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Put another way, if any country divested itself of high paying jobs, for whatever reason, would not you expect to see a contraction of average pay, indeed a collapse of pay, jobs, and a period of unemployment?
Do we discount the low tax zones for technology and semiconductors in Asia, the huge surge in Asia Science Degrees (abroad and in US Universities), and then wonder "hey why is the adjusted minimum wage curve flat".
The only explanation is the meddling in jobs, the outsourcing of everything from furniture to Semiconductors and the dismal performance of our children in Science and Math. No our kids are not dumb, we have a strong unionized teaching force which has been dominated by Democrats for years. We need the change every government agency, minimize their control, and pass laws that improve our public education, encourage manufacturing and restore this country to what it once was.
I've got an idea. How about all of those folks here who go on about oh how bad it would be to raise minimum wage go and get one of those jobs. Let us know how it goes. Oh and no whining!!!
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics there are about 3.6 million workers at or below the minimum wage (you can be below legally under certain conditions). That is 2.5 percent of all workers and 1.5 percent of the population of potential workers.
How many people are within 10% of the minimum wage?
Plenty of companies have a policy (inc. McDonalds and Wally World) of paying a few cents above minimum so they can plausibly claim "We don't pay the minimum wage."
The minimum wage is a bullshit political ploy.
It trails inflation, even the lowball inflation that's under-reported by the CPI.
Increasing it to a level which is still lower than historically, adjusting for inflation, doesn't really do much other than give you a popularity boost, and putting the lowest of the low skilled people out of work, or driving their work underground into the free economy (aka, the black market).
The average US person is seeing their standard of living decline because of government debt spending and credit creation distorting the markets. When it's more profitable to borrow money at 0% and use it to speculate into real estate or equities, that's what we get. When that profit vehicle doesn't exist, people actually have to work for profit by making things, providing services, and in general, doing productive things that increase wealth.
We have people's real income dropping because so many are out of work because of this stupid speculation replacing productive enterprise. The minimum wage going up a little bit in nominal terms does nothing to help this situation, which will continue to get worse while we have insane criminals leading the Fed and voting for spending in Congress.
Don't forget this famous study:
On April 1, 1992, New Jersey’s minimum wage rose from $4.25 to $5.05 per hour. To evaluate the impact of the law we surveyed 410 fast-food restaurants in New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania before and after the rise. Comparisons of employment growth at stores in New Jersey and Pennsylvania (where the minimum wage was constant) provide simple estimates of the effect of the higher minimum wage. We also compare employment changes at stores in New Jersey that were initially paying high wages (above $5) to the changes at lower-wage stores. We find no indication that the rise in the minimum wage reduced employment.
The only explanation is the meddling in jobs, the outsourcing of everything from furniture to Semiconductors and the dismal performance of our children in Science and Math. No our kids are not dumb, we have a strong unionized teaching force which has been dominated by Democrats for years. We need the change every government agency, minimize their control, and pass laws that improve our public education, encourage manufacturing and restore this country to what it once was.
Please don't tell me that you buy the BS that companies are moving abroad because they can't find qualified engineers are workers in the US. You can't be that naïve.
Does their new, slightly higher wage, result in more food, housing, etc, being built? Not really, they've not how a little more to spend on those things, so through supply and demand, prices go up
You need to go back and take Econ 101 over again.
I disagree with the standard of living having been higher. We have much better cars, electronics, cell phones, airplanes, houses, appliances, medical care, materials, food, clothing, and countless things I can't even think of than we had in those single wage earner times. The single wage earner was living in a poorly insulated house, with a black and white tube tv and a vacuum tube radio and didn't have A/C or a microwave.
A poorly insulated house, affordable universities, healthcare and pensions.
This was MUCH better standard of living than we have now. These were necessities.
What we got extra are a few gadgets while most families can't pay for a house AND retirement, let alone a house + retirement + kids education.
1960:
Charles, we're pleased that you finished Junior College while working full time. A degree in Psychology! What gumption! Just the kind of guy we need in Management! Let me introduce you to Max, who runs our Executive Training division...
2010:
Listen, kid, Chuck, whatever your name is. All you little brats knock on my door with your University MBAs... it's annoying. Get back to your desk and hit the TPS reports like you should be doing, a task at your level. And don't forget the Cover Letter this time, dummy!
"All I know is if you take the long-run graph over 200 years of the wage rate, it cannot differ from your nation's productivity."
His fail is right there. We're international now whether we like it or not. Wages in one nation are impacted to some extent by what's happening around the globe.
It makes figuring out what to do with minimum wages much more difficult. Services are local, so many don't tend to compete directly with overseas competition. Manufacturing does, however, once you account for transportation costs.
Manufacturing jobs were regarded as high wage jobs when the US had a competitive advantage in production (see industrial revolution.) They may well become the low wage jobs since they compete internationally.
My gut is that major increases in minimum wage without protectionist measurers against international competition will have a negative effect. Small increases that force employers to match inflation shouldn't hurt.
The rich have no incentive to put capital to work because it's much easier and less risky to borrow against said capital at 0% and speculate! It's much riskier and much more work to actually put it to work. I think we agree in a roundabout way .
Financial policy is to blame
ZIRP is supposed to force capitalists to put capital to work.
You can't trade with nations that have millions of slave like workers without an impact on US workers wages.
You can't let capital and technologies flow freely to other countries without impacting how much capital is deployed in the US.
You can't lose $500 billions in trade, every year, for decades, without a massive financial industry to mask that fact.
Finance is a symptom.
Trade policy is to blame.
The Borowitz Report is satire. A url including /blogs/ is not a strong reference point in a debate.
I would expect that in a fast food place... It still takes the same number of people to flip burgers, make fries, work the counter and clean up. Those positions can't be eliminated if the business is to function
Touch pad ordering stations could easily reduce 20 -30% of fast food jobs. This will (or is) happening regardless of whether the minimum wage increases. Automation in the kitchen is still very expensive, but it too will arrive eventually.
Speaking of touch pads... I ate at a Chili's for the first time in a long time. They now have touch screen devices on every table; you can reorder drinks, desserts, etc, pay your bill and everything.
It had games and a jerky 2 frame per second fireplace app. My GF played the movie trivia game, supposedly against others in the restaurant, but I was unconvinced it was anything other than bot "opponents."
The waitress was just attentive enough; we barely saw her.
Went to pay the bill and it included a 99c table entertainment fee. I about wanted to THROW the stupid thing. Scrolled the tip from 20% down to 14% and that was that for me and Chili's.
"Went to pay the bill and it included a 99c table entertainment fee."
It's all about the extra fees. They don't fear the lash back because we have short memories. A bird in the hand is worth it because we'll promptly forget that Chilis billed us for the bird.
did you enjoy the meal?
If so, as long as the reduced tip alleviates the surprise surcharge, why throw away a viable pitstop??
Went to pay the bill and it included a 99c table entertainment fee. I about wanted to THROW the stupid thing. Scrolled the tip from 20% down to 14% and that was that for me and Chili's.
The main reason is that touch pads always show up for work unless stolen , don't call in sick unless broken, and work for the complete shift unless the battery dies and don't goof off agreed!...
Yep - plenty of US people getting technology degrees:
https://engineering.purdue.edu/ECE/People/GraduateStudents
Yep that Ayn Rand has it all wrong!
GDP over the years:
And everyone knows that if we grow the government prosperity is just around the corner:
http://www.factcheck.org/2010/12/are-federal-workers-overpaid/
Those Randistas are something!
Socialism is not in the US playbook? This is a good economics professor!
Nobel Prize Winner and his book on causes of Wage Stagnation and related effects: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Stagnation
Seattle's minimum wage rising to $15 per hour over 36 months doesn't reek of wage inflation to you?
You really believe there will still be a 7 buck plus combo meal at Mickie D's at the end of this road?
Let me get this straight, the sixteen year old slinging fries in Seattle will be making 30k a year. Check.
We can assume the assistant manager, who actually gets his hands on total receipts and door keys on occasion, will want 20 percent more than that...so 36k. And then the loftiest of the lofty...the big buck earner...the McDonald's Evening Shift Manager, who does the tallies everynight, does the ordering, does the lock up and security will want to pull down around, I'd say 42K or so minimum. Ok. I get the picture.
So, with 900 square foot rents running an average of 1765 per month (now! but certainly more in 3 years, right?), and 3 bed/1 bath wood shacks going for around 490k...Just how far away from town are these manager's commuting? They can't commute from the East End on those salaries can they? What with the 520 bridge tolls running 12 bucks round trip per day. They must be coming from an hour to 90 minutes from the South.
In fact. the 700 grand SHACKS in the bay area must be fairly close to fast food joints, yeah? How are Bay Area McDonald's Manager's affording to live? Do they take commuter flights from Fresno or something? Maybe sleep in their office on Tuesdays and Thursdays to save bucks?
I have news. This is HEAVY wage inflation pressure. Seattle is doing it to pay for the damn bridge, because the huge property tax increases are starting to really hurt people.
There's no way in hell we get out of this with a quarter pounder meal under 12 bucks. Not a chance.
The Trillions in Fed purchases and Treasury bonds, according to the financial press, is "sloshing around in central bank vaults not being loaned out to main street businesses - as increased liquid leverage against future bumps in the road". But that's been a lie until very recently. It isn't sloshing around. It's gone. Literally blown on bad securities, bad collateralized debt, bad derivatives, and other too-big-to-fail financial structures who bet on bogus fundamentals and lost. The Fed covered their losses and told them to keep on gambling. It propped up stocks and real estate quite well. But now we have wage inflation. Uh oh. better hurry and enjoy those horse meat and saw dust burgers while you can.
Which particular part of that highlighted section do you have an issue with?
Which particular part of that highlighted section do you have an issue with?
Go ask the people of Iraq, Syria, Libya, Crimea, etc. for that answer and get back to us....
You could say that about particular countries at pretty much any time in recorded history. Those places constitute a small percentage of the world's population. And you didn't just highlight the violent section, did you?
It's true. He should have included crime too. In the old days you would never hear about genocide or wars because we did not have modern communications.
This year’s projection is that couples retiring at age 65 are expected to incur $220,000 in health care costs on average during their retirement years. This figure is unchanged from last year, although that’s hardly a cause for celebration for your average pre-retiree. Most people haven’t saved $220,000 period, much less earmarked that amount for health-care costs alone.
That's what Midicare is for.
lets increase the minimum wage to $1000 per hour and all live in the newly found paradise. if increasing minimum wage is good then why can't we keep increasing it to the max...what gives ?
I guess you didn't read the rest of the article...
The study assumes that the hypothetical retiring couple has traditional Medicare. The $220,000 total includes monthly premium payments for Parts B and D, plus Medicare cost-sharing requirements–beneficiaries have to pay 20% of most of their doctor bills, along with co-payments and deductibles.
Maybe Obamacare will cover it???
I stand corrected.
My elderly parents have Medicare through Kaiser. Even though my father has severe health issues the total cost seems reasonable.
lets increase the minimum wage to $1000 per hour and all live in the newly found paradise. if increasing minimum wage is good then why can't we keep increasing it to the max...what gives ?
THat's a piece of great reasoning there. Let's see if I can come up with an example to show you how absurd it is.
a) They say that one of the benefits of imprisoning violent criminals, is that it takes them off the streets and prevents them from doing further violence.
b) IF this is true, why don't we just put everyone in prison and that way we would have zero violent crime.
Does the absurdity of (b) make (a) any less true ?
a) Everyone agrees that some kind of post secondary school or training
enhances ones income earning potential.
b) If that's true, then staying in school for life should make one infinitely wealthy.
Does the absurdity of (b) make (a) any less true ?
a) IT's well known that when taxes are too high, (such as before Kennedy lowered fed income taxes), lowering them can actually stimulate the economy enough that the tax revenue to government increases and it's a win, win, win for everyone.
b) If this is true, then the lower taxes, the bigger and better the economy will be, and therefore as taxes approach zero, revenues to the government approach infinity.
Does the absurdity of (b) make (a) any less true ? (unfortunately we have a lot of retards in this country that wish (b) were true, therefore they essentially argue that it is true).
What gives ? It's called reductio ad absurdum (using it falsely). Or see "appeal to extremes."
marcus : I expected this answer..what a relief.
so the next question to you and everybody else on the board: who decides the $10 or $15 ? where does the number come from ? what are the issues...as you keep increasing the number towards the $1000 per hr ? does any of the morons even discuss this ?
Excellent.
ZIRP is supposed to force capitalists to put capital to work.
You can't trade with nations that have millions of slave like workers without an impact on US workers wages.
You can't let capital and technologies flow freely to other countries without impacting how much capital is deployed in the US.
You can't lose $500 billions in trade, every year, for decades, without a massive financial industry to mask that fact.
Finance is a symptom.
Trade policy is to blame.
The study assumes that the hypothetical retiring couple has traditional Medicare. The $220,000 total includes monthly premium payments for Parts B and D, plus Medicare cost-sharing requirements–beneficiaries have to pay 20% of most of their doctor bills, along with co-payments and deductibles.
So it's really just for 2 people's premiums, without the copayments???
If there was no -ve impact , we could theoretically increase it to $1000 per hr and then more.
Lose 1 pound in 3 weeks and there is no negative impact.
Lose 100 pounds in 3 weeks and you die.
Drink an extra 8 ounces of water per day and you'll probably benefit. Drink an extra 8 ounces of water per minute and you die.
For some systems, negative/positive impacts kick in only beyond a certain threshold. Google "hysteresis" or "Schmitt trigger" for an electronics example.
And even if there is a negative impact, it may be negligible in comparison to any positive impacts because we're so far to the tail end of the curve: the minimum wage is really puny right now.
When top marginal tax rates fell under Reagan, there was some benefit because they were so high. When Bush II cut them, they were already so low that the marginal benefits to the economy were nearly nil.
We make cost-vs-benefit calculations all the time, and accept some costs in exchange for hopefully greater benefits. If the costs are miniscule and the benefits tangible, it's an easy call
Why would I need to come up with a negative impact of an impossible event?
I know you won't answer this..because you talk more like a politician rather than a person in pursuit of truth. too much ego.
Its simple and you know it as well.
If i increase the minimum wage to $1000 per hr, all the jobs and industries would collapse and move abroad. Capital flight will happen overnight. US economy will collapse.
now...take a step back a bit and increase it only slightly to $20 per hr.
maybe economy can sustain it...may be not. but the risk is there. may be the risk will be at $30 or $40...but its there.
The risk at small numbers won't be that economy will collapse but there could be loss of productivity or competitiveness..
to just say that there is no risk is absolutely idiotic. either you are willingly acting ignorant due to your ego/ideology or you are really one ( which i find hard to believe).
I found it quite funny since there is a kernel of truth in some of these satirical positions.
For you that kernel of truth, could be last nights pop corn still stuck in your teeth.
The Borowitz Report is *****. A url including /blogs/ is not a strong reference point in a debate.
I am glad you got it. I almost deleted you because I wanted everyone else to find out. Just kidding.
I found it quite funny since there is a kernel of truth in some of these satirical positions.
Come on Gary, we all know you took it at face value.
we all agree that if we increase minimum wage substantially , there is real risk to our country's competitiveness .we don't know what that increase is though. so until we know the benefits of increasing the minimum wage beyond helping out the absolutely poor, we should keep our mouth shut and do nothing. we already have enough other problems to deal with.
and i am not questioning the increase of minimum wage to keep it inline with inflation.
and i am not questioning the increase of minimum wage to keep it inline with inflation.
How about a 30% increase, then.
I believe that is almost enough to put it where it was in real terms in the 1970s; that is, to keep up with inflation.
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