Is it time to replace slave (minimum) wage with human wages?

[nextJin]

However if you want to be honest and look at minimum wage objectively using standard methods of measurement you will find that there is no correlation between raising minimum wage and CPI, or unemployment, or corporate profits.

There are no standards of measurement, there are peer reviewed papers released frequently enough arguing the merits of the minimum wage with multiple people citing each other that go either way. I'm talking about non partisan, government backed research where even Paul Krugman is a Senior Fellow where papers are routinely released covering the negatives of an increase.

 

[Atreus21]

So many people are forced to work for what amounts to slave wages, or simply be a slave to welfare. These chains of poverty often cross multiple generations, something needs to be done.

Raising the minimum wage from slave type wage, to human wages, wages fit for a human, will go along way to break this chain. People will earn more money, with the extra money they will buy more goods. They will elevate themselves and their family. Most importantly they will finally be treated like human beings. Business owners will also see a boost in revenue from this extra money being spent. So it will be a boon for all.

Is it time we finally move beyond slave wages, and onto human wages?

Gosh, everything becomes so simple once you start controlling prices.

 

[marvdmartian]

So many people are forced to work for what amounts to slave wages, or simply be a slave to welfare.

Horse manure! No one "forces" anyone to work for any wage. Just like no one forces you to LEARN in school, just to attend it, until you reach the age of 16.

Perhaps if the minimum wage earners would have made something of their free public education, and either gone on to college, or learned a trade, they wouldn't be stuck flipping burgers and earning minimum wage, would they?

Too many people today think that they deserve an awesome paycheck, simply because they sloughed their way through school, doing the minimum to earn a diploma, or dropped out and MAYBE earned a GED.

This is America, where you have the freedom to PURSUE a good living, NOT just deserve it because you wake up every morning, consume oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. Rule #1, no one owes you anything!

 

[Darwin333]

So many people are forced to work for what amounts to slave wages, or simply be a slave to welfare. These chains of poverty often cross multiple generations, something needs to be done.

Raising the minimum wage from slave type wage, to human wages, wages fit for a human, will go along way to break this chain. People will earn more money, with the extra money they will buy more goods. They will elevate themselves and their family. Most importantly they will finally be treated like human beings. Business owners will also see a boost in revenue from this extra money being spent. So it will be a boon for all.

Is it time we finally move beyond slave wages, and onto human wages?

Sigh...

While there should be some sort of minimum wage the bullshit above doesn't take the real world into consideration.

Labor is generally one of, if not the, largest costs in providing a good or service. If you increase that cost, in this case drastically, the cost of said good or service goes up at least as much. Often its actually more because of things like overhead and labor burden. It literally costs me over $2 for every single dollar I pay an employee. So now we have goods and services going up in price more than what the employees wages did.

Tell me again how this is supposed to make society better? Or why in the world you would think that paying everyone more would result in unchanging prices?

 

[brycejones]

Nope. Some people are overpaid even with minimum wage. Seriously, when I was a teen and worked as a cashier in 1982 minimum wage was 3$ an hour. I had to enter the price manually, I had to add the tax manually, I had to know what was taxable, I had to bag it and load the carts. Same job today all you do is slide the product trough a scanner that does all the thinking for you. And you have some snot nosed teen bagging your customers shit for tips so really, WTF are you doing that you need more $$$? You want to make more than minimum wage learch a fucking skill and do some actual work. Same with fast food places, all you do is push a button and the machine makes change. I have no sympathy.

Should we all get off your lawn now?

 

[Darwin333]

Peg it to inflation, and draw it back to 1968 to get us at about 11 an hour.

Nation won't implode. If mcds prices have to compete with more healthy restaurants then so be it, folks can eat somewhere else because clearly mcds isn't worth it... So the price increases are over stated. If the tip culture has to move to 10% as the norm that's going to be fine too.

What makes you think that the healthy restaurants won't be forced to raise their prices at least an equal amount? In reality probably more because they don't have the efficiencies of a major chain like McDs.

 

[fskimospy]

Nope. Some people are overpaid even with minimum wage. Seriously, when I was a teen and worked as a cashier in 1982 minimum wage was 3$ an hour. I had to enter the price manually, I had to add the tax manually, I had to know what was taxable, I had to bag it and load the carts. Same job today all you do is slide the product trough a scanner that does all the thinking for you. And you have some snot nosed teen bagging your customers shit for tips so really, WTF are you doing that you need more $$$? You want to make more than minimum wage learch a fucking skill and do some actual work. Same with fast food places, all you do is push a button and the machine makes change. I have no sympathy.

Federal minimum wage in 1982 was $3.35 an hour, which is considerably higher than minimum wage is now when adjusted for inflation.

 

[SpatiallyAware]

YES


First step, raise minimum wage.

Next, corps all replace baggers, cashiers, and any other repetitive task with machines.

Said machines now have to be maintained by trades people.

Same lazy people who used to be able to slink through high school and skip college now have no choice but to go to a trades school.




Side effect of this is that trades people tend to think logically thus are rightist. Expect to see a HUGE downturn in handout recipients thus the democratic party would soon shrink down to old people, hippes, and hipsters.



PROFIT.

 

[ivwshane]

There are no standards of measurement, there are peer reviewed papers released frequently enough arguing the merits of the minimum wage with multiple people citing each other that go either way. I'm talking about non partisan, government backed research where even Paul Krugman is a Senior Fellow where papers are routinely released covering the negatives of an increase.

The standards are CPI, unemployment rate, corporate profit margins.

You mean like this 1986 study by the CBO that concluded the negative affects of raising the minimum wage would be small if any at all?

http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/61xx/doc6178/doc14a.pdf


Does that mean that there aren't better alternatives that achieve the same thing? No. I'm just refuting the tired claim that raising the minimum wage increases prices.

 

[ivwshane]

Sigh...

While there should be some sort of minimum wage the bullshit above doesn't take the real world into consideration.

Labor is generally one of, if not the, largest costs in providing a good or service. If you increase that cost, in this case drastically, the cost of said good or service goes up at least as much. Often its actually more because of things like overhead and labor burden. It literally costs me over $2 for every single dollar I pay an employee. So now we have goods and services going up in price more than what the employees wages did.

Tell me again how this is supposed to make society better? Or why in the world you would think that paying everyone more would result in unchanging prices?

I'd like a citation backing up your claim.

 

[nextJin]

The standards are CPI, unemployment rate, corporate profit margins.

You mean like this 1986 study by the CBO that concluded the negative affects of raising the minimum wage would be small if any at all?

http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/61xx/doc6178/doc14a.pdf

Does that mean that there aren't better alternatives that achieve the same thing? No. I'm just refuting the tired claim that raising the minimum wage increases prices.

I'm fairly confident there was a post where I brought this up, I'll look it up here in a bit. What I am saying is there is no set standard where the effects either positively or negatively can be weighed with minimum wage. There are way too many variables while most papers that get peer reviewed are signed off on because within the realm of their research they are correct.

For instance I do a study in 10 counties trying to gauge the effects in TX that turns out there is a negative effect yet a different study with different sets of information in a completely different area of the nation that has no negative effects.

Both are peer reviewed, government cited papers with two completely different results.

EDIT: http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=35304871&postcount=45

 

[Darwin333]

I'd like a citation backing up your claim.

You see there exists these little things, some of which are mandated by the .gov, which increase the cost of labor and that increase is often a percentage of said labor. In the construction industry workers comp, liability and other insurances (sometimes referred to as labor burden) are a huge portion of that and are always a percentage of what the employee is paid.

I am assuming of course that you are not advocating removing the requirements for things like liability insurance, right?

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/burden-rate.asp

If you need more help understanding the concept the above might be useful.

So again, the actual costs to the company will be greater than the additional wages paid to the employees. Thus it is possible that prices go up more than the wages did but even if they don't and prices increase exactly the same as wages, no one has been helped whatsoever since they still have the exact same purchasing power. The math isn't really that hard but if you need further assistance I would be happy to oblige.

 

[Darwin333]

The standards are CPI, unemployment rate, corporate profit margins.

You mean like this 1986 study by the CBO that concluded the negative affects of raising the minimum wage would be small if any at all?

http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/61xx/doc6178/doc14a.pdf


Does that mean that there aren't better alternatives that achieve the same thing? No. I'm just refuting the tired claim that raising the minimum wage increases prices.

Nice find, but do I get to use the conclussions in this paper from 1986 too? How about:

Only one-fifth of the 5.2 million workers who reported being paid
at or below the minimum wage in March 1985 had worked yearround full-time in 1984, and only about 120,000 of these yearround full-time minimum wage workers were poor. The latter estimate is subject to a wide range of uncertainty, however.

So, per the CBO study that you cited, this is a relatively non-issue as most people who make minimum wage don't even work year round, probably seasonal jobs and kids working summer jobs. The actual working poor that makes minimum wage and works year round is statistically so small as to be rather irrelevant.

Come on, this is a friggen 30 year old study. Don't you have something more relevant than that? I would love to see how anyone could come to the conclusion that raising a companies primary cost by a substantial amount does not lead to higher prices.

 

[BoberFett]

Federal minimum wage in 1982 was $3.35 an hour, which is considerably higher than minimum wage is now when adjusted for inflation.

Considerably higher? Not really. Slightly higher, but not much.

 

[OutHouse]

Yes, if you want to single out a few businesses and use anecdotal evidence as proof of your claim then you would be correct.

However if you want to be honest and look at minimum wage objectively using standard methods of measurement you will find that there is no correlation between raising minimum wage and CPI, or unemployment, or corporate profits.

I see that failing economics/business management 101 is possible.

 

[OutHouse]

Nice find, but do I get to use the conclussions in this paper from 1986 too? How about:



So, per the CBO study that you cited, this is a relatively non-issue as most people who make minimum wage don't even work year round, probably seasonal jobs and kids working summer jobs. The actual working poor that makes minimum wage and works year round is statistically so small as to be rather irrelevant.

Come on, this is a friggen 30 year old study. Don't you have something more relevant than that? I would love to see how anyone could come to the conclusion that raising a companies primary cost by a substantial amount does not lead to higher prices.

lol ivwshane owned.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

The cost of goods is something like

Raw Materials + Capital + Labor.

Increasing minimum wage only increases one of those costs. It should be easy to see that increasing minimum wage is a net gain for those making minimum wage.

There is no free lunch.

What you don't consider is which of those costs ends up being the larger variable that makes up the costs for a given product in that equation. Hint: Its often labor that is the biggest cost for any business in the marketplace.

As for your second point, while those who are currently employed may see higher wages those looking for work will in turn will see lower opportunities for employment, as again employers seek to remedy higher wages effecting the cost of their products via other means which do not effect consumer prices unless they have no other choice but to directly do so in the end. This can also lead to the aforementioned methods of reducing costs that I stated before which can and often does translate to those who see higher minimum wages via policy hike on those wages experiencing a reduction in the hours they work to offset wage increases or a reduction in the benefits they receive. In the case of Obamacare we are already seeing businesses act in this manner as they cut hours and the 30 hour temporary worker becomes the new norm for this economy.

 

[Jaskalas]

The cost of goods is something like

Raw Materials + Capital + Labor.

Increasing minimum wage only increases one of those costs. It should be easy to see that increasing minimum wage is a net gain for those making minimum wage.

:hmm: Raw materials begin with labor. They do not dig up and process themselves.

 

[Zaap]

The cost of goods is something like

Raw Materials + Capital + Labor.

Increasing minimum wage only increases one of those costs.

Disagree. I see where it increases two of the costs right off the bat- Capital doesn't just mint itself (unless you're the government spending more than it has.) An increase cost in labor automatically means a decrease in Capital if you're going to keep the same labor supply.

As for raw materials- those aren't always something a company pulls straight out of the ground right out back of their headquarters. Most purchase raw materials from other companies. If capital has decreased due to increased labor costs, you have less to purchase raw materials with as well. That's not even getting into whether or not increasing minimum causes inflation, which then would also increase the cost of raw materials as affected by inflation.

Anyway, it's arguable that raising it can increase two, if not all three of those costs.

 

[Zaap]

lol ivwshane owned.

That happens frequently.

 

[palehorse]

I would love to see how anyone could come to the conclusion that raising a companies primary cost by a substantial amount does not lead to higher prices.

I've challenged them to answer exactly that question in more than one thread, but they tend to ignore the question or come back with something profound like "it just wouldn't!"

So, good luck...

 

[Ns1]

Did the OP not go to an economics class?

 

[Ns1]

Same lazy people who used to be able to slink through high school and skip college now have no choice but to go to a trades school.

Side effect of this is that trades people tend to think logically thus are rightist. Expect to see a HUGE downturn in handout recipients thus the democratic party would soon shrink down to old people, hippes, and hipsters.

you think lazy people will go to tradeschool instead of going on welfare? lol

 

[DCal430]

I've challenged them to answer exactly that question in more than one thread, but they tend to ignore the question or come back with something profound like "it just wouldn't!"

So, good luck...

Because the CEO and big executives could stand to cut their outrageous wages. It is exploitation, what they are doing. Yes, the CEO of Walmart is engaging in massive exploitation of those most vulnerable, so he can have things he doesn't deserve.

 

[DCal430]

Those who work for slave wages in this country, are victims of massive and systemic exploitation, exploitation being conducted by the 0.1%, and their mindless allies.