Progressive Radio Rants -- Minimum Wage

Ziggurat said:
Simply tell us what is the highest the minimum wage should be. And then tell us why.
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Your questio is absurd because it requires foreknowledge of factors that could drive it upward. At current trends, $8.75, even $10 is reasoable, because it would allow the worker to live in some less than ghastly squalid state. Atleast here around Puget Sound. About $6.00 would get you a small cramped flat with a couple other people chipping in for rent of around $250 each, a reasonable food budget, phone, eletricity and transport, and the internet connection that you will probably need to do job searches on occassion. But the Health Department would probably shut down any apartment building that was sorry enough to go that cheaply. Best figure on spending $500 a month just on shelter.

Even at $8.75, you're about a paycheck away from utter disaster. A minimum wage should cover just a bit more than that.
 
leftysergeant said:
Your questio is absurd because it requires foreknowledge of factors that could drive it upward.
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No it doesn't. I'm talking about the rate right now. What's the maximum we should set it to right now. We can worry about the future when the future arrives. So right now, what's the highest we should raise the minimum wage to, and why should we stop at whatever maximum you chose and not raise it further?

Even at $8.75, you're about a paycheck away from utter disaster. A minimum wage should cover just a bit more than that.
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But why shouldn't it cover a fair amount more than that? It seems like you're saying that it's possible to set the minimum wage too high, but if that's the case, then what is too high, and why is it too high?
 
Ziggurat said:
No it doesn't. I'm talking about the rate right now. What's the maximum we should set it to right now. We can worry about the future when the future arrives. So right now, what's the highest we should raise the minimum wage to, and why should we stop at whatever maximum you chose and not raise it further?
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Ten dollars is a bit low for the Puget Sound region, maybe for NYC. Maybe a bit high for Mobile, Alabama, but it would certainly do little harm because the wealth there is so skewed to begin with, what with there still being people there who are only rich because their families owned slaves.

But why shouldn't it cover a fair amount more than that? It seems like you're saying that it's possible to set the minimum wage too high, but if that's the case, then what is too high, and why is it too high?
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Then where would be the incentive to work smarter or to tell a drongo of a boss to look for somebody new when another employer is offering a little more for the same job. Hopefully, this would leave Scrooge with nobody to do what he needs done but a bunch of losers who can't do anything right and he will go out of business.
 
leftysergeant said:
Then where would be the incentive to work smarter or to tell a drongo of a boss to look for somebody new when another employer is offering a little more for the same job. Hopefully, this would leave Scrooge with nobody to do what he needs done but a bunch of losers who can't do anything right and he will go out of business.
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That... didn't answer my question at all.

What minimum wage would be too high?
 
leftysergeant said:
You're asking me to nail jelly to a tree.
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You think it's possible to say "this number is too low", don't you? So why can you not say "this number is too high"? If you can't, isn't that a sign of a serious weakness in your thinking on the matter?

If you can't identify the exact optimal level, you can just give me a number you know is too high. And then explain why it's too high, and what would be wrong setting it that high.
 
Twenty an hour would, currently, provide far more than a minimal decent lifestyle to people with no remarkable skills but a willingness to turn in a good day's work. Ten pretty well makes it. Aspiring to $20 will get more people motivated to acquire those skills they need, and small business people would only be paying it to people who have worked for it and give a good return on the investment.

Paying $20 an hour for someone who barely meets the standards will run you out of business and consume two people's provisions for no good return. So, if $10 will get somebody a tolerable life style, pay that and wait to see if he is still going to be returning value expended when he moves up to $20.
 
leftysergeant said:
Twenty an hour would, currently, provide far more than a minimal decent lifestyle to people with no remarkable skills but a willingness to turn in a good day's work. Ten pretty well makes it. Aspiring to $20 will get more people motivated to acquire those skills they need, and small business people would only be paying it to people who have worked for it and give a good return on the investment.

Paying $20 an hour for someone who barely meets the standards will run you out of business and consume two people's provisions for no good return. So, if $10 will get somebody a tolerable life style, pay that and wait to see if he is still going to be returning value expended when he moves up to $20.
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So if we could provide a tolerable lifestyle on $1/hr, you'd be OK with that low of a minimum wage?
 
thaiboxerken said:
I can't speak for Lefty, but I would buy into that. Get to it.
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It can be done. Just use mechanisms like the earned income credit. If you want to subsidize the working poor, then just do so directly. It's more efficient than a minimum wage, which prices some workers out of the labor market and also affects people (like middle-class teenagers) who don't need any support. Minimum wage is a half-assed "solution."
 
Ziggurat said:
It can be done. Just use mechanisms like the earned income credit. If you want to subsidize the working poor, then just do so directly. It's more efficient than a minimum wage, which prices some workers out of the labor market and also affects people (like middle-class teenagers) who don't need any support. Minimum wage is a half-assed "solution."
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hey, it was your idea, after all.:rolleyes:
so now you change your story?
 
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Ziggurat said:
It can be done. Just use mechanisms like the earned income credit. If you want to subsidize the working poor, then just do so directly. It's more efficient than a minimum wage, which prices some workers out of the labor market and also affects people (like middle-class teenagers) who don't need any support. Minimum wage is a half-assed "solution."
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There is--or would be--considerable aversion from many, to the idea of income support that could be readily identified as welfare ("hand-outs") taking the place of what tends to be regarded as pay, "justly earned", in the form of min wage. I have frequently heard advocates of universal minimum wage (and other labour market "fixes") justifying their views at the level of minimising social stigma, etc.

I don't agree with people who argue on that basis particularly--I do not see it as a legitimate job of the tax system or economic regulations to respond to what are irrational preferences, particularly if efficiency is sacrificed.
 
bikerdruid said:
hey, it was your idea, after all.:rolleyes:
so now you change your story?
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Certainly no change of story from my side. Check post 31:
Francesca R said:
There's nothing wrong with the state placing a floor under low end income. But doing it by outlawing value-adding employment (which means growth generating) is a less efficient route to the goal you mention, compared to things like working tax credit/earned income credit (a form of negative starting rate of tax)
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bikerdruid said:
hey, it was your idea, after all.:rolleyes:
so now you change your story?
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I never changed my story. If you thought I did, you didn't know what my story was from the start. But I'm hardly surprised that you never understood to begin with.
 
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