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Any adult working full-time, regardless of the job, deserves an income that enables them to lead a decent life without getting into debt or poverty. After all, no employer hires anyone for doing something that is not required.
Bravo Comrade, spoken like a true communist! Karl would be proud. “From each according to his ability (employer) to each according to his needs(worker). This is precisely what you are saying, even if you don’t realize it.
While always promising utopia to the common man, the results of communism is stagnation, degradation, and massive death measured in the tens of millions! And there is simply no bloody excuse for being so totally oblivious to that factual history, given its many examples and mirror image failures.
Read a damned book, or take the easy way, and watch a documentary on Stalin’s little utopia, and the unimaginable level of suffering and death caused by his Marxist policies, particularly enlightening in his war against the Russian farmers, and how that all turned out. You might want to review Mao, and his little utopia in China, while you’re at it.
Minimum wage, a character issue. That's the essence of personal and political opposition to the FMW rate.
The federal minimum wage, (FMW) rate is of net social and economic benefit to our nation. It has never been among the major causes of the U.S. dollar’s inflation; on the contrary, it’s certainly among inflation's victims.
No employees are poorer and no enterprises suffer any competitive disadvantage to any USA enterprises due to the FMW rate.
[there’s no doubt that USA’s higher wage rates are among the causes of our products’ price disadvantages in comparison to products from lower-wage nations; but although the elimination of our minimum wage laws would be greatly detrimental to our nation’s net social and economic well-being, eliminating it would accomplish extremely little to remedy our products’ global price disadvantages.]
I suppose most USA’s population, (significantly more than a 10% plurality) to some extent approve of federal minimum rate’s existence. There are much fewer among wealthy or competent people that are opposed to the federal minimum rate.
A great proportion of minimum rate opponents lack self-esteem. They need whatever affirmation of their own worth that they can derive by being able to look down upon people experiencing lesser financial conditions. They cannot acknowledge even to themselves their fears of improving the financial conditions of others would consequentially reduce their own social status. That’s the essence of personal and political opposition to the FMW rate.
I'm against a mandated wage because I don't believe in slavery.
Not sure what that does for my self-esteem but it's gangbusters for my principles which are non-aggression and property rights.
In the supermarket I tend to go to, they also have two self-service lines, but the ones with human cashiers are always much longer because people don't like self-service.
Walmart etc. make huge profits, but they prefer to give them to investors that are already filthy rich instead of paying their employees decent wages.
Look, in a perfect world, everyone would receive a livable wage for working full time. It’s a nice idea, and it’s thoughtfully compassionate. There is just one problem .... the world is not perfect, and is unlikely to achieve such perfection, ever.
Similarly, it would be nice to live in Bernie’s world where everything is free for everybody. And if we could find that genie in the bottle to grant us those wishes, sign me up. But until money grows on trees, or genies wave their blue hand of miracles and magically create unlimited treasure ... someone has to pay for all of that free everything. Which ultimately means, it ain’t gonna be free for somebody, now, is it?
Perhaps, we could begin this little utopian experiment of “free for everyone” with YOUR PERSONAL SERVICES OR LABOR? You won’t mind working for free, right? If it furthers the cause? So let’s start with you first. Because that’s what would be necessary for free education, right? Everyone connected to the school ... teachers, administrators, janitors, the builders of the buildings, the suppliers of the supplies and books, the electricity, the air conditioning .... all of this would have to be donated, for free, to be free.
And we can start with replacing all of the school buses with Unicorns. The kids can ride Unicorns to school. What will we feed the Unicorns? Why, Unicorn food, what else? Donated for free, by the Unicorn food growers, harvested by ..... I’ll stop now ....
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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I had a business for 16 years, and paid my workers, mostly part-time college students well over minimum wage. The last 3 were in the $12-14 range, and that was in 2005. I’m still one that believes that the minimum wage should be set by state and local governments, and if there is a federal it should be based on the lowest cost state. It makes no sense for a business in Tennessee where a two bedroom apartment is $854 to pay the same $15/hour as in Seattle where average rent is $2,200 for one bedroom. Even in booming Nashville, the median home value is just $110,950, in Seattle it’s $714,600, and that’s after a recent drop.
I disagree. I don't even buy that whole labor market crap. Humans are not fridges or toys.
Nobody forces anyone to hire someone. But if they do hire someone - so obviously there is a need for that person's labor - they should pay them decently, instead of turning them into working poor.
May I ask a simple question? Person #1 is a business owner (let’s say that’s you) and person #2 is a worker (let’s say that’s me). Who has more rights? You or me? Or do we both have equal rights?
We WOULD be handing out money if the minimum were raised to $15 an hour when the market value is only $8 or $9. ...
Rachel976, if HR526 were passed and began enactment in 2020, the federal minimum wage rate wouldn't be $15 per hour until sometime within 2025. at that time, $15 may have less purchasing power than $9 now has in August-2019. I'm a proponent of increasing the minimum by 12.5% annually until its purchasing power is not less than 125% of its February-1968 purchasing power. Thereafter the minimum should be annually adjusted in order to retain that purchasing power.
I don't expect HR528 to become enacted. I have reason for hoping something similar what I described, will be passed in 2020 and begin gradual enactment within a year after its passage.
I had a business for 16 years, and paid my workers, mostly part-time college students well over minimum wage. The last 3 were in the $12-14 range, and that was in 2005. I’m still one that believes that the minimum wage should be set by state and local governments, and if there is a federal it should be based on the lowest cost state. It makes no sense for a business in Tennessee where a two bedroom apartment is $854 to pay the same $15/hour as in Seattle where average rent is $2,200 for one bedroom. Even in booming Nashville, the median home value is just $110,950, in Seattle it’s $714,600, and that’s after a recent drop.
While I understand the point being made, (and disagree with it strongly, for the reason I shall reveal in just a bit) the issue is really much deeper ... it’s a question of free markets, versus controlled markets, and as a business owner, I’m shocked that this more relevant point escapes you.
The relationship between an employer and employee is in essence, a simple contract of exchange between two individuals. One agrees to pay a certain amount of money to the other for a specified amount of work/time. There is absolutely no difference between that exchange and the sale of a product between a buyer and a seller, is there? If you think there is a difference, I’d love for you to explain it to me.
So, for the sake of discussion, let’s say we agree there is no real difference ... then what you seem to suggest in this sliding minimum wage scenario, controlled by local authorities, is that employers should be required to pay more to the McDonalds burger flipper in Seattle, than an employer should be required to pay in Tennessee? That right?
Let’s apply that same “force of government” to the sale of a product. I’m General Motors, and the MSRP for a base Malibu is $24000. That’s the price in Seattle and in Memphis. Should I be forced to increase the price in Seattle, or forced to lower the price in Memphis? Or should I be allowed to charge whatever price I deem appropriate for MY product, and let the buyers decide if it’s worth the asking price or not (free market enterprise)?
... And are you trying to tell me that fully 20% of the labor force is made up of unskilled workers earning the current minimum wage? If that's the case, why are we trying to import a million more unskilled workers every year? ...
Rachel976, I'm not trying to tell you that 20% of USA workers earn exactly the $7.25 or their states' higher minimum wage, but I did post: The minimum wage critically effects no less than the lowest 20th percentile and substantially affects the remainder of lowest 40th percentile of USA's wage earners. Due to the concepts of wage differentials, the federal minimum wage rate affects all USA wage rates.
The low-wage rates of USA workers earning only somewhat more than the exact $7.25 per hour federal minimum rate are critically dependent upon a definite legally mandated rate.
All state minimums' would be more difficult to enforce and less sustainable if there were no federal minimum wage rate. The rates of employees earning as much as 50% or more than the minimum rate are critically dependent upon the definite minimum rate where they work, which itself is dependent upon the federal minimum wage rate.
Regarding your commenting of USA importing “unskilled workers”, those foreign-born legal and illegal persons are eager to work under conditions and wage rates that are unacceptable to persons born in the USA. Employers prefer them and/or cannot function without them. When those legal and/or illegal foreign-born are the majority of the labor pool for such jobs in some USA localities or industries, persons born in the USA put themselves at disadvantage if they seek or accept such jobs.
Rachel976, if HR526 were passed and began enactment in 2020, the federal minimum wage rate wouldn't be $15 per hour until sometime within 2025. at that time, $15 may have less purchasing power than $9 now has in August-2019. I'm a proponent of increasing the minimum by 12.5% annually until its purchasing power is not less than 125% of its February-1968 purchasing power. Thereafter the minimum should be annually adjusted in order to retain that purchasing power.
I don't expect HR528 to become enacted. I have reason for hoping something similar what I described, will be passed in 2020 and begin gradual enactment within a year after its passage.
Should the government also control prices? If you believe in the ideological construct that government should mandate a specific minimum wage to help out the working man, should it not also mandate a maximum selling price for all basic necessities needed by that working man, such as food stuffs, transportation, electricity, rent, clothing, etc? If not, why not? As those prices are directly related to the reason why you believe in a minimum wage, no?
... I still go with my first post. If people want to earn more than the minimum wage, they need to get some sort of training beyond high school. Taxpayers cover the expense of that via Pell Grants, and unskilled workers need to take advantage of that generosity.
I'd also recommend two tracks in high school. Everyone takes the same basic classes the first three years, but then the kids divide into college prep or vocational. Then kids who aren't college material (and yes, not everyone is) would have some marketable skill.
Rachel976, employers are trying to import trained skilled workers because we don't produce enough of our own.
Among what we do seem to agree upon is USA's need to improve our training and educational systems. They have failed us.
Any extent of improving a nation's training and educational systems is no less reflected by the extents of benefits to their economic and social well-being. Other nations do this in manners superior to our own.
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