Living wage

[Mister Agenda]

In part I agree with you, greed drives many of the top 1%

Why then do the the some of the other 99% vote republican?

1. A sense of superiority. I know many university students who came from low income backgrounds (especially those in the fields of medicine and education) vote conservative as a means of stating their new perceived higher class. Which is total bull.

2. "Der laaaawd asks that we stand against this Caaaamunist abomination!" (a.k.a: Rich people tell me who to vote for).

3. Stupidity.

It's usually a mistake to ascribe ill motives to those who diagree with you.

There's no need for a conspiracy, and the top 1% are unlikely the main employers of low-wage workers. To the average employer the main calculations are 'how much money can accomplishing a given task make for my business' and 'how much do I have to pay to get someone to do this work?'. Anybody in business understands that if it costs more to pay someone to do a job than getting the job done pays to the business, it's a job that needs to be eliminated. This isn't a selfish position, businesses that ignore this principle go out of business and then all the employees have no job, which pays zero.

Where the margin for a wage increase that doesn't require the job to be eliminated lies is in how much you have to pay to get someone to do it. If the job is highly valuable but you can pay low wages and still get it done because it doesn't require much experience or education, then it will survive a minimum wage hike, at least until automation catches up to it. Of course the tendency is to try to get more skilled workers to do the job now, so you 'get your money's worth'. People make a lot out of how much Cost Co pays, for instance, but they won't hire many of the same people who get work at Wal Mart. I can find an immigrant from a developing country 'fresh off the boat' a job at Wal Mart, not so with Cost Co.

Raising wages isn't a consequence-free magic wand that will solve poverty if we just force businesses to pay enough more. There's a reason why through the decades it's been raised small amounts while the economy was improving: it masks the ill effects. We raised in a bad economy last time, and some people are mystified why the recovery is particularly dragging among African Americans and people under 25...it's what always happens when we hike the wage, it's just not always as obvious.

I (perhaps naively) believe there's a way to manage a minimum wage increase that maximizes the benefits and minimizes the drawbacks, and think it's at least worth a try. But if we increase it too much too soon without providing for the persons most likely to suffer negative consequences from it, the drawbacks will be very obvious and it may be a very long time before the political will to try it again, even very carefully, will re-emerge.

And with the direction automation is taking, I think we may have to get used to the idea of long-term direct subsidies to the unemployed poor anyway.

[polar bear]

I never said that the living wages need to be implemented yesterday.  I did say however, that companies both small and large have got used to paying a very low minimum wage when profits have been growing.

I like your idea about 25 and older working for a living wage.

Would you agree that the wages should be set based on where you live as well?

[The Grand Nudger]

@MA

This is certainly true in ag, wherein we have proscribed that the goods will be affordable to all (this, itself, based upon how little the "all" has in the first place). Therein sealing the fate of those who produce them, despite the fact that we cannot persist without them...even as machines and chemicals become better suited to those tasks which we once assigned to manual labor, regardless of whether or not this is a prudent "long term" approach. The people that grow your food are -intentionally- impoverished, for the betterment of all, and we may as well get used to subsidizing their lives, unless we want people to starve...those producers included.

[KUSA]

Along with a new minimum wage we need a maximum wage for government employees.

[brewer]

1. A sense of superiority. I know many university students who came from low income backgrounds (especially those in the fields of medicine and education) vote conservative as a means of stating their new perceived higher class. Which is total bull.

2. "Der laaaawd asks that we stand against this Caaaamunist abomination!" (a.k.a: Rich people tell me who to vote for).

3. Stupidity.

It's usually a mistake to ascribe ill motives to those who diagree with you.

There's no need for a conspiracy, and the top 1% are unlikely the main employers of low-wage workers. To the average employer the main calculations are 'how much money can accomplishing a given task make for my business' and 'how much do I have to pay to get someone to do this work?'. Anybody in business understands that if it costs more to pay someone to do a job than getting the job done pays to the business, it's a job that needs to be eliminated. This isn't a selfish position, businesses that ignore this principle go out of business and then all the employees have no job, which pays zero.

Where the margin for a wage increase that doesn't require the job to be eliminated lies is in how much you have to pay to get someone to do it. If the job is highly valuable but you can pay low wages and still get it done because it doesn't require much experience or education, then it will survive a minimum wage hike, at least until automation catches up to it. Of course the tendency is to try to get more skilled workers to do the job now, so you 'get your money's worth'. People make a lot out of how much Cost Co pays, for instance, but they won't hire many of the same people who get work at Wal Mart. I can find an immigrant from a developing country 'fresh off the boat' a job at Wal Mart, not so with Cost Co.

Raising wages isn't a consequence-free magic wand that will solve poverty if we just force businesses to pay enough more. There's a reason why through the decades it's been raised small amounts while the economy was improving: it masks the ill effects. We raised in a bad economy last time, and some people are mystified why the recovery is particularly dragging among African Americans and people under 25...it's what always happens when we hike the wage, it's just not always as obvious.

I (perhaps naively) believe there's a way to manage a minimum wage increase that maximizes the benefits and minimizes the drawbacks, and think it's at least worth a try. But if we increase it too much too soon without providing for the persons most likely to suffer negative consequences from it, the drawbacks will be very obvious and it may be a very long time before the political will to try it again, even very carefully, will re-emerge.

And with the direction automation is taking, I think we may have to get used to the idea of long-term direct subsidies to the unemployed poor anyway.

Thank you for the rational contribution, I appreciate it.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

NZ just kicked the minimum wage here to 14.75/hour (that's around $10US) and I haven't noticed any business owners jumping out of windows or cities burning to the ground.

Boru

[abaris]

What all these conservative thinkers fail to adress is that someone is paying the bill in any case. If businesses don't pay living wages, society is basically subsidizing them, since you can't let people starve in the streets. So we have another case of privatizing the gains and socializing the losses.

And in most cases we're not talking about the corner shop struggling to get along but about multinationals moving to countries and regions where working regulations are as low as possible.

[Whateverist]

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.

Of course if everyone were bringing up the price of labor, competition in the market place would be preserved.  If there were any products or service whose viability depended on an indentured working class, fuck em'.

[brewer]

C'mon - It isn't about companies and economic stability - It's because people at the top are not interested in allowing workers to rise and become smarter - A minimum wage that sucks is a decent way to keep people in check - You need to work 8h a week and can barely pay the rent - Why should you spend time wondering how much the system sucks and why 1% of the population who mostly inherits wealth from family members are right now laughing ?

8h/week and I can pay rent? Cool, where do I sign up?

[Napoléon]

Ikea recently implemented a higher minimum wage.  After just six month's it is so successful they are raising it again.  What they use as their floor minimum wage is the report from MIT of what a living wage is for each city Ikea is in.

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.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/24...48804.html

previously I said wages should be tied to CPI but this seems to be more equitable.  I know NYC is more expensive to live in compared to Charlotte, NC

I'm sure it's easy to point to the success of 1 company acting of its own volition with its own circumstances. I don't think this proves raising minimum wages is unanimously great for business everywhere and anywhere.