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Minimum wage


Posted: Oct 23, 2014

I heard a fellow on TV the other night say (quote?) a conversation at the dinner table the night before with dad telling his children "my dream for you is to some day have a minimum wage job."  The conversation was about minimum wage jobs not being the goal, but rather the stepping stone to a better job with better pay - people should strive to get out of the minimum wage jobs - not want them to be the best that they can do - with minimum wage, the employer can have more positions to offer and can keep the prices lower on the product or service that is offered.  if the employee doesn't like minimum wage, then they should have a goal to find a job that is above minimum wage - maybe something with benefits - in order words, if you don't like it - go find something else - the employer has a business to run - if you don't like it - don't buy the product  or, better yet, set up your own business and pay a better wage and charge more for your product - see how far it gets you.....

The point is we should be helping our children set goals above and beyond - the minimum wage job is good for weekend and summer jobs for kids - or to get mom out of the house after empty nest, etc. - they are not and never were designed to support a family......

;

Of course, the corporations would never - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
exploit the young, the disabled, the disadvantaged.

There are solutions for them--maybe a good old fashioned "poor house."

Capitalism is working, and it's sending U.S. jobs overseas, and we take what's available. - sm

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In addition to jobs being sent overseas to cheap labor while the employer eases their US tax burden through offshoring, employers have been freezing employees' wages and actively lowering employee's wages and benefits while inflation is certainly NOT frozen, MTs being a very good example of this. Some people have therefore been forced to seek government assistance while still in the same job that used to pay well, thus causing the government to subsidize what the employer used to pay. Corporate profits are at an all-time high, witness the stock market, while the rich are doing great and the middle class is shrinking, and we are becoming a nation of have and have nots.


Raising the minimum wage gets people off the government teat and makes their employer pay a fair wage that takes them out of poverty status.



 


In July 2014, Republicans in the Senate blocked the Bring Jobs Home Act which offered tax credits of 20% to companies to move back to the US and would allow them to write-off costs of relocating to the US.


You said:  "if the employee doesn't like minimum wage, then they should have a goal to find a job that is above minimum wage - maybe something with benefits - in order words, if you don't like it - go find something else...."


Newsflash: People don't have a goal to make minimum wage; they take the jobs they can get or they're still in the same job having their pay/benefits being frozen or even cut and cut again while inflation doesn't stop. This adversely affects single women, whose employer can legally pay them less than their male counterparts doing the exact same job. Republicans in Congress blocked job bill after job bill, but they've blocked anything Obama tried to do, as they planned since before Obama took office to obstruct everything he proposed and then blame him for it and make him a 1-term president (epic fail on that goal). 


http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/apr/26/democrats-gop-plot-obstruct-obama


If the federal minimum wage had kept up with inflation over the last 40 years, it would now be $10.90 instead of $7.25. Republicans have blocked multiple attempts by Democrats to raise the minimum wage.

The only raise I have received as an MT - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
Is when my state increased the minimum wage. It was nice to see a small increase. I wish we would have a federal minimum wage increase so we would not be discriminated against the MTs working in lower minimum wage states.

Ah, if only economics, let alone capitalism, were so simple. - Or even if the capitalist system worked this way..

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...but we all know that it isn't that simple, and we have ample proof that it certainly doesn't work the way you suggest.  Employers have many choices when it comes to employment aside from merely the hourly wage (how many to hire, how many hours to give them, what compensation other than wages to offer, whether to hire domestically or in another country, etc.) - and it' been proven time and time and time and TIME again that if you squeeze them on the wage side they will simply adapt their compensation and hiring practices in terms of the other choices that are available to them.

Toss in the rapid advancements in automation, which are accelerating by the day (a robot waiter is coming to a restaurant near you SOONER THAN YOU THINK, and probably a robotic medical assistant as well), and the consequences of squeezing low-wage sectors will (and already have) become even more dire.

The EU makes a very good "petri dish" for economic comparisons because we have a variety of economic models all operating within the same market.

Some have minimum wage laws and some do not.  Those without such laws have, over years, averaged around 3% lower unemployment rates than those with minimum wage laws.   See the top chart in the image.

And it's very funny (not to say bizarre) that someone's logical system would allow them to complain about "capitalism" resulting in jobs shifting overseas while arguing at the same time for a rise in minimum wage.  HINT:  Jobs shift overseas primarily to take advantage of lower wages elsewhere. 


The bottom graphic in the image reflects the results of a survey of executives with regard to two questions respecting the minimum wage.  It illustrates just one of the responses that companies can take to raising the minimum wage - i.e., reduced hiring.  As I said, beyond this there are many other ways that companies can respond that will not benefit the employee.


And I haven't even mentioned the most obvious fact at all - i.e. that if my wage at McDonald's goes up, it's virtually inevitable that I'm going to turn around and pay more for that combo at the Pizza Hut.


I'm in favor of good wages, but throughout all the time that we've had minimum wage laws, poverty has been increasing and there's been a steady erosion in low-wage job opportunities because of ALL THOSE OTHER CHOICES that employers have - including sending work overseas.



 


 


 

Ah, if only the US were the EU, and you didn't supply your source. - Let me do it for you.

[ In Reply To ..]
This garbage is brought to you by Steve Hanke from the Cato Institute. For those that don't know what the Cato Institute is, it is that libertarian think tank that was founded in 1974 but renamed in 1976. It used to be called the Charles Koch Foundation. Yes, that Koch. The Cato Institute has an agenda, and it's not to help Americans. They quite frequently crank out studies that slice and dice numbers to fit the conservative narrative they push. Mr. Hanke is also a member of The Heritage Foundation. Enough said.

Rather than being squeezed "on the wage side" as you describe it, CEO wages are skyrocketing while the rest of our wages are not keeping up with inflation. Money is flowing up to CEOs while effective tax rates are getting lower and companies are using overseas tax havens to avoid US taxes. I have heard Mr. Hanke's supply side arguments many times, the ones that argue that lowering taxes on the rich and corporations will cause a trickle down effect that lifts all boats. The only problem is that these "trickle down" and Reaganomic theories and anti-minimum wage arguments do NOT work. The rich and big corporations are making money hand-over-fist and putting that fist in their pockets and holding it.

It has been proven over and over and over in the United States (regardless of what is going on with all the E.U. charts and polls of CEOs overseas) that putting money in the hands of workers causes people to spend money which increases the demand for things. The demand for things puts people back to work making things and doing things.

I keep hearing conservatives whine that the POTUS has done nothing to help people out of poverty when raising minimum wage has been proposed repeatedly. Yes, the minimum wage is increasing while poverty increases, but that would be true if minimum wage was increased a penny a year too, wouldn't it? That's because the minimum wage increases are NOT keeping up with increasing inflation, and that is a lousy argument for keeping the minimum wage low and a very good reason for raising it. Economists agree: Raising the minimum wage reduces poverty. (see link)

Raising Minimum Wage Will Hurt More than Help - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
This article was published in "The Detroit News" in April 2013, but it is still relevant today.

Thank you for making my voting decision an easy one. - sm

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As long as conservatives argue against a minimum wage hike, I will be voting a straight Democratic ticket.

That's what they want you to do. - Don't realize the big picture.

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Fall into lockstep right in place where they planned.
The brainwashed lock-steppers are the ones - who believe "trickle-down" economics
[ In Reply To ..]
works. The only ones it "works" for are the ones whose hands are on the spigot. The rest of us are hosed.

More Charles Koch Foundation Right-Wing Propaganda - sm

[ In Reply To ..]

Let's see, do I really believe the Koch Brothers are concerned about Americans' best interests or their own corporate interests?


ROTFL


Kochtopus: How two rich men stole our democracy, explained in one image.


 


Fraudulent voter information disseminated by the Kochs' Americans for Prosperity in North Carolina, Arkansas, Illinois, and Wisconsin attempting to mislead voters? Pathetic to have to suppress the vote, but it's the conservative way because if people are allowed to vote, conservatives lose.


How do big corporations like the Koch's big business convince "conservative" and "patriot" Americans to vote lockstep against their own best interests? Send their jobs overseas to cheap labor and then convince them that cheap labor crossing the border is taking their jobs. This works with people that are motivated by fear and smear, and the Koch's laugh all the way to the bank. They're not laughing with you.

Sounds like Dirty Harry has a pal. - LOL

[ In Reply To ..]
He hates them so you hate them. Nice.
You seem to want to discuss me personally, as if you actually know me. - LOL
[ In Reply To ..]
Let's talk about me, m'kay?

Well, I'm personally not a fan of Dirty Harry, and were he a real person, I would avoid his type like the plague. Now Clint Eastwood seems like an okay enough guy. Say, I think he should speak at the 2016 Republican Convention in Cleveland. He could pull up an empty chair and babble away at it for a half hour, only this time he could pretend like he's talking to George W. Bush and explain how Governors make lousy presidents. What's that you say? He who must not be named? Totally different type movie from Dirty Harry, more like a love overcomes hate theme.

Say, speaking of hate, that's a really strong word there. You seem to think you know me, but you don't know me if you think I hate guys I don't know, including the Koch brothers. What I feel for people like the Kochs is a mixture ranging from "agree" to "disagree," but I reserve hate for people I know personally, and come to think of it, I don't hate any of them either.

The Koch brothers? I thought it was great that they spent millions of dollars in opposition to the Patriot Act, and I think they use a lot of their billions to help a lot of people, but I also just basically disagree with their lobbying efforts against universal healthcare and climate change legislation. I think some of the things these guys have done to oppose climate change legislation is particularly pitiful, and I'm against the whole big oil Keystone Pipeline issue, and all these politicians they've got doing their bidding is exactly what I think the founders crafted the Constitution to protect against. They support all these Tea Party candidates claiming to be "patriots," but in my eyes they are politicians that are bought and paid for by a huge company with an agenda I largely disagree with. This type of corporate control of the government in both parties is turning this country into an oligarchy that is totally in opposition to what the founding fathers meant when they founded a country of the people, by the people, and for the people.

The Koch brothers? If these guys were big tobacco, they'd be the ones insisting that cigarette smoke in our lungs is not the least bit harmful, and they would have their cronies at their institutes and foundations cranking out the opposition studies insisting that smoking causing disease in humans was sloppy science and a hoax by the government to impede the free market. Gag.

I find it odd that a min. wage worker like an MT - would believe that lie.

[ In Reply To ..]
.

So b/c many transcriptionists are making minimum wage, - Valley Girl

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capitalism is working? And we're mostly not kids...

Not everyone can get out of a minimum wage job. - (We sure didnt, did we?) sm

[ In Reply To ..]
And if a person doing that kind of a job can't (at the very least!) support themselves, what chance do they stand of getting out of that job if they have to take several additional jobs in order to just pay their bills?

The days of being able to just "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" are long gone. What we have now is a totally different reality, and the same rules of "if you work hard you will succeed" no longer apply. Especially since the same companies that offer those low-paying jobs also control the government? They pay the government under the table to keep their taxes low, the minimum wage low, and the profits high.

True capitalism used to work in the olden days, when for the most part, people went into business for a living. Now, it's all about totally OBSCENE amounts of profit, at the expense of everyone working for them, and the quality of life of the entire country. That's not capitalism, that's nothing but pure GREED, and it's wrong.

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