The Truth about the Minimum Wage

Discussion in 'Business & Economics' started by Michael, Nov 20, 2012.

  1. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    I noticed someone had mentioned that Progressives support a minimum wage.

    Not only was the minimum wage a horrible idea that caped unskilled workers off at the knees, but it was also a racist idea that was used to demagogue White American voters and directly shifted inexpensive highly valued-labor from Black Americans over to White Americans.... and shares a big part of the blame for the poor ghettos rotting out inner city America. So? What's the solution? Not to remove minimum wage, but instead to create a (then) new class of dependents: Welfare recipients. Continuing the rot.

    You can thank the Government for the generational damage heaped upon America.

    [video=youtube;siW0YAAfX6I]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siW0YAAfX6I[/video]
     
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  3. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

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    what surprise your source is yet another libertarian crank site. the minimum wage helped create the society where your free to sit here and argue for policies to create an economic aristocrisy. thank you about proving my point that you only get information from libertarian sources.
     
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  5. madanthonywayne Morning in America Registered Senior Member

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    Do you have any actual arguments, or do you think just putting the label"libertarian" on something is enough to discredit it?
     
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  7. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    What utter BS. It is possible that a greater number of people could be employed if wages didn't have a minimum, but so what, those jobs wouldn't be enough to live on without tips. We live in the most prosperous nation on Earth, we owe people a minimum wage. There should, however, be a maximum wage.
     
  8. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

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    16,479
    no it being dumber than a bag of shit is enough to discredit it that its libertarian is only secondary. I know you feel the need to defend your fellow in arms at well relying on cranks for information but at the end of the day a crank is still a crank.


    and also if you'd bother to you know actually do some research(god forbid) on micheal's sources they all most always trace back to the mises institute which has been heavily criticized for attacking democracy and being pro confederacy.
     
  9. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Isn't it possible that the minimum wage stimulates the economy by putting money into the hands of the people most likely to spend it? This increases demand and it's good for business. Furthermore, it doesn't lead to dependency, because you have to work to get it.
     
  10. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    In a well functioning free-market prosperous economy those jobs wouldn't be career options. It isn't normal for people to work at 7-11 their entire lives unless (a) they want to open their own 7-11 (b) are a well paid manager (c) actually own the 7-11. A service clerk at 7-11 was, when I was a kid in my city, a job we did at age 16 as a way to make a little extra money. It's now a career University Graduates do.

    Clearly something is wrong. Minimum wage is just another peace in a much larger puzzle. But a peace nonetheless.

    Raising minimum wage is cutting the prospects of others who would like a job out. They NEED that work culture and experience to build on their own life experiences a hopefully one day get a better job. To a person with no job, a low paid job is much better than no job. I've worked for WAY lower than minimum wage many times in my life just for the experience. I once worked as a vet surgical assistant / book keeper / secretary / cleaner / animal carer and the pay was about what it costs for me to drive the hour out to the job twice a week.

    And as a last point, worse of all - minimum wage doesn't matter over time, all that happens in the price of things goes up. Combined with the economic fact that job prospects go down and it's a lose lose. The only people who win are the ones who already have the skills and they just get a pay raise. Inflation Tax wipes out gains made one year, the next.
     
  11. RealityCheck Banned Banned

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    800
    And that is where your arguments depend on your qualifier "In a well functioning free-market economy etc". Not good.

    See the flaw in your stance on all this stuff? The fact that history shows the minimum wage was introduced BECAUSE it WASN'T functioning well for all....only for some monopolistic few. Get it?

    You and your mate talk much of 'slavery', but it seems to be OK when the slavery is instituted by those for whom you appear to be shilling.

    It has been demonstrated more than enough times now that those who think wages and rights should be lowered "for the sake of a well functioning a free market economy" are the FIRST cab off the rank to ABUSE the 'new' laws they wanted introduced in order to screw the workers unfortunate enough not to have adequate protection from unconscionable intimidation and blackmail and outright employer exploitatin of those workers as SLAVES in all but name because they have no recourse to any laws that would give them protection since EMPLOYERS made the rules.

    Proof? Read about what happened with the Liberals-Nationals Concservative govt "Workchoices" legislation in Australia; and how that was used by unconscionable employers as a green light for exploitative/abusive coercion and outright theft of employee standards and remuneration for a days work, even basic human rights against exploitation from a position of unfair ascendancy over the individuals affected. It was repealed by Labour

    Balance. Not unfair ascendancy from one side or the other. That is the key of sustainable global and national survival in future.

    Remember who it was who upped the wages of his workers while his fellow industrialists derided him for it? That's right, Henry Ford. He knew that giving adequate living wage would allow workers to spend on non-discretionary things (like CARS which he manufactured). And the success of his auto industry underpinned future developments of other industries which would not have flourished. The economy should be balanced, not exploitative of those who are at the mercy of greedy sociopaths and political scoundrels who cry crocodile tears about 'patriotism' and 'freedoms' and 'free markets' etc etc, but really just want THEIR tyranny and power to exploit and control to be entrenched by law.

    Well, the peasantry and the serfs are no longer available for these barons and crooks to exploit as slaves in all but name. Democracy and information and education has effectively put a stop to that 'good old days' when moguls and sociopaths could hold individuals/nations/globe to ransom using anachrinistic 'laws' and 'divine rights' etc etc which they instituted for themselves in the past. No longer.

    Fairness and justice, science and humanity, internet information and secular education/laws are evolving towards the balance point both nationally and globally. The dinosaurs reminiscing about the 'old days' when they rules supreme are on the way towards self-destruction morally, ethically and logically. Better to adapt to the new fairer realities than to become extinct because you want to re-instate failed tactics, don't you think, mate!
     
  12. Pandaemoni Valued Senior Member

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    I feel the minimum wage should be abolished, as from the POV of employers it is no different than a tax, and taxing employment leads to less of it. It should, however, be replaced with an expansion of the earned income tax credit (which is also putting money into the hands of the working poor and requires that you work to obtain it), giving it to a broader category of the poor and middle class.

    The advantage of the EITC is that that tax is paid for not by employers specifically, but by every taxpayer. Since the tax is not disproportionately borne by employers (and the liability for the tax would exist no matter how many or how few people you hire), it does not impact the incentive to hire new employees to the same extent as a minimum wage.

    I agree with the sentiment. "We" owe people a minimum wage, not "they" owe people a minimum wage (even if that leaves some people without any jobs at all). Abolishing the minimum wage while expanding the EITC makes the "they" (employers) a "we" (taxpayers generally), and is just as much an income supplement to the recipient.

    As for maximum wages, I don't understand what that would solve. There are very productive people who might work even uncompensated, but most people make
     
  13. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    Anyone who doesn't see the genius in this is a crank.
     
  14. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    Would you be willing to work for less than minimum wage?
     
  15. kwhilborn Banned Banned

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    Michael? Seriously?

    First of all removing minimum wage would mean people could get paid less. There would be people that would work for $5/hr and starve simply because employers were legally allowed to drop wages.

    However. There is a call for low cost labor. As a teenager I wondered why a hard working lady did not get the raise she was asking for at a company partly managed by my father. He said the truth of the matter is he could go to the bus stop on the corner and find someone equally qualified for the position. The job required no training or education. It did not matter that she had been there 10 years and always smiled, it mattered that she was too replaceable. It was an eye opening lesson in economics. My father did not control that end of the plant so ultimately it was not his decision, but he knew how it would end. Stay in school.

    Employers are required to provide a safe workplace, would this be your next target if wages were lowered?

    Age restrictions. Maybe your Ghetto employers wouldn't mind a few 10 year olds on their roster?

    If you cannot find a job because you cannot compete with other minimum wage employees then that is sad, but racism is a poor excuse when the countries leader is black.
     
    Last edited: Nov 21, 2012
  16. RealityCheck Banned Banned

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    800
    Then the most exploitative and inefficiently run businesses are effectively SUBSIDIZED for wages which they are witholding from employees even more if the wages are 'topped up' by govt. Hence 'socializing the costs' but 'privatizing the extra-profit' from paying less!

    This is the problem with rightwing policies, the hypocritical 'no socialism....unless it's socialism for the bosses'. Let's stop mucking about with the balance of the economy and the labour/jobs market. If all pay a minimum wage, then all are fair placed to compete on equal costs. Then no-one will want more less 'help' than extreme distress necessitates. But to exploit the worker and then pass the costs to govt while pocketing the difference privately is the height of disingenuousness.

    Balance, not extreme ideology one way or the other. That is the only sustainable route to fairness for all, assisted and supported as necessary by govts where extenuating circumstances beyond the control of labour/bosses makes it advisable for the sake of national/humane interests.

    Cheers!
     
  17. Pandaemoni Valued Senior Member

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    If the EITC made up the difference, which is what I was proposing, why would I care? Yes, if my proposal were adopted, and if I could not earn more than the combined market wage plus EITC elsewhere, I would take a job at les than the current minimum wage.
     
  18. Pandaemoni Valued Senior Member

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    3,634
    We already have an EITC, I point out, so we must believe that we are already doing this. More to the point, just because a business pays less than the statutorily set minimum is no evidence that they are exploitative or inefficient. So is it a "subsidy? Yes, surely it is, but not to the businesses...it is a subsidy to those workers who do not have skills that are freely marketable for amounts greater than the minimum wage. We subsidize workers with the EITC, not businesses. The businesses receive no money, the checks are mailed to the workers directly.

    Sure, the businesses can then find labor more easily, but why is that bad? They will find (and hire) exactly the same number of people as they would in a free market. So the businesses "benefit" from this EITC proposal only in the perverse sense that they would be better off with it than with a minimum wage. The workers, though, as a group, are better off too...so your plan is to screw employers even if that means workers are worse off?

    The minimum wage is a great boon to employed workers in low skill positions, but it is a horrible burden for any low skill worker who can't find a job. It does not move economic rents solely from business owners (evil) to workers (pure and good), it moves benefits from employers and the unemployed to employed workers. The "deadweight loss" (from Econ 101) is split between the employers and the laborers who lose out on having a job in the first place because of the imposition of the wage. Meanwhile, nothing in economic theory suggests that the economy will have a job for every worker who wants one in the face of such price controls on labor.

    With an expanded EITC, already employed workers would get the same amount of money to live on, but the number of jobs would be expanded (in theory, at least), so unemployed workers would also get money. Thus this solution is Pareto optimal from the standpoint of the workers. If it is incidentally better for employers too, I don't see why you should object to that.

    I would conclude by noting that my support for the EITC is deeply LEFTwing, not rightwing. It seems to me we have two mechanisms to help the working poor. One helps some of the working poor, while leaving others without any job at all. The other helps all of the working poor and does not affect the unemployment rate at all. You favor the former, for some reason, and I favor the latter.

    That not to say there isn't a problem with the EITC, there are issues with it too, but on balance, if the goal is to help the working poor have a reasonable standard of living, it is far superior.
     
  19. RealityCheck Banned Banned

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    It is a fundamental tenet of the 'free market' mechanism espoused by all 'capitalists' that the free market should determine the respective cost-benefit of any enterprise or market interaction. Once you skew the free market with subsidies of any kind it makes a farce of the claim by 'capitalists' that they are the nation's best judge of what and who etc etc. Can you see this at least?


    Then their is the disingenuousness of saying the subsidy is 'of the worker not the employer'. What's the EFFECTIVE difference? It ends up that an employer can 'blackmail' govts into subsidizing worker wages, simply by refusing to pay them a living fair wage which all would have entitlement to if they DO work. Hypocritical, isn't it, that 'socializing' a component of wages while 'privatizing' the EXTRA PROFIT MARGIN made possible thereby?

    The only situation where a govt should subsidize a 'wage' (whether in part or in full) is where the national interest requires INVESTMENT/ACTIVITY which is crucial to national development in areas where 'private enterprise' would not be involved because the profit motive and margin would not make it a starter for private enterprise to do. Hence the govt sector which funds govt projects which may or may not USE/CONTRACT private firms for some of the work. BUT those firms already exist as entities in active projects of their own or as specialists for govt contracts. In all cases, only a FAIR living wage should be paid by the private/public entity to the WORKERS, and any further 'incentives' or 'efficiency/performance bonuses' should be a separate matter altogether for the private company/managers etc.

    Anything less is hypocritical socializing of costs and privatizing of the 'cream' of extra profit margins effectively created thereby. Cheers!
     
  20. Carcano Valued Senior Member

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    Can anyone explain how Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Germany and Austria get along without minimum wages?

    These are all nations with a high standard of living.

    Probably what happens is that ALL workers no matter how unskilled belong to a collective bargaining union.
     
  21. Carcano Valued Senior Member

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    Usually whats missing from these minimum wage debates is an inquiry into the relationship between wages and prices.

    How much is the price of bread or rent for example influenced by minimum wage laws?
     
    Last edited: Nov 25, 2012

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