Let's talk about the minimum wage - Page 8 - Politics and Economics

tzwien · 05-31-2012, 04:13 AM

lol jfc

SaltyPickles · 05-31-2012, 06:19 AM

paying people more than they deserve because they will spend the extra money does not spur economic growth. That is ****ing ridiuclous and akin to the retarded keynesian crap like "Wouldn't it be great it there was a massive Earth Quake that destroyed half of the country! Think of the increased demand in construction!".. I suggest you read the book "How an Economy Grows and Why it Crashes by Peter Schiff"...

neverfoldthe1outer · 05-31-2012, 07:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LetsGambool

Whether the pricing will be passed along to customers doesnt have anything to do with how much Walmart owners are worth. Customers would pay some percentage of the increase. Dont confuse what you perceive as fair with what would actually happen.

Supermarkets are not hugely profitable businesses FWIW. Margins suck.

so...the owners of walmart are the wealthiest people in america because....? lol

neverfoldthe1outer · 05-31-2012, 07:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by razrback

Im curious, and I dont actually have a clue what the answer is, but what big corporations currently pay minimum wage?

walmart (the largest corporation in the u.s. fwiw)

Bored5000 · 05-31-2012, 07:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SaltyPickles

Welfare benefits are not that great. These unemployeed people are being subsidized by family. Right now they cannot provide their employer with $7/hr in productivity. Get that wage down to $3.5 and they will get off the couch. 40x3.5 = $140/week which is more than enough to pay for their food and ciggies on the week. This takes a large burden off of their family members who are supporting them now.

LOL at people getting off the couch for $3.50/hr. I have worked since I was 16, and did my share of **** jobs in my 20s. That being said, I guess my work ethic just isn't as strong as the mythical people you think would work for $3.50 an hour (undocumented immigrants excepted, of course).

When the alternative is $3.50 an hour, I would sit on the couch and collect cans/sell blood on my schedule rather than having to actually be at a job at a set time and deal with a boss/co-workers.

Hero Protagonist · 05-31-2012, 07:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cuserounder

Your views on poor people are clearly shaped from a wealth of personal experience, combined with a ton of relationships with friends who are not particularly well off. </sarcasm>

We're talking about people making minimum wage. That's 7.25 per hour. That's $15,080 a year. A federal income tax calculator said you'd owe $259 on that income. I'm going to estimate about 1/4 of that in state taxes and round it all off to $320. $14,760 a year. That's $1,230 per month. I saw a list ranking Des Moines, IA as the most affordable city for renters in the US. Let's pretend our fictional investor is fortunate enough to live in the city with the best bargain on his/her rent.

The average rent on a 1-bedroom was $754. Let's assume our renter's getting a studio, we'll call the average there $600? Let's assume he got a great deal. We'll call it $550.

Rent: $550

I read that the USDA says the average food costs per person are $150-$300. I'll give you the bottom range, and say our poor person should even go hungry a bit in their pursuit of the good life as a stock owner.

Food: $125

The average cost of utilities in Des Moines is $150. Let's assume our fictional individual turns the lights off a lot.

Utilities: $125

A monthly bus car in Des Moines is $48. I'm going to be round this up to $50, I sure hope you don't mind.

Transportation: $50.

This fictional frugal future stockholder probably needs the Internet to buy stock, seek better jobs, etc. That's about $50 in Des Moines, as well.

Internet: $50.

Now, we'd hate for this poor person to be walking around naked. Let's say $50 a month on clothes. If you're really good at shopping for a bargain and really careful with your clothes, you might get by on that. The US average is $142 and the median is $69.

Clothes: $50

That's a total of $950 a month. But stuff happens, so I'm going to add $50 a month for a rainy day. Perhaps they need some medicine, a new toothbrush, household items. I'm also going to add $50 a month in entertainment spending, so they can see a movie or go out to eat once a month. They're living pretty frugally, so I think that's reasonable. I mean, they don't even have a car or cable television.

That's a budget of $1,050 a month. That leaves $180 a month to invest.

So, if he keeps that monthly investment up for 5 years and manages a 10% return, in five years he'll have invested $10,980 and have a total of $14,071. That's a profit of $3,091, or $618 a year.

That would take his average annual pre-tax earnings to $15,698 or (rounded up) $7.55 per hour.

But, if only those poor bastards would live more frugally and spend their money on stocks instead of 24" rims, they'd really be reaping the benefits of these big corporations cutting labor costs! A whole 30 cents per hour!

Of course, that's assuming they never sell those stocks and actually spend any of that money.

Doesn't this prove that the current minimum wage is a living wage?

edit: just looked around craigslist in Des Moines:

http://desmoines.craigslist.org/roo/3047027153.html

$400 including utilities and internet, furnished with private bathroom and TV room. He could save $6060 a year and invest in some education, a car, whatever.

LetsGambool · 05-31-2012, 08:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by neverfoldthe1outer

so...the owners of walmart are the wealthiest people in america because....? lol

Well, I wouldnt call Walmart a supermarket. They are one of the reasons why the supermarket business sucks.

Gonso · 05-31-2012, 09:13 AM

Man some people don't realize what a higher minimum wage does to small businesses. Small indie pizza shop owners never had problems finding teenagers to answer the phone and clean tables for $5.50, then suddenly they had to be paid $7+ for the same work.

All that does is drive costs up and eventually the cost of living increases for everybody, then you're right back where you started... only you're not, because the rest of the world may not have kept pace with your wage inflation.

I'm not against the minimum wage btw. I'm just very against arbitrarily raising it to meet whatever people consider a livable wage because we're not operating in a vacuum. A lot of care has to go into balancing competitiveness against worker exploitation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cuserounder

You also fail to account for the fact that slashing minimum wage to $3.50 per hour would not ONLY create a number of crap-paying jobs, but also cause people currently making $7.25-$10 per hour to make less, as companies could slash those wages too.

You're right of course. But with an adjustment that drastic, those same companies would in turn face an environment even more competitive themselves before long (as fewer dollars would be available to compete for). They're not going to be able to bank the difference for more than a short while.

SaltyPickles · 05-31-2012, 09:17 AM

it is crazy ridiculous to call $400 rent. In China, you would fit 10 people into the same apartment. It seems like Americans are spoiled.

buzz12586 · 05-31-2012, 09:26 AM

Lets just have a minimum and maximum wage. That way everyone makes the same amount of money and can afford the same things. Problem solved....

Gonso · 05-31-2012, 09:38 AM

Spoiler:

rjoefish · 05-31-2012, 10:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SaltyPickles

it is crazy ridiculous to call $400 rent. In China, you would fit 10 people into the same apartment. It seems like Americans are fat.

fyp

einbert · 05-31-2012, 11:33 AM

A lot of hating on the poor in this thread. A lot of hating on people that get up every day, go to work, bust their ass for next to nothing, and will keep doing that every day because they want to provide for their families.

I will use the comments in this thread to stay motivated, to keep my eyes on the prize, and to stir up support among the working class people I am currently organizing.

einbert · 05-31-2012, 11:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SaltyPickles

If making minimum wage $20 is much better than $8 why not $35? $20 is the exact perfect number? At $35 businesses will close down but at $20 they will stay open and thrive? Why is arbitrary minimum wages superior to the free market? Why don't any economists agree, only Liberal Arts majors?

http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=ht...&embedded=true

http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=ht...&embedded=true

http://www.irle.berkeley.edu/workingpapers/166-08.pdf

Some pretty heavy reading I know, but these are all papers by people with real credentials that believe what I am suggesting is sound ecomonic policy. This "TheRealNews" link is an interview and is probably the most easily digestable of these. The qualifications of the interviewee:

Quote:

James K. Galbraith teaches at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, The University of Texas at Austin. He is a Senior Scholar of the Levy Economics Institute and the Chair of the Board of Economists for Peace and Security.

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?...FYSR7QodjETLTw

Quote:

JAY: So what would be one thing that could be done in terms of public policy that would start dealing with this issue of wages?

GALBRAITH: Well, as you know, for many years now a great many of us have been saying that the government should be in the business of creating more jobs directly or indirectly with an expansionary program. And we have been blocked on that avenue, basically. At the moment, the debate has been dominated by debt and deficit worriers, one might even say hysterics. What I propose, therefore, is a measure that would not involve increasing federal budget expenditures and would in fact modestly reduce the deficit. And that proposal is to raise the minimum wage and to raise it very substantially.

JAY: How much would you raise it?

GALBRAITH: Oh, I would say $12 an hour from the present, you know, and change. So a very substantial amount, enough to make a material difference in the lives of a large part, of a substantial part of the working population, and therefore to change their household balance sheets to give them a substantial increase in purchasing power. That's the idea behind this suggestion.

JAY: So let's examine the consequences of this. First of all, what would be the effect on wages generally that are now somewhat higher or higher than the minimum wage? If you do have this kind of floor at $12, what does that do to wages throughout the economy?

GALBRAITH: Well, for most people who are being paid substantially more than that, the effects would be very small. For manufacturing in general, the effects would be practically nil, because there are almost no manufacturing jobs that are being paid less than that now. So we can—most people would not see this directly in their paycheck. A significant number of low-wage workers would. A significant number of women workers would. And it would improve conditions vary significantly in the relatively low-wage parts of the country. It would not make much of a difference in New York, but in the south of Texas the effects would be, you know, substantial—anyway, they would be material. So that's, I think, broadly how I'd answer that question.

To take a specific example, I'm told that the average wage in construction in the state of Texas has been driven down to about $10 an hour by a process of outsourcing, basically, of labor, so that you have a lot of small contractors who are mainly using migrant labor and hiring it out on a daily basis. And this would have a significant effect on that structure of jobs. It would improve it by making those jobs more stable, making them more attractive to people who are documented residents, and giving the people who are in that business a much better shot at a moderately decent standard of living.

JAY: So the two obvious arguments are going to be the issue of what happens to small business and inflation. So let's start with small business. There's a lot of marginal, borderline small businesses, especially in the service sector, that are probably going to argue they couldn't go from $7 to $12.50. What do you make of that?

GALBRAITH: Well, I think that that's true for a certain number of small businesses. Would it have a net negative or positive effect on small businesses generally? Well, we can look around the world, and we do observe countries—there are countries in Europe, for example, which have very much higher minimum wages than we do and which have thriving small businesses sectors. So you've got to weigh the effect against what you call the marginal small business against the fact that the customers of small business would have significantly higher incomes, and they would be going in and providing a stronger demand for the products and services provided by small business. So while there would be a pressure on one part of that sector, there would be advantages for other small businesses in the sector as a whole. I don't think there's any clear reason to believe that the sector as a whole would be smaller, that there would be fewer jobs. There might even be more.

skudroc · 05-31-2012, 12:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ashington

Germany doesn't have minimum wages and they're doing great SUGGIT LIBRULS!

i have no clue what SUGGIT LIBRULS is (ahhh, something with liberals), but that statement is not true. a few branches already have minimum wage and a general minimum wage (~ 7,50 €) is debatted and it seems like only a matter of time till it will come.