Progressive Radio Rants -- Minimum Wage

WildCat said:
Meanwhile, the median income of Australian households is still thousands less than in the USA.
Click to expand...
So? Does it leave them scrounging to put gas in the car or a roof over their heads or to pay medical and utility bills?

How many of them have personal incomes greater than the GDP of Tanzania?
 
leftysergeant said:
That is unproven.
Click to expand...
What's unproven? That minimum wage is a net negative for someone who is unemployed? I don't see how it can be otherwise. And it sure isn't a proven consensus that minimum wages increase employment.

If the job is not worth a day's provisions, it is not neccessary to the business concerned or there is no demand for the service or product.
Click to expand...
Incorrect. It can be worth more than zero but less than minimum wage. The presence of a wage law simply makes it illegal but does not change the fact that it may have been economically worthwhile (to the worker and the employer)

Otherwise, the employer could do it himself, or he is just throwing money down a rat hole or, in the case of a contractor, is in the wrong line of work.
Click to expand...
The employer "doing it themself" is irrelevant to any argument here. Although someone doing something that is far less valuable to society than something else they could do is wasteful and reduces total welfare. My guess is that employers doing low wage jobs (compared with whatever their employer role was) would mostly fall into that category.

Minimum wage benefits the middle class [ . . . ]
Click to expand...
You seem to be agreeing with what I wrote. Minimum wage--for example--is no help to the unemployed. Barriers to entry in any part of the labour market help the people on the inside and are detrimental to those on the outside who could compete if it was not for the barrier. And those locked out who want to get in are invariably the poorer of the two groups. There's a surprise.
 
Last edited:
leftysergeant said:
What has the employer produced that it of value to anyone? If nobody wants the crap he makes, tough luck, dude.
Click to expand...
If nobody wants the labor you offer at $7.25 or $17 or $5 that you want then tough luck, oh wait, the government has dictated that you are guaranteed a minimum wage. You are supporting a one way street with no rationale.
That would be inflationary and would do nothing for the unemployed because they would still be trying to obtain now-more-expensive stuff without any more income.
Click to expand...
You don't think that stuff produced at $7.25/hr. doesn't cost more than stuff produced at $5/hr.? I guess you decide at what point inflation is good and when it is bad.

Arrogant and elitist blather. It is not propping up the incompetent to insist that a decent wage be paid for a decent day's work.
Click to expand...
The government insisting someone be $7.25/hr. for a $5/hr. job is indeed propping up.


It will have to do for now because it is a little too much a stretch to call it "enslavement."
Click to expand...
Paying less than minimum wage is neither theft nor enslavement, despite the extremist rhetoric to paint it as such.
 
Francesca R said:
What's unproven? That minimum wage is a net negative for someone who is unemployed?
Click to expand...

It is disproven. I keep hearing the rightwing ecconoloons saying that reducing taxes increases unemployment because it allows the ricjh piggies to create jobs, but they sure haven't done much of that with the money the Shrub handed them. But when the working class have more money after a day's bills have been paid, they can stimulate the local ecconomy and create a need for more workers. I have history on my side. you haven't.

Incorrect. It can be worth more than zero but less than minimum wage. The presence of a wage law simply makes it illegal but does not change the fact that it may have been economically worthwhile (to the worker and the employer)
Click to expand...

If the product cannot be made without stealing labor, then either the entrepreneur is a worthless drongo who should be kicked out of town or his product is crap and need not be made anyway.

The employer "doing it themself" is irrelevant to any argument here. Although someone doing something that is far less valuable to society than something else they could do is wasteful and reduces total welfare. My guess is that employers doing low wage jobs (compared with whatever their employer role was) would mostly fall into that category.
Click to expand...

So the poor should operate at a net loss so some stupid little piggy can get rich producing over-priced crap while reducing the rest of the community to peonage? OY!

You seem to be agreeing with what I wrote. Minimum wage--for example--is no help to the unemployed. Barriers to entry in any part of the labour market help the people on the inside and are detrimental to those on the outside who could compete if it was not for the barrier. And those locked out who want to get in are invariably the poorer of the two groups. There's a surprise.
Click to expand...

Unsubstaniated by facts.
 
leftysergeant said:
It is disproven. I keep hearing the rightwing ecconoloons saying that reducing taxes increases unemployment because it allows the ricjh piggies to create jobs, but they sure haven't done much of that with the money the Shrub handed them. But when the working class have more money after a day's bills have been paid, they can stimulate the local ecconomy and create a need for more workers. I have history on my side. you haven't.
Click to expand...
That is nothing to do with your claim to have disproven my statement. Try again or don't bother and I will call it a concession on your part (which it seems to be).

If the product cannot be made without stealing labor, then either the entrepreneur is a worthless drongo who should be kicked out of town or his product is crap and need not be made anyway.
Click to expand...
Not an economic argument at all, irrelevant to my points.

So the poor should operate at a net loss so some stupid little piggy can get rich producing over-priced crap while reducing the rest of the community to peonage? OY!
Click to expand...
Not a valid response to the points.

Unsubstaniated by facts.
Click to expand...
Tell that to someone unemployed who would work for less than minimum wage.
 
Francesca R said:
Tell that to someone unemployed who would work for less than minimum wage.
Click to expand...
As I stated earlier, there is a minimum wage law for the same reason that one is not allowed to sell oneself into prostitution or indentured servitude.

Allowing some fool to work for less than a decent wage in order to allow some dirtbag to make a profit making substandard crap undermines the ability of others to earn a decent wage making stuff that is worth something in a business run by a rational human being.

If there were no minimum wage, you can just bet that the country would be swamped in unethical creeps who claim that no job in the factor below a management level was worth a day's provisions and half the country would be unable to afford the garbage they crank out.
 
You are correct that economics is not a natural science. But erroneously, you appear to think that gives you licence to spout total gibberish.
 
How were working conditions when there was no minimum wage? What kind of living conditions did the workers have?
 
Kid Eager said:
I'm sure that's an excellent answer to a question I haven't yet asked - I'll save it for later.
Click to expand...
Oh, but you did. The Fair Work Ombudsman was supposedly making sure all Australians made middle class wages or something... :rolleyes:
 
thaiboxerken said:
How were working conditions when there was no minimum wage? What kind of living conditions did the workers have?
Click to expand...

How many people got rickets when there was no television? What kind of nutrition did people have?

You seem to have confused correlation with causation.

And minimum wage is likely to make working conditions worse, not better. By inflating wages, you inflate the demand for jobs. Employers are then able to let working conditions deteriorate without losing employees. The decrease in demand because of poor working conditions won't cause a shortage in workers because of the artificial inflation of demand.

Whereas without the minimum wage, demand will have to meet supply. Employers will find that they can actually reduce wages without facing a shortage of workers IF they improve working conditions. So the market provides an incentive for employers to improve working conditions (it allows them to offer lower wages), whereas minimum wage insulates employers from the consequences of poor working conditions.
 
leftysergeant said:
Maybe the goal is not to raise the median income. If I am still making what I made last year, and you just made a couple million dollars on a land deal, our median income has increased.

Aint done me a damned bit of good, though, has it.
Click to expand...

Why wouldn't it? The newly wealthy person in the hood will purchase more goods and services benefiting and employing people. If the new millionaire makes other improvements, it will increase the value of other peoples properties as well. The economy is not a zero sum game system.
 
leftysergeant said:
Maybe the goal is not to raise the median income. If I am still making what I made last year, and you just made a couple million dollars on a land deal, our median income has increased.

Aint done me a damned bit of good, though, has it.
Click to expand...

I've never seen someone use median to describe a population of two.

And if we're talking about an actual population, then a small segment of the population making huge amounts of money will NOT shift the median much, if at all. That, in fact, is one of the main reasons that median income, rather than mean income, is typically used. You CANNOT shift the median upwards unless you shift the lower half of the population upwards.
 
Ziggurat said:
How many people got rickets when there was no television? What kind of nutrition did people have?

You seem to have confused correlation with causation.

And minimum wage is likely to make working conditions worse, not better. By inflating wages, you inflate the demand for jobs. Employers are then able to let working conditions deteriorate without losing employees. The decrease in demand because of poor working conditions won't cause a shortage in workers because of the artificial inflation of demand.

Whereas without the minimum wage, demand will have to meet supply. Employers will find that they can actually reduce wages without facing a shortage of workers IF they improve working conditions. So the market provides an incentive for employers to improve working conditions (it allows them to offer lower wages), whereas minimum wage insulates employers from the consequences of poor working conditions.
Click to expand...

Really? How's that working in China and other countries that have no or a very low minimum wage?
 
thaiboxerken said:
Really? How's that working in China and other countries that have no or a very low minimum wage?
Click to expand...
Wages are rapidly rising in China, despite the government not mandating higher wages:
The ripple effects of rising costs in China are already being felt around the globe. U.S. clothing retailers are raising prices for shirts and other garments by 10 percent on average after a decade of price falls, partly due to higher labor costs in China.

"It may take a decade for China to see its export competitiveness erode, but we have seen the beginning of this happening," the Credit Suisse report said, predicting that salaries for China's estimated 150 million migrant workers would rise 20 to 30 percent a year for the next three to five years.

That's partly because China's traditional advantage _ its vast, cheap pool of workers _ is drying up. Economists say it's the result of a rapidly aging population after 40 years of the one-child policy. Economic growth is "creating more jobs faster than the population is creating new workers," said Stephen Green, an economist at Standard Chartered, in a report titled "Wanted: 25 million workers."

China's blistering growth has also lifted incomes and created more opportunities in poorer inland provinces, which means fewer people leaving for jobs in the richer coastal cities.
Click to expand...
http://www.newser.com/article/d9mdg...cost-manufacturing-out-of-southern-china.html

How is that possible ken? I thought no company pays more than minimum wage, and market forces cannot raise wages? :rolleyes:
 
leftysergeant said:
There is a minimum wage for the same reason that you are not allowed to sell yourself into indentured service or prostitution.
Click to expand...
No, there isn't.

Now, answer the question. Why is it that you are free not to pay a minimum wage for services, but you want other employers to be required to pay them? Why can you hire someone for a lower wage, but you want to make it so other employers can't?

As far as I'm concerned, if you won't apply your standards to yourself, those standards aren't worth diddly.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom