Romney on minimum wage

[Wreckem]

Minimum wage IMO is better handled at the state level because of differences in the cost of living from state to state. I don't mind a low federal minimum wage, but in general it's a better issue for the states.

The Feds set a minimum standard based on their poverty guidelines. The States are free and already do adjust that upwards.

 

[Wreckem]

You have a choice, require companies like walmart to pay a liveable wage, or you have have people on government assistance programs. By allowing companies to pay poverty wages, I guess you like paying higher taxes to help pay for food stamps, medicaid, and public housing?

There is a sub-culture of people called the working poor. Employees working for companies like walmart should not be living in poverty.

Poverty for a single person is making less than $11700. Someone working for $7.25 makes more than that, not much, but they do.

 

[Throckmorton]

Poverty for a single person is making less than $11700. Someone working for $7.25 makes more than that, not much, but they do.

Poverty wage isn't living wage. The only way you can survive making that wage is with government assistance. That's despicable... The fact that you can work full time, your labor being valuable enough to an employer, but not making enough to live. That means your life is worth less than your labor.

 

[Texashiker]

Poverty for a single person is making less than $11700. Someone working for $7.25 makes more than that, not much, but they do.

Would you like to try and live on $11,700 a year?

Would you like to work for a fortune 500 company and make $11,700 a year?

 

[Nemesis 1]

I to like the idea . But not from a republican. Romney never. I mean Mister 2 face. Obummer made promisies to like restoring liberty but what does he do . Removes more liberty . Only 1 man can be trusted but he is only 1 man

 

[Ronstang]

So no one understands the wage-price spiral effect anymore? Indexing wages to inflation will simply guarantee more inflation. So we price ourselves out of markets faster? What do they teach in school these days. The only way you can have an increase in wages without it eventually raising prices is if it is accompanied by a rise in productivity equal to or greater than one would need to keep overall costs the same.

 

[soundforbjt]

Slightly off topic but;

Let's see, in 1980 the average CEO's salary was 35 times that of the average worker, now it's 200 to 300 times higher. What skills have current CEO's got that their counterparts didn't have in 1980?

 

[palehorse]

So no one understands the wage-price spiral effect anymore? Indexing wages to inflation will simply guarantee more inflation. So we price ourselves out of markets faster? What do they teach in school these days. The only way you can have an increase in wages without it eventually raising prices is if it is accompanied by a rise in productivity equal to or greater than one would need to keep overall costs the same.

Winner!

 

[palehorse]

Slightly off topic but;

Let's see, in 1980 the average CEO's salary was 35 times that of the average worker, now it's 200 to 300 times higher. What skills have current CEO's have that their counterparts didn't have in 1980?

Higher demand, tougher high-tech markets, and a lower supply of those who are actually talented/experienced/tenacious enough to handle said markets?

Your statistic is meaningless.

 

[Texashiker]

So no one understands the wage-price spiral effect anymore?

In my whole working career, 1987 - present, my insurance and other expenses have gone every year at the same rate of inflation.

I went to work in 1984 bagging groceries, but I do not consider that a real job.

If cost go up every year at the same rate of inflation, so should my wage.

Linking wages to inflation is a very good idea. Because expenses are linked to inflation.

 

[palehorse]

In my whole working career, 1987 - present, my insurance and other expenses have gone every year at the same rate of inflation.

I went to work in 1984 bagging groceries, but I do not consider that a real job.

If cost go up every year at the same rate of inflation, so should my wage.

Linking wages to inflation is a very good idea. Because expenses are linked to inflation.

Wages should increase each year based on personal performance and tenure -- which, in most markets, DOES equal or best inflation. However, there shouldn't be any guaranteed wage increases if the worker doesn't earn them, or if a company can't afford them.

Hell, even Federal government wages -- which are normally and unfortunately closely tied to inflation -- are currently on a two year freeze that may be extended.

 

[Throckmorton]

So no one understands the wage-price spiral effect anymore? Indexing wages to inflation will simply guarantee more inflation. So we price ourselves out of markets faster? What do they teach in school these days. The only way you can have an increase in wages without it eventually raising prices is if it is accompanied by a rise in productivity equal to or greater than one would need to keep overall costs the same.

So you believe the best way to reduce inflation is to gradually reduce the lowest wages by not having them keep up with inflation?

Maybe we should do the same for Social Security. No more COL increases for old people.

Of course CEO salaries have no effect on inflation, right?

 

[micrometers]

So no one understands the wage-price spiral effect anymore? Indexing wages to inflation will simply guarantee more inflation. So we price ourselves out of markets faster? What do they teach in school these days. The only way you can have an increase in wages without it eventually raising prices is if it is accompanied by a rise in productivity equal to or greater than one would need to keep overall costs the same.

The only way out of current debt levels is inflation. No way around it. It has been like 4 years though and still zero inflation. Something has got to give.

 

[Throckmorton]

Wages should increase each year based on personal performance and tenure -- which, in most markets, DOES equal or best inflation. However, there shouldn't be any guaranteed wage increases if the worker doesn't earn them, or if a company can't afford them.

Hell, even Federal government wages -- which are normally and unfortunately closely tied to inflation -- are currently on a two year freeze that may be extended.

Everybody making below living wage DOES deserve a living wage, by definition. Unless the job doesn't require the worker to survive. So the question is how much is OK to pay below what labor and the person's life is worth.

 

[Texashiker]

Wages should increase each year based on personal performance and tenure -- which, in most markets, DOES equal or best inflation. However, there shouldn't be any guaranteed wage increases if the worker doesn't earn them, or if a company can't afford them.

So its ok for a company to raise its fees/rates with the rate of inflation, and then allow their employees to take a pay cut?

When my expenses go up around the first of the year, if those increases are not passed to the employee, where does that money go?

Several companies I used to work for, their idea of a yearly raise was 25 or 50 cents per hour. But they raised their fees to the customers at least 3%. That was company policy. The best raise you were going to get was maybe 50 cents an hour. I do not see how raising fees 3% on 200,000 costumers, and then giving a 50 cent raise to a few hundred employees works out.

 

[palehorse]

So its ok for a company to raise its fees/rates with the rate of inflation, and then allow their employees to take a pay cut?

When my expenses go up around the first of the year, if those increases are not passed to the employee, where does that money go?

Several companies I used to work for, their idea of a yearly raise was 25 or 50 cents per hour. But they raised their fees to the customers at least 3%. That was company policy. The best raise you were going to get was maybe 50 cents an hour. I do not see how raising fees 3% on 200,000 costumers, and then giving a 50 cent raise to a few hundred employees works out.

Did all of the employees quit? If many did, were they easily replaced?

Do you happen to know all of the other financials for the company at the time? (ie. debt repayment, margins, manufacturing costs, operating costs, transportation costs, R&D, expansion, fines, tax increases, etc etc). No? I didn't think so...

In other words, your expectation that wages should have somehow kept pace with the consumers' fees is incredibly naive...

 

[Texashiker]

Did all of the employees quit? If many did, were they easily replaced?

We had a fairly high turn over rate, and the employees were not easily replaced.

I would rather not detour this discussion off the minimum wage debate.

Minimum wage should be either tied to inflation, or the bottom line of the company. What ever goes up the most, that is what the minimum wage should be for that company.

If inflation goes up 3%, but the company makes a 300% increase in overall profits, then the minimum wage for that company should go up 300%.

Let's see, in 1980 the average CEO's salary was 35 times that of the average worker, now it's 200 to 300 times higher. What skills have current CEO's got that their counterparts didn't have in 1980?

Wages have stagnated, but cost continue to go up every year.

 

[QuantumPion]

Would you like to try and live on $11,700 a year?

It's not that hard. I supported myself through college making about that much. If I wasn't in college, I could have had 2 jobs and made twice as much and would have been learning job skills to eventually make even more. I even had a nice apartment and a car.

Would you like to work for a fortune 500 company and make $11,700 a year?

Are you saying would I liked to be forced, at the point of a government gun, to work for a company for wages much lower than I think my labor is worth, ala the Soviet Union/Communist China/North Korea/Cuba/etc? Or are you making the absolutely comically asinine suggestion that no one's labor is worth more than anyone else's, and that people that work at fortune 500 companies are just "winners in life's lottery"? I'm not really sure where you're going with this.

 

[Wreckem]

Would you like to try and live on $11,700 a year?

Would you like to work for a fortune 500 company and make $11,700 a year?

Ummm, I've lived on minimum wage(back before the increases) and went to junior college a the the same time without any assistance. And yeah during parts of that I worked two jobs.

It just so happens, I busted my ass off and I bettered my life. I started my education and I went from minimum wage to making much more(over double) in the span of a year at the same business. And keep in mind I was a high school dropout with very little work history and what I had was spotty and short in duration. I managed just fine.

And yes for a single person minimum wage is a living wage in the majority of america. Will you have luxury goods that some people think are requisites of a living wage? No, but that is not what living wage is.

 

[QuantumPion]

Everybody making below living wage DOES deserve a living wage, by definition. Unless the job doesn't require the worker to survive. So the question is how much is OK to pay below what labor and the person's life is worth.

Well since you are proclaiming that by law companies must be engaged in charity in giving employees free money that they didn't earn, why not skip the whole employment thing altogether? Just have the government give everyone a living wage, employment or no. Since by your assertion everyone deserves a living wage.

 

[3chordcharlie]

So many geniuses in this thread who got a C+ in Econ 101 and think they understand the whole issue.

When you graph employment and wages, there is, indeed, a portion of the population that will be employed at any arbitrarily low wage.

What you aren't graphing is that those people then starve to death.

I'm a medium-strength supporter of student-minimum wages, for part-time student employees. This would let employers fill low-wage jobs with the folks who actually need the jobs for experience at the cost of needing at least two of these employees per FTE position. Realistically, I could see this wage being discounted by up to 25%, and possibly exempt from some social-safety net payments on the employer side. This still distorts the labour market to an extent, but might be a good trade-off.

If you have a business that requires responsible, full time, adult employees, but you need them for $4/hr, then you have a bad business.

 

[Throckmorton]

Well since you are proclaiming that by law companies must be engaged in charity in giving employees free money that they didn't earn, why not skip the whole employment thing altogether? Just have the government give everyone a living wage, employment or no. Since by your assertion everyone deserves a living wage.

Why is this so difficult to understand?

A person must be alive to work.

Therefore, a person deserves a living wage, no matter what job he's doing.

By not paying a living wage, an employer is simply deflecting the cost of keeping a person alive to the government and society as a whole. I don't see how it's right for us to have to pay for someone's food stamps so his employer can hire him for unnaturally low wages.

Here's an idea... Build huge housing projects where food, running water, and education/training are supplied, but no luxuries. You'd be able to do volunteer work, but you wouldn't be allowed to get a job outside the facility. Also abolish food stamps and welfare. Suddenly, employers will have to pay at least a living wage, otherwise a person can live just by entering one of these projects.

 

[Throckmorton]

It's not that hard. I supported myself through college making about that much. If I wasn't in college, I could have had 2 jobs and made twice as much and would have been learning job skills to eventually make even more. I even had a nice apartment and a car.



Are you saying would I liked to be forced, at the point of a government gun, to work for a company for wages much lower than I think my labor is worth, ala the Soviet Union/Communist China/North Korea/Cuba/etc? Or are you making the absolutely comically asinine suggestion that no one's labor is worth more than anyone else's, and that people that work at fortune 500 companies are just "winners in life's lottery"? I'm not really sure where you're going with this.

LOL. What year was this?

And what "job skills to eventually make more" are you learning at a minimum wage job? How to fold clothes and put them on a shelf?

 

[Texashiker]

It's not that hard. I supported myself through college making about that much.

Ummm, I've lived on minimum wage(back before the increases) and went to junior college a the the same time without any assistance. And yeah during parts of that I worked two jobs.

What I see in those post is a lack of life experience.

You think only single people with no children are on minimum wage? Try being a single parent and living on minimum wage. Try paying for daycare, rent, car note, electric bill, car insurance, diapers, baby clothes,,,, on minimum wage.

 

[QuantumPion]

Why is this so difficult to understand?

A person must be alive to work.

Therefore, a person deserves a living wage, no matter what job he's doing.

By not paying a living wage, an employer is simply deflecting the cost of keeping a person alive to the government and society as a whole. I don't see how it's right for us to have to pay for someone's food stamps so his employer can hire him for unnaturally low wages.

Pure nonsense. Even the permanently unemployed welfare class receive more than plenty in ways of housing and food to live a comfortable life. And you are suggesting that people that earn above and beyond this are somehow starving to death?

LOL. What year was this?

And what "job skills to eventually make more" are you learning at a minimum wage job? How to fold clothes and put them on a shelf?

2004. And since you have obviously never had a real job, the skills you learn are how the business works so you can eventually make your way up to supervisor/manager/running a store/running a division/opening your own store/etc if you're talking about strictly retail/service industry. For manufacturing and such obviously as you become more experienced you become more productive and thus your labor is worth more.

I don't know about you but my parents weren't born rich. My grandparents immigrated to the US with nothing. You seem to be of the impression that everyone who is middle or upper class somehow just fell into their income by luck at the expense of the poor or something. Everyone started from scratch at some point.

Here's an idea... Build huge housing projects where food, running water, and education/training are supplied, but no luxuries. You'd be able to do volunteer work, but you wouldn't be allowed to get a job outside the facility. Also abolish food stamps and welfare. Suddenly, employers will have to pay at least a living wage, otherwise a person can live just by entering one of these projects.

No thanks, I'd rather not live in North Korea.