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

Politicians and the infernal stupidity of the leftist mind is why it is happening. The only provable outcome of the war on poverty and ever increasing minimum wage laws is a ten fold increase in the poverty line for a family of four.

 

When telephones were first introduced, the first only practical way of switching (conneying) a call was a woman, who would ask you who you wanted to talk to, she was sitting in front of lots of plugs, and would physically plug a cord to connecy your call. Eventually the phone company invented electro mechanical switches which used the old dial telephones, and gradually that transitioned to digital with push buttons and tones, and now we have voice recognician systems that relace the company switchboard operator.

At every stage, human workers have been replaced by machines. And, realistically, there no wage level for human operators that would have done anything but delay this process. The same is true in almost every circumstance where machines compete with human labor. Sooner or later humans cannot compete at even the lowest wages levels. This is currently the reality for soft drink machines... and that same reality will likely experience the same inexorable spread that has seen machines replace switchboard operators

 

What would your solution be?

I’ll be facing the same situation in my line of work, in the coming decade if not sooner.

 

Mere valid use of economics.

Crikey, you really don't understand supply and demand. The right wing attack on the minimum wage is that it enforces a wage which exceeds the market clearing rate. It does not create an upward sloping labour supply curve. That's a ridiculous claim.

You've gone off on one. An upward sloping labour curve refer to monopsony. Textbook examples would refer to the company town. However, we know that the same result is delivered through labour market frictions. It eliminates the notion of the 'market wage' and a wage distribution is created through various degrees of underpayment. This isn't under debate. Its basic economics. You just don't know it.

 

Gary, What do you think would be a wage that would cause a corporation to rip out their automated phone systems and replace them with human operators? It is a facetious question, but there is a point... the point being that the cost of automation relentlessly falls, while its capability relentlessly rises. If you hire proressively lower wage employees.... the quality will fall. So... the inexorable reality is that if jobs can be automated, they will be automated. This is not a problem emerging from feckless government labor regulation

 

Sorry to say, there is no easy solution. It is like asking how truck drivers can save their jobs against the long term encroachment of self driving trucks... eventually drivers cannot compete

For you, it is probably good to have a plan B now that you know what the future will look like. Trying to figure a way to fight the inevitable is a losng proposition

 

If someone feels that they are being underpaid by their current employer, then they should find an employer who pays them what they wish. Alternatively, don't work for an employer at all and just work for yourself.

 

I'd say it's even a little worse than that as our ability to automate is growing at an increasing rate.

I think part of the problem is that we're looking at education as a thing that gets completed, while I think the reality is that some percent of a person's effort needs to be focused on preparing for the next job one hopes to be able to land.

An employee can not afford be on an automobile assembly line up to the point where that skill just isn't needed anymore.

We need a real vocational training approach as well as more focus on getting those with ability and desire through college.

And, it's going to have to include continuing education - because change in our job market is accelerating.

 

There have always been corporations. There are over 18 million business in the US most of them are incorporated in one way or the other. The overwhelming majority have less that 4 employees 5/6 of then less than fifty employees. The problem is not now nor has it ever been corporations. The problem is ow and has been at least since WWII that their political masters began to think better of themselves than could ever be justified. They act like Plato's postulated philosopher only with ten times the chutzpah ten times the ego and 1/10 the competence.

 

You're making my point for me, in the long run raising minimum wage doesn't fix anything, it merely hastens the day when there are no entry level jobs. And you are right to the extent that we can't really roll back 70 to 80 years of feckless leftist arrogance, stupidity, and runaway dogooderism. it is far to late in the game now. Please note the high button shoe factories are now gone as well what happened to all those people? Same thing happened to the telephone operators, they learned to do something else. They certainly didn't all starve to death because minimum wage wasn't fifteen dollars an hour.

 

You do love to repeat the rejected. We know that minimum wages increase wages and employment. Empirical evidence confirms it. Economic theory also shows how, without the minimum wage, we are necessarily increasing coercion (as, in job search models, we know that the equilibrium unemployment rate falls).

Learn some economics!

 

How does making it illegal to hire low-wage workers increase employment? They're now out of a job.

 

I'll tell you exactly.

If I bill an client at $100, employees typically make about a third of that or $33 per hour before payroll taxes and benefits. Half of the remaining $66 goes to over head, and the remaining $33 goes to profit.

That's how we operate, and we are a professional services firm.

 

If they don't get a living wage, then they live off my taxes.

More importantly, suggesting it is legit for people to live in squalor because of how good that is for corporations is just plain ridiculous.

Our system has shown that it will take care of those at the top, but has nothing for those at the bottom. Our system is predicated on employees being a resource to be paid for at the lowest possible rate - like a company would buy any other resource.

The result is that we actually have to take action, such as minimum wage, graduated taxes, affordable housing, healthcare, educational opportunity, etc. - stuff corporations do not care about if there is any chance of it getting in the way of maximizing profit.

 

Well you are wrong. Minimum wages passed of $15 actually oppresses employment and hours given to those employed. This has been proven in Seattle and DC in the usual minimum wage jobs.

 

Yep, my calculations based on overhead and profit came to $35 but it is burdened wage which includes overhead, then profit. That is how it is sold to customers. The goal is the profit but for many companies, that profit is often missed with slippage due to two things, inaccurate estimates and performance so the usual profit is much less.

 

Nope. Check the meta-analysis that are available. Unsurprisingly, given dynamic monopsony effects, the disemployment tales are rejected.

 

Blah, blah, blah. Tell that to those that have been let go or lost hours because of the arbitrary minimum wages implemented.

Where AOC worked is shut down now because of the minimum wage hike.

 

This sums up the right wing position. No understanding of supply and demand, no understanding of the empirical evidence. Just post-truth rant.

 

Well your complete lack of understanding what the impacts are is standard for the left.

 

The fair cost is whatever a buyer is willing to pay.

 

I understand supply and demand. You don't. I understand the empirical evidence. You don't.

Perhaps you can refer me to a meta-analysis that supports your position? Perhaps you can refer me to an economic source that successfully rejects dynamic monopsony?

We know you can't.

 

Well the empirical evidence points to suppression of lower wage jobs as has been proven in Seattle compared to surrounding counties that did not implement the minimum wage. You probably mistake the increase employment thinking it applies to these jobs when in fact they have been suppressed compared to overall employment.

 

Left wing position: Make it illegal to hire low-wage workers.

It sounds kind of like a crappy thing to do to the most vulnerable.

 

I can see how Trump got elected! Back to reality. Here's an example of how you refer to the empirical evidence: "Try Doucouliagos and Stanley (2009, Publication Selection Bias in Minimum Wage Research? A Meta-Regression Analysis, British Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 47, no. 2, pp. 406-428 ). This includes over 1000 employment elasticity estimates and concludes the results "corroborate [Card and Krueger's] overall finding of an insignificant employment effect". Also try the latest review by Wolfson and Belman. This finds that, if only latter studies are used (27 studies since 2000), positive employment effects are found."

This is an ignorant response. I've referred to the empirical evidence and therefore, by definition, hypothesis test of the impact of the minimum wage.