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| Minimum Wage | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Nov 12 2003, 01:15 PM (516 Views) | |
| Hoss | Nov 12 2003, 01:15 PM Post #1 |
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Don't make me use my bare hands on you.
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I just read the lates Walter Williams HERE. The following paragraph is the jist of it:
I hadn't really heard this arguement before. It seems as though it is based on a practice tried in appartied South Africa. Anyway, I am against minimum wage increases for other reasons, but this a new angle I wanted to throw out here and see what y'all think. |
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| Swidden | Nov 12 2003, 02:16 PM Post #2 |
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Adm. Gadfly-at-large; Provisional wRench-fly at large
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The hard part for me is determining just what a minimum wage really is these days. Anywhere you go most people claim it is not close to being a living wage. I could list what it costs to live in the Monterey Bay Area or Silicon Valley but I do not have all the numbers close at hand. I will say this about costs: Median home prices in Silicon Valley are in the low to mid $400, 000's, Monterey Bay Area is comparable. Renting an apartment in a decent housing complex is probably about $1,000 a month and up. I would like to think that simple, basic economics would cause employers to pay a reasonable amount, but from the cases of abuse that I have seen I think a baseline does need to be set. Beyond that I think it should be hands off and let the market dictate (if employers take advantage unions will gain a lot of new members). |
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| jjtrek | Nov 12 2003, 02:37 PM Post #3 |
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Lieutenant Commander
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It helps the overall economy if workers can contribute by means of taxes or consumer spending. It doesn't help the economy if workers make so little in take-home pay that they can't afford to buy anything or pay taxes. A minimum wage in an amount that affords a living to a worker helps everyone. Julia |
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| Hoss | Nov 12 2003, 04:10 PM Post #4 |
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Don't make me use my bare hands on you.
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The other side of minimum wage is that it is factored into the price of what we purchase and the services we purchase. So a minimum wage defeats itself by raising the minimum living expenses at the same time. It is kind of like trying to yank yourself off the ground by pulling up on your hair. I am also suspicious of anyone who defines a living wage and how they cook the numbers. It is kind of like talking about those Americans in poverty. They typically live better than the middle class in some other countries. |
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| Admiralbill_gomec | Nov 12 2003, 05:16 PM Post #5 |
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UberAdmiral
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But people making the minimum wage RARELY are sole providers for their own or their family's income. In addition, minimum wage is a TRAINING wage that rarely lasts past 90 days. This pretty much shoots down the economic impact theory. |
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| ImpulseEngine | Nov 12 2003, 05:16 PM Post #6 |
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Admiral
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I am a strong believer in a minimum wage and it needs to be set a rate that allows people to live at a reasonable standard. Having said that, I fully realize that "reasonable" means different things to different people so the term needs to be properly defined also. In addition, I wonder if it would be possible to have different minimum wage levels depending on where you live. Some places in the country are very expensive to live - even in the low-income areas - compared to other places. They shouldn't all require the same minimum wage amount. In practice, it would probably be difficult to implement something like this, but logically it does make sense to me. |
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| ImpulseEngine | Nov 12 2003, 05:23 PM Post #7 |
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Admiral
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They rarely are sole providers because they can't provide on such a low wage. Many of these people have to work multiple jobs or both parents in a family must work just to make ends meet.
I don't buy that. What about fast food workers, janitors, nursing home laundry workers, grocery store baggers, etc. A lot of these types of jobs only earn the minimum wage long past training. It may be a year before they are eligible for a raise and, even then, there is no guarantee they will get one. |
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| Admiralbill_gomec | Nov 12 2003, 05:30 PM Post #8 |
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UberAdmiral
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Dr. Williams logically argues for the REPEAL of the minimum wage, something I have encouraged (the repeal) for a long time. The minimum wage is not a living wage, nor was it ever meant to be. It is a wage for low and no skill jobs and is meant as a starting or training wage. The downward effect of the minimum wage is that it makes products more expensive. But Bill, if you claim that the minimum wage makes things more expensive, and it wasn't meant to be a living wage, aren't you contradicting yourself? Nope. Why? Because UNIONS use the minimum wage as a basis to make wage demands when renegotiating contracts. If the minimum wage is say, five bucks an hour, they use that number as the basis for negotiations, saying that every job must pay a certain number of times the minimum wage. Is it any wonder that manufacturing jobs have been driven out of the country? In economic terms, lowering or eliminating the minimum wage moves the aggregate supply curve to the right, and lowering the equilibrium price. This makes the demand for those products higher. Before I start hearing whining about slave wages and the like, the MARKET decides wages, not the government. Case in point, if no one is going to perform a job at X wage, then the wage will rise until the equilibrium wage is reached. It works every time. |
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| Admiralbill_gomec | Nov 12 2003, 05:38 PM Post #9 |
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UberAdmiral
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What a crock. You've tried to argue your way around this and failed. THE MINIMUM WAGE IS FOR LOW SKILL AND NO SKILL JOBS. Period! Hey, both my parents worked, and they were both college graduates. Raising a TRAINING wage is not going to change that. In fact, it will cause MORE people to be unemployed. Why? Because employers would rather pay overtime than bring on another worker. This is simple MICROeconomics. I used the MACROeconomic explanation earlier in this thread.
Can you cite any facts? Fast food is a LOW SKILL JOB normally done by TEENAGERS. Go through any drive-through. It is rare to see an adult there... if you do, he/she is either a manager or a PENSIONER. I was surprised to see one last weekend, and he might have been an illegal Australian. Janitorial work is normally done (at least here) by either ILLEGAL aliens or UNION workers. In one case that person shouldn't even be here, and in the other case, Joe Union is sweeping floors for thirteen bucks an hour. If there is no guarantee that someone will get a raise, even after a year, why is this MORON still working there? Call me when you come up with some facts. |
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| doctortobe | Nov 12 2003, 05:48 PM Post #10 |
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Speak softly, and carry a 57 megaton stick!
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But that applies to the market as a whole. What about coal miners for instance? Before minimum wage was instituted, they worked for next to nothing to produce a product that they would hardly ever use except to heat homes and cooking. The product was shipped out and the profits were kept by the heads of the coal industry for their personal use. None of that extra money ever made it back to the miners. They could not go to a higher paying job, coal mining was THE job in many of these towns. Nor did they have the money or education to move to another area and take up another job. Fathers went into the mines and worked until they died and their sons went in as soon as they were old enough. This netted enough money to pay for low quality food and clothing for the family. While I agree that unions have probably replaced tycoons and barons in being the corrupt powerhouses of the economy, I feel that they are a necessity for any country that espouses life liberty and the persuit of happiness. If unions would scale back in size and power, then maybe we could strike an equilibrium between worker's rights and free economy. |
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| Admiralbill_gomec | Nov 12 2003, 06:00 PM Post #11 |
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UberAdmiral
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But Doc, that was THEN and this is NOW. This is no longer 1890, 1920, or even 1950. Look at the old coal towns of Pennsylvania or West Virginia. More people in those towns work for the service industry (the local Wal-Mart, supermarket, or whatever) than work in the mines. The era of the "company town" vanished with the start of World War II (for us, 62 years ago next month). Unionization helped coal miners more than a minimum wage did. But with laws on the books to protect workers, unions have become dinosaurs. The only nice thing about unions is that their membership is rapidly shrinking (unless you work for the federal government or teach). |
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| Cool Vulcan | Nov 12 2003, 06:02 PM Post #12 |
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Captain
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Minimum wage is bad for everyone I think. They are in fact tring this in the United Kingdom, take a look at what I am getting now compared to what I got when I first got a job as a sales assistant. I hate my job, I hate the way I am actually treated. As Admiralbill stated they rather pay overtime than hire more staff. I have seen this, they say they are niumber one in the UK. In my book they are nothing but socailist show offs that I've ever seen. In fact its very hard to find a full time job around here, I have been passed up because I hold a U.S passport and I don't have the quifications. I do have the retail expertise in that field, but it never seems to be enough. I currently in search for a better job, even if it means being paid 4.78 per hour. It would put this kind of attiude that I am rich and make 1000's of pounds when I don't right out the bloodly window. I can actually see the treatment of staff who aren't as smart or as high up, been there, and even been to hell and back. I have been called a black slave, pervert, and many other things by the management. My own section manager is more surpportive of me and actually is nice to me. I have my eye on a job right now as I type this, hopefully I will be better off. The minimum wage is something like 4.25 last I heard, in the UK. |
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| Dandandat | Nov 12 2003, 06:58 PM Post #13 |
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Time to put something here
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This is all I know on the subject at hand, Back in the day my grandparents walked off a bout, with a small child, the cloths on their backs, a clock my grand mother carried all the way form Italy (ask her to tell you the story about the clock someday), and a few dollars that other family members had given them. They both got multiple jobs making what at that time would be less then what a minimum wage earner would make now. They saved and bought a house that they and my father lived in for years. When my father got married to my mother (both non collage graduates. Son and daughter of immigrants who barley had enough money to pay for their houses, so college was out of the question for them) they lived with my grandparents for a while, until they could afford their own house (which happened when I was 13). Both started out life with jobs paying the immune wage. My mother got a job in a grocery store my father a job as a night watchman at a sewer water treatment plant. Over the years my father (through hard work,) elevated him self to the supervisory staff of the water treatment plant, and now is head of the electric generation house of that plant. My mother worked her way up to being head customer service woman of the grocery store. And they are doing quite well for them selves now. When I was 15 my parents know they would not have enough money to pay for me and my two siblings to go to college. So we all took a few minimum wage jobs (I have been working ever day since I was 15) where every cent went to our college fund (that’s right ever cent, no video games for us). During college we all worked full time making minimum wage to fish paying off what we owed. And now I am an electrical engineer, my brother is a computer programming and my sister is a Dr of genetic engineering. So I am sorry but I do not believe that a minimum wage increase is what is need in order to raise the standard of living for a family. What is needed is hard work, family bonds, and determination. I Leigh at any one who says they can not get a head in these united states of America (not out of wanting to be mean, but because it is lie, any one who wants it can get it.) |
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| doctortobe | Nov 12 2003, 07:58 PM Post #14 |
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Speak softly, and carry a 57 megaton stick!
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Unless they are an immigrant or have a felony conviction. I just don't feel comfortable disbanding unions now or in the future. Laws can be repealed, but as long as a group of people can cause more expense to an employer then the money saved by mistreatment of them, then the quality of a workplace will be relatively high. The same holds true with our civil rights, if we cease to protect them, then the government will move towards a more autocratic system. Large organizations are always trying to be king of the hill in whatever endeavor they are involved in. Whenever that leads to some wrongdoing, only another large organization will be able to knock them off the top of the hill. Don't believe that things could get bad again? Look at the power of lobbyists. I could think of a thousand arguments for repealing a multitude of labor laws. Off the top of my head I thought that repealing the minimum wage would help American businesses compete with cheaper labor of foreign nations. A little money in the pockets of Senators and were back in the 1800's. I will never trust large organizations where the all the power is given to the top. Entities like the federal government, large corporations, and even modern unions will always have my mistrust. I guess that's why I joined the military. Sure the officers give orders to the enlisted men and the enlisted men follow them. But the officers also know that the enlisted men are the real power of the military and the enlisted men know it also. That's why the military system works so well. There is shared power on all levels of the body. Putting power at the bottom of the pyramid, into the hands of the masses. That's what I want to see. Sound like socialism? No, I'm talking about democracy. |
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| Hoss | Nov 13 2003, 08:58 AM Post #15 |
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Don't make me use my bare hands on you.
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I, too am in favor of unions. They have done great things for the American worker. The problem I have is when they get their tentacles into politics and laws start getting passed that favor the union at the expense of everybody else. Let it be of the people, not the government. |
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