Progressive Radio Rants -- Minimum Wage

[Cobalt]

No, that is not what I am saying at all. If I expect to derive some cash benefit from your labor, I am supposed to give you a day's provisions in exchange for a day's labor. If I cannot make a profit after doing so, I have no business being in business, because my business model obviously sucks.

Uh huh.

Cutting the grass is a minimum-skill-level job. A day's provisions, or a per-hour rate equal to the time he spends at it is the least I should expect to pay. If he is really good at it, I should think it only fitting to pay hm more.

How lovely.

So everybody that I keep on has to work for less than a day's provisions? That is one totally screwed-up business model. To be ethical, I would have to do with less than a day's provisions. You are making no sense. I have no reason to employ someone if he is not doing something for me which will make my life better.

Do pay attention. To maintain your business and pay everyone this "living wage" you can't define, you'll have to lose some workers. Thus, those that you let go are SOL.

I don't. I was just using that as a way of pointing out that if you want something, you owe it to the person making it to pay for that part of his day's labor. If I expected the shoes for less, be they Guccis or some cheapy mart house brand, I would be an utter swine.

You realize that's already part of the cost, yes?

Why did you hire the drongo, and why should the rest of your workers have to accept less than a living wage because of him?

Your overuse of that word is growing dull. In any case, sometimes you don't know an applicant is lame until they're actually on the clock. Some people can appear to be a 10/10 for their interview, and phone it in once the money starts coming, because they know someone will pick up their slack, yet they'll still make this nice paycheck for it.

Allowing a stupid employer to pay less is rewarding his stupidity out of good worker's pockets.

See above.

 

[leftysergeant]

Your overuse of that word is growing dull. In any case, sometimes you don't know an applicant is lame until they're actually on the clock. Some people can appear to be a 10/10 for their interview, and phone it in once the money starts coming, because they know someone will pick up their slack, yet they'll still make this nice paycheck for it.

You're still trying to penalize the good workers ecause a very few are lazy.

By the same reasoning, corporations should be taxed more heavily because they are ripping us off and need more strenuous government supervision.

 

[Ziggurat]

Perhaps we need to start implementing minimum prices on goods too.

I was joking when I said this. But apparently, people are serious about it.

 

[respect]

Total bull flops. Some non-sociopathic adult will then have an iopportunity to get into the business, if there is any reason for the business to exist in the first place.

Why don't they anyway?

 

[respect]

You're still trying to penalize the good workers ecause a very few are lazy.

You still haven't explained what should happen to workers who can't or won't earn "a day's provisions". Should they go on welfare? Perhaps the state could make up the difference (the state pays a company $2 an hour to pay an employee $10 who only adds $8)? They are forced into homelessness?

Your cunning plan really does need an explanation about what should be done with the large class of unskilled workers you want to make unemployable.

 

[leftysergeant]

Your cunning plan really does need an explanation about what should be done with the large class of unskilled workers you want to make unemployable.

If everybody who works earns enough to live, as a minmum, the lower wage-earners tend to spend that money in the local ecconomy, thus creating demand for goods and services, thus increasing employment locally.

Give a rich man a tax cut, let him cut wages, and the savings will probably wind up mostly in China or some place else that offers cheap labor.

 

[respect]

If everybody who works earns enough to live, as a minmum, the lower wage-earners tend to spend that money in the local ecconomy, thus creating demand for goods and services, thus increasing employment locally.

Give a rich man a tax cut, let him cut wages, and the savings will probably wind up mostly in China or some place else that offers cheap labor.

You don't seem to be getting this, not everyone who works produces enough value to be paid the wages you want them to be a paid. An employee who produces $8 an hour for a company is unemployable if there is a $10 an hour minimum wage, they are breaking even if they pay him $8 an hour, making money if they pay him less and losing money if they pay him more.

 

[Ziggurat]

You don't seem to be getting this, not everyone who works produces enough value to be paid the wages you want them to be a paid.

Plus, not everyone works.

 

[bikerdruid]

Plus, not everyone works.

true....some, like myself, are retired and living on a pension.

 

[leftysergeant]

You don't seem to be getting this, not everyone who works produces enough value to be paid the wages you want them to be a paid. An employee who produces $8 an hour for a company is unemployable if there is a $10 an hour minimum wage, they are breaking even if they pay him $8 an hour, making money if they pay him less and losing money if they pay him more.

Your business model sucks.

 

[Ziggurat]

true....some, like myself, are retired and living on a pension.

And some people are unemployed unwillingly. The minimum wage hardly helps them, does it?

 

[bikerdruid]

And some people are unemployed unwillingly. The minimum wage hardly helps them, does it?

i can assure you that that is not the case in alberta.
any unemployed here are so by choice.
there are many thousands of job openings here, and we have a minimum wage.

 

[Ziggurat]

i can assure you that that is not the case in alberta.
any unemployed here are so by choice.

We've always been at war with Eastasia.

there are many thousands of job openings here, and we have a minimum wage.

Job openings and unwillingly unemployed people don't spontaneously annihilate each other, you know. If the unemployed person doesn't meet the job requirements, they won't get hired no matter how much they want the job.

 

[bikerdruid]

We've always been at war with Eastasia.



Job openings and unwillingly unemployed people don't spontaneously annihilate each other, you know. If the unemployed person doesn't meet the job requirements, they won't get hired no matter how much they want the job.

the local A+W starts at $10 to flip burgers.
they are always short staffed and looking for workers.

 

[Coffee]

In my area there are always job openings for minimum wage positions but some people won't take a minimum wage job because they feel it is beneath them. They won't work at a fast food place or a grocery store or any place that pays minimum wage because they use to have a higher paying job and they will not accept anything less. They live on unemployment insurance for as long as possible or get public assistance until they find a job that will pay them what they think they are worth.

 

[Ziggurat]

the local A+W starts at $10 to flip burgers.
they are always short staffed and looking for workers.

And do they always hire anyone who applies?

 

[The_Animus]

You seem to forget that people making "less than a day's provisions" are doing so voluntarily. Ronald McDonald does not hold a gun to McDonald's fry cook's heads and make them work for him.

Your problem seems to be with unskilled workers more so than their employers.

Generally those fry cooks cannot get better wages elsewhere because they are considered too young, or too inexperienced, or do not yet have a college degree. So they are left with a take it or leave it option. Great option huh?

Just like there are a lot of people who vote democrat, not because they really support democrats, but because it is the lesser of two evils.

The problem people have with employers is simple: They often take a disproportionate amount of the profits for themselves at the expense of the lower class workers.

 

[The_Animus]

Here is the basic problem as I see it.

Practically all business organizations are organized in pyramid fashion. A couple people at the top who are in charge of overall management and direction. More in the middle for administration and specific area management, and a ton at the bottom providing most of the physical work to create the products or provide the service.

Society says that as you move up the pyramid fewer and fewer people in society are capable of doing the job. As a result they are more valuable, while those at the bottom are easily replaceable because there are never enough job supply to fill demand.

While I think this is true to an extent, I also think that a larger proportion of the population can do those 'high up jobs' than society tends to think. This is due to a poor education, and training system, but is also beside the point.

All level of employees are needed for the organization to function and make a profit, but because the higher level positions are deemed harder to replace, the people in those positions are labeled as being more valuable and as such feel justified in a higher wage at the expense of those in lower value positions. Granted those who had to sacrifice money by going to college to get those skills and higher job positions should be compensated more to offset the money lost by not working and racking up student loans.

In this sense people are treated just like a product or commodity. Why pay $2 for a widget when you can get it from another organization for $1? In the same regard, why pay a person $8 for their labor when you can get it from another person for $4? The problem with this is that one is a lifeless object and the other is a living human being who needs basic things to continue living and an additional level of things to live decently.

With an economy like there is now there is great power in the hands of those who are higher up compared to lower on the job rung. Day after day it becomes easier for those people in higher positions to think "There are few who can do what I do, thus I am more valuable and deserve more money. There is a practically unlimited supply of people who can do the bottom rung work though, so I'll continually find people who will do the work for less. If they don't like it they can starve."

And so those at the top get their wages inflated, bonuses raised, etc. While other people lose their jobs or take pay cuts.

I think many people feel there is a fundamental wrongness to this. People are still people even if they are less valuable because of poorer genetics, environment growing up, or lower work effort.

Several things in society have tried to address this and to prevent the gap from rising too much. Unions, minimum wage, and earned income credits are among them. Which is the most efficient? I can't say. It does seem unfortunate though that we need to continually come up with legal systems which try to correct our failing as a species of not acting in ways which benefit the species as a whole over the individual.

 

[Dorian Gray]

You haven't been paying attention. If i emploly someone to perform a simple service for me out of neccessity, such as mowing my lawn while I am laid up with some illness or injury, and have no money to pay him a living wage and he has no other commitments because he is unemployed,, then yes, I am doing him a favor offering him what I can, if he wants it.

By the same token, were i making a couple grand a week, and needed to be on the job site when the grass needs mowing or lose money, then I would be a low-life and a dirtbag not to offer at least minimum wage to the gardener or whoever for leaving me free to go pursue a greater amount of money.

And, if I am running a landscaping business and hiring someone else to do the actual labor, I can think of no reason not to pay those workers a decent wage, even if it leaves me struggling.

I can think of no reason that someone who helps me make any money at all is not entitled to a decent day's provisions, whether I am making a profit or a pile of crap. I am only entitled to profit if, after paying all my bills, for supplies, utilities and labor, there is still some residue of cash.



You assume falsely.



So? Kids gotta starve so I can pay less for luxury shoes? I don't see it.

One is the simple job of cutting your grass, the other is the simple job of making shoes. Why are there different rules if one is in a factory and the other is in your yard? Answer: Because you're paying the grass cutter, and you're not paying the factory worker, so you expect the factory owner to pay a minimum wage while you pay whatever you want. You don't practice what you preach, and that's not an assumption, it's an observation.

You're basing wages on how much money the employer has or makes, not how much the job is worth - other than a job done directly for you, of course. How is that reasonable? You also say that if the employer loses money paying his workers what you think he should pay them, then his business model sucks - yet if that same employer is making money hand over fist, do you say his business model kicks ass? No, you say he's taking advantage of the employees. You can't have it both ways, Lefty.

 

[leftysergeant]

One is the simple job of cutting your grass, the other is the simple job of making shoes. Why are there different rules if one is in a factory and the other is in your yard? Answer: Because you're paying the grass cutter, and you're not paying the factory worker, so you expect the factory owner to pay a minimum wage while you pay whatever you want. You don't practice what you preach, and that's not an assumption, it's an observation.

Not a bit of it. If I am able to cut the grass or to pay someone minimum wage, I have no excuse not to. If I am disabled and an unemployed person wants to earn a quick buck under the table and that's all I can spare, we're both coming out ahead. If I can afford to pay him more than minimum wage, I probably should. If I am hiring him out to cut other people's grass and keeping a cut, he deserves to get paid before I do, whether I clear a profit on the operation or not.

Same with the shoe factory. They can't do without the guy who haulks the leather up from the warehouse, or the cobbler, or the guy who clears the work area of flammable materials so that the factory doesn't catch fire and burn down.

They all deserve at least a day's provisions before the investors get a freaking penny.

You're basing wages on how much money the employer has or makes, not how much the job is worth - other than a job done directly for you, of course. How is that reasonable? You also say that if the employer loses money paying his workers what you think he should pay them, then his business model sucks - yet if that same employer is making money hand over fist, do you say his business model kicks ass? No, you say he's taking advantage of the employees. You can't have it both ways, Lefty.

You haven't been paying attention. If he can't make money and pay a minimum wage, he sucks and should just go get a job flipping burgers until he figures out how to do it right.

If he is paying at least minimum wage and getting rich, yes, his business model kicks ass. He's still a schmuck if all he pays is minimum wage, but there is no law against being a schmuck. Of course, it is his own fault if one of his employees comes up with the capital to open his own business on the same model and attracts all his workers away with minimum wage plus.