What is a PROPER wage? Based on your output being worth 100$ per hour.

You already admitted you have no experience. Try to strive to remain consistant. But since you have in depth knowledge about the company your dad worked at how about giving us the name of the company and the hourly wage when your dad worked there versus what they currently pay.

 

I have been in a union. And getting fired is simply recorded. And it is very quick. Do what they don't like, get told they don't like it. Get written up as they telling you they don't like it. Get told that one more time will result in fired. SIMPLE. It just has to be documented.

And as for the HARD negotiators, and how it is not FAIR to the company, for two or moar decades, I have seen unions bend over backwards to ask for nothing, and hope to avoid cutbacks.

Companies run over unions.

 

Along those lines, we just had a new Wendy's open nearby. Knowing the local management got me some inside info. Cost of the place- $1.5 million. Forget about the 20 employees there in the training stage, just look at a few things-

In effect, the interest that $1.5 mil would be making in a stock investment. That would be about 10%; $150K per year, or $410 a day. Until the store nets that daily profit, it hasn't even justified the base investment of the cost of the facility.

Then, look at the property tax on a $1.5M commercial property. Probably about 2.5% of value annually- or about $40K per year, about $110 per day.
Then add the insurance- probably more than the taxes, perhaps $140 per day. Now we are at $660 per day- without utilities, payroll, cost of foods. That would be the cost of the building just sitting there, with no sales, no employees and no utilities on. About a quarter Mil a year.

If the average sale is $6.60, they have to sell 100 meals every day, with every penny going directly to those fixed costs, just to meet that expense. Of course, the price of those meals is not profit, as the costs of food and labor and operating expenses are taken our first, If those costs are say 2/3 of the selling price, now we see it takes 1,980 such meals being sold every day just to meet the fixed expenses of existence of the facility. Still- no profits produced yet. If the store was open 24 hours, they would still have to deliver 1.37 such meals per minute, every minute, over the 1440 minutes in a 24 hour day. After that, they may begin to make money. Of course- employees take no risk, they get paid in full for every minute they are there, regardless of the store's profit or loss. The owners only get paid if everything is calculated correctly, and run well enough to have something left over. If nothing is left- or less- then they lose money.... without a limit.

Sound like a way to get rich quick??

 

When looking at individual companies, yes, that may often be true.
But when looking at an industry as a whole it is often a different matter.

Some industries could easily handle a big increase in labor expense, while for other fields of industry it may be more difficult and be incompatible with the business model.

 

This is pretty consistent with my experience.

 

The employer sells his product for what he can get, as does the employee sell his labor for what he can get.

 

I don’t think that’s a realistic approach. For most (arguably all) employees, you can’t attribute a dollar value to their output. Even if they’re directly earning the money (such as in direct sales), you have to account for all the other people in the infrastructure and management roles behind them. Your fast-food server isn’t going to be making anything if nobody is sourcing the ingredients, making the deliveries, maintaining the kitchen and managing the shift rota.

 

Alden shoes are very high in price which is typical of most items made in the U.S. I have owned a Rolex for 35 years and still wear it.
Kia is a very reliable product as are most Asian brands. Just a tidbit of info.

 

There is no such thing. You get paid what the job is worth to the man willing to pay you for it. There is a price point at which I will mow my own lawn before I pay some one else to do. The workers product is his labor. He sells that product for what ever the market will bear, What is fair is that you get paid for the value of your skill set which is a function of how common that skill set is in the market place. There is nothing inefficient about the process. By the way one of the more interesting facets of labor in a free market place is that the value of your labor gets discounted if you are a royal pain in the ass to deal with and up graded if you are likeable and reduce friction in the work place rather than increase it.

 

Neocons are owned by the Chamber of commerce which wants low wages, So you were once a member of the most singularly corrupt union in the History of the United States, interesting.

 

This is a valuable comment as it neatly advertises how ideology is used to ignore economics. Not even orthodox economics, based on the principles of supply and demand, can reject underpayment is the norm. It helps of course that underpayment is also the accepted funding in the empirical research. The only debate is over the various sources of underpayment: from monopsony to the classical economic argument that it reflects bargaining asymmetries.

 

First, how do you measure the $100 an hour? For instance, many labor categories are not measured by retail by hour. In the case of $100 an hour the labor value would be about $35 but depends on other factors which vary by corporation.

 

Nonsense. The law of supply and demand sets wages when you try to work outside those parameters you invariably create distortions in the market and cause either excessive inflation or deflation.

 

No universal answer. Just asking it exposes your ignorance of how businesses work.

 

Didn't read thread. The "proper wage" is the market price for the applicable skill level of the labor involved. No more, no less. It is a matter of individual agency to obtain favorable rates for one's labor in any particular market.

Risk-taking and the availability of financing/capitalization, from an owner or elsewhere, are multiples of value over labor generally, as it should be. In the past, there were hard hurdles to leap in business and capital formation. No longer... unless one lives in a big blue high fee and red tape regime. In my jurisdiction, one can set up a business one hour and be out finding customers the very next. Free information on the net for entrepreneurs is overwhelming in its availability and usefulness.

In a net-age jurisdiction where forming business entities is easy and inexpensive, the hoary old "labor/capital" dichotomy suggesting some form of exploitation of common people blurs to the point of meaninglessness. Inexpensive, easily available credit hastens the demise of that old, discredited chestnut even more. In my jurisdiction, setting up businesses has become so cheap and automated that I do it for free for interested clients. They pay only the modest fees to the state. Formation is instantaneous, and the ascendance of the LLC removes significant red tape and expense.

If a U.S. citizen is unhappy with the rates their labor brings in the market, owning one's own business has never been easier. Moreover, it has never been easier or cheaper to obtain marketable skills. Students of any age have local training available, some free, most cheap, than has ever been available. There truly is no excuse any more for whining about low wages in the U.S.

Want to "show up at a job" and do menial, unskilled, entry-level tasks in the U.S. as an adult? Suffer the consequences of that irrefutable level of sloth.

 

This is one of the dumber things I've ever heard. Are you really going to compare a pair of $70 Sketcher boots to a $400 pair of Solomon or Danner? I guess you can if you have never had to walk 20 miles in a day before.

And I've driven several model Benz and a couple Kias. You really can't even begin to compare the 2.

 

High employment expense and violent union strikes were a major reason why manufacturing companies left the country in the 1970s and 1980s.

 

Under today's anarchocapitalism, you are quite right about the fairness.

But as long as the thread is based upon a hypothetical, we can construct another hypothetical in which the head of a capitalist company is a compassionate and conscientious individual.

Under that scenario, it's quite possible to have fairness in capitalism, and I have worked for a company headed up by a compassionate and conscientious individual, so it has happened.

Unlikely these days, but possible.

 

It all depending on the employee’s experience, their attitude, and performance

 

Employees always get less than their value to the company. Problem is that it seems like they are getting a lot less. This is because while corporate profits are expanding to record levels and the wealthy are getting richer than ever, wage growth is very slow even when the economy is doing great and demand for labor is so high. Part of this is due to the rise of automation and outsourcing and the need for American human labor is declining.

We need balance when it comes to wages. Too much going to employees will hurt businesses and ramp up inflation. Too little will mean most wealth staying at the top, most of the population struggling to afford cost of living expenses, and weak economic growth because consumer demand is limited. I think we are definitely on the too little end of the spectrum.

We can help push things back in the employee's favor. First, we require that all companies show the salaries for the jobs they are posting. This allows better wage competition and for job seekers to better know which jobs pay well and which don't. Companies should also make their pay scales, benefits, and wage increase, bonus, and promotion policies publicly available and all their current salaries publicly available. This will help make current employees more aware of their companies policies and job seekers understand the company a bit better.

We can maybe bring back unions that can represent workers. bBck in the 50s when unions were strongest, wage growth was very strong and inequality was also low. But we need to regulate them better and make sure that they don't protect bad workers, make sure their fees aren't too high, can't donate to political causes, and don't push the wage balance too much to workers and against businesses.

The skills gap is another cause of this imbalance, and the skills gap has reached 6 million jobs even when we are bringing in people outside the country to try to fill this gap. Most of the population don't have the skills to get most of the well paying jobs that are really in demand and have to compete for lower paying jobs that don't need as many workers. We can do this by focusing on practical college courses and in-demand majors in college while making college generally more affordable.

We can try reducing the trade deficit and bringing back jobs to America. Problem is that many economic studies claim that trade has created just as many jobs as it has taken away, and that automation is a much bigger job killer, even though automation itself creates jobs too. Also, unemployment is at a record low so maybe we don't really need anti-outsourcing policies that much.

We can raise taxes on the wealthy. This will discourage employers from giving most of their profits to the wealthy since that will be wasted on taxes. Also, these taxes can be used to make up for the lack of wage growth and help pay for healthcare, retirement and education. However, taxes are often used on things that don't help the working class like welfare for the poor and paying the government bureaucracy.

We can continue the free market approach and lower taxes for businesses and reduce regulations. Its estimated that the regulation burden is higher than ever and reducing economic output by possibly trillions. High taxes and regulations on small businesses are often a big reason they fail and why our market is dominated by big corporations. This will create more businesses and therefore more competition, which will help consumers and competition for labor. It will also give companies more disposable revenue to create new jobs which will increase competition for labor further. However, demand for labor is already high and wage growth is slow. But a going theory is that one reason for this is because productivity growth is slowing, which is a problem fewer regulations and lower business taxes can help with. Lowering taxes on the working class is equivalent to getting a raise and another way to do this.

We can raise 401K matching requirements and teach financial management, investing, and business ownership in high school. This will increase investment by the working class and result in the working class getting a share of the economic growth through their investments. Most of the wealthy have most of their money in investment and is part of the reason they are taking most of the growth. Teaching people business ownership will create more small business and more competition for labor.

 

You are worth what someone is willing to pay you. Simple really.

 

10%

 

Thats like saying that your worth as a human is what other people think it is. No, you are worth is the economic value that you are capable of producing for a company. Companies will try to judge that worth but they can easily be mistaken or due to high unemployment compensate you far below what you are giving them. The free market is a trade where employees produce labor and companies provide compensation. This trade like all trades can be unfair and benefit one party more than the other. So compensation cannot be the objective standard for worth since it can be unfair.

 

Business ownership isn't for everyone is only one specialized skill out of thousands, which like with all specialties, only a few are really cut out for. Even for those who are business-minded and start their business, the vast majority fail.

A lack of compensation is often a problem with the worker, but can also result in economic conditions like outsourcing, the skills gap, automation, and poor wage competition due to lack of wage visibility. We can try fix these problems and get wage growth where it needs to be.

 

You have not given enough information to determine a PROPER wage.

For instance:
What is the unemployment situation in the area in question?
What is the cost of living there?
What skill level is necessary, and what percentage of applicants possess that skill level?
etc...

The PROPER wage is that which is negotiated and agreed upon between the employee and the employer, and that negotiation takes all the factors you raised, and the ones I suggested and more, into account.

Employers must offer wages sufficient to entice people to provide the labor required. Labor, like any other raw material, is a commodity that responds to supply and demand. If there are no qualified burger flippers that can be found, then a burger flipper who delivers $100/hr of value will command nearer to $100/hr in wage. If there are 10,000 people competing for a single burger flipping position, then whomever will do an acceptable job, at the least cost, will end up getting the job. They compete against each other, driving their prices down.