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The reason unemployment is so high is mostly due to the minimum wage rate. For example 51% of black males under 30 are unemployed. This is because employer's don't feel they offer work value even at "minimum wage" levels and simply won't hire.
With the current unemployment rates I could easily get people to work for $2.00 p/ hour and curb the unemployent rate to 0% in weeks. Jobs would instantly come back to the USA because people would be paid what they're worth, and businesses wouldn't be forced to send jobs elsewhere to compete in the global markets. This way the best in an industry will command the highest pay, and so forth down the line...
most stupid and unrealistic thing i ever heard. i know for a fact most people will chose to stay unemployed for 2 d/H. yOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR.When i was 15 i was making min wage and i didnt exactly care about my job. In NYC it doesnt pay for any adult t ogo to work for min wage. Welfare pays more. Working in mc donalds harder and more tedous work than most professional jobs. Everyone knows that the most nasty less desirable jobs also pay low also. Its something that doesnt make sense in our society. For example retail work is tedious,boring and confrontational but the bigwigs get 6 figure incomes but in reality if no retail workers company couldnt profit. Its says something about our society where athletes make more than teachers.Truth is when you have a society where everyone is paid low and kept there you end up with a revolution.
Big Wigs had to get to the top somehow. Sure some may have easy ways to the top like family and stuff...
But many many people at the bottom are simply there just because they just want a J O B , and don't want to bother running their own business.
Big Wigs had to get to the top somehow. Sure some may have easy ways to the top like family and stuff...
But many many people at the bottom are simply there just because they just want a J O B , and don't want to bother running their own business.
Starting your own business is "generally" stupid. My dad started his own business back building custom oak light frames in 1981. By 1984 he was netting $150,000 a year and we were living large as that was a lot of money back then. However, by 1989 business dried up and in 1991 he went bankrupt. Since he had ran his own business no one would hire him as they considered him overqualified. My grandparents had to support us for years. My grandparents ended up hating my father because of his irresponsibility. He ended up starting his own business again back in 1995 making cabinets instead of light frames. He never became successful again netting only around $30,000 a year. He had to work his ass of with hard labor too to get it. He ended up giving himself a massive heart attack at only 47 years old back in 1999. I realized I never wanted to be like him. My job might pay me a crappy salary but I can depend on it being stable and I never have to take loans out. I know exactly how much I am going to make each week. I just sit on the internet and watch movies at work so it is zero stress. Anyways, that is just how I feel.
I believe in a free market system. Allow people to bid for work based on their value. If someone is an unskilled ditch digger, they could be worth $2.00 a day, maybe a faster more productive ditch digger $1,000 a day, but let the employment market decide the amounts (obviously this is just a made up example, but makes my point). An additional upside being that U.S. companies could compete in the global markets bringing back lost jobs that went elsewhere because we couldn't compete with the wages others are willing to work for. My concept would end unemployment.
Unemployment insurance is a socialist goverment program. If someone wants to be insured for job loss why not buy a policy for the amount each indivdual desires from a private insurance company like you do with your auto insurance?
I dare you to pay someone $2/hr...when they cant afford to eat, they will kill you and eat you...and you will deserve it
I dare you to pay someone $2/hr...when they cant afford to eat, they will kill you and eat you...and you will deserve it
Not sure if you are joking, but I'd be more afraid of someone who can't get work at all than someone who brings in $2/hr. The person who has no income is going to do anything to survive and has nothing to lose. The person making $2 isn't going to be in great shape, but won't be as desperate as the person who has nothing.
I'm not suggesting that anyone attempt to live on $2/hr, but it is possible that people would be willing to work for that. Minimum wage laws prevent us from finding out, hurting both the employer and the potential employee (and the consumer of course).
Third, I sincerely doubt anyone would work for you for $2.00/hour as they could not afford to live. Prices of essentials require more than $2.00/hour to survive.
I disagree. While $2 /hr is too low to live on, it is better than $0/hr, which is what many are currently earning. Additionally, being employed, even at $2/hr, provides work experience that can help qualify a person for a job that does pay a suitable wage.
Minimum wage laws kill many entry-level jobs, particularly those that would teach young people basic work habits and the benefits of effort. While low paying entry-level jobs don't pay enough to live off of, they do provide income and experience. Take students for example, often they do not need a job as they are provided for by their parents. A $2/hour part time job might not provide much spending money, but they don't need it. The experience is worth more than the salary and might give them the edge they need to get a real job or get into college after high-school. Minimum wage laws kill these kind of jobs.
That's why there are no kids cleaning your windows at gas stations or working as ushers at movie theaters. Those jobs are extinct now because they are worth less than the legislated minimum. Who is helped by that?
I disagree. While $2 /hr is too low to live on, it is better than $0/hr, which is what many are currently earning. Additionally, being employed, even at $2/hr, provides work experience that can help qualify a person for a job that does pay a suitable wage.
Minimum wage laws kill many entry-level jobs, particularly those that would teach young people basic work habits and the benefits of effort. While low paying entry-level jobs don't pay enough to live off of, they do provide income and experience. Take students for example, often they do not need a job as they are provided for by their parents. A $2/hour part time job might not provide much spending money, but they don't need it. The experience is worth more than the salary and might give them the edge they need to get a real job or get into college after high-school. Minimum wage laws kill these kind of jobs.
That's why there are no kids cleaning your windows at gas stations or working as ushers at movie theaters. Those jobs are extinct now because they are worth less than the legislated minimum. Who is helped by that?
Let's be honest here. No one is ever going to work for $2 an hour. This really is ridiculous since even the illegals would not accept that. My first job was for $4.25 an hour working for Jack in the box back in 1991. I was only 16 and was supported by my parents at the time. Even back then I was financially strapped at that salary. Please consider I neither had to pay for food or rent. In today's day and age $10 an hour is peanuts. I personally work for a poverty level salary but since I am very frugal I live decently. Most people couldn't.
Minimum wage laws prevent us from finding out, hurting both the employer and the potential employee (and the consumer of course).
That's simply not true. Every time legislation is proposed to raise the minimum wage, Republicans argue that it will destroy jobs. But study after study has shown that that is simply untrue.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fremontfred
Minimum wage laws kill many entry-level jobs, particularly those that would teach young people basic work habits and the benefits of effort. While low paying entry-level jobs don't pay enough to live off of, they do provide income and experience. Take students for example, often they do not need a job as they are provided for by their parents. A $2/hour part time job might not provide much spending money, but they don't need it. The experience is worth more than the salary and might give them the edge they need to get a real job or get into college after high-school. Minimum wage laws kill these kind of jobs.
That's why there are no kids cleaning your windows at gas stations or working as ushers at movie theaters. Those jobs are extinct now because they are worth less than the legislated minimum. Who is helped by that?
With regard to your first paragraph, your suggestion would not work for one very simple reason: employers would fire (or not hire) adults at a standard minimum wage to do menial jobs when they could hire teenagers to do the same job for a third or a quarter of the hourly rate under the guise of giving them work experience. Such a law would wreak havoc with adult low-wage earners and the unemployment rate would explode.
Your second paragraph has no basis in fact either. Those jobs disappeared because employers found them to be unnecessary and realized that they could increase their profit margin by having fewer employees. An additional reason is that patrons didn't want to pay for the service that the employees provided. That's why gas stations became "self-service." If you are old enough to recall when that change first took place, stations usually only converted some of the pumps to self-serve. There was a "full-serve" island where the gas was a few cents higher per gallon, but people could still get their oil checked, windshield cleaned, tires checked, etc. That soon went the way of the dinosaur because no one wanted to pay for that service.
This is true in retail as well where minimum wage laws don't usually come into play (other than to provide a baseline) because the sales help is paid by commission. But even when employees are paid by commission, stores of course must raise prices on their merchandise to offset the money being paid to the employees. Consumers then have a choice to buy said merchandise at a store that provides customer service or save a few dollars and buy down the street at a warehouse type place with fewer employees, but lower prices. Many choose to pay less for less service, thereby putting more people out of work. Again, the minimum wage is not the culprit.
P.S. I worked at a gas station as a high school student in the early 70s making the then minimum wage of $1.65/hour.
Let's be honest here. No one is ever going to work for $2 an hour. This really is ridiculous since even the illegals would not accept that. My first job was for $4.25 an hour working for Jack in the box back in 1991. I was only 16 and was supported by my parents at the time. Even back then I was financially strapped at that salary. Please consider I neither had to pay for food or rent. In today's day and age $10 an hour is peanuts. I personally work for a poverty level salary but since I am very frugal I live decently. Most people couldn't.
I'm not suggesting that people try to live off of it, I'm just saying that there could be jobs at $2 an hour that would make both employers and employees happy. A restaurant might be willing to pay a high school kid $2/hour to hold the door open for people and greet them. The student doesn't need the money, but might as well collect $2/hour while he studies for classes and occasionally takes a break to open the door. At the minimum wage, the restaurant decides that it is not worth it, so the job disappears and the student goes back to making $0/hr while he studies. Jobs like this that are very passive in nature and allow the employee to do something they would be doing anyway while making a little money tend to disappear as the minimum wage rises. This really becomes a problem when the employee who's $2/hr job disappears decides he wants to earn a little spending money. Maybe he worked 10 hours a week at the restaurant and was enjoying that $20/week extra cash. Now that his $2 job is gone, he decides that he needs to work 3 hours a week at a minimum wage job to get his spending cash back. Now he is in the minimum wage job market and is potentially taking hours away from someone who needs the job to feed their family. Both people are now worse off as a result, as is the restaurant who no longer has a friendly kid to open doors.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MadManofBethesda
That's simply not true. Every time legislation is proposed to raise the minimum wage, Republicans argue that it will destroy jobs. But study after study has shown that that is simply untrue.
Study after study has also shown that it is true. You can find numerous studies on either side of the issue, most are flawed as they can't account for all variables and often are not long enough to consider the long-term effects. The minimum wage wikipedia article outlines a lot of them and points out that most are too flawed to be useful.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MadManofBethesda
With regard to your first paragraph, your suggestion would not work for one very simple reason: employers would fire (or not hire) adults at a standard minimum wage to do menial jobs when they could hire teenagers to do the same job for a third or a quarter of the hourly rate under the guise of giving them work experience. Such a law would wreak havoc with adult low-wage earners and the unemployment rate would explode.
That is possible, but even if it did happen I think it would be a good thing.
First off, how many teenagers are going to do menial jobs for a quarter of minimum wage? Most teens don't need the income, I doubt you are going to get a high-schooler to scrub the floors for $2/hour. If the job is passive in nature (like my example above) then you might.
If you do manage to get kids to do the work for almost nothing, is that so bad? If McDonalds can lower its labor cost to $2/hour, it can lower its product costs and still maintain the same level of profitability, consumers win. Maybe they will use the savings to hire an additional employee that was not cost effective at the higher rate, unemployed person wins. Maybe they will do nothing, shareholders win. All of these possibilities are good for the economy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MadManofBethesda
Your second paragraph has no basis in fact either. Those jobs disappeared because employers found them to be unnecessary and realized that they could increase their profit margin by having fewer employees. An additional reason is that patrons didn't want to pay for the service that the employees provided. That's why gas stations became "self-service." If you are old enough to recall when that change first took place, stations usually only converted some of the pumps to self-serve. There was a "full-serve" island where the gas was a few cents higher per gallon, but people could still get their oil checked, windshield cleaned, tires checked, etc. That soon went the way of the dinosaur because no one wanted to pay for that service.
I don't think you are giving employers enough credit. They are generally smart enough to know that they can save money with fewer employees. They didn't just one day discover that they could fire all the gas station attendants and save money. They had calculated that the cost of hiring an attendant was outweighed by the additional profit brought in by customers who chose to shop their as a result of the additional service provided. When the cost of those attendants rose too high, they were eliminated.
Why did the cost of the attendants rise? Could it be minimum wage laws? For years, customers were willing to pay a few extra cents for the additional service. When increased wages forced gas stations to charge more than a few additional cents, consumers decided that it was not worth it and opted to use self-serve pumps. Minimum wage laws destroyed these jobs. I love this example as to me it is one of the clearest-cut examples.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MadManofBethesda
This is true in retail as well where minimum wage laws don't usually come into play (other than to provide a baseline) because the sales help is paid by commission. But even when employees are paid by commission, stores of course must raise prices on their merchandise to offset the money being paid to the employees. Consumers then have a choice to buy said merchandise at a store that provides customer service or save a few dollars and buy down the street at a warehouse type place with fewer employees, but lower prices. Many choose to pay less for less service, thereby putting more people out of work. Again, the minimum wage is not the culprit.
How is the minimum wage not the culprit? Let's assume a K-mart and an Old Navy are selling the same $10 shirt. Assume that Old Navy's cost for a helpful salesperson is minimum wage and it results in a $1 increase in the cost of each product.
With the minimum wage, consumers can choose to pay:
$10 at K-Mart, no service
$11 at Old Navy, with service
I'm sure some will choose K-Mart and some will choose Old Navy.
Now let's take away the minimum wage. Old Navy's cost for service drops to half. Now:
$10 at K-Mart, no service
$10.50 at Old Navy, with service
This is a small example, but do you not agree that more people will choose Old Navy now? As a result, Old Navy might decide it is worthwhile to add a second person, maybe K-Mart decides that since labor is so cheap, they might as well add a person. Old Navy then decides if K-Mart has a person that they need a better person, so they decide to may twice minimum wage for someone with more experience... It goes on and on, the downstream effects are too numerous and too difficult to predict that most people ignore them. On the surface it always seems like such a great idea, increase the min wage and people will be better off, but the results almost always prove otherwise.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MadManofBethesda
P.S. I worked at a gas station as a high school student in the early 70s making the then minimum wage of $1.65/hour.
Would you have been better off if the minimum wage were higher and your employer was forced to let you go?
That was long! Oh well, one of my favorite subjects, I've been studying it for years.
One last thing- a large majority of economists agree that raising the minimum wage increases unemployment.
I'm not suggesting that people try to live off of it, I'm just saying that there could be jobs at $2 an hour that would make both employers and employees happy. A restaurant might be willing to pay a high school kid $2/hour to hold the door open for people and greet them. The student doesn't need the money, but might as well collect $2/hour while he studies for classes and occasionally takes a break to open the door. At the minimum wage, the restaurant decides that it is not worth it, so the job disappears and the student goes back to making $0/hr while he studies. Jobs like this that are very passive in nature and allow the employee to do something they would be doing anyway while making a little money tend to disappear as the minimum wage rises. This really becomes a problem when the employee who's $2/hr job disappears decides he wants to earn a little spending money. Maybe he worked 10 hours a week at the restaurant and was enjoying that $20/week extra cash. Now that his $2 job is gone, he decides that he needs to work 3 hours a week at a minimum wage job to get his spending cash back. Now he is in the minimum wage job market and is potentially taking hours away from someone who needs the job to feed their family. Both people are now worse off as a result, as is the restaurant who no longer has a friendly kid to open doors.
Study after study has also shown that it is true. You can find numerous studies on either side of the issue, most are flawed as they can't account for all variables and often are not long enough to consider the long-term effects. The minimum wage wikipedia article outlines a lot of them and points out that most are too flawed to be useful.
That is possible, but even if it did happen I think it would be a good thing.
First off, how many teenagers are going to do menial jobs for a quarter of minimum wage? Most teens don't need the income, I doubt you are going to get a high-schooler to scrub the floors for $2/hour. If the job is passive in nature (like my example above) then you might.
If you do manage to get kids to do the work for almost nothing, is that so bad? If McDonalds can lower its labor cost to $2/hour, it can lower its product costs and still maintain the same level of profitability, consumers win. Maybe they will use the savings to hire an additional employee that was not cost effective at the higher rate, unemployed person wins. Maybe they will do nothing, shareholders win. All of these possibilities are good for the economy.
I don't think you are giving employers enough credit. They are generally smart enough to know that they can save money with fewer employees. They didn't just one day discover that they could fire all the gas station attendants and save money. They had calculated that the cost of hiring an attendant was outweighed by the additional profit brought in by customers who chose to shop their as a result of the additional service provided. When the cost of those attendants rose too high, they were eliminated.
Why did the cost of the attendants rise? Could it be minimum wage laws? For years, customers were willing to pay a few extra cents for the additional service. When increased wages forced gas stations to charge more than a few additional cents, consumers decided that it was not worth it and opted to use self-serve pumps. Minimum wage laws destroyed these jobs. I love this example as to me it is one of the clearest-cut examples.
How is the minimum wage not the culprit? Let's assume a K-mart and an Old Navy are selling the same $10 shirt. Assume that Old Navy's cost for a helpful salesperson is minimum wage and it results in a $1 increase in the cost of each product.
With the minimum wage, consumers can choose to pay:
$10 at K-Mart, no service
$11 at Old Navy, with service
I'm sure some will choose K-Mart and some will choose Old Navy.
Now let's take away the minimum wage. Old Navy's cost for service drops to half. Now:
$10 at K-Mart, no service
$10.50 at Old Navy, with service
This is a small example, but do you not agree that more people will choose Old Navy now? As a result, Old Navy might decide it is worthwhile to add a second person, maybe K-Mart decides that since labor is so cheap, they might as well add a person. Old Navy then decides if K-Mart has a person that they need a better person, so they decide to may twice minimum wage for someone with more experience... It goes on and on, the downstream effects are too numerous and too difficult to predict that most people ignore them. On the surface it always seems like such a great idea, increase the min wage and people will be better off, but the results almost always prove otherwise.
Would you have been better off if the minimum wage were higher and your employer was forced to let you go?
That was long! Oh well, one of my favorite subjects, I've been studying it for years.
One last thing- a large majority of economists agree that raising the minimum wage increases unemployment.
You should be killed and eaten for being long winded, boring, and annoying
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