the minimum wage: reality check

Market patterns keep changing, anyway. It really doesn't matter if stores close due to structural forms of unemployment or the bottom line; a fifteen dollar an hour minimum wage will still help the least wealthy make a rational choice to work over social services.

 

What is the foundation for the different rates is a key question.

The labor of the person belongs to no one else and that labor, based upon natural law, entitles the person to their basic support and comfort. While "comfort" is subjective the "support" is not because the basic cost of living is quantifiable and has been quantified by analysis at MIT. In the actual quantification process there is complexity because the different demographics of the household change what the "costs" of the minimum-mandatory expenditures are which represent the "support" of the person.

The "Minimum (Living) Wage" must be a single value for pragmatic purposes so it has to be based upon a compromise of the statistical information we have. Since the median household is comprised of 2.4 people (as I recall) and we can't have fractional people we'd logically assume a household of two adults and one child for our baseline "Minimum (Living) Wage" in the United States.

Because two possibilities exist where, in one case, just one adult is working and in the other case two adults are working, that both affect the minimum-mandatory expenditures we'd have to also compromise as the average between the two wages.

So we have some criteria to use and we have the MIT Living Wage Calculator that gives us the numbers. So pick a random location in the US (instead of trying to average them all) and run the numbers. If nothing else use the county/state where you live. Add the two adults one child with one working and the two adults with one child with both working, then divide by 2 to get the average, and then divide by 2080 (number of work hours in a year) and it will give you the "Minimum (Living) Wage" rate per hour.

http://livingwage.mit.edu/

Using Yavapai County, AZ (where I live) as a random baseline the "Minimum (Living) Wage" would be $22.75/hr.

With the US producing roughly $16 trillion in income annually that living wage is easily accommodated with probably $12 trillion left over for higher compensation and profits for enterprise.

 

A business owner would be a fool not to secure a written contractual agreement with Wal-Mart before investing in the venture.

 

It happens all the time with Walmart. They dangle such big dollars that a lot of vendors fall for it...and get burned badly. The vendor gets to a point where they can't make money at the price point demanded by Walmart and are left with all the infrastructure they created to fill the Walmart orders.

 

I have factual arguments that you call fallacy because you do not wish to face the reality, that you are blatantly and objectively wrong.

 

It really doesn't matter if stores close due to structural forms of unemployment or the bottom line; a fifteen dollar an hour minimum wage will still help the least wealthy make a rational choice to work over social services.

 

No it won't, because prices will just go up. You are objectively wrong.

 

It doesn't matter if prices go up; as long as wages outpace inflation. You are simply, clueless and Causeless.

 

They won't! Lolol. That's the whole point. You live in a fairy tale

 

That is the whole point of lousy, capital management; not the point of public policy which engenders conditions where wages outpace inflation, as the new "full employment metric" for modern times.

 

Labor is a name we use for certain actions. Actions are merely things one does with one's body. Actions one does with one's body can't be owned because there not a thing. The body is a thing, but the actions one does with one's body are not a thing.

I just lifted a box and put it on a shelf. I performed an action. I labored. But there is no "labor" that exists and can be owned.

Your posts are a good example of why thinking about actions as a material resource that can be owned leads to ridiculous conclusions.

There is no labor, so no.

 

What?

Labor doesn't exist?

 

Correct. Labor is the name we give to certain actions we perform with our bodies. Actions like lifting things, turning screws, connecting components, giving massages, etc. These are actions. There is no physical substance called labor that exists in the physical world.

Again, this is what happens when one is not precise with one's terms and takes metaphor to be reality.

 

ummmm...without labor there is no commerce...and without commerce there is no wealth.

So commerce and wealth are illusions as well?

 

Nope.

Labor is the word we use to describe people using their bodies to perform useful actions, like weeding a garden or sanding a tabletop. People acting is how they achieve their ends.

So to paraphrase your previous statement, but to make it correct, it would be: "Without people acting there is no commerce...."

Are you arguing that labor is a substance, a physical thing that exists in the physical world? Or do you agree with me that labor is simply actions we perform with our bodies?

 

Absent your strange word salad parsing...without labor there is no civilization.

So what's your point?

You have no respect for the labor of human beings?

 

Without people acting, there is no civilization.

I have respect for human beings.

However, none of this has to do with the fact that there no such physical thing as labor. You can't sell a quart of labor, or a pound of labor. It is not a thing.

We use the term labor to refer to people acting to accomplish some task. But some people take the metaphor to far and think that labor is a physical substance, that can be sold or stolen. This is the result of fuzzy and metaphorical thinking, which leads to ridiculous terms such as "theft of labor".

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I just noticed your wording here. I am not saying that labor is "an illusion". I'm saying that people refer to labor as if it is a substantial thing in the physical world. It isn't. I can't give you a cup of labor, or a pound of labor. Labor is simply a name we use for physical actions related to work.

Physical actions we perform are not things. They are descriptions of our acts. If I perform the labor of doing 10 pushups, I have simply moved my body in a particular way over a period of time. There is no such actual physical thing as "10 pushups", that could possibly be sold on the market.

You have to sharpen your thinking and dispense with metaphors. "Selling one's labor" is a metaphor that has no basis in the physical world.

 

So in your idiotic word smithing...labor is not a "real" thing because you can't touch "it"..

SO what's your point?

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Oh and when you contract for someone's labor and then don't pay for it...you have stolen that labor.

 

My point is that labor can't be stolen.

 

You don't contract for someone's labor. Labor is not a thing. You contract with someone to do something for you. They use their body to perform a certain action and you pay them.

Labor is not on the periodic chart of elements.

 

It absolutely can be if you contract for it...receive the benefit of it...and then refuse to pay for it

Can an idea be held in the hand? no? But it can be stolen.

That's a stupid claim and you need to go away

 

Okay, let's start with some basics.

Do you think that "labor" is a thing in the physical world, such that you could fill a jar with it or weigh it?