Has anyone thought of this in regards to minimum wage?

The more I think I think about it, the more I believe there should be a two tiered minimum wage

Let's say

50% of your employees must be "full time" (let's say 30 hours because personally I don't believe min wage jobs should also have to include benefits, just a wage) if we set the min wage at $9.25 an hour that means half your work force (oh and this doesn't include management, that would be cheating) are making at minimum $16187.50 a year. That's well above any poverty threshold and tough (*)(*)(*)(*) if you can't make it on that, then other people are right, go find something better to do for a living.

Then to recognize the need for flexibility for both employers and employees a second minimum wage which would remain the current level and would have no limits on hours. Up to 50% of your staff could be paid $7.25 an hour and worked 10 or whatever hours a week.

That is fair to employers, employees, and the taxpayers.

 

Raising the minimum wage is just another example of the free lunch fallacy playing itself out. The analogy that Fred Thompson brought up was pretty apt in describing the strategy of taking water out of one end of the pool and pouring it in the other. The overall net-effect is, at best, zero.

 

And this is why no one takes the so called "conservatives" seriously any more.

Are you going to clutter this thread up with BS about how the poor should be lucky they don't live like the poor in Ecuador to?

 

All I can tell you is that my father was a restaurateur for 55 years and went through several minimum wage increases. Opened his business right after WWII and sold it five years before he died. His prices had to go up with the min. wage increase, but so did the number of people who could afford to eat at his restaurant. Never missed a beat despite all his Republicanesque belly-aching.

If you need another example, look at the increase in sports salaries since the '60s. For that matter, look at the increase in CEO salaries since the 1990s. Everybody benefits by wages and salaries going up, except now those humongous salaries are not churned back into the USofA. We've reached a point where NOBODY can spend that kind of money without hiring a broker to squander it for him.

 

I think you're about to find out how not increasing the min. wage is going to play out in Christmas sales. Let's face it, Romney can buy everything he wants at Neiman Marcus by phoning it in. Min. wage workers can't even afford Wal-Mart.

 

Well, prices are going up anyway,. regardless of what the minimum wage rate goes to. The economists call it stagflation.

I call it wage deflation and price inflation. Well, these two things, wage and prices, need to start going in one direction or the other, at the same time... And, it looks like it will go up because when was the last time you heard about prices falling? People are being priced out of the market. The big box stores can't even get people to come out anymore for holiday savings events and special sale days during the year.

Oh, but there's a place in California, I've heard but forgotten the name of, that is raising the minimum wage to $15, and what an excellent time and place to do social experiments with the minimum wage before sending the whole nation over the cliff. Other states are doing this now too, raising their own minimum wage, well good for them. Let the state and local governments adjust minimum wage for their regional cost of living rates.

 

If you choose to label evidence-based economics "conservative", that is your own problem.

No, I'm going to continue to inform people of basic economics despite your attempts to spin reality.

 

This is not something businesses will cut hours over.

Obamacare is one thing. It's generally a bad idea to put any sort of benefit to the amount of hours you work. Because employers are almost certainly going to cut hours. What minimum wage isn't a benefit of the amount of hours worked. They will still need the work done. You can escape Obama care by hiring someone else and giving both people part time hours.

But if you hire someone else to work part time you're still paying the same minimum wage for both people's hours.

 

Actually our relative poor are lucky they do not live like truly destitute poor in the 3rd world. That does not mean we should not raise the minimum wage or try to help both the relative poor (those who are are only poor relative to those with more wealth) and those who are on assistance and those who slip through the cracks. None of that is BS and whether you like it or not it is irrelevant.

Now recognize we need to raise the minimum wage (which has nothing to do with the poor on assistance) BUT when we do so we have to recognize that historically and within a relatively short time, the 4 higher quintiles will (virtually automatically) progressively higher pay. That history is represented by the following graph, which is adjusted for inflation. The bottom 2 lines (curves) follow approximately the bottom quintile of wage earners and each subsequent higher line (curve) reflects the historical fact that the upper quintiles get larger % raises than does the lowest quintile.

Click on image to enlarge.​

In my opinion the minimum wage should be automatically adjusted for inflation no less than every 6 months to keep the lower quintile from losing buying power which is effectively what happens when others get more raise than they do.

 

I see unintended consequence. Let's say I run a seasonal auto parts stand on the side of the road, focusing on the migrant crab fisherman in the Green Mountains of Vermont. Now I only have 3 employees, all part time and only working the month of January. My employees man the stand in the mornings as the the fisherman hoist sales in preparation and hope of netting the tourist coming to the mountains to buy snow shoe crab. My employees work 3 hours per day. They shoot at the tires of the passing fisherman's fender systems. All of our income is generated in selling them plugs for the holes that spontaneously spring forth as they go by to buy bait. $3.95 a kit. - $1.95 per bullet we make $2.00 per and sell 27 per day generating enough to pay employees minimum reward for their aim high employment goals and marksmanship.

Are you saying now that I have to have 1.5 of them on as full time? I'll have to now charge $25.95 per kit. That's highseas robery! Or they could just shoot more things. See what you've done. Gun crime will rise in coastal fishing villages of Vermont.

Seriously though. Minimum wage is a starting salary for temp employees in unskilled and training positions. These jobs might advance to full time employment in jobs one step elevated. Most all positions of this type are filled by the young, new to the work force. If the minimum wage is elevated will you see a reduction in teen employment or a rise?

Cheers
Labour

 

Good theory. I wonder what will happen if Detroit raises it minimum wage to $15/hr. I bet you it wouldn't help the jobless...

Having a good economy is what helps people... raising salaries does not. Hell, if giving more money to people helps the economy, why not just GIVE FREE MONEY to people. Have the government print even more money.... Is your employer giving you only $7/hr.. well, here's an extra $8 to compensate curtsey of Uncle SAM.


If you really think about it, you can see where this line of thinking ultimately leads tooo.





Doesn't work. What does work is "wealth creation"....

 

Just because he was able to absorb the increased costs associated with increases in the minimum wage does not mean it was a good policy. And the post-WWII era in the US was totally anomalous in terms of the global economy. It's easy to afford luxuriant benefits when the rest of the world is lying in ruins.

 

What goofy assertions!

Its hilarious how many on this thread know NOTHING about even the basics of the concept of employment.

If a business needs an employee, the rate of pay does NOT determine how much he works for the most part, its how much work NEEDS TO BE DONE!

If I hire a dishwasher for my restaurant, I need him ALL the time I am open. I can't just cut his hours because he is getting a little more pay! The same goes for ANY minimum wage job!

The number of employers who keep employees around without NEEDING them are few and far between.

This thread is utterly ridiculous. PArticularly the people who make such "valuable" contributions from the Right Wing "Book of Republican Wisdom" like this:

Yeah, these are the people to run our country, fer shure!

 

The time of automation replacing every mindless task labor positions is right around the corner.

If liberals were truly interested in helping people they would preparing for this now instead of scamming their voters into believing that a minimum wage job is the best they can do in life.

http://singularityhub.com/2013/09/02/harvest-automation-brings-affordable-robotics-to-big-ag/

^Read that and tell me you wont live to see the day where robots are doing 99% of the burger flipping in America.

 

Why don't we just address the root of the problem, which is inflation?

 

The sad part is that they can't see how awesome this is going to be for everyone. They are basically Luddites who will be laughed at by future generations that have robot servants and laborers to take care of all the mind-numbing and bone-crushing manual labor that makes life seem boring and dull.

 

It they could do that don't you think they'd be doing that with or without the minimum wage hike?

 

Because there isn't a solution to inflation that doesn't severely impact growth.

 

Is that the root cause of the problem? If so, even the simple raising of minimum wage is "inflation." There are contracts in force in some of our elitist labor groups which require they get a raise of the same % as minimum wage raises. Can we stop those? Does anyone here understand when more $$$$ are thrown at the same supply prices automatically increase? I certainly do not have an answer on how to stop inflation. Monetary/fiscal policy tends to reduce the chances for inflation by raising interest rates, and of course this reduces the buying power of the least wealthy.