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Of course I can support a higher minimum wage regardless of whether a tip credit is included or not. You are the one who claim that the workers oppose a minimum wage with no tip credit. Prove it! Some people "being vocal" is not proof of anything. I have never stated that my real aim is to push up the wages of skilled workers. Funny how you keep going on about "strawmen" while blatantly lying about what I say.
Answer me this question: What should the minimum wage be in your opinion? Should there be a minimum wage at all? You have previously mocked low wage workers as lazy and irresponsible so is the solution for these people you are so concerned about to just work harder?
I never said low wage workers were lazy or irresponsible. I have argued and offered evidence that an increase will hurt workers. I don't have to argue on your terms. Cite the post the next time you level a charge like that. So all I want from you is that cite or an apology.
I never said low wage workers were lazy or irresponsible. I have argued and offered evidence that an increase will hurt workers. I don't have to argue on your terms. Cite the post the next time you level a charge like that. So all I want from you is that cite or an apology.
You just claimed that I dont mind if unskilled workers lose out, which I have never claimed.
You want to eliminate the minimum wage completely and call it a racist policy and think workers should just improve their skills and make themselves more valuable in the marketplace if they want higher wages. Low wage jobs are only meant for teens is the mantra. This is typical right wing fanaticism which hasnt worked anywhere in the world. All areas of the world with a strong working class and middle class have lots of protections for workers, including a strong trade union movement and minimum wages and government mandated benefits for workers.
You simply cant point to any examples of where your far right ideology has been great for the working class. And that is telling. You just cling to that study that didnt even include McDonalds and Walmart workers because they work at large establishments and ignore all other studies that say the opposite. Meanwhile, in the real world, Seattle has a 2.6% unemployment rate, its impossible to NOT get a job and hours there and workers are paid at least $15 minimum wage. This is the real world. Not some study. The fear mongering is way too much.
I hate when people make this discussion a debate between service employees and EMTs. That's exactly what your capitalist overlords want you to do, because it protects them. The issue isn't that only minimum wage employees are underpaid. The issue is that we're all underpaid, well... at least 90% of us are anyway...
The fry cook really should make $15/hr. The EMT really should make $30/hr. The recent engineering graduate really should be making $50/hr. Those are the wages people would be making (give or take..) had wages kept up with the out of control costs of rent/real estate, education, cars, and other big ticket items. But they didn't, they stagnated for years, declined for a year or two, then stagnated for a while longer. Wages have really only been rising for the past 2-3 years now. The idea that wages are appropriate is something being perpetuated by those who "already have theirs" and being eaten up by those who believe that hard work leads to wealth and prosperity, when the reality is that circumstance and familial success is often the largest predictor of future success.
If wages go up, less people will subscribe to welfare, because we'll help negate the situation where a person looks at their options and sees they can either work 2 jobs for $8/hr, no benefits, and no joy while getting yelled at by an underpaid service manager while they struggle to afford an apartment and get shunned by society for collecting food stamps and racking up medical debt, or they can sit home watching TV while collecting welfare, food stamps, and state medical care while they struggle to afford an apartment and being shunned by society.
Given the choice, I can't say I blame people who opt for the latter, but if wages incentiveized working, any working, and gave people who tried a better life than those who didn't... wouldn't society improve? Well, a $15/hr min. wage incentivizes this.
I hate when people make this discussion a debate between service employees and EMTs. That's exactly what your capitalist overlords want you to do, because it protects them. The issue isn't that only minimum wage employees are underpaid. The issue is that we're all underpaid, well... at least 90% of us are anyway...
The fry cook really should make $15/hr. The EMT really should make $30/hr. The recent engineering graduate really should be making $50/hr. Those are the wages people would be making (give or take..) had wages kept up with the out of control costs of rent/real estate, education, cars, and other big ticket items. But they didn't, they stagnated for years, declined for a year or two, then stagnated for a while longer. Wages have really only been rising for the past 2-3 years now. The idea that wages are appropriate is something being perpetuated by those who "already have theirs" and being eaten up by those who believe that hard work leads to wealth and prosperity, when the reality is that circumstance and familial success is often the largest predictor of future success.
If wages go up, less people will subscribe to welfare, because we'll help negate the situation where a person looks at their options and sees they can either work 2 jobs for $8/hr, no benefits, and no joy while getting yelled at by an underpaid service manager while they struggle to afford an apartment and get shunned by society for collecting food stamps and racking up medical debt, or they can sit home watching TV while collecting welfare, food stamps, and state medical care while they struggle to afford an apartment and being shunned by society.
Given the choice, I can't say I blame people who opt for the latter, but if wages incentiveized working, any working, and gave people who tried a better life than those who didn't... wouldn't society improve? Well, a $15/hr min. wage incentivizes this.
I agree with you some sectors of work wage increase has not even come close to the COLA.
With this minimum wage going up $5.50 products, goods, and services prices will go up.
I think part of this fight for minimum wage across the country in some areas has lot to do with humans increasingly thinking they are worth more than they are.
Everyone owes them just cause they are here.
What isn't good about it? The minimum wage should already be at 15 dollars nationwide. The US is far behind the times. So that Minneapolis just passed this at a time when only much bigger/more expensive cities are doing it is a very good sign and could be positive for things to come in other cities. I don't agree with the tipping culture in America, but even if you disagree that minimum wage shouldn't be 15 bucks, there's no way you can say that what's it at now is fair. Minimum wage never rose for inflation and never accounted for cost of living increases over the past few decades. Prices will go up sure, and there's no denying that small businesses will be affected, but there is not going to be less jobs. And unlike what the opposers to a higher minimum wage would lead you to believe, I don't think it's going to make a drastic difference.
It's a good thing.
I think minimum wage is a straw man to be honest. I think Mark Twain did a good idea of, though he didn't mention it as "minimum wage", I think he got the gist of it in "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court". The protagonist was trying to explain to the peasants that higher wages doesn't necessarily mean that it's better. He explained that wages that could buy say, 10 items of necessities would be better than higher wages that could only buy 8 items of necessities and hence it was the buying power of the income, not the amount of income itself, that mattered.
As for wages doing down, that might have to do with unchecked legal and illegal immigration as well as bad corporate policies. I don't leave the government blameless, of course, as their regulations are also stifling businesses needlessly and also killed jobs (like coal for example).
The minimum wage historically is a tool designed to keep minorities & low income workers out of the workforce.
- In British Columbia it was implemented because White loggers were upset that Chinese immigrants were willing to work for close to nothing & they were losing their jobs to them. They pressured their elected officials, who passed the minimum wage law, making the wage of the White workers the new minimum wage. Did the Chinese workers all get pay raises? No, they were all fired & only the White workers were kept.
- In Australia the Chinese were taking White, union, railroad jobs. The union pressured their elected officials who passed the minimum wage, making the union wage the minimum wage. Did the Chinese workers get raises? No, they all got laid off & the White union workers kept their jobs.
- In Apartheid South Africa, the Boers passed the minimum wage to ensure Black Africans, willing to work for less than the White union, factory workers, would be frozen out of the workforce.
- In the USA, enterprising contractors headed South & hired crews of poor Blacks to head North to do construction in New York & Pennsylvania. The White, union construction workers had the minimum wage enacted in the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931 to keep the Blacks away from their jobs.
If we raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, all it does it ensure low skilled workers (mostly minorities & teenagers) will be laid off, or never hired to begin with. You can make the minimum wage $20, or $25 per hour & most of us will still be employed. It will only be the most vulnerable workers that suffer.
How would minimum wage raises cause people willing to work for less to drop out of the workforce? All it would do is mean that more whites or whatever would apply and cause more competition for those jobs. Also, that in itself is actually an issue. By raising the wages, that will mean more applicants which might lead to more things like 100 question personality tests, etc, to try to weed people out. This is what happened with the invention of online job applications. Jobs which used to be mainly applied for by local people suddenly got loads more applicants from people further away, causing a rise in competition for said jobs.
You just claimed that I dont mind if unskilled workers lose out, which I have never claimed.
You want to eliminate the minimum wage completely and call it a racist policy and think workers should just improve their skills and make themselves more valuable in the marketplace if they want higher wages. Low wage jobs are only meant for teens is the mantra. This is typical right wing fanaticism which hasnt worked anywhere in the world. All areas of the world with a strong working class and middle class have lots of protections for workers, including a strong trade union movement and minimum wages and government mandated benefits for workers.
You simply cant point to any examples of where your far right ideology has been great for the working class. And that is telling. You just cling to that study that didnt even include McDonalds and Walmart workers because they work at large establishments and ignore all other studies that say the opposite. Meanwhile, in the real world, Seattle has a 2.6% unemployment rate, its impossible to NOT get a job and hours there and workers are paid at least $15 minimum wage. This is the real world. Not some study. The fear mongering is way too much.
Do you acknowledge the fact that the minimum wage was invented by racists to keep minorities & immigrants out of the force & that historically that has been the reason for it's implementation? There's really no reason to discuss this until we establish this fact.
How would minimum wage raises cause people willing to work for less to drop out of the workforce? All it would do is mean that more whites or whatever would apply and cause more competition for those jobs. Also, that in itself is actually an issue. By raising the wages, that will mean more applicants which might lead to more things like 100 question personality tests, etc, to try to weed people out. This is what happened with the invention of online job applications. Jobs which used to be mainly applied for by local people suddenly got loads more applicants from people further away, causing a rise in competition for said jobs.
There are 100 jobs available at $25 an hour driving trucks and 100 people employed in them.
50 immigrants show up who don't speak great English, don't know their way around town, don't fit in great with the rest of the company culturally, but are willing to work for $10 an hour, so the company fires 50 people and hires the 50 immigrants at $10 per hour because they care about the bottom line. The union gets angry that their people got fired, applies pressure and gets a $25 MW employed. If the company HAS to pay $25 an hour, then logically they're going to rehire the locals who already know the streets, speak the language, fit in culturally & already know the job. The only reason the others were ever hired was to save money. If there's no savings, why would anyone hire them?
I'm not an economist, so I'm kind of speaking loose-cannon here, but to me it feels like we look at these things regressively, as if money is the driver of the economy, but it isn't. Goods and services are the driver of the economy, money is merely the vehicle in which we make the exchange of goods and services easy. If wages go up and this causes the cost of things go, that's okay. That's not a problem. The ultimate outcome is a larger workforce contributing to a larger supply which is more accessible by a greater number of people who now have more disposable contribution rewards (money).
That's the goal of the economy. Produce the appropriate resources for appropriate consumption while keeping people productive and out of trouble. The actual numbers represented by any of this stuff is immaterial and only done for the sake of having some way to track things. The goal is simply to allow fair access to limited resources. Want more? Increase the resource availability by incentivising work. Allowing greater access to more resources is a great way to incentive work, we simply have to make sure the work truly produces and gives to the economy. Hiring salespeople does not produce. Hiring people who will perform or protect labor or create a product does.
I'm not an economist, so I'm kind of speaking loose-cannon here, but to me it feels like we look at these things regressively, as if money is the driver of the economy, but it isn't. Goods and services are the driver of the economy, money is merely the vehicle in which we make the exchange of goods and services easy. If wages go up and this causes the cost of things go, that's okay. That's not a problem. The ultimate outcome is a larger workforce contributing to a larger supply which is more accessible by a greater number of people who now have more disposable contribution rewards (money).
That's the goal of the economy. Produce the appropriate resources for appropriate consumption while keeping people productive and out of trouble. The actual numbers represented by any of this stuff is immaterial and only done for the sake of having some way to track things. The goal is simply to allow fair access to limited resources. Want more? Increase the resource availability by incentivising work. Allowing greater access to more resources is a great way to incentive work, we simply have to make sure the work truly produces and gives to the economy. Hiring salespeople does not produce. Hiring people who will perform or protect labor or create a product does.
In the late 70s early 80s I was getting pay increases of 10% a year. Sounds great but the price of goods and services was going up 15-20% a year. We were getting further behind each year and almost went bankrupt. In wage driven inflation, businesses start pricing their goods and services in anticipation of further increases in their costs and it all starts to spiral.
Minimum wage increases pose little danger of sparking this simply because they artificially set the cost of low skilled labor high enough that businesses can automate or hire higher skilled workers. Or in the case of a local minimum wage ordinance like Minneapolis' they can move five miles down the road to avoid it.
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