared unconstitutional.
In the UK, we didn't have a national minimum wage until 1999, decades later after the US first instituted theirs, but this only applied to people over the age of 22, so people under 22 wouldn't be affected.
This is because the minimum wage prices labour out of the marketplace. Most people understand this, except for minimum wage advocators...
It only prices labor out of the market if you assume "forcing wages as low as we can get them" is the only possible model to work on.
The low wage labor market is a different beast than higher income labor markets. Lack of transportation, lack of access to information, how employees are hired as well as the types of jobs they go into all lead to a situation that results in depressed wages. It's a situation that is very lopsided and benefits employers.
If you arbitrarily set a level that is too expensive, certain low productive, unskilled labourers will be priced out at the expense of high productive, high skill workers.
Lack of skills, more than anything, lead to depressed wages.
The minimum wage is an arbitrary price floor set to prevent employers from paying for labour below a certain level. All it means is that it is illegal to hire an employee who earns an hourly wage below that arbitrary level, with certain exceptions. That's it. You can't tie it to inflation, nor would it make sense to do such a mundane thing. It's not tied to the cost of living. If you want to make sure people have the ability to feed themselves, there are plenty of intelligent ways of doing that aside from indexing the minimum wage to inflation.
No, I was referring to the arrogance and insulting attitude of someone like yourself defining for another what a living was. "Here's another $30/day. Now you have a living, because I said so". Disgusting.
Monopsony describes the low skill labor market.
Actually, the reason for it was to price child labour out of the marketplace.\
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