Living wage

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Where's Heywood?

OH WAIT, LOL.

[FatAndFaithless]

Wait, did he get booted?

[Fidel_Castronaut]

He did.

[FatAndFaithless]

Cool.

[Dystopia]

Well I think the remaining 99% vote in favour of the 1% for many reasons - The most obvious one is that they think they are doing what's right and that the top 1% will benefit them - Some people believe in the myth that being rich means you're hardworking and being poor means you're lazy and unblessed by god. I think in America there's even a bigger problem with worshipping the "job creators".

[Minimalist]

The 99% are easily distracted by bullshit issues like guns, abortion, flag-burning or boys kissing.  If they worried more about themselves instead of what everyone else is doing this country would be a lot less fucked up than it is.

[Crossless2.0]

The 99% are easily distracted by bullshit issues like guns, abortion, flag-burning or boys kissing.  If they worried more about themselves instead of what everyone else is doing this country would be a lot less fucked up than it is.

If you are one of the 1% and have a financial/political interest in providing less bread, you have to ramp up the circuses to keep the idiots distracted and entertained.

[Minimalist]

The basis of all magic acts.  Distraction.

[Mister Agenda]

Economists largely agree that the main negative consequence of raising the minimum wage (within reason) is increased unemployment among younger people (under 25), particularly among African Americans in the USA. It is also normally accompanied by inflation, which can increase what is required for a 'living wage' rapidly. It seems this flaw would easily be corrected by only applying the raised minimum wage to persons 25 and older. That ought to make younger people desireable for those businesses that do rely on low wages to stay in business, reducing unemployment among persons (especially African Americans) under 25, allowing them to gain work experience before competing for higher wage jobs. Of course higher skilled younger persons would still be able to command good wages; it is only low-skilled (such as high school dropouts) that would actually have to settle for lower wages than the new minimum.

Now if we want those persons to have a living wage, we could subsidize them through taxation, say the difference between what they're making and the new minimum wage. Not fighting one war that we would otherwise have gotten into would pay for that completely many times over.

[Mister Agenda]

In the face of conservatives saying raising minimum wages would put business' out of business or cause inflation, Ikea is proving the exact opposite.  The last time I checked, Ikea is a corporation and it's main interest is to make as much profit as possible.  If raising the minimum wage didn't help accomplish this my guess is they would not have done it.

Yeah, the conservative argument is total bull. These international companies also have to abide by the rules of the states they are operating in. So, McDonalds for example has to respect food safety regulations as well as working conditions and wages being in accordance with the law of the land. That means, you don't get a crappy meal for 98 cents in my country, but you can also be sure that the workers aren't outright exploited and the burger isn't made out of some waste products of the meat industry.

Walmart for example withdrew from Germany after a very short period of time because they didn't make enough of a profit for their liking.

I don't trust conservatives to be honest about their motives, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day. There are negative consequences to a higher minimum wage. Just because they likely don't apply to large corporations doesn't mean they are nonexistent.

I would like to see a higher wage for the associates who report to me in my own company...but we're a government contractor that has to rebid every five years against other companies who say they can do what we do better and cheaper. Raising wages across the board could put us at a competitive disadvantage that loses us our contract and closes down the division leaving us all scrambling to find another job within or without the company. We can't afford to be a trendsetter in raising wages (I only make a little more than $20 an hour myself, so I would surely be a beneficiary of wage increases by 'trickle up'). However we could survive a minimum wage hike that affected our competitors equally.

However, say I am a corner grocer who takes home $80,000 a year from my grocery business. I have five employees and their wages average $10 an hour, about $21,000 a year. If the minimum wage is raised to $13 an hour, my yearly expense for wages goes from about $104,000 to about $135,000. Because of the minimum wage hike, I've had to raise my prices anyway to account for the extra expenses  of my suppliers, so let's assume all other things are equal and the extra money comes out of the profits I take home, which are now $49,000. I've taken a $31,000 pay cut and maybe I should find another line of work if I can't cover my expenses on less than $50,000 a year or maybe I have to raise my prices, which is going to be pretty popular, and raises the cost of living for my employees so they effectively aren't doing any better than before.

When I worked minimum wage back in the eighties (not counting working less than minimum my first year in the USAF), I went through two minimum wage hikes. The second time I was expecting the surge in prices that entirely devoured my raise. Food and clothing are heavily dependent on low wage labor, and the prices will go up as dramatically as the wage increase (not based on my anecdote, economists have an unusual degree of consensus on this).

I'm not saying don't raise the minimum wage. I'm saying do it smart. Raise it gradually under a regime where each hike is known about well in advance, and it should be at least over a 5 year period to minimize economic disruption, with provisions to slow down the schedule if the economy takes a bad turn. Make an exception for the demographic of workers that are already having trouble getting hired at current minimum wage, people under 25; and maybe make an exception for small businesses with fewer than a certain number of employees, with a safeguard against big corporations spinning off divisions to take advantage of that.

It's no big feat for a company that is only paying 1% of its workforce under what's considered a living wage already to bring their minimum wage up. It can be a disaster for a company that pays 90% of its workerforce under that wage.