Two think I'm going to point out, just to backup what dnsmith said. First, this fact right here, completely blows away the theory that "if we lower or eliminate the minimum wage, that wages will drop to 1¢ an hour." You leftist economically illiterates, are full of crap, and Norway proves it. What many of you people on the left don't grasp, is that when you create a minimum wage, entry level wages will automatically sink to the minimum wage. Because..... it's the minimum wage. When there is no minimum wage at all, when I open a store, I have to figure out what the 'competitive' wage is for that area, and that job. When you have a minimum wage.... I don't have to do anything, but set the entry level wage at the minimum wage. Because they can't earn less anywhere else, and since everyone else is setting their entry level at the minimum wage, I don't have to worry about being competitive. The minimum wage is horrible from every side. Secondly, dnsmith also made the equal opposite point. The leftist economically illiterates, constantly say that forcing up wages by raising the minimum wage, will not raise prices. I have been saying this for YEARS. When the minimum wage was $4/hr, the average menu price for a meal was about $4. I was actually working at Wendy's in 1996 when they raised the minimum wage to $5/hr, and sure enough the average menu price went up to $5. When they raise the minimum wage to $7/hr, the average menu price went up to $7 as it is today. Now look at Norway, where the entry level employee makes 95 korner. ($16/hr). This is the menu at a McDonald's in Norway. You can clearly see that a Big Mac meal, is......... 90 Korner! And look at the comments by travelers to Norway, commenting on this site. http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaura...-McDonald_s_Storgata-Oslo_Eastern_Norway.html The very first comment (on my viewing) is "$16 for a basic burger". Leftist.....get a clue.... The company can not pay employees more money, than how much they get from customers. Every single time that you increase the minimum wage, you are in effect demanding that *YOU* yourself, pay more for goods and services. At the same exact time, you are also increasing the prices of everything on the market, which makes it so even the people who are being paid more from a higher minimum wage, are no better off, because while their wage went up, everything they want to buy, also went up with it. The minimum wage is a bad policy. It harms EVERYONE, and helps NO ONE.
So, if minimum wage is bad, then why wouldn't lowering it, to say, 40 cents an hour, be GOOD? While we're at it, maybe you can answer, this for me. Why should labor costs be capped, but profits unlimited?
If they could fully automate the place, they would. I personally would love to see it, so people would reject them, and their automated profiteering. Good luck getting the public to buy autobots handing out their garbage burgers.
People work for the going wage based on the labor market and their productivity. There is nothing wrong with that.
There is a graph which shows that the buying power (adjusted for inflation) of the lowest quintile has remained constant for the last 35 years, while every other quintile had an increasing buying power every time the minimum wage went up. The bottom two lines averaged together reflects the bottom quintile of income. Note that each other line goes up more, all in 2003 constant dollars. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:United_States_Income_Distribution_1967-2003.svg
YES.... I just told you it would be good. And again, you are assuming that wages would fall drastically, and yet Norway proves you wrong. There is no minimum wage, and wages are higher than they are here. No one is saying that labor costs should be "caped". If we have fewer low skilled laborer, then wages will rise, when the supply is lower than demand. The market should determine the value of labor. Just like the market should determine profits. You just make up stuff... like all leftards do. Where did ANYONE.... ANYWHERE.... say that wages should be capped? Why should babies be forced to eat rotten road kill? Oh... you didn't say that fraud? I thought we could just make up crap now, given that's what you do.
Poverty is defined in a number of ways. 1. Poverty in the US is usually relative poverty in that the poor have less than those who earn more. 2. When addressing destitution we are referring to the kind of bone crushing poverty like is found among the homeless. What is strange about the homeless can be divided into two groups. a. many choose to be homeless, and, b. some find themselves in that condition but for some odd situation with government assistance cannot be added to the rolls. 3. Third world poverty has become almost a culture. It is bone crushing poverty, living on the street, no form of assistance available, and living hand to mouth by begging. I have been living in Europe for many years and travel to the US and to Asia and Africa in my profession. Neither the US nor Europe has the kind of bone crushing poverty in any quantity. When I think of poverty, and when I choose to assist the poor, I send my money to a faith based charity (they are known to put more of their dollars where it really helps) even when I am not personally related to that faith.
The real deal should be to eliminate the "minimum wage" entirely. That way there would not be a lo ball amount to shoot for in unskilled labor situations. There may be confusion at first, but eventually the market value for unskilled labor will balance out. So long as their is a minimum wage at any value it will be the goal to which employers of unskilled labor gravitate.
What always boggles my mind about this, is how this entire concept is instinctively obvious when it involves yourself. Yet for some reason, you never apply it to anyone else. Lazarus, if you walked into a store, and you want a big LCD TV, and you see the TV is $100, will you buy it? Generally yes, because that's a low price for a massive TV. Equally if you walk in and the same TV is $1,000, will you buy it? Possibly not because it's too expensive. Everyone instinctively grasps that if the price is higher, then purchases will be lower. Especially if you only have $500, the higher up the price, the less chance of you buying, until you get a price higher than $500 that you have, and then the chance of buying is zero. You all understand this. Why do you not grasp that the same exact situation exists with labor? Labor is a commodity like any other. The buyers of labor, are business. As the price of labor goes up, the number of businesses buying that labor will go down. Eventually, when the price of labor goes higher than the how much business has to buy that labor, the business closes altogether. Try it again.... If you want someone to mow your lawn, and they charge $25 a mow, will you have them do it? Possibly yes, because $25 is a reasonable amount of money to mow a lawn. But what if they charge $50, will you do it? Maybe, but less likely than before. What if they charge $100, will you do it? Not likely. For the price of two mows, you could buy your own lawn mower, and enough gas to mow your lawn, all year long. It's not worth it. Again, when it's YOU buying the labor, you grasp this. But when it's some company, you never apply the same laws of economics. Why? Why don't you apply the same laws of economics that you grasp in relation to yourself, when you talk about others?
You make a lot of assumptions but you did not at any time refute my link. There are states with a higher minimum wage but the big mac does not cost more. Are you saying this is not true or you just don't like it? It must be one or the other. You make a ridicules comparison between a 100 tv and a 1000 dollar tv as if none of the profit the company makes can be touched. So if on that 100 dollar make believe tv lets say the company gets 20 dollars and the worker gets 2. how bout we give the company 19 and the worker 3 and still sell the tv for a 100. I guess you just don't get that. What we are talking about is not the price but what is a fair way to split the profit between the company and the worker. The market sets the price, not wages.
The graph you linked is measuring household income. Household income does not accurately measure individual income or consumption in different brackets.
You are correct, I didn't refute the link, because there is simply not enough information given by the link, to make a case, for, or against the claims. They posted the price of a big mac in Post Falls, Idaho, verse Liberty Lake, Washington. How many variables did they account for? Practically none. First, Liberty Lake has a population of under 8,000. Post Falls, Idaho, has over 27,000. Liberty Lake, has only one McDonald's in the entire town. Very little competition. Post Falls has almost 2 dozen McDonalds. Think about that.... 8,000 and ONE McDonald's, and 27,000 with about 24 or more McDonalds. That alone, makes you wonder if the reason there are not more McDonald's in Liberty Lake, is because the higher minimum wage, makes it unprofitable. Fewer McDonald's, fewer jobs, fewer employed low-skilled people. Additionally, I can't verify the prices they claim. Nor can you verify how many employees, the McDonald's is operating. What if the Idaho McDonald's are operating on a 7-man crew, and the Liberty Lake, because of the higher minimum wage, is operating a 5-man crew? We don't know. The article doesn't cover any of this. Then you have portion sizes. Did the verify that the portions given at the Liberty Lake, was the same as the portions at the Post Falls? Nope, they didn't cover that. I was working at Wendy's when the minimum wage increase hit in the 90s. The first thing they did was fire all the part time employees. Full time employees are always paid more than part time employees, logically because a full time employee is more valuable to the store. We lost 3 part time employees, and hired one new full time employee. The Second thing they did was cut portion sizes. Customers tend to not like it when you suddenly spring a price increase on them. They tend to flip out, and get all bent. So Wendy's had this creative method, where over a period of months, they cut down the sizes. I figured this out, when the fry cups, no longer fit in the cup holders. The large fry cup, shrank just enough, that it fell out of the holders. We had to leave them on the floor. Then the Medium and Small cups, got smaller, and fell out too. Then, Wendy's introduced the "Biggie Fry" and "Biggie Drink", with a new higher price. Then over the next few months, the "Small Fry" and "Small Drink" disappeared, and all the sizes shrank again, now back to the original sizes, except the "Biggie" was the size of the original large. The "large" was the size of the original medium. And the "Medium" was the size of the original small. But of course all the prices remained the same. The entire process happened over a two year time span. Slowly, over time, they were passing on the costs to consumers, of the cost caused by the minimum wage. Did the article actually check portion sizes? Of course not. And BTW.... in 2009, after the minimum wage went up to $7.25, Wendy's did the whole thing all over again. Sizes shrank, and now prices are inching up bit by bit. In fact all fast food joints did. But again, it's the same thing as you and the TV, as with the Business and the Labor. You can't dictate how much profit a company gets. It's THEIR company, not yours. If you want to run your company, and change how much profits you make, by all means. That's up to you to do with your company. But as for as dictating how much someone else profits from THEIR company, is not your prerogative. And if you push it... they'll leave, and then you earn ZERO. Is ZERO better than what you are earning now? Because that's the whole point. Unions forced up the cost of labor on auto manufacturers like GM and Chrysler. Both went bankrupt. GM now builds cars in South Korea, and imports them into the US. Chrysler is owned by Fiat. Both lost thousands of employees who are now completely unemployed earning nothing. Same thing with Hostess. The Unions forced up wages at Hostess, and the company went bankrupt. Now Hostess is bought out by a new employer, and the new employer will not hire a single former union employee. They are all now earning NOTHING. Meanwhile the new company has new employees, that are earning a market wage for their labor. Is NOTHING better than earning a wage slightly lower? Because that's what Ford did. Ford got concessions from the Unions, and lowered labor costs, which is why they didn't go bankrupt. If you demand that employees are paid more, eventually, the company will outsource the building of those TVs to another country where labor is cheaper, and they will still get the profits they want, only now you won't have any jobs. And by the way, employees generally profit more from the labor than the company does. On average, the Employee is getting the $20, and the company is getting $2. It's just that the company has millions of employees making $20, and the company get's $2 from millions of employees. Take Walmart CEO Mike Duke. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/19/walmart-ceo-pay-mike-duke_n_850933.html Mike Duke made $18.7 Million. Oh how horrible. He's taking so much from employees. Right? Do you know how much $18.7 Million is per employee? Walmart has 2.2 Million employees. $18.7 million dollars divided by 2.2 million employees.... is a whooping $8.50.... PER YEAR. That's less than 0.004¢ an hour. And you want to tell me, Walmart is collecting most of the profits? Bull crap. Walmart is making a very tiny profit. It's just that Walmart has thousands of stores, making billions of sales. But they are not collecting $20, and giving the employee $2... quite the opposite. In fact, Walmart's published profit margin is only 3%.... that's THREE PENNIES for every dollar. Again... increasing the cost of labor, *WILL* reduce the purchase of labor. It will not harm profits. In fact in many cases it will boost profits, because companies will charge higher prices. If you doubt that, just look at Europe. http://news.cnet.com/mcdonalds-hires-7000-touch-screen-cashiers/8301-17938_105-20063732-1.html Look at McDonald in Europe. No cashiers. Instead you have Kiosks. How much profit are they making with machines replacing those expensive employees? How much are the employees earning now, being unemployed? And by the way, the unemployment rate over there is double the unemployment here. In fact, this specific picture is from France, where cashiers have almost been eliminated. The unemployment rate for France is 11% RIGHT NOW. The youth unemployment rate is a whooping 26%. The very people who have low-skill, and little work experience... the very people who need, and would benefit from entry level jobs the most.... McDonald's has replaced them with Kiosks. Why? Labor cost is too high. Get over it...... This is how the world works. You drive up prices, and purchases will go down. You drive up the cost of labor, and you end up unemployed, replaced by a Kiosk. Welcome to reality. How long will you be staying?
You are both absolutely correct. The key to the discussion is "for the last 35 years" and "measuring household income". The following is a rant, and my personal opinion based on what I've seen in my short time on this planet. Take it or leave it. I don't care.... Something happened about 40 years ago, that changed this discussion relating to the above statements. What was it? In the 1970s, we had the sexual revolution. The culture, rejecting morals and a belief in G-d, decoupled sex from responsibility and commitment. We no longer believed that commitment, and marriage, and in sacred vows, were connected. The divorce rate spiked up, and people started shacking up, living together without any bond of marriage. We sacrificed duty and honor, for a supreme belief in the almighty "me". What matters is what *I* want, and if *I* am not happy, then *I* am not doing this. When you look at "household income", and combine it with a drastically increasing divorce rate, what do you get? If two people, both earning $25,000, are married living in a home, that household income, is $50,000 a year. That's right at the Median income. Then because of the sexual revolution, and the belief that "if I don't like it, I can leave", they divorce. You end up splitting ONE median income household, into TWO poverty level households. Not only that, but you devastate them both in the process. The house they bought, now has to be sold off, since neither one can pay the mortgage with a poverty level income. If they are upside down on the house, you end up in foreclosure and bankruptcy. Not to mention that often each person intentionally screws over the other. Credit cards open in each others name, and the ex refuses to pay it, knowing it will bankrupt the former spouse. Shacking up is even worse, with someone signing a note on the others car, then they break up, they drive off with the car, and you end up stuck with the debt. Since they are not married, they can't legally separate the debt. So when you look at "household income levels" it becomes quite obvious why they have not increased over time, especially at the lower income levels. Divorce is devastating to household income levels, because it ALWAYS results in a new household near the poverty line, and often results in two household at the poverty line. BY THE WAY..... It was exactly because of divorce, that home ownership started falling in the late 1970s. It was due to this, that Carter signed into law the CRA, which later Bill Clinton used as a pretext to force banks to make sub-prime loans, which resulted in the sub-prime housing price bubble, which burst in 2008, and how we got to where we are today. Immorality... ultimately... is the source of all these problems. Again... my opinion, based on the evidence I've seen. Take it or leave it, I don't care.
If corporations weren't so greedy to begin with, and corporate profiteers so greedy to begin with, we might not need a minimum wage but, the reality is, they'd pay 2 cents a week if they could get away with it.
But they can't get away with it. That's the whole point. If they paid only 2¢ a week, they wouldn't have any employees. If they could charge us $1000 for a light bulb, they would do that too. But they can't. That's the whole point. This is the hypocrisy of the left as well. *YOU* would pay someone 5¢ to fix your car, if you could get away with it. *YOU* would pay 5¢ to have your roof fixed if you could get away with it. *YOU* would sell your old used automobile for $500,000 if you could get away with it. The ONLY reason that *YOU* do not do that, is because you can't! No one is going to pay you $500K for your old beater. No one is going to fix your roof for 5¢. Again, Norway proves you wrong. They have no minimum wage, and yet wages are higher there. See here's the deal. The left, like yourself, are greedy people. You don't want others to do, what you yourself, *WOULD* do if you could. You assume that they are greedy, because then you feel better about yourself. - - - Updated - - - You hypocritically assume everything wrong with big corporations, so your statement is par for the course.
How many large conglomerate corporations are known for their fierce defenses of humanity and morality? ZERO. How many of them has only the goal of making as much money as possible, as quickly as possible, and at virtually any cost? ALL OF THEM. They DO NOT serve the public interest. They serve the PRIVATE INTEREST, and that is the inherent flaw that ALL big corporations share. - - - Updated - - - They pay as close to (or even below it) whenever possible, friend.
Are you being sarcastic and writing that, all else being equal in the USA, I would turn down people in any material number if they offered to work for 3 cents an hour? Ridiculous. People would be getting snapped up so fast there'ld be a shortage of labor. Soon 1% would be offering 4 cents. Another 1% would offer 5... until you reach an equilibrium price. No unemployment.
Yes, I was being sarcastic, in the same retarded manner that Titans, and their minions, claim how terrible it is for 'business' to have minimum wage raised (every time it's talked about). At what point does the profit begin to affect society as a whole? Do you even see a threshold at all, or is any form of the 'free market' process valid, and can never be abusive?
So...... WHAT?! Dude... *YOU* serve private interest.... namely your own advancement. You people are corrupt and hypocrites to your very core. You know, that you try to earn as much money as possible, as quickly as possible. You know that you do not spend your time in "fierce defense of humanity and morality". (you even said you don't believe in absolute morality already) And yet you demand that others do what YOU YOURSELF do not do. I was in New York, and there was this dude on the street selling "Rolex Watches". I was in France, and there was this guy on the street selling ices. I watched this video in Iraq, of these guys in the market selling fruit. What is common about all of them? They were all, every single one, trying to make as much money as possible, as quickly as possible. ALL OF THEM. They were not serving the public interest. Every single person on this planet acts the same way. Only a brain dead idiot, would hypocritically claim that corporations should operate under completely different motivations than all the humans on the entire planet.... especially when a corporations is made up of.... HUMANS. What moron thinks like this? Oh right, a leftist. And by the way.......... Between *YOU* and the "Big Corporations", which one has done more for humanity? http://www.sanofifoundation-northamerica.org/ Sanofi, pharmaceutical company, created the Sanofi Foundation, last year made $500 in charity medication. http://www.pharma.us.novartis.com/about-us/our-patient-caregiver-resources/index.shtml Novartis, $330K in charitable giving. https://www.wellsfargo.com/about/charitable/index.jhtml Wells Fargo, $217K in charitable giving. http://about.bankofamerica.com/en-u...y-_-EE01LT0021_Vanity_foundation-_-Enterprise Bank of America, $198K in charitable housing grants. http://foundation.walmart.com/ Walmart, $175K in charitable giving. And the list goes on and on, GE, Exxon, Goldman Sachs, Intel, General Mills, and hundreds of others. http://foundationcenter.org/findfunders/topfunders/top50giving.html Now tell me, HypocriticalFraud..... what have you done? Anything? What room do you have to speak? Show us what authority you are on the topic? Don't bother. I already know the answer. You phony leftists are all the same. You sit on your butt, and demand others meet your own mythical standard, that never applies to yourself. Then explain why McDonald's in Norway pay's $16/hr without a minimum wage? Again, you are wrong. You can repeat wrong as much as you want, it will still remain, now and forever, WRONG.
Real monopolies should be regulated, market be danged. Minimum wage is more complex. I don't give a whit about the businesses that complain of having to pay higher wages. I care about people being unemployed and there is a good argument that when that wage exceeds the equilibrium price of that labor, people will not get hired and that's bad.
