Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I am tired of this discussion. I wouldn't be surprised if doing away with minimum wage increases hiring (but has nothing to do with the unemployment rate) since people would be forced to work two and three jobs to survive. Personally, I am not an advocate of slavery. This whole minimum wage debate is nothing more but an attempt to keep the rich, rich and the poor, poor. With inflation, the minimum wage should move. Otherwise, the income inequality gap just continues to widen. I don't care what the study says, the time after WWII, often referred to as "The Golden Years" was a time where the minimum wage as considered livable, the rich paid more taxes and the middle class thrived. I am not in favor of letting the greedy make more decisions in favor of greed. They don't care about the middle class and the poor don't exist to them. As long as greed is driving us, we are headed down a path of self-destruction and no one, not the rich, not the middle class, nor the poor will be able to avoid it. It wil be quite interesting when the mcmansion crowd who thinks they're wealthy feel that hard slap from the hand of reality. It was these types who became delusional, delirious and suicidal during the Great Depression.
Wrong again, I owned a business for over ten years and sold it a few years back for a very nice profit. I did not have any employees making minimum wage so the debate never affected me. If someone is running a business where the employees are making less than $5 per hour I would call it a sweat shop. Once again if your payroll budget cannot pay a couple of dollars a week to a few employees then they were are shakey ground to begin with. Some business owners believe in hiring quality employees and you cannot get the best by paying $5 per hour, even my admin made $20 per hour and she was worth every penny I paid her, and she was the lowest paid employee I had.
Casper
Perhaps you owned a very small business b/c it is a much larger problem than just a few extra dollars a week. I'll use our restaurant as an example. If we had to pay each person an extra 50 cents per hour, and we have say 55 labor hours in a day (on a slow day), that's an extra 27.50 PER DAY that we are paying, and that's a conservative estimate. For a week, that adds up to almost $200 using the conservative estimate, not adding in extra payroll taxes that are paid solely by us as the employer. Tell me how it would be feasible for us to not do one of the things I mentioned (lay off, cut hours or raise prices).
Well, that doesn't surprise me in the least.
You said that people should not have lost their jobs to begin with. Pretty straightforward statement.
I'm wondering how you think they were supposed to keep that from happening. Also a pretty straightforward statement.
The reality is that all kinds of people are now working minimum wage jobs just to survive and feed their families through no fault of their own, a point seemingly lost on you and many other posters.
What I expect, if the OP's link is accurate, is that a lot more people will be working for minimum wage, not so much because it doesn't increase unemployment but because companies can get away with not paying a living wage.
This will of course ultimately prove the OP's link true (and may be what we are already seeing), since when more people start working for minimum wage, the unemployment rate will by default go down.
I did not say that. I said they should not have had children they cannot support.
Your argument regarding the OP is not valid. Nobody is talking about when people start working for minimum wage after our economic crisis starts to turn itself around. We are talking about a normal economic environment.
The answer is no, no one should expect a raise simply because someone else is now making minimum wages.
One more comment in general, there is a big difference between a minimum wage and a living wage, we are discussing the affects of minimum wage and its impact or lack there of on unemployment.
Casper
Perhaps you need to do some research on inflation?
There is a difference between a min wage and living wage but there is a reason for that. Min wage jobs are normally reserved for those who have no experience, no skills, and are probably quite young. It's a chance to gain experience and skills and grow up a little while you save to buy your first car and that kind of thing. It's not meant for people to live on for their whole lives. However, if one is working 40 hours a week on min wage and has barely any bills, it's definitely doable.
Either way, the gov't should not be mandating a wage that employers must pay their workers. The market will never support more than it should, the market can take care of itself, and if the gov't would stop interfering, that lesson would have been learned by now.
Perhaps you need to do some research on inflation?
There is a difference between a min wage and living wage but there is a reason for that. Min wage jobs are normally reserved for those who have no experience, no skills, and are probably quite young. It's a chance to gain experience and skills and grow up a little while you save to buy your first car and that kind of thing. It's not meant for people to live on for their whole lives. However, if one is working 40 hours a week on min wage and has barely any bills, it's definitely doable.
Either way, the gov't should not be mandating a wage that employers must pay their workers. The market will never support more than it should, the market can take care of itself, and if the gov't would stop interfering, that lesson would have been learned by now.
Where do you get that min wage was not meant to live on?Minimum wage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Now where there does it say that? Minimum wage was created so people would get fair pay.
Perhaps you owned a very small business b/c it is a much larger problem than just a few extra dollars a week. I'll use our restaurant as an example. If we had to pay each person an extra 50 cents per hour, and we have say 55 labor hours in a day (on a slow day), that's an extra 27.50 PER DAY that we are paying, and that's a conservative estimate. For a week, that adds up to almost $200 using the conservative estimate, not adding in extra payroll taxes that are paid solely by us as the employer. Tell me how it would be feasible for us to not do one of the things I mentioned (lay off, cut hours or raise prices).
Having worked in the resturant business myself I know we are not talking minimum wage for most of your employees since waiter and waitresses work for tips and the wage paid by the employeer to them is not even minimum wage since the law does not cover them. You are only talking about busboys here since I would assume you pay your cashiers and cooks more than minimum wage, that does not sound like much of an impact from here, how many busboys do you have? Why on earth would everyone get a raise since most of your employees should be making more than minimum wage? Review your math and just maybe you can figure out that you will not have to lay off anyone, if that does not work for you raise prices just enough to cover the expense, being that the amount is so small no one should care if they paid a few cents more for dinning out.
Casper
Not at all. It's called taking responsibility for your life, it would be nice if more people understood this concept.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
