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The world's most succinct argument against minimum wage laws

What do you suggest to give working people a better life? I certainly don't think min wage increases are the ONLY thing we can do

Trick question - you can't "give" it. The mindset has to be changed first and mindsets only change when the person with the mind wants to change it. I grew up poor and had a poverty mindset. It wasn't until I was a senior in high school that I fully realized I didn't have to be poor. I got a scholarship and Pell Grant to cover what the scholarship didn't. In addition I had a job. Perhaps 'help" could be accomplished by a philanthropic benefactor who could provide for a person as they undergo cognitive therapy - that would be as close as I can think of one person "giving" a better life to someone. But then, how fast do you think it would be before there is be an outcry of someone trying to "brainwash" the person they are trying to help? "Living wage" is as unique to an individual as is DNA.
 
Machines do the work of multiple people, do work that people can't do, can't do quickly, can't do accurately, etc, etc. Even if there are operators.

That has increased productivity. The owner class has kept that surplus. It's going to get worse.

Your right-libertarian beliefs are almost always going to be wrong.

Continuing with backhoe example, compare the wages of a worker who can operate a backhoe to a worker who can only operate a shovel. Increased productivity leads to higher wages.
 
Trick question - you can't "give" it. The mindset has to be changed first and mindsets only change when the person with the mind wants to change it. I grew up poor and had a poverty mindset. It wasn't until I was a senior in high school that I fully realized I didn't have to be poor. I got a scholarship and Pell Grant to cover what the scholarship didn't. In addition I had a job. Perhaps 'help" could be accomplished by a philanthropic benefactor who could provide for a person as they undergo cognitive therapy - that would be as close as I can think of one person "giving" a better life to someone. But then, how fast do you think it would be before there is be an outcry of someone trying to "brainwash" the person they are trying to help? "Living wage" is as unique to an individual as is DNA.
Look I get you have an opinion. Raises to the min wage makes life better for many working people. Your mindset theory has nothing to do with this
 
that really doesn't dispute what I said. Wages are nothing more than the cost an employer must pay to get the quality and quantity of the commodity known as labor. If the wages are not sufficient, then the employer won't get enough of what it needs. If it pays too much, it will be at a competitive disadvantage compared to direct competitors.
I do not know about you but my time and labor is worth more than 15 bucks an hour. You may have your opinions that others peoples time and labor isnt worth 15 bucks but, that is not your decision as an employer. You only get to hire people who want to work for you. If they feel that you are not going to pay enough, then they will not work for you. The ultimate decision to work under certain conditions lies with the employee not the employer. The employer in a competitive market will pay more for an employee if they actually need them.

Its the reason that third world workers do agriculture jobs but most Americans will not.
 
Continuing with backhoe example, compare the wages of a worker who can operate a backhoe to a worker who can only operate a shovel. Increased productivity leads to higher wages.
Usually, yes.

I'm not talking about the difference between a shoveler and a machine operator. I'm talking about the general conclusion that work efficiency has increased greatly but pay and benefits haven't; they've gotten worse. The owner class takes the gains from efficiency and pays less; a win-win for the owner class; a lose-lose for workers.
 
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That's it. As you can see, making low paying jobs illegal only hurts those with low skills. It does not help them in any way.


This is a follow-up to last month's attempt where I tried, apparently in vain, to show how minimum wage laws hurt those at the bottom of the economic ladder:


I have a better one.

Your son is sick, so you take his temperature. It comes back 102. You take a marker and scratch out the 102, and write in 98.6. The fever is cured.

Changing the price on something doesn't make people actually value it differently. If a law mandated that janitors be paid the same as doctors, that wouldn't make society value janitors the way they do doctors.
 
Look I get you have an opinion. Raises to the min wage makes life better for many working people. Your mindset theory has nothing to do with this

Mindset is not a theory - it is very well documented and the basis of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Nice way to discount it though.
 
Mindset is not a theory - it is very well documented and the basis of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Nice way to discount it though.
And it's not relevant to.min wage laws
 
Dear dawg almighty in the clouds, the American way of greedy capitalism is so disgusting!

However, with a discussion such as this one, even though it's mostly spamming and trolling, it does serve the purpose of delineating the big problem.
Americans' quality of life has sunken to lows that are becoming reminiscent of third world status, yet the religious right still hold strong to their phony ideals of the need for the peasants to just work harder.

For me, my opposition to this is mostly based on sincere fear of unintended consequences. It's not phony at all, and it's not even so much concern for myself, I could easily afford to pay higher prices, but others that are already living paycheck to paycheck could really feel the squeeze quickly even if they still have the same job as before, are retired, etc.

It just seems like too much of a sweeping change too fast to work out very well for everyone involved. there are so many moving parts that I honestly do think it would end up hurting millions of people including many it was intended to help most of all. For example some factories are in cities away from the largest job markets which I suspect was intentional precisely because they could find enough people willing to work for $11/hour or whatever there without quitting after a few months and the cost of living is lower.

I could easily see some factories like this completely closing down and moving the operation to Mexico or Asia as a result of this change. Then it wouldn't just be the supposedly oppressed machine operators and/or assembly line workers unemployed but all the mechanics, managers, office staff, etc. as well. All for what? Mostly because people living in big cities that don't know the first thing about what it is like to live and work in a place like that think they know what's best for them and $15/hour sounds so much better, more fair, etc. Hating capitalism doesn't help anything, it's simply not going to change overnight (if ever in the U.S.), least of all by arbitrarily doubling the minimum wage for states that were already doing fine without it.
 
Chamber of Commerce represents many businesses, opposes increasing the minimum wage, and probably opposes or would trim other worker benefits. AFL-CIO represents many workers, supports increasing the minimum wage, and probably supports or would increase other worker benefits.
That’s all one needs to know.
 
Chamber of Commerce represents many businesses, opposes increasing the minimum wage, and probably opposes or would trim other worker benefits. AFL-CIO represents many workers, supports increasing the minimum wage, and probably supports or would increase other worker benefits.
That’s all one needs to know.

Poof! The MW is magically now $15/hr. New employee with no experience is hired in at $15/hr. Do you have any plans for the existing employee who started at MW and has worked up to $15/hr? Do they get a raise?
 
Poof! The MW is magically now $15/hr. New employee with no experience is hired in at $15/hr. Do you have any plans for the existing employee who started at MW and has worked up to $15/hr? Do they get a raise?
Most likely. Depends on the employer and the job, I assume. I presume that the easiest way to deal with this is to tie min wage increases to inflation thru some formula. Problem isnt new. As I recall, Jesus had something to say about people hired at different times getting the same benefits.
 
Most likely. Depends on the employer and the job, I assume. I presume that the easiest way to deal with this is to tie min wage increases to inflation thru some formula. Problem isnt new. As I recall, Jesus had something to say about people hired at different times getting the same benefits.

:) Indeed. He told people to stop complaining about what they were getting relative to others.

Not sure that's the parable you really want to run with, here....
 
:) Indeed. He told people to stop complaining about what they were getting relative to others.

Not sure that's the parable you really want to run with, here....
It indeed fits. The point was related to a guy already getting $15 and complaining about a ne hire getting the same.
 
It indeed fits. The point was related to a guy already getting $15 and complaining about a ne hire getting the same.

It fits there. Along with the 10th Commandment, it is also a warning against choosing to have envy or bitterness towards others who make more than you :).

"Be Content With What You Earn" is not exactly the Morale that fits best with "And That's Why If You Can't Double My Pay You Don't Deserve To Have A Business"
 
Most likely. Depends on the employer and the job, I assume. I presume that the easiest way to deal with this is to tie min wage increases to inflation thru some formula. Problem isnt new. As I recall, Jesus had something to say about people hired at different times getting the same benefits.

It indeed fits. The point was related to a guy already getting $15 and complaining about a ne hire getting the same.

Where did I say anyone was complaining?

If it was me .... I'd simply move on and take my experience elsewhere, where it counts, without complaint. I did it once - my employer decided to change my schedule that I had worked for 6 years. I did offer them the chance to reconsider but I had already negotiated a position at another place with a better schedule than what I had been working and a pay raise . After I left they reached out to me 5 times - asking me to come back. Oh well.

But then my mindset is that it's up to me and no one else.
 
Continuing with backhoe example, compare the wages of a worker who can operate a backhoe to a worker who can only operate a shovel. Increased productivity leads to higher wages.
Not really, and "higher" rarely means a fair wage. The downward pressure on wages is incessant and the employer holds all the cards. This is how it has been since employers became "job creators" and wages suddenly did not even keep pace with inflation.

635159_15348121106847_rId7.jpg

Is Corporate Concentration The Cause Of Wage Stagnation?

Summary
  • The largest companies are more profitable than ever and control a greater share of their markets.
  • At the same time, middle class American wages have stagnated.
  • These two phenomena have led to calls for government action to decrease corporate concentration in order to increase middle class incomes.
  • The Fed and economists from around the world are going to study that subject at annual Jackson Hole meeting beginning this weekend.
  • This article seeks to answer the question whether increasing business concentration has caused wage stagnation.
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4201523-is-corporate-concentration-cause-of-wage-stagnation
 
Do you have any thoughts as to why progressives can't or won't understand this?

To give them the most charitable interpretation, I think it's because they see it in romantic terms - give poor people a raise, enable them to better feed their children and buy homes and participate in the American Dream.

The mistake they make is the mistake many many people make - they don't see unintended consequences, namely the people who will be priced out of the market because their labor isn't worth $15 an hour.

We should be apprehensive of our own ignorance. Doing nothing about the minimum wage will probably have a better results than doing anything else.
 
Often new employees aren't worth much. Sometimes they are actually an expense. But if they last on the job, are good, dependable workers, and gain experience they should be paid more. And most do make more over time. The profit margin of the business should also be considered. Fast food outlets have razor thin profit margins. So do grocery stores. I doubt very many retail businesses could pay much more and stay profitable.
 
That's sad that you don't believe how much you make is up to you.
Not relevant as demonstrated by numerous studies. Increases in min wage pull people out of poverty.
 
Not relevant as demonstrated by numerous studies. Increases in min wage pull people out of poverty.

If that's the case it stands to reason we'd no longer have any poverty since the minimum wage has been around for a very long time now and it should have "worked" by now. We all know poverty isn't a mindest .... right? It isn't perpetuated from generation to generation ..... right? We all know it is far easier to tell people they aren't smart enough to rise out of poverty than to give the mindset that it is up to them to live in poverty or not. I know it fits the savior complex of many people. Like the nobleman riding his steed through the slum tossing pennies at the peasantry to make himself feel better about himself. Far easier to do that than build an industry and hire in people at $30 (or any other arbitrary number) starting pay.
 
If that's the case it stands to reason we'd no longer have any poverty since the minimum wage has been around for a very long time now and it should have "worked" by now. We all know poverty isn't a mindest .... right? It isn't perpetuated from generation to generation ..... right? We all know it is far easier to tell people they aren't smart enough to rise out of poverty than to give the mindset that it is up to them to live in poverty or not. I know it fits the savior complex of many people. Like the nobleman riding his steed through the slum tossing pennies at the peasantry to make himself feel better about himself. Far easier to do that than build an industry and hire in people at $30 (or any other arbitrary number) starting pay.
Well I guess you have never heard of inflation. And who said min wage eliminates all poverty?

Tell you what. Show me where your plan has worked
 
Well I guess you have never heard of inflation. And who said min wage eliminates all poverty?

Tell you what. Show me where your plan has worked

Does that mean you don't really want to eliminate all poverty as I do? That does fit that savior complex thing I was talking about before.

There was actually a study in LIberia where the focus was using Cognitive Behavior Therapy to break the cycle of violence. They identified that poverty and violence were hand in hand - so they addressed it from that standpoint. There were 4 groups of men. One group was given nothing - control group. One group was given CBT only. One group was given CBT and cash. The final group was given cash only.

Here's part of the summary:

Therapy alone improved behaviors significantly, decreasing many of the men’s objectionable behaviors. However, the most lasting effects were seen in the men receiving both therapy and cash. The men were able to practice what they learned in therapy while taking advantage of the opportunity to feel like a “normal” member of society. These men received means, motives and opportunities. However, this time, it was all in favor of improving their lives and their influence on the community.

CBT eliminating violence in Liberia is not the only approach necessary to ending poverty. Yet, it does offer promise for positive change and highlights the importance of the long-term measures needed for vulnerable communities.---

-------------------------------------

Bottom line is throwing cash at a problem does nothing without addressing the individual. If throwing cash at a problem solved things then eventually there would be no more need of it as the problem would be solved - inflation or no inflation. But it does fuel that savior complex to keep a peasant class at which to toss money (and feel superior to). As Hillary Clinton once said of the poor "... there but for the grace of God, go I." Really Hillary? You think if Hillary were stripped of every penny she has today she would gladly accept $15/hr to work? Or do you think she's set to doing whatever it takes to build back wealth? I'm inclined to believe the latter because she doesn't have a $15/hr mindset and no grace of God gave her that.
 
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