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Back in the real world, the numbers of workers and amounts of money involved in a typical minimum wage increase are still too small to have a measurable effect. This is what the data say, not some imaginary bunch of biased researchers.
And of course, real world micro-level entrepreneurs are all about reacting to changes in their input costs. It's what they do. These sorts of ups and downs are happening all the time. Meanwhile, nobody with a brain has any more minimum wage workers on the payroll than they actually need, just as chocolate chip cookie makers do not buy more chocolate chips than they need. Duh! If the prices of required inputs change -- and they forever will -- you need to be nimble enough to adapt. If you can't adapt, you go out of business. And will richly deserve to do so. Nobody has a right to remain in business after all, and least of all, some bunch of inflexible, incompetent, deadbeat bunglers.
Which is all well and good in the thriving bits of the country. In my area we are rapidly becoming the land of empty strip centers and Family Dollar/Dollar General assimilation. But hey, hip-hip-hooray for the invisible hand of the billionaires who are directing this collapse.
The final outcome of this will be automation and artificial intelligence that will virtually wipe out the middle class as human involvement in jobs at any level will be obsolete. The future is not promising from most of us.
The robotic slaves work for all of us instead of just the oligarchs. A BI tied to GDP and employment levels would be my preferred approach. Starting at ~15% of GDP and topping out at ~40%, plus extensive public benefits.
This will eventually require a high rate of taxation, plus of course the oligarchs don't want it. And they seem to be getting their way. The optimal outcome for them is to keep us divided and confused while our living standards and freedoms are whittled away. As more people become economically useless, they may wait for us to die off if we are lucky, or exterminate us if we are not.
Hell no. I'm not an oligarch and I'm certainly not going to work my ass off so that you can sit at home and wait for your monthly stipend. You wallowing at home gorging on Doritos and Dr. Pepper and hatching paranoid fantasies while the rest of us sweat out a living is, in the scale of things, about a hundred times more unfair than your average employer.
If you want to be employable here's an insanely good idea. Take advantage of the zillion junior colleges and job training programs in your area and get some marketable skills rather than cross your arms and pout like some kind of privileged 14-year-old being asked to mow the lawn for the first time. Because the jobs are out there. Maybe it's not the perfect job, but it's a job. And there's a lot more dignity in work than being idle.
I mean, jeez, my 18-year-old son walked onto a construction site a month ago with zero experience and snagged a $12/hour job. Loves every minute of it and the boss likes him enough to give him more duties. Companies are that desperate for workers who can be bothered to learn, will show up on time, and follow instructions.
Which is all well and good in the thriving bits of the country. In my area we are rapidly becoming the land of empty strip centers and Family Dollar/Dollar General assimilation. ........
Many areas that are not doing well are not going to do well in the future either. Maybe it is time for you to move. Actually it is probably passed time when you should have moved.
That isn't a fact at all, it's your personal world view (ie bias, belief).
The fact is that median wages for people with college degrees have been flat for decades. If the opportunities are so great, why is that the case?
Many economists are trying to understand this. A related issue is relatively stagnant wages with low unemployment. Neither take away from the point that individuals can find good jobs and be in demand if they gain education and skills.
Can't wait till we have judges and other automated criminal justice systems...There'll be a sign leading in says "Abandon all hope of not paying the fine"
This isn't new! McDonald's has been using machines for years. This was coming regardless of minimum wage. Machines don't need breaks, vacations, sick days, time off, no limit on how many hours they can work, etc.
I think this was inevitable, regardless. It is so easy for people to place their own order, online or at a self-serve kiosk. It's not some valuable skill that someone should earn a lot of money to do.
So true! Toddlers are using tablets today. They can't talk and poop their pants, but they can use an iPad. So what's that say? it's not a challenging task that needs skill!
When Henry Ford doubled the MW to $5 a day many, many decades past, it wasn't just he wanted better employees. He also wanted his own workers to be able to afford the own products that his company was making.
There was no minimum wage prior to 1938. What $5 a day was in 1914 was double the average factory wage of the day, but few of Henry Ford's employees were actually able to qualify for it. They were also the subjects of some of the most abusive and invasive corporate spying networks in US history.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ackmondual
Seemed to work out pretty well. Many other factories predicted gloom and doom, but that maneuver was one of the things accredited to jump starting the middle class of America.
No, it was the notion of assembly lines and mass production that did that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ackmondual
Do you really believe there are enough "higher paying jobs" to lift those out of MW jobs?
Low-skilled labor is a commodity. It is a required input in quite a number of production functions. Think busboys in a restaurant. It's the nature of the work, not of the people doing it, that defines the job. Today's busboys will move on to bigger an better things. But the work of a busboy will remain.
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