Minimum wage is an issue of character. (capitalism, costs, fees)

[redguard57]

Originally Posted by MrRational

At a time of rising union influence it was meant as a floor wage that didn't require negotiation
and regardless of how backward the particular State/County they happened to be living in.

EVERYONE hired was guaranteed no less that the FMW... and a bit later the 40 hour RT week.
eta: Almost immediately most of the more PROGRESSIVE areas in the country set the local MW higher.

What it might pay for was a concern of some MW advocates at the time (see Perkins)
..but getting through the Capital Hill sausage factory stripped out all those references.
This reality is ignored or just unknown by most of the 'living wage' advocates when they argue here.

What the developed countries that don't have minimum wage share are strong worker protections and a culture of unions, guilds, etc...

[ddm2k]

Originally Posted by MrRational

At a time of rising union influence it was meant as a floor wage that didn't require negotiation
and regardless of how backward the particular State/County they happened to be living in.

EVERYONE hired was guaranteed no less that the FMW... and a bit later the 40 hour RT week.
eta: Almost immediately most of the more PROGRESSIVE areas in the country set the local MW higher.

What it might pay for was a concern of some MW advocates at the time (see Perkins)
..but getting through the Capital Hill sausage factory stripped out all those references.
This reality is ignored or just unknown by most of the 'living wage' advocates when they argue here.

Not just the union wage, but the union scale helps all employees advance in pay on a SCHEDULE, instead of looking to their boss for answers why they are not yet at top pay after 5 years, 10 years, etc. The answer isn't "why haven't you gotten promoted?" because that's a deflection away from the original question: WHY IS NOT POSSIBLE TO EVER REACH TOP OF SCALE? It's a carrot, and nothing else.

If an employee is good enough to be kept on, they're good enough to get raises. It'd be awfully strange if a manager had a team of 10-20 who never received a raise of even $1/hr yet also coincidentally no one has gotten fired or written up for poor performance. Frog-in-pan.

Union scales offer straight wage credit for experience (you start at 36 mos rate if you have 3 years exp, etc.) and you get raises every 6 months until you reach 5 years or 60 months' scale, top of scale. In other words, by 5 years' tenure, EVERYONE is making top pay. If someone has lasted 4 years but the manager considers them too dicey to be approaching top pay, however, they also haven't done anything so egregious as to be fired for behavior, performance, etc. - THAT IS A MANAGER PROBLEM, NOT AN EMPLOYEE PROBLEM.

[Supposn]

Originally Posted by Zymer

It would be nice if it actually worked that way...but it doesn't.

I used to make more than minimum wage. But the boneheads here decided that it would be a 'good thing' if they raised the MW by $1/hr every year for a few years.

Guess what happened. Yep, the min mage went up but my wage didn't, and now *I* am back to making minimum wage. But, because of the increase in the min wage, the prices of everything else went up, and my expenses increased to where I (and everyone else) was in an even worse position than before, with the net after expenses being reduced...which basically results in a reduction in 'lifestyle'- fewer dollars left after expenses to be used for 'discretional spending', you know, like food you don't make yourself, beer, etc. The one 'sit-down' restaurant we had here in town went under. The price of store-bought beer is insane (good thing I know how to make my own). The restaurant in the next town over went under.

Sure, the theory 'sounds' good...but the reality sucks...just like communism.

Zymer, it’s inconceivable that the experiences you describe in your post could have possibly occurred in other than an extremely rural area with an extremely small wage paying jobs/population ratio. Is that the case you’ve described?

What can possibly occur, is not necessarily what does occur. I doubt if the scenario you described has occurred within USA’s majority of rural areas. If you don’t consider my question as piercing your privacy, and without revealing too much of yourself, can you tell us of the region where you work, and something of your job. Were you a high-earning technician or executive whose wage scale was proportionally little influenced by the federal minimum wage rate?

The federal minimum rate does not reduce any job’s rate, Due to employers general wage differential practices, increases of the federal minimum consequentially increase the majority of USA employees’ wage rates; but it doesn’t increase all of those rates in the same proportional manner. There’s an inverse influential relationship between the minimum and jobs’ wage rates that dependent upon the differences between the minimum and a job’s rate. The purchasing powers of lesser job rates greater benefit, and that of higher rates lesser benefit from increases of the federal minimum wage rate.

Not knowing of your specific situation. I cannot further comment regarding your post.
Respectfully, Supposn

[JobHunter2018]

Originally Posted by EDS_

Your argument of feelings aside.....why don't we set the minimum wage to $75,000? Your side makes it clear there are no downsides. So why not go big?

Why not raise the oxygen level on Earth to 100% versus the 2% that it is now? Because pure oxygen will kill you.

Same goes with minimum wage.

[NJ Brazen_3133]

Originally Posted by EDS_

Why not?.........inflation, dislocation, worsening unemployment etc.

Ah, yes because a Global Financial Crisis caused by banks creating money out of thin air to loan to just about anyone who cannot pay it back did not cause inflation in housing prices, then massive unemployment, and getting kicked out of homes or dislocation as you call it.

But increasing pay to people who could probably use lots of help to back said toxic loans would have been worse.

Originally Posted by EDS_

That's horrible analysis top to bottom. Sticking to one area tho.......maintaining a functioning banking system is nothing short of a national security issue. Society would revert to a 1750s like food search/scavenging based economy in a couple months. The minimum wage impacts a thin slice of our adult population who also have access to myriad direct and in-kind benefits.

Another way to think about this is if banking went away or reverted to a disjointed ad hoc system as we had pre-Great Depression so many businesses would fail there would be few entities left to pay any wage.

LOLOLLOLLOLZ lies, more lies. A functioning banking system is one that never requires bailouts, and bailouts, and propping up, etc etc.

Our current banking system is essentially illustrated in this article below. Its basically just a vampire squid. It takes/leaches, and gives nothing back to society. Frankly, Id rather go back to pre Depression

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/bi...ica-2013-08-07

[redguard57]

Our economy & financial system certainly does seem to need a lot of bailing out.

[NJ Brazen_3133]

Originally Posted by aslowdodge

When I was younger minimum wage was never meant to live on. How to you set the level for what the amount is to live on?
What should it be in New York City versus smalltown Oklahoma Or Arkansas? How about a single person versus one supporting a family of 6?
Or one with elderly parents or special needs? What size tv or cell phone should be included in setting the wage.
Labeling people stupid and cruel that don’t agree with you is short sited. You also sound like maybe you might be stupid for not having thought it out?

Originally Posted by aslowdodge

I’ll also add that if I’m making a living wage At McDonald’s in tinytown South Dakota and decide I like San Francisco or Beverly hillls that when I move there my pay will be automated so I can afford to live there too?
Heck why go to school to get a good job to live somewhere nice when it will be given to you.
Of course everyone will want to live there too or on the beach in SoCal so they will all need places to live meaning demand goes up, rents go up, minimum wage goes up.

The money supply is being constantly increased. Policy should be geared towards spreading the denominations out to as many people as possible. Or else, is created from nothing and just sits at the top. A MW increase is the least policy makers can do in spite of any opposing factors which should not be in place to begin with.

Originally Posted by blisterpeanuts

Respectfully, I would suggest you study some recent American history, and rethink your stance.

The David-Bacon Act of 1931 forced public construction projects to pay the prevailing local wage. It was expressly designed to price cheap black labor out of the construction market. Subsequent minimum wage laws had a similar effect, and were explicitly intended to slant the job market in favor of white workers, pricing black workers out.

How does that work? you may ask. Think of it this way. Black carpenters brought from the South might want $10/week; New York white carpenters wanted $30. By forcing the rates to be $30, there was no price advantage to hiring out-of-state black workers; the public works bosses hired the local whites.

This effect still exists today. Every time the minimum wage is jacked up for political reasons (rather than by simple market pressure), the ones who suffer the most are:
1. black youth
2. black adults
3. white youth
In roughly that order.

Since black youth are the least skilled job seekers, with the least experience and lowest education achievement, they tend to be naturally willing to take the lowest paying, least skilled jobs. White youth tend to have higher educational achievement and other advantages (more work experience from an earlier age for example, e.g. from working in Dad's office or some such) so they have a natural advantage. All things being equal, the white youth will get hired.

It's a similar situation for black adult job seekers.

Prior to David-Bacon, black laborers actually had higher employment rates than did whites.

It would make more sense to eliminate the minimum wage and let the prevailing wages float according to supply-and-demand. It would eliminate the artificially boosted cost of labor, give the price advantage back to the people at the bottom of the scale, and provide a path to more employment for the most disadvantaged groups.

The whole "livable wage" argument is a red herring. It's a fantasy. Only in a Communist society can you truly designate a minimum wage as "livable" and get away with it. In a capitalist economy (or hybrid capitalist-socialist economy as we have become), raising the min wage causes price inflation and unemployment, leading us in a big circle back to the original problem -- that people can't afford to live.

MW is racist, but not the owners who think certain races are worth less for equal work

Now nothing is cheaper labor wise than slavery, and there is likely nothing more racist.

So the more thrifty you get the more racist, but the more infrugal you are also racist. You just cant win.

We have affirmative actions laws now, so solves the racism issue.

[NJ Brazen_3133]

Originally Posted by JobHunter2018

Why not raise the oxygen level on Earth to 100% versus the 2% that it is now? Because pure oxygen will kill you.

Same goes with minimum wage.

Same goes with bailouts, QE, or whatever mumbo jumbo financial terms they come out with.

[Supposn]

Originally Posted by PriscillaVanilla
This, [i.e. “The essence of personal and political opposition to the FMW rate”], makes no sense. What are you trying to say?

Originally Posted by MrRational

That will require 3 more paragraphs but likely just as oddly presented.

He seems to think there are people (with any sense) who oppose even having a FedMinWg
He's calling them low character. No one seems to disagree with him on these points.
The other aspects of MW management and philosophy ... seems to a free-for-all.

Priscila, if you consider my initial post to be inexplicit, posting any further explanation to you would be futile.

Mr.Rational, you correctly describe my stated opinion, but I suppose almost all, (if not all persons) opposed to the concept of a legally mandated minimum wage rate also disagree with my opinion of their individual character. All statically credible USA opinion polls conclude that such persons are a minority of our population. But since the 1948 presidential election, are any public opinion polls credible?

I’m unable to respond to what you describe as “other aspects of MW management and philosophy”.

Respectfully, Supposn

[MrRational]

Originally Posted by Supposn

Mr.Rational, you correctly describe my stated opinion...

Thank you. Do note that was accomplished with just three or four brief sentences.
As to the low character group (as you prefer to think of them)... their number is very small.

I’m unable to respond to what you describe as "other" aspects of MW management and philosophy”.

That would be the discussions that come up within the actual reality of the post industrial working world we all inhabit...
by persons (like myself) who see dragging this relic into the conversation again and again as thinly veiled attempts
to extend the discussion to the "living wage" and "UBI" philosophies ...and those wage/hour management factors.
Even if YOU aren't intending that.