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From a strictly inflation based point of view, that is about what the minimum would be if it had kept pace with inflation since the early 1970's. My first job was minimum wage at $1.65, the price of an average house here at that time was about 30K to 40K and you could buy a new car for about 3K. Today an average house is about 300K to 400K and the cost of a new car is about 30K. By that reasoning the minimum wage should have increased 10X just like everything else. That would put it at $16.50.
You pretty much nailed it! I am old enough to remember that, and minimum jobs were usually held by kids or housewives working part time. I didn't know one single adult working full time who made anything even close to the minimum wage.
So would you rather take the shake down in the form of minimum wage or 45% tarrifs on all imported goods? You are going to have to pay the piper one way or another. Heavy tarrifs are comming because the vast majority of the USA is under/un employed. You can say tough **** but thats not what the voters are going to be saying, me included. Also once the H1B visa program is disolved for all but the einstines and von brauns that door will close too. The next step will be to forbid forign ownership of real estate and strip their deeds from them, you might say thats wrong and I say too bad, why do you think we have a well funded military so we can be d**ks to outsiders while protecting our own people.
I agree it will be painful the first 6 months or a year but the pain will trickle up really really fast becasue it will be impossible to import goods for cheap and people will find they can play a little more hard ball on salery negotiation.
Thats the way it was suppose to be, imposing stiffling tarrifs to protect americans was one of the fed govts very very few jobs.
After that we disolve corporations and make sure board members and CEO's are directly liable in the form of stiff jail time for any screw ups the company makes and the remainder of the funds distrubeted to the employees that got screwed from corrupt CEOs. We start holding higher ups feet to the fire and start having some accountability we will see alot of changes.
This next election is going to decide if we stay great or if we become a second world nation as Russia slowly passes us up.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BobNJ1960
The cost of an employee went up 10x. Employer Health Care in retail for the 40% offered benefits cost an employer several dollars per hour. Employer SS, Medicare is up from under 2% of gross to 7.65%. SUI is also up as a % of pay immensely since the 70s. Add in Workers comp increases; FMLA admin costs, and the employer cost is up 10x.
Now undue those gov't mandate increases so your employer can give you what Uncle Sam shook him down for.
Thats because we have a plethora of cheap imports, H1B visas and an anti competitive market.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2sleepy
You pretty much nailed it! I am old enough to remember that, and minimum jobs were usually held by kids or housewives working part time. I didn't know one single adult working full time who made anything even close to the minimum wage.
So would you rather take the shake down in the form of minimum wage or 45% tarrifs on all imported goods? You are going to have to pay the piper one way or another. Heavy tarrifs are comming because the vast majority of the USA is under/un employed. You can say tough **** but thats not what the voters are going to be saying, me included. .
We will see more of the same..very modest minimum wage increases in 98% of America.
The cost of an employee went up 10x. Employer Health Care in retail for the 40% offered benefits cost an employer several dollars per hour. Employer SS, Medicare is up from under 2% of gross to 7.65%. SUI is also up as a % of pay immensely since the 70s. Add in Workers comp increases; FMLA admin costs, and the employer cost is up 10x.
Now undue those gov't mandate increases so your employer can give you what Uncle Sam shook him down for.
You have omitted a few facts on the other side, mainly that advances in technology have improved average worker efficiency by over 80% while average worker pay has risen less than 10%.
This is the primary reason you are seeing huge spikes in the wages to the top wage earners. The problem is that the fat greedy slugs at the top of the food chain are not fairly sharing the fruits of increased productivity with the people who actually earn it.
You have omitted a few facts on the other side, mainly that advances in technology have improved average worker efficiency by over 80% while average worker pay has risen less than 10%.
If advancements in technology produced the increase in efficiency, why should that result in increased worker wage?
If advancements in technology produced the increase in efficiency, why should that result in increased worker wage?
Quote:
Originally Posted by jimhcom
You have omitted a few facts on the other side, mainly that advances in technology have improved average worker efficiency by over 80% while average worker pay has risen less than 10%.
This is the primary reason you are seeing huge spikes in the wages to the top wage earners. The problem is that the fat greedy slugs at the top of the food chain are not fairly sharing the fruits of increased productivity with the people who actually earn it.
We have to be careful when we say the average worker wage. Generally speaking, technological advancement leads to higher productivity, which in turns, should result in higher wages.
However, we need to look at the magnitude of wage increases across workers with different skill levels.
Joe Schmo working the drive thru at a fast food has received a very modest if any increase in real wages over the last few decades.
However, the programmers and other techies creating the technology to help Joe Schmo become more efficient and churn out more drive thru orders are reaping the benefits via increased real wages.
Companies will reward the high-skilled workers driving increased productivity and efficiency as they are the ones adding more to the bottom line. Low-skilled workers will reap little to no benefit as companies still need to make a profit and keep their cost structure in line after doling out higher salaries to those high-skilled workers who are responsible for revenue growth.
Overall average real wage growth may not increase much in spite of increased productivity as there is a significant portion of the population that is low-skilled and has seen little to no rise in real wages.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TaxPhd
If advancements in technology produced the increase in efficiency, why should that result in increased worker wage?
Those that invest in the technology to increase efficiency do so to increase their profits. If anything, it means less skills needed by the workers, which would seem to justify paying less. The obvious example is fast food, such as McD with machines that flip the burger patties, time the fries, measure the drink by cup size, and cash registers with pictures of the food. All of that automation means that workers have much less thinking to do. The fact that many (such as in our area) are paying $11-12/hour is the result of supply and demand, as it should be. They must pay that much to attract workers.
We have to be careful when we say the average worker wage. Generally speaking, technological advancement leads to higher productivity, which in turns, should result in higher wages.
However, we need to look at the magnitude of wage increases across workers with different skill levels.
Joe Schmo working the drive thru at a fast food has received a very modest if any increase in real wages over the last few decades.
However, the programmers and other techies creating the technology to help Joe Schmo become more efficient and churn out more drive thru orders are reaping the benefits via increased real wages.
Companies will reward the high-skilled workers driving increased productivity and efficiency as they are the ones adding more to the bottom line. Low-skilled workers will reap little to no benefit as companies still need to make a profit and keep their cost structure in line after doling out higher salaries to those high-skilled workers who are responsible for revenue growth.
Overall average real wage growth may not increase much in spite of increased productivity as there is a significant portion of the population that is low-skilled and has seen little to no rise in real wages.
That is why government feels the need to step in and level the playing field. The corporate interests have shown time and time again that they will not play fair left to their own devices.
If advancements in technology produced the increase in efficiency, why should that result in increased worker wage?
Why shouldn't it? It is after all the worker who actually earns the money that the suits seem to think is theirs. Without the workers, no money would be made and they deserve a fair share of the pie.
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