We Americans don't understand the purpose of a 'wage'

Guess we need the Sanders $15 dollar min wage then ?

 

It's like that in the U.S. too. Most of what we buy in grocery stores, comes from central and south America. The trade agreements and the immigration mess is killing American farmers. Corporations get the property taxes raised on U.S. farmers to the point that they can't keep their farms...then the corporations buy up the land.

 

Huh? He's saying that employers may just try to hire illegals instead, thus rendering the minimum wage moot.

 

More to do with trade agreements than immigration.

In Australia, Chinese is buying huge tracts of agricultural land and this current conservative government are allowing the Chinese to get away with it in the name of investment. There's a huge difference between investment and ownership.

 

The minimum wage has failed to keep up with inflation since 1973. What many people fail to comprehend is that this depressing of the minimum wage has depressed the entire wage curve. In other words, everyone should be making far more than they are.

If the minimum wage had kept up with inflation since 1973 it would be about $22 an hour now and the median household income in the US would be around $80,000 instead of the $50,000 it is now. Government social spending would be reduced by two thirds and government revenues increased by a third.

$15 an hour is just a small step in getting median income back in line with the economy.

 

Folks should not be hiring illegals. Saying that the min wage will increase the "illegal's problem" is a null argument.

 

Of course they shouldn't! I think he means that, with such a high minimum wage, employers will go out of their way to get around it, and hiring illegals could potentially be on the table.

 

That folks would try to do something illegal to get around a law is not justification (at least not in of itself) to eliminate the law.

 

I agree.

 

Something we commonly see in threads like this is the assumption that businesses are a social service agency, an entity that exists primarily to serve employees. While that illusion has been supported by a steady increase in government imposed rules forcing some of that, it is a totally false premise- and a dangerous one. A business does not exist to create jobs or provide for the welfare of the public or the people who have jobs there. The business has one primary purpose, and that is to grow and profit. If it fails to do that, anything else is soon irrelevant, because it will no longer exist.

Many things are created that benefit society by our businesses being successful in that endeavor, but these are FRINGE BENEFITS, not the primary and mandatory first objective. Business must keep focus on the objective- but much of society wants to change the objective yet still expect the business to remain successful. These two points of view are just not compatible.

Business does not hire people- it buys services from people. just on the basis of time.. That service may be engineering, grocery bagging, pizza delivery or whatever- but it is the service that matters, not the person's lifestyle or personal issues. Those are NOT the responsibility of the business- they are the responsibility of the individual. Like it or not, we are all in business for ourselves.

Just as you are in effect hiring a baker when you buy bread, we are all in business for ourselves, selling our services for a market price. Just as you want the bread that you prefer and want to buy it at a price you feel is reasonable, your employer is looking at your services the same way. You don't want to buy a poor quality loaf of bread that spoils. You don't want to get less than you pay for, and you don't think there should be any further obligation on your part once you pay the agreed price for what you get. Your employer feels the same way when he buys things. Treat your employer as a valued customer- identically to the way you would want to be treated when you are buying something- and surprisingly, things will probably improve dramatically.

The fringe benefits to society that a successful business generates are profound- Jobs, a payroll that will turn many times in it's community, taxes of all kinds, and probably more businesses coming in to support the first business- freight carriers, service industries, new people coming to the community, grocery stores to feed them, construction companies to build homes for them- it is this chain of productivity that makes sound economies. Profit is the paycheck for the owners and investors in a business- and they only get that if they are successful; everyone else gets paid first.... and if the profits are stolen by greedy governments under the guise of socialism, nobody will get a paycheck. Only an idiot shoots the horse that is pulling his wagon because he thinks he eats too much.

 

Has anyone actually looked at the California $15 minimum wage law?
It will be phased in gradually and raise the now $10 to $15 by 2022 for large businesses and by 2023 for small businesses.
I'm not an economist but with inflation at 1% a year this means that by 2023 the $15 will be worth $13.95 and there will be another cry to raise the minimum wage yet again.