Progressive Radio Rants -- Minimum Wage

[Neally]

How is the unemplolyment situation in Alabama (pre-tornado cluster) compared to Washington State?

Are you claiming that the only difference that can explain unemployment differences between the two states is the minimum wage level and that the minimum wage level causes the difference in employment in this state and all others?

 

[shuize]

I specified that I am disabvled and of limited means, and that I will not benefit financially. Were I prosperous and had I things that I could do that would benefit me financially, then I am without excuse.

You recognize that there are cases in which both parties come out ahead even when the agreement is for less than minimum wage.

You qualify your answer by attributing poverty and physical disability to the employer.

However, you have still not explained why the relative wealth of the employer would change the admitted benefit to the employee.

 

[leftysergeant]

Are you claiming that the only difference that can explain unemployment differences between the two states is the minimum wage level and that the minimum wage level causes the difference in employment in this state and all others?

I'm saying that the p[eople who say a minimum wage kills jobs are full of crap.

 

[respect]

You are assuming that which is not so. Statres with high minimum wages tend to have lower unemployment rates because working people can actually afford to do things like buy groceries and clothing, so that there is a demand for grocerey stores and such.

How is the unemplolyment situation in Alabama (pre-tornado cluster) compared to Washington State?

There are many other factors involved. For example, I am sure that the average education level is higher in Washington than Alabama.

What oriffice did that come out of? Lack of a HS diploma does not make one ditch digger worth less than another who has a couple college credits if he can still move the same amount of soil without the sides of the trench caving in.

It doesn't. However, the student will move on to bigger and better things as he increases his marketability with education. He won't make more than the dropout while digging ditches, but he will have more opportunities to move on. Minimum wage laws primarily affect students and the uneducated.

Bull flops. We had a great standard of living with enormously less personal debt before old Jelly-brtain started dismantling the New Deal and arguing for "free trade." It is not a post hoc ergo proter hoc argument that the end of tariffs and tax cuts for the wealthy and tax increases on the poor and massive deregulation of commerce caused the collapse of the ecconomy. It has happened every time that government let the investor class run wild.

That you think the standard of living was higher forty years ago is just another demonstration that you are in no way qualified to discuss this issue.

Well, it sure is not a science. Even less a science than history, and history is not friendly to criminal scum bags like Friedman.

Your inability to understand what sciences are does not invalidate economic theory.

 

[respect]

Nobody is asking you to. We are just saying that if they put in a day's work and do not damage your equipment by acting a total fool, you owe them a day's provisions. And, if it is not worth a day's provisions, you did not need it done in order for your business to succede, so why did you hire the drongo?

Not all work is equal. A job may be worth X amount of dollars but not X + 3. For example, minimum wage is $8.25 here. Let's say I own a grocery store and hire an unskilled worker to clean, get shopping carts from the lot etc and pay him $9 an hour. But then minimum wage is hiked to $14 ($10 won't cover your standards around here). I can either pay him $14 or lay him off. I can't get rid of all employees, I will need cashiers, stock boys and so on, but I don't really need a cleaning guy, it is a luxury I am willing to pay $9 for but not $14 so I lay him off and tell the other employees they need to pick up the slack (the cashiers have to get the shopping carts when they have no customers and so on). Then I raise prices a little to compensate for the higher wages of employees I did keep (I would have had to raise them farther to keep the cleaning guy). Now the cleaning guy has no job, and considering his lack of skills, he will struggle to find a different employer willing to give him $14. That a job is not absolutely necessary does not mean it won't exist for the right price. Your standard would raise that price quite a bit which would lead to employers cutting unnecessary labor (the cleaning guy, greeters etc).

Excuse me, but are you one of those superstitious people who think that all one needs to make gazillions is the determination to do so? Really? Wow!

No.

 

[leftysergeant]

Not all work is equal. A job may be worth X amount of dollars but not X + 3. For example, minimum wage is $8.25 here. Let's say I own a grocery store and hire an unskilled worker to clean, get shopping carts from the lot etc and pay him $9 an hour. But then minimum wage is hiked to $14 ($10 won't cover your standards around here). I can either pay him $14 or lay him off. I can't get rid of all employees, I will need cashiers, stock boys and so on, but I don't really need a cleaning guy, it is a luxury I am willing to pay $9 for but not $14 so I lay him off and tell the other employees they need to pick up the slack (the cashiers have to get the shopping carts when they have no customers and so on).

And sanitation will go down hill, the health department will be in your face about the cockroaches and some lawyer will be insisting that you pay the medical bills of some old coot who stepped on a grape and broke his hip. Meanwhile, the guy who decides to take less profit and keep his store clean will be eating your lunch because of the better shopping experience.

 

[respect]

And sanitation will go down hill, the health department will be in your face about the cockroaches and some lawyer will be insisting that you pay the medical bills of some old coot who stepped on a grape and broke his hip. Meanwhile, the guy who decides to take less profit and keep his store clean will be eating your lunch because of the better shopping experience.

Nonsense. Tightening the belt, so to speak, is a common response from businesses when input costs increase or sales decrease.

And you seem to have some bizarre ideas about how much money business owners make. If a company is forced to give a $3 an hour raise to 25 full time employees that is $3,000 a week plus additional payroll taxes. Most small to mid size business owners do not make enough to just accept $156,000 plus less a year. Prices have to go up and/or labor hours down.

 

[leftysergeant]

And you seem to have some bizarre ideas about how much money business owners make. If a company is forced to give a $3 an hour raise to 25 full time employees that is $3,000 a week plus additional payroll taxes. Most small to mid size business owners do not make enough to just accept $156,000 plus less a year. Prices have to go up and/or labor hours down.

Your idea is only valid if excecutive pay remains flat when the bottom is trimmed. As companies across the country have laid workers off, executive pay has risen in relation to that of production workers.

Somebody is selling us a pocket full of smoke.

 

[respect]

Your idea is only valid if excecutive pay remains flat when the bottom is trimmed. As companies across the country have laid workers off, executive pay has risen in relation to that of production workers.

Somebody is selling us a pocket full of smoke.

Besides that you are wrong to begin with (for example, an executive might get a bonus precisely because they trimmed costs), your claim is not even remotely relevant to most companies. Or are you now advocating a higher minimum wage for only very large corporations? Chances are good that the mom and pop restaurant down the street doesn't have a bunch of pricey executives.

 

[leftysergeant]

Besides that you are wrong to begin with (for example, an executive might get a bonus precisely because they trimmed costs), your claim is not even remotely relevant to most companies.

So? Most companies do not shriek like little babies about how much their workers get while giving their executives many times the wages that the workers get.

Most of the cost savings lately have been by laying people off and making those left workk harder or off-shoring everything. Why am I supposed to care about their feelings? They are just making excuses. We need to do something to slow the flow of wealth upward into fewer hands. There is only so much to go around.

Think wealth is unlimited? Then why cant the whiney baby capitalists just creatre more to make up for the increase in what a working man makes?

Or are you now advocating a higher minimum wage for only very large corporations? Chances are good that the mom and pop restaurant down the street doesn't have a bunch of pricey executives.

The mom and pops I have worked for have paid more than minimum wage for experienced workers, even when the workers start at minimum wage. Locally, it has been my experience that it is the corporate restraunts that shriek the loudest when an increase in minimum wage comes up. Screw them.

 

[respect]

So? Most companies do not shriek like little babies about how much their workers get while giving their executives many times the wages that the workers get.

Most of the cost savings lately have been by laying people off and making those left workk harder or off-shoring everything. Why am I supposed to care about their feelings? They are just making excuses. We need to do something to slow the flow of wealth upward into fewer hands. There is only so much to go around.

Think wealth is unlimited? Then why cant the whiney baby capitalists just creatre more to make up for the increase in what a working man makes?

You seem to be responding to something else, who said anything about feelings? The point was simple, a payment to one employee in no way means that the business cannot be actively trimming costs elsewhere. Generally when an employee receives a bonus, whether they be an executive in sales or something else, it is because they did something that increased the company's revenues, either by reducing expenditures or bringing in new revenues. Such bonuses are of course less than the company gains. Your claim that businesses cannot be belt tightening if they also increase the pay of some employees is false, they can, and often do, both at the same time. And as pointed out above, executive pay is not even relevant at all to most companies.

And it is strange that you would bring up employee productivity increasing with layoffs seeing as how that is exactly what I described above with hypothetical grocery store and you took issue with it then and made absurd claims about how doing so would lead to my business getting destroyed. Nonetheless, your 180 degree turn here is correct. In the grocery store example, I let go of the cleaning guy and divided his tasks up among the remaining employees which is what does happen. Also, the least productive employees will be the first in line to get laid off, so we can expect to see average employee productivity to increase during a downturn for several reasons.

Businesses generally want to be a little overstaffed and do so during good times, it helps them provide top of the line customers service. But when revenues are dwindling, they often cannot afford to have "luxury" employees. Greeters, the cleaning guy in my hypothetical grocery store etc are luxuries, not necessities, and they will be the first to go when revenues are down. Their tasks will then be divided up among the other employees.

Additionally, seeing as how the revenue decline we are talking about here is caused by a significant increase in labor costs, it is perfectly reasonable to expect employees to do more work for their raise. If I have to give someone a raise from $10 an hour to $14 an hour I should expect that they be more productive.

The mom and pops I have worked for have paid more than minimum wage for experienced workers, even when the workers start at minimum wage. Locally, it has been my experience that it is the corporate restraunts that shriek the loudest when an increase in minimum wage comes up. Screw them.

Most businesses pay above minimum wage even for unskilled labor, and will pay a little extra for experience. As such, a slight increase in the minimum wage would not lead to a bunch of layoffs and price hikes, businesses are already willing to pay it. Those effects would be much more noticeable with a significant hike like you are advocating. As I pointed out before, American minimum wage laws are typically not very aggressive which keeps the unintended consequences fairly low.