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Old 02-05-2016, 12:04 AM
 
Location: RVA
2,766 posts, read 2,072,415 times
Reputation: 6638

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Blind Cleric View Post
Yes, it has in fact been done. What you cannot do is definitely say, one way or another, if raising the minimum wage will reduce employment opportunities. And, if it did, whether the drawbacks would outweigh the benefits.

Folks reading this thread, who haven't yet read a response to a young man planning to write a research paper, showing how raising the minimum wage will hurt the middle class in another forum, may enjoy this from member OwlandSparrow:




"Economics is a social science.

While economists can have opinions, you're not an economist. You don't know enough about economics to have an opinion. Your job at this stage is to learn how to think about economics. Actual academic papers on the subject will address these issues with data and rigorous analysis of those data.

Stick to that. If you can't express your conclusion in math, you're not thinking like an economist......

If your knee-jerk reaction is, "Well the teacher is biased against me because of politics!" well, you're wrong
Imagine how you'd feel if you were teaching a class on evolutionary biology, and some student kept whining that you were biased against him because you didn't give him an A when he wrote a paper on the alleged virtues of creationism.......


Look at it this way, too. Even if you can demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that X has a negative effect on Y, you still haven't proven anything. I mean, I could easily demonstrate that brushing my teeth every night has a negative effect on me. EASILY. Toothpaste costs money (easy to quantify). My tooth brush gets dirty after a while. Brushing my teeth wastes water. I'm a mortal human who loses many hours of my life to dental care.

What that ignores is that even those many, many reasons aren't anywhere near enough to make up for how brushing my teeth prevents far worse things from happening.

Without saying anything that was technically untrue, I managed to make a lazy, terrible argument. That's the essence of predetermined political conclusions."
Superb post. Really excellent. Plus rating given.
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Old 02-05-2016, 12:16 AM
 
Location: RVA
2,766 posts, read 2,072,415 times
Reputation: 6638
Galaxyhi,mease let us know where "here" is. Never, ever heard of teachers salarie that high to start. I know many that would jump at that opportunity. My wife, with a masters in SpEd, was department head in a Dade county school and didn't make anywhere near that, and they are one of the highest paid counties for teachers in the US.
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Old 02-05-2016, 12:40 AM
 
Location: Myrtle Creek, Oregon
15,293 posts, read 17,619,593 times
Reputation: 25231
Quote:
Originally Posted by AlaskaErik View Post
Yes, the work will still need to be done....

Do you think starving the workers is going to stop automation? That's ridiculous. Anything that can be automated will be automated. We just need to keep the plutocrats from squeezing the remaining workers into starvation by telling them how "lucky" they are to have a job.
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Old 02-05-2016, 03:33 AM
 
Location: Los Angeles area
14,017 posts, read 20,866,014 times
Reputation: 32530
Quote:
Originally Posted by galaxyhi View Post
I am gad you think this is hyperbole. LEts see now:

In all my working life, {since 1980} I have NEVER worked anywhere that had a fat pension plan like my father has. Escort Rider is right: MANY companies saw 401ks as a way OUT of defined benefit plans, offering NO pension except to the higher level executives. NOT ALL of us can be higher level executives.

I have ALWAYS had a "401K"...my father had NO IDEA what one was until I came home with the paperwork for my first option. That one offered $0.50 match up to 5% of income.

AS Time went on and I worked for successive companies, the matches got WORSE. The last "401k" I had offered on $0.01 match, for the first 1% of income stashed there, AND ONLY offered to buy it's company stock as an "option". I said WHY bother....at that time interest rates could be had higher than the bogus "1% match" they were offering, in a simple bank Money Market account. Heck, in an online account you can get more than 1% in a MM account today and that 401k offering was in the 90s in a stronger economy.They offered it so no one could say they didn't. I can so easily SEE how I will be "made financially secure" on THAT plan.

ANY Financial adviser will tell you {at least the public ones} That having ONLY a 401k that sinks all your money into stock of the company you work for is a BAD IDEA. You NEED diversification,and if the company you work for goes belly up, you are/could be in trouble.

With many jobs now only part time, many don't even have the option for a 401K, as it is only for full timers, again, those higher level executives.

We have 3 incomes form 3 jobs in my two person household. GUESS how many 401k options we have? NONE. NONE offer full time! {except to those darned higher level executives}. SO a Roth is the only vehicle besides raw stock purchases {to include mutual funds}.

I am also glad you think you were a "low-paid teacher". I get SOOOO tired of hearing that. Can't prove it around here. The teachers HERE complain about "low pay". Around here, in a town with MORE cows than people, with a population of 2,600 {HUNDRED , NOT thousand} {the COUNTY SEAT no less}, the AREAL school district covering 1/3 of the county has a STARTING pay of $65k for teachers..
Lets see how that compares to OTHER starting positions in the area {a topic of great discussion recently}, a starting sheriff's deputy, for putting life on the line the second they punch the clock, starts at $18k. {a big stink was made about it a few years ago.} A social worker {with a Masters also} starts at just $32k for the county. Firefighters? ALSO putting life in danger...WORK FOR FREE...ALL volunteer! {they do have township offerings to "get in on"...such as self-paid discounted health care through the town}. A NURSE {RN}? about $40k,and man do they have to SAVE lives!
A nearby school district with a larger population starts teachers out at about $75k. The local University? pays it's top executive "only" $200k to run the university! The instructors there make less, but more than teachers at the elementary level, by a mere $30k or so. AND they all have DOCTORATES to instruct students at the university. Guess what the administrator of said school district makes? $210K!!!!
SO don't cry in your coffee about low paid teachers, if you are so low paid as a teacher, apply HERE! You will make out like a bandit!

If what you wrote is accurate, you live in a very strange place indeed. A deputy sheriff starts at $18k per year? That has nothing to do with reality in any place I know of. My ending pay as a teacher after 34 years (when I retired 10 years ago) was just shy of $60,000, so yes, that is certainly "low pay". Nurses, fire fighers, and law enforcement all make more than that around here.

You have taken a bizarre, outlier situation and you are using it to make a point which you seem to wish to generalize. In fact, your figures are so bizarre that it's difficult to take them seriously.
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Old 02-05-2016, 04:06 AM
 
106,206 posts, read 108,191,934 times
Reputation: 79739
our dept of sanitation workers retire at 40-45k here in ny . we have lots of so called middle class jobs that pay 100k plus on the job .
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Old 02-05-2016, 07:28 AM
 
Location: Jamestown, NY
7,840 posts, read 9,167,375 times
Reputation: 13779
Quote:
Originally Posted by mathjak107 View Post
our dept of sanitation workers retire at 40-45k here in ny . we have lots of so called middle class jobs that pay 100k plus on the job .
You live in NYC where it's common for sanitation workers for the city make around $70k annually. NYC teachers also make significantly more than most public school teachers in most places, too. Consequently, their pensions are going to be higher. It's just the reality of a high COL area, but most public sanitation workers or teachers don't make NYC pay scales.
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Old 02-05-2016, 08:31 AM
 
24,530 posts, read 18,106,170 times
Reputation: 40216
Quote:
Originally Posted by Larry Caldwell View Post
The market would starve a bunch of people to death. It has no morals and only the logic of the bean counters. Increasing the minimum wage will have a negligible effect on the number of jobs. The work will still need to be done.
It depends how much you raise it. Inflation-adjusted, the minimum wage was $10.25 in 1968. $10.25 would have just about zero impact. A regional $15.00 in high cost of living areas would have just about zero impact. $25.00/hour nationally would cause a ton of job displacement. You'd be ordering your coffee or fast food at a kiosk. The remaining low wage factory jobs would simply vanish. Employers would invest in automation to minimize those high labor costs.

We have a glut of unskilled labor in the United States. Immigration, both legal and illegal, makes the problem worse. We need to limit the supply. I roll my eyes at the Trump "build a fence and deport all the illegals" thing but you have to do something like that to fix this fundamental problem.
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Old 02-05-2016, 08:54 AM
 
106,206 posts, read 108,191,934 times
Reputation: 79739
Quote:
Originally Posted by Linda_d View Post
You live in NYC where it's common for sanitation workers for the city make around $70k annually. NYC teachers also make significantly more than most public school teachers in most places, too. Consequently, their pensions are going to be higher. It's just the reality of a high COL area, but most public sanitation workers or teachers don't make NYC pay scales.
which is why anytime you discuss amounts it can only be discussed by area . the country consists of 1500 different mini economy's . they are all different .
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Old 02-05-2016, 09:08 AM
 
Location: TN/NC
34,922 posts, read 31,062,157 times
Reputation: 47302
Quote:
Originally Posted by Escort Rider View Post
If what you wrote is accurate, you live in a very strange place indeed. A deputy sheriff starts at $18k per year? That has nothing to do with reality in any place I know of. My ending pay as a teacher after 34 years (when I retired 10 years ago) was just shy of $60,000, so yes, that is certainly "low pay". Nurses, fire fighers, and law enforcement all make more than that around here.

You have taken a bizarre, outlier situation and you are using it to make a point which you seem to wish to generalize. In fact, your figures are so bizarre that it's difficult to take them seriously.
County deputies in my county in Tennessee start in the mid-$20s. While that's a big percentage improvement from $18k (that's under $9/hr...), it's still low wage employment. Teachers in the city schools systems often start in the high $30k range, RN/BSN's start there as well.

I wouldn't say the person is all that far off the mark.
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Old 02-05-2016, 09:52 AM
 
Location: New Jersey
12,755 posts, read 9,620,252 times
Reputation: 13164
Quote:
Originally Posted by Serious Conversation View Post
County deputies in my county in Tennessee start in the mid-$20s. While that's a big percentage improvement from $18k (that's under $9/hr...), it's still low wage employment. Teachers in the city schools systems often start in the high $30k range, RN/BSN's start there as well.

I wouldn't say the person is all that far off the mark.
If you recall, that poster said the population where he lives is 2,600. That's pretty small, actually, and may justify only a meager salary for LE. One would have to know the crime statistics, of course.

It seems this particular county is putting their money into the schools, students, and teachers, where it will most likely do the most good in the long run.
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