Walmart still paying $17 per hour? (Congress, Mexican, Obama, deported)
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COL is 106% and going up according to comments on COL sites.
That's pretty price for a town of 14K.
That point is one some on the forum never get is there will be inflation and most of the gains get ate up. Another poster said a sm apartment is 2400 a month, here in C Ohio one could be had for between 450 and 500 bucks. I can bet the Walmart in the area has higher prices then national avg with out even looking.
No, I stated that free market principles combined with low taxation leads to higher wages without Government involvement.
Your original statement is technically accurate. The problem is that your implications are either naive or disingenuous.
Corporations will, of course, need to pay what the local market dictates if they want to operate in that market. However, a higher wage doesn't necessarily correlate with a higher standard of living for the workers receiving that wage.
A seven hundred square foot, one bedroom apartment in williston will cost an average of $2394 per month. To put that into perspective, a similar apartment in NY will cost about $1500, while one in LA will cost about $1400.
To put it yet another way: $17.40 an hour equals a monthly income of $3016--that's before taxes and assumes a forty hour work week (not likely at Wal-Mart). This means that a worker would need to pay just under 80 percent of their pre-tax income simply for shelter. After taxes, they wouldn't even have enough money to pay the average rent--yet alone food, utilities, transportation, clothing, healthcare, etc.
That doesn't equate to "letting companies do whatever they want".
"A market economy based on supply and demand with little or no government control."
yes, it does. If there is no control mechanism, then the company is doing what it wants.
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I took his original statement as: Wages were forced higher in ND because the supply of labor is low while the demand for labor is high. IOW, the government did not have to mandate a higher wage for the employers to pay a higher wage. The employers raised wages because they had to. Take away the demand or increase the supply and wages will drop.
Except context matters, He is arguing that this could happen across the nation if Government got out of the way and that is untrue.
North Dakota is an anomaly. There is a massive oil and natural gas boom in North Dakota. There is a labor shortage so workers are getting paid huge amounts of money for even menial jobs.
They were charging $5/gallon for milk 3 years ago, so they aren't going broke, but they did raise prices. Milk is $3.30 gallon at 7-11 in Chicago.
It is 3 bucks a gal here I just do not see how those making 17 plus an hour are any better of then me making less. Seattle will experience the same results that wages will be ate by inflation.
Except context matters, He is arguing that this could happen across the nation if Government got out of the way and that is untrue.
That I agree with. The idea that low taxes and no government interference will always cause wages to rise is false, but OP didn't take that position until later in the thread.
The OP post is cute, but it ignores the basic laws of supply and demand.
There is very low supply of labor - of any sort - in the oil patches of North Dakota. Therefore, even if demand is the same as everywhere else, the price paid for that labor will be much higher.
This has absolutely nothing to do with the nation as a whole, minimum wage laws, or anything else. It is an anomaly created by a huge and sudden economic boom in a remote part of the nation that normally has a tiny labor pool from which to draw. Attempts to use the North Dakota oil boom and the salaries being paid as "proof" of anything other than "people who badly need workers will pay more for them" is sheer folly.
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