WtF? WHAT? WTF? Oklahoma Legislators and the Minimum Wage

[Oldgamer]

Ok I found this article, albeit not Sweden but it is Switzerland that is pushing to up their minimum wages to 25. an hour..lol

News article here

"The Swiss will vote in a national referendum on May 18 on whether to create a minimum wage of 22 francs ($25) per hour, or 4,000 francs a month. While about 90 per cent of workers in Switzerland already earn more than that, employers say setting Switzerland's first national wage floor would push up salaries throughout the economy. When adjusted for currency and purchasing power, it would be the highest minimum in the world."

 

[DucatiMonster696]

Minimum wage income has become morbidly absurd in this country. I know people here in LA earning $10/hr who can barely afford to share a studio. Minimum wage here is $7.80/hr. That's basically 16k/hr BEFORE taxes.


Min wage needs to be set at livable income levels by local governments to address local needs. $15/hr would be livable income in west LA.

Minimum wage was never meant nor should it ever be a "living wage". It was and is the very least you can pay someone to do work that literally anyone with a pulse and body temperature of 98.6 degrees fahrenheit can do nothing more, nothing else. Additionally attempting to pay a "living wage" would also distort and in some cases undermine the cost of actual skilled labor in the marketplace in return.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

Ok I found this article, albeit not Sweden but it is Switzerland that is pushing to up their minimum wages to 25. an hour..lol

News article here

"The Swiss will vote in a national referendum on May 18 on whether to create a minimum wage of 22 francs ($25) per hour, or 4,000 francs a month. While about 90 per cent of workers in Switzerland already earn more than that, employers say setting Switzerland's first national wage floor would push up salaries throughout the economy. When adjusted for currency and purchasing power, it would be the highest minimum in the world."

Now look up the cost of living in Switzerland and compare to the US as whole.

 

[Oldgamer]

Minimum wage was never meant nor should it ever be a "living wage". It was and is the very least you can pay someone to do work that literally anyone with pulse and body temperature of 98.6 degree fahrenheit can do nothing more, nothing else. Additionally it doing so would also distort and in some cases undermine the cost of actual skilled labor in the marketplace in return.

Wait wut? Where on earth do you come up with such nonsense like "minimum wage was never meant to be a living wage"??

The minimum wage laws were enacted for the specific purpose of ensuring that workers received a fair rate of pay for their labor. Furthermore they were established to ensure that workers were not taken advantage of and forced to endure hard long hours in sweatshops and factories, under horrible conditions, and for only pay suitable to live in tent cities and on streets.

You need to go back and read up on why minimum wage and workers rights were established. Prior to these things workers died in factories and sweatshops so did children too. They hardly made any money and many lived in tent cities and trash ridden areas on the outskirts of cities.

Minimum wage is to ensure that workers are paid a fair rate for their labor and that means a living wage.

 

[Oldgamer]

Now look up the cost of living in Switzerland and compare to the US as whole.

It is equivalent to living in San Francisco or certain parts of New York according to a friend of mine who lives their twice a year.

 

[Victorian Gray]

It's starting to look like the best thing that the U.S. can do is repeal all increases in the minimum wage for, say, the past 100 years. If it's been so bad for the economy all this time then wiping out 100 years or so of increases should really pump up the economy.

Happy days will be here again.

 

[AViking]

More half truths and lies. Let's hit them one by one.

Who makes $14-15 dollars an hour? At the big 3 US automakers, the 'tier two' hiring scale starts at approximately $14 CASH. On top of that they get excellent UAW Medical, Optical, and other benefits including a yearly profit sharing (around $10k this year), 1.5x overtime, 2-3x holiday, + a 7% afternoon shift premium or a 10% afternoon shift premium. All that comes to around $28 an hour as a starting wage when you include benefits. Not to mention our significantly lower tax structure, and our significantly lower cost of living that Sweden.

I don't have to 'look it up'. I do pay for the big 3 on a daily basis, for both domestic and overseas manufacturing units.

Totally irrelevant to what we're talking about. I am talking about European companies.

The value of a happy meal means EVERYTHING. You are comparing wages, but in order to understand what a wage BUYS you need to understand the cost of living in that country. Sweden has a higher cost of living - essentials like food cost more, hence people need to be paid more.

The most amazing part is that despite our lower income rate, our lower cost of living results in a very good standard of living.... yet we can still 'take' jobs from the folks in Europe.

This argument you're trying to make is far too complex to be had in the context of a thread talking about lousy salaries in the US. I'll leave you with a quick thing to think about. If food is more expensive here but healthcare, education, daycare, and transportation are much cheaper who really has the lower cost of living and higher standard of living? This will depend in many ways on where you live in the US and what kind of standard of living you expect but coming from CA I have a way higher standard of living here and my costs are less. My rent was almost $2000 in the US and mortgages are more than that. I can live in Stockholm, the capital, for less money. The higher costs really only show up when you are out drinking or eating on the town or trying to buy electronics. Your talking points about the price of a big mac might be relevant when someone making $7 an hour does have to consider the cost of that but in Europe, and Sweden specifically, the standard of living and wages are high enough that everyone is doing ok. Minus the Bulgarian gypsies begging on the streets.

You're right - Volkswagon and BMW aren't unionized in the US, and their workers like it that way! *gasp* God forbid they get their own choice, eh? As it turns out, Volkswagon and BMW pay so well in the states that their members have repeatedly voted against unionization.

Come back when you have an actual point to make.

This is very interesting and I missed that. It looks like a plant with 1000 workers recently voted narrowly down to unionize at the request of their state senator? Why is that?

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

I think he is trying to show that people on minimum wage have it really good right now and should stop whining.

I personally would like to see a higher minimum wage. I just wanted to make a point that the current minimum wage level is not unusually low from a historical perspective. I also wanted to make a point that higher minimum wage will likely cost some jobs. I'm OK with that as well assuming the increases are incremented rationally.

Isn't it kind of funny the wild assumptions some people make which have zero basis in fact? You're better than this. No?

 

[glenn1]

I personally would like to see a higher minimum wage. I just wanted to make a point that the current minimum wage level is not unusually low from a historical perspective. I also wanted to make a point that higher minimum wage will likely cost some jobs. I'm OK with that as well assuming the increases are incremented rationally.

Isn't it kind of funny the wild assumptions some people make which have zero basis in fact? You're better than this. No?

How would it be implemented "rationally"? Normally when it changes it just gets implemented thusly, "As of January 1st, 20xx employers are required to pay $X.xx".

I appreciate you recognize some of the tradeoffs more than others who seem to think that it's simply free money for the poor. More often than not, what a minimum wage means in practice is that upper-middle class kid working part time gets more money to spend at the mall, and poor adult or immigrants barely scraping by find themselves unemployable at the higher rate and wind up going back on welfare to support their kids. But progressives seem OK with that since they think that the bottom rungs on the ladders of opportunity are simply exploitative of the workers who fill them and they're truly better off unemployed.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

How would it be implemented "rationally"? Normally when it changes it just gets implemented thusly, "As of January 1st, 20xx employers are required to pay $X.xx".

I appreciate you recognize some of the tradeoffs more than others who seem to think that it's simply free money for the poor. More often than not, what a minimum wage means in practice is that upper-middle class kid working part time gets more money to spend at the mall, and poor adult or immigrants barely scraping by find themselves unemployable at the higher rate and wind up going back on welfare to support their kids. But progressives seem OK with that since they think that the bottom rungs on the ladders of opportunity are simply exploitative of the workers who fill them and they're truly better off unemployed.

By "implemented rationally" I mean using an incremental approach over several years rather than a sudden large increase in minimum wage. This will help small business owners plan accordingly which should significantly reduce job losses.

http://ftp.iza.org/dp4933.pdf

I'm surprised that more conservatives don't support a higher minimum wage as it should help to reduce subsidies to the working poor as well as to provide more financial incentive for the non-working poor to work.

 

[Jaskalas]

I'm surprised that more conservatives don't support a higher minimum wage as it should help to reduce subsidies to the working poor as well as to provide more financial incentive for the non-working poor to work.

It is redistribution without taxes. Win / Win.

 

[glenn1]

I'm surprised that more conservatives don't support a higher minimum wage as it should help to reduce subsidies to the working poor as well as to provide more financial incentive for the non-working poor to work.

Nice in theory but it decouples the value provided by the worker to the employer. There's not infinite demand for labor so a higher minimum wage is worthless if no one is willing to hire you at that rate. And I daresay it's the potential employer who needs to be provided more financial incentive to offer the job, not the non-working poor to accept it.

 

[dank69]

Nice in theory but it decouples the value provided by the worker to the employer. There's not infinite demand for labor so a higher minimum wage is worthless if no one is willing to hire you at that rate. And I daresay it's the potential employer who needs to be provided more financial incentive to offer the job, not the non-working poor to accept it.

Financial incentive to offer the job? A job is offered when a job needs to be done and the job will pay the lowest amount that someone will agree to accept in order to do the job. What is your theory, that employers will hire more people simply because wages are cut in half regardless if there is any work for them to do? No, that decrease in labor costs will go directly into the employer's pocket as profit.

 

[Jimzz]

Good thing republicans are against the big bad larger governments pushing their ideals on smaller locals.


Hypocrisy at its best.

 

[glenn1]

Financial incentive to offer the job? A job is offered when a job needs to be done and the job will pay the lowest amount that someone will agree to accept in order to do the job. What is your theory, that employers will hire more people simply because wages are cut in half regardless if there is any work for them to do? No, that decrease in labor costs will go directly into the employer's pocket as profit.

There's not simply a large pile of "jobs needing to be done" sitting around at most employers in a big backlog warehouse. Small employers will generally consider hiring people to perform services hire for discrete jobs and are extremely price sensitive (see my lawn mowing example). Most large employers will consider what a new hire can do to maintain or expand their inventory of value-add products or services they can offer and that end-customers will pay for. Thus the consideration is both whether adding a new hire can meet that demand, as well as if the hire will be revenue positive (contribute more in total profits than the payroll costs). If we used a supermarket example, a cashier would be more likely to be hired at a higher minimum wage regardless because that's how sales are completed. A second cashier may not be hired unless customers are willing to absorb the costs in order to have a shorter check-out time. A bagger might not get hired at all given the higher minimum wage because the consumer won't accept value proposition (and associated higher costs due to payroll) and shop a competitor instead.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Nice in theory but it decouples the value provided by the worker to the employer.

How does a higher minimum wage "decouple" the value of the employee to the employer? Interesting word choice. I would argue that, from a business owner's perspective, it would actually elevate the value of good employees.

There's not infinite demand for labor so a higher minimum wage is worthless if no one is willing to hire you at that rate.

There is a lot of conflicting research on this; however, I would agree that a higher minimum wage would likely reduce the demand for labor. I believe this can be greatly mitigated by managing business owner expectations properly along with gradual implementation. Did you read the paper I linked?

And I daresay it's the potential employer who needs to be provided more financial incentive to offer the job, not the non-working poor to accept it.

So you want to subsidize business owners? Don't we have enough subsidies already? And who's going to pay for this subsidy?

 

[Incorruptible]

Government has no right to get involved with minimum wage and needs to stay out. This is a private matter between the employee and the employer. Many of the people who want to raise it don't even own a business.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

You have to understand the conservative thought process. They actually believe that poor people making more money is bad for the country. In their mind, it would be better for American children to be working fields for $1/hr than some filthy illegal. If it wasn't for the minimum wage, every American could have 5 jobs, just as God intended.

QFFT

 

[DucatiMonster696]

Wait wut? Where on earth do you come up with such nonsense like "minimum wage was never meant to be a living wage"??

The minimum wage laws were enacted for the specific purpose of ensuring that workers received a fair rate of pay for their labor. Furthermore they were established to ensure that workers were not taken advantage of and forced to endure hard long hours in sweatshops and factories, under horrible conditions, and for only pay suitable to live in tent cities and on streets.

You need to go back and read up on why minimum wage and workers rights were established. Prior to these things workers died in factories and sweatshops so did children too. They hardly made any money and many lived in tent cities and trash ridden areas on the outskirts of cities.

Minimum wage is to ensure that workers are paid a fair rate for their labor and that means a living wage.

Minimum wage was is a law created and designed to place a price floor on low skill jobs and ensure people were not paid wages that would go below the typical prevailing market wage.

However minimum wage is most certainly NOT designed to be a "Living Wage". The minimum wage was/is supposed to be the bare bottom wage you could pay anyone to do work that basically anyone can and could do with little to no training and/or skill involved and was/is kept low to ensure those jobs do not disappear.

Minimum wage must certainly is not a wage scale designed to be a "living wage". Of which that term is nothing more then a nebulous politically inspired phrase created distort what the minimum wage is supposed to do and to try associate fry cooks, ditch diggers, etc with actual skilled laborers in the marketplace who have the training, education and/or skills to demand higher wages. If you think that you can push for a higher minimum wage without repercussions to those looking to enter the work force doing minimum wage work you are sadly mistaken. You'll end up doing way more harm then good attempting to distort the true meaning of what a minimum wage is and why certain jobs are not worth anything above a minimum wage.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

Minimum wage was is a law created and designed to place a price floor on low skill jobs and ensure people were not paid wages that would go below the typical prevailing market wage.

However minimum wage is most certainly NOT designed to be a "Living Wage". The minimum wage was/is supposed to be the bare bottom wage you could pay anyone to do work that basically anyone can and could do with little to no training and/or skill involved and was/is kept low to ensure those jobs do not disappear.

Minimum wage must certainly is not a wage scale designed to be a "living wage". Of which that term is nothing more then a nebulous politically inspired phrase created distort what the minimum wage is supposed to do and to try associate fry cooks, ditch diggers, etc with actual skilled laborers in the marketplace who have the training, education and/or skills to demand higher wages. If you think that you can push for a higher minimum wage without repercussions to those looking to enter the work force doing minimum wage work you are sadly mistaken. You'll end up doing way more harm then good attempting to distort the true meaning of what a minimum wage is and why certain jobs are not worth anything above a minimum wage.

You're trying to personally redefine why minimum wage exists.

Try again on the conservisheeples.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

You're trying to personally redefine why minimum wage exists.

Try again on the conservisheeples.

Attaching a made up political and nebulous phrase known as a "living wage" is "personally redefining" minimum wage.

 

[BoomerD]

http://business.time.com/2014/02/28/an-animated-history-of-the-minimum-wage/

 

[AViking]

Minimum wage started at $0.25/hr. Just to keep up with inflation it would have to be adjusted to close to $11/hr today.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

Study Finds US Is an Oligarchy, Not a Democracy

http://politics.slashdot.org/story/14/04/16/0221210/study-finds-us-is-an-oligarchy-not-a-democracy

 

[Zorba]

I am from Oklahoma and believe the minimum wage should be higher, but I agree with this law. But I also generally am against "city-rights." In some states I can see a need for a more local area to have a different minimum wage than the rest of the state, but in Oklahoma there aren't really any high cost areas and having cities pass their own minimum wages would just and another layer of regulation on companies.

That being said, I think minimum wage should ramp up to the $11-13 range. Maybe a little more, especially on the coasts. I also think there should be a lower minimum wage for teenagers less than 18. I don't think a 16 year-old needs a living wage when living at home, etc. There might have to be regulations to ensure a companies didn't just hire a ton of teenagers to get around the high wages though, but I think market forces of 16 year-old being crappy employees would alleviate that issue.