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They are not taking anything. They are the best qualified applicants. Employers value people with previous work experience who need a job over a flaky apathetic teenager.
The point to be made here is clear. If you are going to be forced to pay (using Obama's suggested figure) $9.00/hr minimum, then you are going to want experience. You are not going to be hiring somebody who is just entering the job market, someone who has never done anything.
This is the problem with setting the minimum wage too high. We have already passed that point. Setting the mimimum even higher ($9.00/hr) only serves to exacerbate the problem. Worse, many jobs may just disappear altogether, the work being distributed to the rest of the workforce; i.e., more responsibility given to other employees.
At a time when ObamaCare looms large in the periscope of the employer, which adds unmanageable additional cost for smaller companies, this gives them all the more reason to cut back on the size of the workforce.
Raising the minimum wage further, as Obama proposes, is not a good idea, and this shows his lack of understanding of business, and economics in general. This idea stultifies him. But some of us have known for a long time that the man isn't smart.
If you can't get more than minimum wage, then you should have paid more attention in school.
Few are worth more than minimum wage when they have no work experience. But it depends on who you are talking about. High school grad, or college grad?
A high school grad may not have work experience but be very smart, interview well, and grab a job at a decent rate of pay if the employer sees potential, and is convinced the applicant can do the job. Someone like this will quickly move up the ladder.
On the other hand, someone who was not a good student, does not interview well and cannot convince an employer that they can handle the job, is going to be out of luck. That person will have difficulty finding any job except at a fast food chain, and with a $9/hr minimum that prospect may even be out of reach.
I think this constantly raising the minimum wage is just plain dumb, and it shows the stupidity of politicians who believe that this helps people. What they are really trying to do is make themselves look good. They haven't thought through the consequences of it. Sounds good, but it's a bad idea on close examination.
If it's not meant to be something to support a family on... then how are people who aren't college educated / MBAs supposed to make a living for themselves and their kids?
We all know that skilled manufacturing jobs that previously paid well have been going the way of the dinosaur in this country. And not everyone is college material. Not everyone is going to be a Warren Buffett or a Bill Gates. And real estate / construction in this country imploded, quite clearly. Many of the people in these low service jobs are people who previously would have gone for some skilled labor, and there is less and less of it to go around. China makes everything now.
So what do these people do? Just die?
A minimum wage isn't intended for people to support families on. It is a minimum starting wage typically paid for entry level positions. Even if a college grad must take such an entry level position, I doubt they would remain long at minimum wage. One would hope they are smart enough to quickly move into a higher position.
However, at the President's proposed minimum ($9/hr), many jobs will just go to older people who already have experience. Other jobs will just cease to exist, the work being distributed to other employees.
The problem we face in America today is that there are not many jobs being created. This means that the competition for the jobs that are available is stiff, and those jobs will only go to the most qualified. Setting the minimum wage higher at such a time as this, only makes it harder for those seeking work who may be less qualified. This is not a time to be raising the minimum wage. The President is foolish if he thinks it is a good idea.
In a robust economy, where jobs are plentiful and unemployment is low, most people, even if they must start at minimum wage will quickly move out of that level into higher paying jobs. That is how it should work.
The problem that needs to be solved is that of job creation, and it isn't going to happen under this administration with Obama's policies, and ObamaCare looming large in the employers near future. That is working against job creation, as are most of Obama's policies.
Employers hire workers when they need them. Raising minimum wage will not prevent CVS from hiring workers that they need to keep customers coming back (And, yeah, "just enough" is the standard.). Conversely, CVS won't hire or keep more workers than they need, as if they're running some charity, if we all agree to keep minimum wage stagnant while everyday costs rise. And, as far as raising prices is concerned, the trend toward razor-thin profit margins has, and continues to, be the trend in retail, so this isn't nearly as great a concern as many posters have made it out to be.
Poor people should be able to have milk in the refrigerator too. Just because my college-educated butt makes multiple times minimum wage does NOT mean that I work harder than the cashier at Dunkin' Donuts. In fact, I know that I do not. Just because I have the ability to command a higher salary than many of my fellow Americans, does not mean that somehow they aren't entitled to living within some sort of American standard. (And, yes, I consider not sending their children to bed hungry despite working hard all week as falling within that standard.)
The report reviews evidence on eleven possible adjustments to minimum-wage increases that may help to explain why the measured employment effects are so consistently small. The strongest evidence suggests that the most important channels of adjustment are: reductions in labor turnover; improvements in organizational efficiency; reductions in wages of higher earners ("wage compression"); and small price increases.
Given the relatively small cost to employers of modest increases in the minimum wage, these adjustment mechanisms appear to be more than sufficient to avoid employment losses, even for employers with a large share of low-wage workers.
All these pages and we really aren't discussing the real problem. The problem isn't that people aren't being paid enough, it's that prices are going up and that there simply aren't enough jobs to go around.
Two things we are doing nothing about. We are treating the symptoms as opposed to treating the problem.
Not obtained the skills to sweep floors (which I believe was your example of a $5/hr job)? Good grief, it takes about two minutes to learn if one has never held a broom in their hands before.
Yes, people with fewer skills should accept lower pay, but I do feel there should be a floor under wages. This helps both the unskilled and the skilled alike. If the going rate for unskilled labor were $5/hr, the going rate for realtors would be lower, too.
I didn't say someone hadn't obtained the skills necessary to sweep a floor. I said I would not work at that rate because I have other skills that I can offer to earn more.
If you are willing to acknowledge that a lower minimum wage would have allowed pay rates for more other jobs higher on the pay scale to remain lower as well, you have to acknowledge the obverse on that coin. Raising the minimum wage will cause pay rates to increase up the ladder. Increased labor costs MUST increase consumer costs.
I noted earlier that these figures are misleading. These numbers include those who make less than minimum wage. Wait staff make less than minimum wage but after figuring in tips many make way over minimum wage.
I doubt very many will be lost. Most fast food employees probably aren't that far off from $9/hour already, and many are above that. In some places they're probably almost all above that. Fast food places are usually pretty good on managing labor already.
There probably aren't many hours they can realistically cut, let alone jobs. If anything the employees they already have might lose a few hours a week, which for the macro economy would probably be offset by increased purchasing power of the ones below $9/hour.
If you have 4 people running a McDonalds on a Wednesday night, one making $7.85, one making $8.60, one making $9.50, and another making $10.00, each working a 6 hour shift, increasing the bottom 2 to $9/hour is going to cost you a whopping $9.30 extra plus taxes. As a percentage of say, $2,500 in sales, that's not much.
Dang, if I was the worker making $10 and the workers below me - presumably with fewer skills, less experience, etc got a raise and I didn't - I'd be TICKED OFF. I'd be looking for another job - and the restaurant would lose it's most valuable worker.
See how that works?
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