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For the one fired that gets hired elsewhere....higher.
For the one that is not employable at the higher wage....lower.
P.S. If you want to argue that people would be able to find work no matter what, I'd point you to people that are mentally disabled enough to qualify for assistance and when employers hire them to bag groceries etc. they typically get a subsidy. Now consider the people that are above that level but not by a lot.
If you have Netflix, take a look at the new Doc...
American Factory
It's about a GM plant in Ohio that shut down and was later converted by a Chinese billionaire into a glass plant. The starting wage today is $14 an hour - and that's WITH great automation.
In other words, you'd make 50% more at Costco than being a Human Assembly line robot....even semi-skilled.
The point here is clear. As we discuss this hear, an Auto Worker or Teacher in Germany makes $60 an hour and works approx. 35 hours a week. They have benefits you could hardly believe.
We had that also...to SOME degree.
But, now, we have gone FAR BACKWARDS.
Why? Well, some could talk about all the automation (but you still only get $14 WITH all the automation), but the real reason in the USA is because of income inequality and the control that Corporation, not The People, have over our lives. They believe people are just expendable...and the laws and low min. wages and lack of universal health care, etc. all reflect that.
We have no addressed this problem like other advanced countries have or are. In fact, we have zero plans for doing so. A 5 or 10% increase in wages at the bottom won't change a single thing. Listen to a worker on that film that was making $30 at GM and is now making $12.78 a decade later. $15 is not going to make her whole (middle class, secure).
California is a good example of why increasing minimum wage doesn't necessarily solve the problem of poverty. There are various reasons why that's true, not the least of which is the inviolable laws of economics others have discussed. For example, mandating a higher cost of employees leads many businesses to hire fewer people and/or cut current employees' work hours.
This is black/white thinking.
Of course ONE small economic issue is not going to solve a vast problem like poverty...especially if you cheery pick without taking various things into account.
For example:
California has the 2nd highest life span in the USA.
I really shouldn't have to say more, but I could come up with a dozen similar points of data about such things. Life span (lack of mortality) is perhaps the largest single indicator of "success" in terms of The People.
Only 9% of Californians are without health insurance.
Texas (low min wag) - "In 2018, 17.7% of Texas residents — about 5 million people — had no health coverage, up from 17.3% in 2017."
TWICE AS MANY........
You can expect to live 2.5 years less also in Texas.....
These are just a very few examples about why your "data" means little. Economic models of poverty are fairly stark....just based on numbers. They don't include Health. They don't include Life Span. They don't include health security.
In other words, they do not accurately measure the General Welfare.....
California feeds a LOT of the nation. I suspect a lot of the poverty is related to the vast Ag enterprises there...yes, I just checked and it's in the central and other such areas where the rate is highest.
Higher wages AND benefits AND/OR Universal or available health care are all parts of the pie. It's really quite simple.
No, it's an inviolable law of economics. When the costs of producing and/or delivering goods and services increase, either prices increase, employee cuts are made (jobs and/or work hours), or both. Take Walmart, for example. They have a 2.57% profit margin. Very small. If their labor costs increase, they have to raise prices and/or cut employees and/or their hours, much the same as they did when Obamacare passed. They reduced the number of full-time employees to control what would have been an enormous cost increase (health insurance for full-time workers).
If you have Netflix, take a look at the new Doc...
American Factory
It's about a GM plant in Ohio that shut down and was later converted by a Chinese billionaire into a glass plant. The starting wage today is $14 an hour - and that's WITH great automation.
In other words, you'd make 50% more at Costco than being a Human Assembly line robot....even semi-skilled.
The point here is clear. As we discuss this hear, an Auto Worker or Teacher in Germany makes $60 an hour and works approx. 35 hours a week. They have benefits you could hardly believe.
We had that also...to SOME degree.
But, now, we have gone FAR BACKWARDS.
Why? Well, some could talk about all the automation (but you still only get $14 WITH all the automation), but the real reason in the USA is because of income inequality and the control that Corporation, not The People, have over our lives. They believe people are just expendable...and the laws and low min. wages and lack of universal health care, etc. all reflect that.
We have no addressed this problem like other advanced countries have or are. In fact, we have zero plans for doing so. A 5 or 10% increase in wages at the bottom won't change a single thing. Listen to a worker on that film that was making $30 at GM and is now making $12.78 a decade later. $15 is not going to make her whole (middle class, secure).
I'm well aware of all that. My father worked in a factory for 40 years that no longer operates (in the US).
On top of that, the meat plant that my neighbor used to work at is not pretty much all illegal aliens except for management.
You blame corporate greed but I know that in reality it's that 90% of the population is going to buy cheaper, even if it's from China instead of the US.
You really think that we let 6 million illegal laborers in this country out of the goodness of our corporate hearts? Of course any complaints about that and the impact on the labor pool and wages are met with cries of racism. To put that genie back in the global economy bottle you're going to need massive tarriffs and protectionism as well as clamping down hard on cheap illegal labor.
You point to German wages in a niche, heavily protected industry making luxury cars and then compare them to a bunch of unskilled widget makers? Ok, I'll point to Mexican factory workers or Chinese. Again, global economy and who makes the decision? Us, the American consumer.
This subject has been posted more times than I can remember, but when I asked why people support a rise in the minimum wage, the answer was always "because the cost of living is higher, and I can't afford things",
That sounds like a reasonably explanation, but, here lies the problem with that kind of thinking.
It doesn't take a brilliant mind to understand that if business has to pay more in wages, business is not going to take the fall, they are going to pass that cost on to the buying public, so where did these wage earners gain anything by getting a raise?
They will be paying more in income tax, more for goods and services, and everything will cost more, so how is raising the wage going to help them?
Bob.
No government entity should be allowed to dictate what private business's pay.
No government is run efficiently, so they have NO business telling other what they must do.
I'm well aware of all that. My father worked in a factory for 40 years that no longer operates (in the US).
On top of that, the meat plant that my neighbor used to work at is not pretty much all illegal aliens except for management.
You blame corporate greed but I know that in reality it's that 90% of the population is going to buy cheaper, even if it's from China instead of the US.
You really think that we let 6 million illegal laborers in this country out of the goodness of our corporate hearts? Of course any complaints about that and the impact on the labor pool and wages are met with cries of racism. To put that genie back in the global economy bottle you're going to need massive tarriffs and protectionism as well as clamping down hard on cheap illegal labor.
You point to German wages in a niche, heavily protected industry making luxury cars and then compare them to a bunch of unskilled widget makers? Ok, I'll point to Mexican factory workers or Chinese. Again, global economy and who makes the decision? Us, the American consumer.
Bolded for truth. And the rub is, in Texas, the jobs that the illegals work, hospitality, unskilled construction, landscaping, are jobs that many Hispanics work. The over supply of labor has caused the wages of Hispanic Americans in Texas to be lower than market. So some end up on welfare.
I'm well aware of all that. My father worked in a factory for 40 years that no longer operates (in the US).
On top of that, the meat plant that my neighbor used to work at is not pretty much all illegal aliens except for management.
You blame corporate greed but I know that in reality it's that 90% of the population is going to buy cheaper, even if it's from China instead of the US.
You really think that we let 6 million illegal laborers in this country out of the goodness of our corporate hearts? Of course any complaints about that and the impact on the labor pool and wages are met with cries of racism. To put that genie back in the global economy bottle you're going to need massive tarriffs and protectionism as well as clamping down hard on cheap illegal labor.
You point to German wages in a niche, heavily protected industry making luxury cars and then compare them to a bunch of unskilled widget makers? Ok, I'll point to Mexican factory workers or Chinese. Again, global economy and who makes the decision? Us, the American consumer.
Uh, the largest car company in Germany (and often the world) is VW.
"The average salary for Volkswagen ag employees in Germany is €74161 per year"
Average. Your point it moot. The USA auto workers start at $16 or so and US Auto parts workers start much lower.
As far as "illegals" - I agree that large corporations are responsible for most (big ag, big construction, big hospitality). We could debate whether enough Americans would do those jobs properly (clean toilets, do roofs in 100 degree weather, work and live in Ag fields), but that's another subject. Texas and Florida see the illegals and migrants as a feature, not a bug.
It's disingenuous to say that migrants and illegals are why companies in Ohio or Iowa or Virginia or Florida are paying low wages. The problem of low wages in the USA isn't a "problem" for the Capitalist leaders. It's a feature. They love them.
Other countries have problems. They attempt to solve them. The USA, through propaganda, somehow convinces many people to work against the interests of their fellows and for the corporate machine.
Mention does need to be made of the sad state of the American worker in many places. Not all, for sure, but it can be hard to get honorable, sane, stable, sober consistent workers (ask those with factories to fill). This may related to the long term depression of wages and benefits. I cannot imagine going to work for less and less in each job I obtain throughout a career...and yet that is often the current story.
I made the choice, 45 years ago, to never work for anyone...for this reason. And I haven't. But I still realize the reality for most - that they are somewhat dependent on being employed.
Apparently not as California has been identified by the Census Bureau as having the highest poverty rate.
Yes, the federal poverty rate is the weighted average of the individual poverty rates of the 48 contiguous States (Alaska and Hawaii are ignored by the Census Bureau because both are statistical outliers and would skew the data to indicate an higher income for the poverty level).
The poverty rate of California is significantly higher than the poverty rates of Indiana or Ohio or Maine or Rhode Island or Virginia or Florida.
The Census Bureau averages all 48 States then uses the X-13ARIMA-SEATS software program to weight the data and skew it to get an higher number.
Example, for 2018 the 48 State average was about $10,300 but weighting the data with X-13ARIMA-SEATS bumped it to $12,140.
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