A poor minimum drags on the median wage rate. (agent, money, housing costs)

[AtlJan]

Originally Posted by TMSRetired

Really ? How much do you think an orange would cost if the picker was making $20/hour ?

The same because producers would find a way to automate and put those $20/hr workers out their jobs.

[HJ99]

Originally Posted by damba

You keep alluding to the US economy as it was years ago. Economies evolve over time, that is just part of reality. The US service based exports are still increasing. It’s certainly not a perfect process. Government, businesses and citizens need to work together to solve all sorts of problems stemming from the inefficiencies involved in this transition.

And you are ignoring the cost of living for those at low end. Even at $16 an hour in some localities, minimum wage now wont buy what minimum wage did in 1964. Details matter. People keep overlooking the obscene exponential increase in housing costs. Buying a reliable car aint so easy at low end either. All for rich to play money games and try to skim off the cream for easy profit. Any economy that ignores large segment of the population is a failure. Just cause the wealthy are making record profits doesnt mean the economy is healthy. Just cause there is record employment doesnt mean economy is healthy, that record employment is because the people on low end need multiple jobs to survive. Ever heard of the "gig economy"??? You know like you claim only existed years ago......

[HJ99]

Originally Posted by AtlJan

The same because producers would find a way to automate and put those $20/hr workers out their jobs.

Eventually some bright boy will get a clue and figure out those robots dont buy anything. You and all your fellow companies focus on eliminating good paying labor jobs.... guess what people can no long buy what you are sell. Even the old fascist himself, Henry Ford, figured out he had to pay his workers enough to buy the Model T they were building.


Some things change, logic doesnt. You build a consumer product, you need people with enough money to buy that product. Expecting people with jobs in other companies to buy your product is short sighted, cause those other companies will automate too. Everybody cant make a living cooking and cleaning for each other.

[gwynedd1]

Originally Posted by HJ99

Eventually some bright boy will get a clue and figure out those robots dont buy anything. You and all your fellow companies focus on eliminating good paying labor jobs.... guess what people can no long buy what you are sell. Even the old fascist himself, Henry Ford, figured out he had to pay his workers enough to buy the Model T they were building.


Some things change, logic doesnt. You build a consumer product, you need people with enough money to buy that product. Expecting people with jobs in other companies to buy your product is short sighted, cause those other companies will automate too. Everybody cant make a living cooking and cleaning for each other.

One of my primary metrics of a functional middle class, completely blind to many financial formulas , is if the worker can afford to consume their own product. As you stated , by that definition , a butler cannot consume their own output.

[Mircea]

Originally Posted by MinivanDriver

I'm not sure where the OP gets his or her thesis, but the jury is most certainly out on the subject. For every study that claims increasing minimum wage does not cause unemployment, there are others that claim the opposite:

When you read those studies, it's very important to examine and understand the methodology used.

One study oft cited in support of claims it doesn't cause unemployment examined weekly labor hours for corporate fast-food restaurants in the New Jersey/eastern Pennsylvania area.

You can see why the methodology is totally flawed.

If I were to conduct the same study, I would not exclude corporate or corporate-franchise fast-food, rather I'd use them as a quasi-control group.

My focus would be on local/regional non-corporate fast-food chains and restaurant chains, and privately-owned restaurants from the family-diner type to mid-level and slightly higher priced (but not high end) restaurants.

Your corporate/franchise restaurants are not going to be so negatively impacted by minimum wage increases as non-corporate restaurants for obvious reasons.

And I would be looking at number of employees, instead of weekly labor hours.

Weekly labor hours tells you nothing. If you have 500 labor hours in a week, that could be 50 employees working 10 hours each, or 10 employees working 40 hours and 5 employees working 20 hours.

A huge difference.

Originally Posted by Supposn

Travis T, I do consider inadequate purchasing power as to be “poor” wages.

That's because you have absolutely no understanding of Economics.

Even that wouldn't be so bad, except you engage in an Equivocation Fallacy, equivocating wages with "purchasing power."

And, even that wouldn't be so bad, except you read "purchasing power" on one of your goombah websites and don't understand what it means.

The purpose of wages is to compensate a worker for the labor they provide. Wages have no other purpose.

What a worker can or cannot buy with those wages is not relevant.

Not only that, but you don't understand the difference between Wage Cost and Labor Cost. $7.25/hour is the Wage Cost, but not the Labor Cost. The Labor Cost is $7.25/hour plus the cost of FICA, HI, SUTA, FUTA, worker's compensation, liability insurance, vacation pay, holiday pay, health plan coverage, other health coverage, educational benefits, and such.

And that makes you appear to be both disingenuous and hypocritical.

Why?

Because you'll gladly claim some CEO got "$23 Million" while deceptively refusing to admit or acknowledge that it was only $7 Million in cash and $16 Million in non-cash benefits.

In other words, the CEO's Wage Cost is $7 Million and the Labor Cost is $23 Million.

Just like you still can't wrap your brain around the fact that $1 of Imports does not equal $1 of GDP, you can't seem to wrap your brain around Demand-pull Inflation.

You cannot violate the Laws of Economics without being punished.

When Demand exceeds Supply, the price rises.

When Demand exceeds Supply by a helluva lot and Demand remains constant and never goes away, the price rises a lot and stays there.

That's what Demand-pull Inflation is.

If someone earning $7.25/hour can't afford a particular apartment, that's sad but that's just the way it is.

Increasing their wage to $10/hour will not make the apartment affordable.

The price of the apartment will neither decrease nor remain the same: it will actually go up so the $10/hour worker still can't afford it.

The Laws of Economics have designed Demand-pull Inflation to protect goods, services and resources from being over-consumed, over-used or depleted. It's a game you can never win. Not ever.

Housing is a good/resource that in many areas of the US is over-consumed/over-used.

If an area is saturated with housing, then it is impossible to build new housing to increase Supply and stop prices from rising.

So, how do you stop housing prices from rising?

You curtail Demand.

How do you curtail Demand? Set prices high enough to where few people can Demand that housing.

See? It's not Quantum String Theory, but it is Economics.

[travis t]

Originally Posted by HJ99

Thats great, so the right wing is going to encourage unionization of low end jobs now? After tearing unions down for decades? Unions really arent effective at this point in history. Death by thousand cuts of Republican laws and regulations.

Private sector unionization at one time was about 33%. That is, 33% of private sector workers were union. It is now down to 6%. You don't get to that number without support from both Democrats and Republicans.

Over the 60 or so years of decline we've had 5 Democratic presidents. Democrats had the trifecta from 2008-2010 and did not lift even one finger to enact pro-union reforms. Blame Republicans for everything if it makes you feel better. But it doesn't comport with the history.

As to subsidies, are the low end employers going to pay those subsidies, you know the ones that profit from low wages... Or are we all going to pay through higher taxes? Why should I subsidize McD and Walmart? Let them pay living wages and I will then decide if I want to pay what they are asking for their product/service. Its their job to have a business plan that doesnt require govt subsidies to make it work.

The subsidies would have to paid by taxpayers and higher taxes, yes. That's what a subsidy is. If you don't want to pay that, that's a fair discussion. But it's separate from the fact that the fiat minimum wage is a sham and charade, that hurts those it is purported to help.

[gwynedd1]

What we need is cheap, affordable housing that appreciates in value, especially with fixtures powered by perpetual motion machines .

[Supposn]

Originally Posted by MinivanDriver

I'm not sure where the OP gets his or her thesis, but the jury is most certainly out on the subject. For every study that claims increasing minimum wage does not cause unemployment, there are others that claim the opposite: …

MinivanDriver, I’m the original poster of this thread. You didn’t quote me, so I don’t know how he learned of my conclusion. I do contend that permitting the purchasing power of the federal minimum wage rate to be reduced, or reducing it, or eliminating it would not reduce the USA’s aggregate unemployment rate, or our unemployment rate among low-wage job seekers.

As you posted, there are many who contend otherwise, and I suppose you are among them. I just posted the thread, “Minimum wage rate does not increase the rate of unemployment”, dedicated to this sub-topic of minimum wage rate discussions. There you can read the basis of my contention regarding this facet of minimum wage rate discussions.

Respectfully, Supposn

[RationalExpectations]

Originally Posted by SuiteLiving

The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain.

Respectfully, SuiteLiving

True, but Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.

Respectfully, RationalExpectations.

[NJ Brazen_3133]

Originally Posted by gwynedd1

If you don't know that people are willing to pay more for a house when their wages increase I may as well debate with one of my pets.





Stock Report| | NYSE Symbol: February 08, 2020MAA| is in the S&P 500MAAMid-America Apartment Communities, Inc.

New job growth and higher wages are important measures to rising rental revenue, but rate increases have subsided in 2018. Affordability may also be an issue with new Class A roperties in coastal markets that ask high rental rates. In the Sunbelt markets, we see more stability in Class B properties that are older apartment complexes with fewer amenities then the high-priced Class A new apartments in urban markets.

Is not a guarantee, anyone will want to pay more for housing if they have more money. What if they want to spend on some other bargains? What if they do not want a mortgage to eat into any kind of savings they want to store up? As for your quote, correlation does not equal causation.