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I have read every one of your posts in this thread. I am convinced that:
1. You do not live in the United States.
2. You are in way over your head with this subject matter.
3. You're trying to sound well educated but are doing a bad job of it.
Please stop while you are behind. Respectfully Vic Romano.
Bisterpeanuts,I don’t suppose you’ll be surprised by my being thus far uniformed with regard to the David-Bacon Act of 1931. You’re contending that prior to the act’s enactment, ‘black laborers actually had higher employment rates than did whites.
Are you contending the act was socially and/or economically detrimental because it reduced unemployment among black laborers? Are you contending that all, or any significant proportion of USA’s rates of unemployment was due to the David-Bacon Act, or are you contending that all, or any significant proportion of USA’s rates of unemployment among different races of laborers was primarily due to the act?
What are you specifically contending? Respectfully, Supposn
I'm contending exactly what I stated in my post. Black laborers in the early 20th C. had higher employment than did white laborers, for the simple reason they were willing to do the most basic, menial work for the lowest wages.
I'm not saying it was great work, or great pay, or that they were treated well -- quite the opposite, actually. It's very much to their credit that they tried to participate in the economy to the extent that they did, under very adverse conditions.
The 1931 law, followed by the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act which enshrined minimum wage, age, and hours per week, put the nail in the coffin of black employment. Black employment went down, in other words. Fewer black men were able to find jobs.
I'm among a minority of thinkers/observers out there who believe minimum wage has done more harm than good. In fact it's done no good at all. When a hamburger place has to pay people $12/hour in my region (probably soon to be $15), they have to charge more for their products, and they have to burden fewer workers with more responsibilities rather than hire enough people.
Several generations of young people since at least the Sixties, but I believe really since the Thirties, have been indoctrinated with the ridiculous notion that businesses have almost unlimited money, yet refuse to share it with the employees.
I have heard people say this my entire life, repeated as if it were gospel: "They rip you off. They should pay me more. I deserve more for what I do. I'm not going to work hard because they don't pay me enough. I slip a $5 or $10 bill into my pocket from the register from time to time, because they can afford it." Etc. This is not just a few people; it's the prevailing attitude toward employers in this country.
No wonder that it's mainly the immigrants who are willing to do the hard work uncomplainingly, while the locals seem to want to do anything but work.
So, with such foolish attitudes, Americans enthusiastically support "living wage", "raise the min wage" etc. as though these are sound, proven economic principles, when in fact they are completely discredited and disproven. Raise the min wage in Seattle and you shut down restaurants -- FACT. Raise the min wage and require more benefits for fast food and McDonald's introduces automation -- FACT. High schoolers, especially minority high schoolers, suddenly aren't able to get those entry level jobs in fast food, shops, etc. because the minimum wage is "livable" thus they are now competing against 30-year-olds supporting a family. Someone will make money off automation but it won't be the unskilled workers, that's for sure.
In our current economic sutuation, it turns out that many of our lowest-paid jobs are "essential." Things would collapse if people weren't working the grocery stores, etc... All of you need the grocery store workers and various related jobs that are mostly low paid, to.. you know... eat.
It's interesting how invested many of you are into making sure they are paid as little as possible.
In our current economic situation...
It's interesting how invested many of you are into making sure...
Meh. The investment is in an expectation that the CURRENT situation will resolve.
At THAT point we're still dealing with a VERY large slug of humanity that needs support.
The arguments are about how much support, how it might be delivered to the extant needy,
and for far too few ... what we can do as a constructive society to reduce the number of those needy.
The "solutions" commonly offered (MW & UBI schemes) don't solve the underlying problem.
All they do is kick the can down the alley for our grandchildren to face.
Meh. The investment is in an expectation that the CURRENT situation will resolve.
At THAT point we're still dealing with a VERY large slug of humanity that needs support.
The arguments are about how much support, how it might be delivered to the extant needy,
and for far too few ... what we can do as a constructive society to reduce the number of those needy.
The "solutions" commonly offered (MW & UBI schemes) don't solve the underlying problem.
All they do is kick the can down the alley for our grandchildren to face.
Post of the year.
What we must do, now more than any time in recent history noting today's GDP numbers, is support and encourage small businesses as they are the key to enhanced employment going forward.
What we must do, now more than any time in recent history noting today's GDP numbers,
is support and encourage small businesses as they are the key to enhanced employment going forward.
Thanks for the credit but I really can't agree with your conclusions.
I don't believe we can ever 'employ' our way out of the hole we're in*.
In my view (expounded on any number of time previously) ...
we need holistic approaches that will reduce the raw number of those unable/unwilling to do for themselves and theirs.
Reduce dramatically... and in the short term (30 years?) to physically shift most of them away from the job centers
where they mostly just clutter up limited in-town housing and overload social services designed around full(er) employment.
At that point... the remainder and all those who have been employed all along will have
far greater value in the labor market and not need MW or UBI schemes to get along on.
Maybe even enough more that the employed could afford to pay most of the tax needed to support the others.
* That will still leave us with the ever declining employment base rooted in the constant Tech/AI changes.
Last edited by MrRational; 07-30-2020 at 08:47 AM..
Meh. The investment is in an expectation that the CURRENT situation will resolve.
At THAT point we're still dealing with a VERY large slug of humanity that needs support.
The arguments are about how much support, how it might be delivered to the extant needy,
and for far too few ... what we can do as a constructive society to reduce the number of those needy.
The "solutions" commonly offered (MW & UBI schemes) don't solve the underlying problem.
All they do is kick the can down the alley for our grandchildren to face.
In the meantime I see no good reason to keep MW at 00s levels when we are in the 20s.
Although the pandemic is exacerbating exactly what you're talking about. We are going to see massive hollowing out of medium skilled jobs, the kinds that are a few steps above minimum wage but typically come with health care benefits employers would rather not pay. A lot of 30-60k salary jobs.
Work from home is really going to separate the 20% wheat from 80% chaff. Employers are going to lay off their remote white collar workforces like crazy.
Last edited by redguard57; 07-30-2020 at 10:25 AM..
In the meantime I see no good reason to keep MW at 00s levels when we are in the 20s.
a) we don't have enough going on right now?
b) do you know or know of ANYONE limited to a MW pay rate?
what skills do they have that warrant earning more? <-- the real issue with the low end.
Anecdote:
I have a ton of yard work to be done.
No skill needed beyond an ability to use a shovel and wheelbarrow.
Personal habits however (sober, on time, 2 days in a row, etc) are another matter.
How many worthy hires do you suppose will respond to my ads?
There is no one worth hiring who doesn't have work and virtually all of them are getting above MW.
Being worth hiring is the employment problem. Not wage rates.
eta: The other foot dropping.
Somehow making them worth hiring (all/most/many) by skill injections or behavior modification won't create jobs for them.
Those skill and/or personal qualities jobs are already being done by someone who has always been worth hiring.
Adding a slug of new people is far more likely to end up depressing the wage rates they have been earning.
Last edited by MrRational; 07-30-2020 at 09:57 AM..
TaxPhD, this is not my first acquaintanceship with you. I refuse to answer your question posted within the thread, “A poor minimum drags on the median wage rate”, “What happens to the quantity demanded of labor when the wage rate is set at an artificial price floor above the equilibrium price?”.
My respect for you apparently exceeds yours for me. I believe you’re intelligent and aware of prices such as wage rates are generally the consequential results of negotiations and reconciliations between opposing forces or entities.
The federal minimum wage rate and all its updates determined by our United states congresses and signed off on by our presidents are no less than other wage rates, what you describe as an “equilibrium price”. If I were lesser acquainted with your more intelligently written posts, I would have considered your word choices as inadvertent anomalies to be ignored.
Respectfully, Supposn
In our current economic sutuation, it turns out that many of our lowest-paid jobs are "essential." Things would collapse if people weren't working the grocery stores, etc... All of you need the grocery store workers and various related jobs that are mostly low paid, to.. you know... eat.
It's interesting how invested many of you are into making sure they are paid as little as possible.
While we need these essential low paying jobs we don’t need that worker ....the low paying jobs tend to have a big labor pool to replace them with as usually these are jobs anyone can do.
The more difficult and specialized the job the smaller the labor pool is that can do them.
That which we can’t or won’t do for ourselves tends to pay better
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