The Liberal Gun Club Forum

this proposal is my only major issue with bernie sanders. not necessarily a deal breaker, but i have my doubts. the minwage i started at, as best i can recall, was $1.35 of $1.65. 45 years ago. barely livable, if that, at the time. i've been out of the job market for 5 or 6 years, and the last increase i recall was a couple of years before that, to $7.25 an hour. i was severely underemployed, and barely scraping by when i dropped out. i think i was making $7.85

here's my issue. wages are half of the inflationary cycle, prices being the other side. the jump to $15 is over 100%. that's jarring, and will have ugly consequences for the people who need relief the most. namely, loss of employment at any wage. bernie has proposed other things like taxpayer-funded "free" healthcare and education, so the min-wage will not continue to be an inescapable trap for life.

i don't have a problem with a minwage scaled to follow inflation (but not to lead it), and think that eliminating corporate welfare and tax code loopholes would do more to help those in need.

so, edumacate me.

I work for minimum wage plus tips. And the tips aren't getting any bigger.

I should at this time point out that I don't operate a cash register or dig ditches for a living. My profession requires training, years of experience to be truly good at, and I deal with problematic personalities and situations as part of my job. Nationwide, mine is a profession that requires licensing that has to be paid for.

I have 20 years on BB sites and I've made the mistake of letting people in too far into my life in the past. So we'll leave it at that.

I need the minimum wage to be at least $12. Prices keep going up, sooner or later gas prices are going to go back up, rent and utilities will increase. I am not unrealistic about this. I actually don't want to see a $22 min wage as some have suggested. But $12-15 is reasonable.

As far as the country goes, more people will be able to pay rent and bills on time. People will be able to get their cars fixed and maintained better. Single parents will be better able to care for their kids. And the urban poor are much more likely to shop locally (within walking distance) than head to Sears or The Gap at the mall.

I think a higher minimum wage is good for the economy. Within reason.

A minimum wage is tyranny.

If an employer wishes to purchase my labor for $2 an hour, and I agree to sell it for $2 an hour, it is not the business of the government.

Wages should be regulated by the free market.

Minimum wage statutes only serve to drive inflation, which consumes the increase in earnings for minimum wage workers.

Increasing the minimum wage drives unemployment by increasing the cost to employers to take on unskilled employees.

Minimum wage statutes are, however, an excellent tool with which to purchase the votes of unskilled, low-information voters.

MayhemVI wrote:As far as the country goes, more people will be able to pay rent and bills on time. People will be able to get their cars fixed and maintained better. Single parents will be better able to care for their kids. And the urban poor are much more likely to shop locally (within walking distance) than head to Sears or The Gap at the mall.

I think a higher minimum wage is good for the economy. Within reason.

That all sounds good, but it doesn't work like that. If the wages of the people who work at your apartment complex go up, your rent goes up. If the wages of the people at the local water treatment plant go up, your water bill goes up. The cost of goods and services purchased for your kids will go up, too.

If a $12-15 minimum wage is a good thing, why not $100?

Why not $1000?

As a society we have decided to skew the market by subsidizing the people on the bottom of the income scale. Food stamps, Medicaid and progressive tax are all subsidies for the poor, but they are government programs that require administration, and you know that it comes with both costs and inefficiencies, especially since they are managed by the government. Minimum wage skews the market by imposing an artificial lower limit on wages, and in this sense it acts as a subsidy for the poor. Whether you let employers pay lower wage then give employees food stamps and tax breaks (out of the employer's tax) or have them pay higher minimum wage, the net effect is the same: we subsidize the poor. However, higher minimum wage has a distinct advantage: it does not require the government to administer the subsidy, so the cost of the policy is negligible. No money is wasted on paperwork, gov't employee salary (and benefit and retirement), misuse and corruption. Minimum wage lets the market figure out the most efficient way to distribute that subsidy, and the market excels at these things.

Unless raising minimum wage is offset by tax reduction, the net effect is an increase in business cost. However, it affects only certain industries that use a lot of least skilled manual labor, like retail and hospitality. Somebody did the calculation, and apparently $15 minimum wage would cost Wal-Mart about a penny per $10 product. That's hardly something that would drive customers away. The rest of the economy already paid higher than minimum wage.

If I have to choose between higher taxes to expand social services or higher minimum wage, I'll choose minimum wage every day of the week and twice on sundays.

Coach wrote:Wages should be regulated by the free market.

With many aspects of the US economy, including employment, "free market" does not exist. Free market requires a balance between competing forces - a company's desire for profit and employee desire for quality of life. Free market also requires a "normal" commodity which describes how that balance behaves. People cannot just quit without suffering personal economic injury. It may also take people months to find a new job while low wage employers can typically replace a person within a couple days and do not suffer any measurable injury. With respect to market conditions, it's more like a monopoly - the employer has all the power. That's why unions were formed, labor laws created, the minimum wage exists, etc. Most employers, especially low wage ones, really don't give a shit about the well being of their employees.

After working 40 to 60 hours per week, if people cannot cover the basics then the wages are BS. The government should not have to subsidize the greed of company owners. If a business cannot afford to pay a fair wage, it is not a viable business.

Note that 66 people, $7.50 per hour and 2000 hours per year is 1 million dollars. That means UT could afford to lower its head football coach salary to a pitiful 1 million per year and give 264 people a $7.50 per hour raise with zero impact to pricing.

It's all driven by the monopolistic greed of the few, or the one.

wifesbane wrote:It's all driven by the monopolistic greed of the few, or the one.

But that greed is very personal.

wifesbane wrote:Note that 66 people, $7.50 per hour and 2000 hours per year is 1 million dollars. That means UT could afford to lower its head football coach salary to a pitiful 1 million per year and give 264 people a $7.50 per hour raise with zero impact to pricing.

I despise that so-called university, but I'll play along.

If the t-sippers lowered Charlie Strong's salary to $1 million, he would probably quit. After all, he was making $4 million at Louisville.

They would then hire a coach who would work for $1 million. In competition with schools who pay their coaches over $5 million, the longhorns would probably be less successful on the field.

As the program becomes less and less successful, demand will drop for their product, causing your 264 people to be laid off.

That the government may choose to regulate the economy, fulfilling its function as manager, does not tyranny make. Claiming management is tyranny is like claiming using base ten is tyranny because government chose that standard.

Minimum wage: Let's look at a business with four workers and an owner. They make a hundred bucks. Twenty gets split among the four at five bucks a piece, and the owner gets 80 bucks.

Each worker has five bucks to spend. He buys the very minimum for his family. He dreams of a single, cold beer. The owner invests in a unicorn ranch in the Cayman Islands.

Second example with the owner and the four workers where they make a hundred bucks. The owner keeps forty, and each worker pockets fifteen. The worker gets his beer. The owner still gets nearly three times what the workers get, so he can save three times longer for the unicorn ranch.

Run it with ten to the workers. Still pretty cool.

Minimum wage puts more money in circulation. Economy runs on cash flow, not on cash in the Caymans, which is where it is now. It will be renamed Galt Islands within ten years, I predict.

Minimum wage supports workers not owners, which is why owners and their minions do not support minimum wage.

CDFingers

Coach wrote:A minimum wage is tyranny.

If an employer wishes to purchase my labor for $2 an hour, and I agree to sell it for $2 an hour, it is not the business of the government.

Wages should be regulated by the free market.

Which sounds really great until almost all the employers get that same idea at the same time, creating a labor market where the odds of getting a job that pays more than $2 an hour are pretty much nil. Then your choice to sell your labor for anything other than $2 an hour is gone. Why should an employer offer more money for the same job that everybody else is paying less for, when your choices are 1) work for what they're willing to pay you or 2) starve? You're literally being paid as little as they can get away with and if they could, they would pay you less. They don't need your loyalty to keep you working for them, they have your desperation and that doesn't cut into their bottom line as much.

TheHunterOfSkulls wrote:Why should an employer offer more money for the same job that everybody else is paying less for, when your choices are 1) work for what they're willing to pay you or 2) starve?

In order to procure higher quality employees. Henry Ford raised wages on his assembly line, in the absence of the UAW and minimum wage laws.
Why?
To get better workers and, thus, outperform the slack-jawed yokels in the competitors' factories.

Good examples of two companies that show why we need to raise minimum wage. WalMart the number one retailer pays barely above minimum wage and encourages employees to get federal/state assistance like Medicaid and SNAP food programs along with housing assistance. So you and I subsidized their employee wages and profits for the Walton Family.

Costco the number two retailer pay a much higher wage than WalMart and offers benefits. As a result the Costco employees don't need to go on assistance programs. They pay into the system through taxes and are thus subsiding WalMart.

Maybe we should have a tax for companies like WalMart that rely on others to subsidize their profits by not paying heir workers a living wage.

The argument if we raise the minimum wage it will cause chaos and rampant inflation with the same world coming to an end is false. Every time we have have raised the minimum wage the economy has grown and business is better.

It is just the greediness and complaining of those worshippers of the misguided teachings of their blessed Saint Ronnie and Saint Ayn that have kept the workers from having a livable minimum wage.

TrueTexan wrote:Every time we have have raised the minimum wage the economy has grown and business is better.

some actual numbers might be persuasive. graphs would be nice. could you point to some?
i admire the diversity of opinion here. and there's been very little broad-brush invective.

TrueTexan wrote:Good examples of two companies that show why we need to raise minimum wage. WalMart the number one retailer pays barely above minimum wage and encourages employees to get federal/state assistance like Medicaid and SNAP food programs along with housing assistance. So you and I subsidized their employee wages and profits for the Walton Family.

Costco the number two retailer pay a much higher wage than WalMart and offers benefits. As a result the Costco employees don't need to go on assistance programs. They pay into the system through taxes and are thus subsiding WalMart.

Maybe we should have a tax for companies like WalMart that rely on others to subsidize their profits by not paying heir workers a living wage.

The argument if we raise the minimum wage it will cause chaos and rampant inflation with the same world coming to an end is false. Every time we have have raised the minimum wage the economy has grown and business is better.

It is just the greediness and complaining of those worshippers of the misguided teachings of their blessed Saint Ronnie and Saint Ayn that have kept the workers from having a livable minimum wage.

Actually its math. If profits are insufficient, the business fails and everybody goes down the tube.
Costco and Walmart are completely different business plans and are really not comparable as their employee usage is completely different. Costco restocks with a forklift, Wally world hand touches each item.
Thought Wally world was raising minimum to $15. And cutting work hours, because of the effect on profit. Classic approach-avoidance problem.

Point-minimum wage is paid to start. As skills go up, pay level goes up. As you become worth more, you get paid more. But more is required of you. Entry level jobs are just that. Minimum skill levels required, minimum productivity required. Get into retail management-learn how to mop a floor and clean a toilet and make more money.

The stores, Wallys and all others, exist to make a profit for the owners. Employees are an expense, unless the the employee is productive. There is a point where it's just not worth it. When I was in retail (Woolworth), we used 10% cost to sell as a target. 10% of sales went to employee payroll. Exceed that, and profits started to slide. Minimum paid to start, increases after a few months if deserved. You want to make more, you have to be worth more. Department heads got more, management got more. If you were making minimum after a year, you were not worth keeping. It's math. Unlike govt, businesses can not raise taxes on all, and raising prices has risks attached.

You have the option of starting your own business. It is difficult and risky and requires a lot of hour of work, but it can be done. Then, you can keep any profit yourself. I say "any", because about 80% of new businesses fail. If profits are present, you can then pay any wage rate you want, realizing that there is a trade off between wages and personal income. Or you pay piece rate or percentage.
10% of income going to wages does not give ownership 90% profit. Maybe 5 or 10%.

Once upon a time is the US, if you wanted to make more money, you got more education, or you worked longer hours, you got another job that paid better, you worked your way up through an organization by working hard and smart. You may have joined a union, but I have seen that fail miserably. But you didn't try to get a raise by claiming you had a right to live well. It never has been a right. The US provided the opportunity. It was your responsibility to take advantage of it.

I live in small town US, and see refugees coming in with nothing. A few years later, the whole family is working, some at menial things like farm labor, slaughter houses, packing plants , but working. Eventually, they start pulling ahead. Then more refugees coming in to follow the first bunch.

What ever we are doing domestically, it isn't working. And forcing artificially high wages onto business probably won't help long term.
http://www.economist.com/news/finance-a ... estination

the effects on jobs growth they see are concentrated among people under 25, and those without a degree. These are vulnerable groups who risk being locked out of the labour force for good.

Although the short-run effects seem mild, large increases could be storing up big problems for the future.

lurker wrote:

TrueTexan wrote:Every time we have have raised the minimum wage the economy has grown and business is better.

some actual numbers might be persuasive. graphs would be nice. could you point to some?
i admire the diversity of opinion here. and there's been very little broad-brush invective.

Federal- Dept of Labor

Myth: Increasing the minimum wage is bad for the economy.
Not true: Since 1938, the federal minimum wage has been increased 22 times. For more than 75 years, real GDP per capita has steadily increased, even when the minimum wage has been raised.

http://www.dol.gov/minwage/mythbuster.htm

It could help the economy. People who make less money tend to spend a bigger portion of it. A 2011 study by the Federal Reserve of Chicago found that for every $1 increase in the minimum wage, the worker's household spends about $2,800 more a year. The Economic Policy Institute said in August that raising the minimum wage to $9.40 by 2014 would increase gross domestic product by $25 billion, and create 100,000 new jobs.

http://www.thewire.com/politics/2013/02 ... age/62106/

Following a minimum wage hike, household income rises on average by about $250 per quarter and spending by roughly $700 per quarter for households with minimum wage workers. Most of the spending response is caused by a small number of households who purchase vehicles. Furthermore, we find that the high spending levels are financed through increases in collateralized debt. Our results are consistent with a model where households can borrow against durables and face costs of adjusting their durables stock.

https://www.chicagofed.org/~/media/publ ... 23-pdf.pdf

I know the libertarians amoung us don't like to look at the history and facts when it comes to something that runs counter to their beliefs, but as a liberal I try to look at such facts I can gather when making a decision. I understand there are those business people that will do things not in the their best interest just because they are vindictive and feel they should be the Master in their house when it comes to running their business. Just as our congress critters will do things not in the best interest of the American people because it was proposed by a Democrat Balck president. We need to increase the minimum wage and help all Americans.

dougb wrote: Costco and Walmart are completely different business plans and are really not comparable as their employee usage is completely different. Costco restocks with a forklift, Wally world hand touches each item.

Then let's look at Apples to Apples and not the Computer company but Costco vs. Sam's Club.

All's not well at Sam's Club, Wal-Mart's (NYSE:WMT) warehouse club chain. It's been struggling to improve same-store sales -- a key metric that measures sales growth barring new openings and closures.

Sam's Club is an integral part of Wal-Mart's business, and the retailer depends on it for growth. In August last year, speaking after a second-quarter report that saw flat comps, Doug McMillon, Wal-Mart's president and CEO, conceded that the club's performance fell short of expectations. Comps barely improved in the following quarter.

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2 ... t-giv.aspx

Costco is building and expanding. Sam's Club is flat. There is more to it than just wages. The business model of WalMart is fading. In this part of Texas (DFWmetro area) WalMart big box stores are not being built in the more affluent areas cause the people don't want them. They have acquired a bad reputation. They are build the little Neighborhood Stores that mainly handle groceries. The staff turnover in my local Wally Neighborhood Store is horrible so they are constantly training new people.

You said you live in a small town. Look at how many thriving businesses have gone under when WalMart moved into town. Where a worker could make a dec not living working for a local store they were not able to make it when they went to work for Walmart after the local business went bust from WalMart undercutting them.

Actually, the minimum wage is propped up by tax money.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconno ... ssistance/

That bastion of socialism, Forbes points out how much money taxpayers are billed for to subsidize Walmart's profits. I've also read that store management helps workers to apply for this process.

I rarely enter Wal Mart. But jeez, I'd be willing to pay a couple pennies more for stuff if they would pay their workers decently.

Same applies for other mega employers.

It's not about small businesses, really.

Coach wrote:A minimum wage is tyranny.

If an employer wishes to purchase my labor for $2 an hour, and I agree to sell it for $2 an hour, it is not the business of the government.

Wages should be regulated by the free market.

Minimum wage statutes only serve to drive inflation, which consumes the increase in earnings for minimum wage workers.

Increasing the minimum wage drives unemployment by increasing the cost to employers to take on unskilled employees.

Minimum wage statutes are, however, an excellent tool with which to purchase the votes of unskilled, low-information voters.

I'd be with you if the average large company CEO didn't make 300 to 400 times their average worker's salary.

As a compromise I'd say that kids who are still under their parent's roof should make five or seven bucks an hour - gives employers a break on people who are just learning how to work, and gives kids a chance at getting a job. But once that kid hits 25 or so the wage should go up to $15/hr. If you don't have the skills to make $15/hr by the time you're 25, then who's fault is that?

Hi Lurker,

Good question, good discussion. The minimum wage came about in part because ideas like Coach's are fantasy. Meaning they don't work very well for workers. The idea of being able to sell your labor for what it's worth can be discarded and ignored. Why? It's been tried, and it was awful. People selling their labor aren't just in competition with themselves, they are in competition with each other. Prices of labor when there is a glut of labor plummets; plummeting wages cause unrest; unrest drives people to do silly things. Economic cycles are also cyclical, and a minimum wage helps to smooth out the rough patches.

The minimum wage is a floor intended to provide people who work that wage to maintain some living above desperation, to keep them from starving, to keep them off welfare rolls, and to keep them from taking wealth from the 1% by force.

Most economists - some grudgingly - accept that a minimum wage is a necessary thing. How much is the trick. Too high, and it hurts labor by causing business to change practices - namely by hiring fewer people. There's also the threat of inflation, although there is debate on how much inflation can really be triggered by the minimum-wage-earning workforce. Too low, and people can't live on it.

The reason it moves in such a herky-jerky fashion is that it's a political hot potato. It really ought to be indexed to inflation, but to do that you've got to agree on a number. Even economists can't do that, let alone politicians. So there's fighting about it, and nothing gets done. Hence, if you are working minimum wage, you'll lose to inflation year after year after year.

As for Bernie Sanders, there are many economists here who agree with a $15 minimum wage:

http://www.budget.senate.gov/democratic ... nimum-wage

Personally, I'd go with an economists' take over a politician's. But economists can and do disagree. Are you a supply-sider or a demand-sider? I don't begrudge business owner's profit, but I'll fall on the side of Labor every time. When business owners are starving and shutting down due to high labor costs, I'll reconsider. I'll keep my eye out for that happening.

As for graphs and numbers...beware statistics: know where it came from and who it came from. There is also an argument to make that a minimum wage in New York should be different than that of Missoula. But states can make up their own wages rules: California, for example, has a minimum wage of $9.00/hour now, moving to $10/hour on January 1.

WalMart is the largest private employer in the U.S. and is the largest in twenty-five states.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/largest-e ... 40236.html

[,url]http://www.businessinsider.com/16-walmart-facts?op=1[/url]

Of the twenty-five states gues how many are GOP strongholds.

Interesting enough, of the non Wally employee controlled states in most of them the biggest employer was ether health care or education.

Coach wrote:

TheHunterOfSkulls wrote:Why should an employer offer more money for the same job that everybody else is paying less for, when your choices are 1) work for what they're willing to pay you or 2) starve?

In order to procure higher quality employees. Henry Ford raised wages on his assembly line, in the absence of the UAW and minimum wage laws.
Why?
To get better workers and, thus, outperform the slack-jawed yokels in the competitors' factories.

That works for some jobs, not others. Some jobs approach commodity-grade, where increased skill would work a person out of the job. For unskilled workers, or for those jobs where too many workers are chasing too few jobs, there is downward pressure on wages. In a system such as yours, wages would get pushed into the basement, causing disruption in the labor market as each worker would sell him or herself lower and lower just to maintain a job. That sort of dog-eat-dog cycle is good for no-one.

A lot of pseudo-intellectual, Wall Street Journal answers here. None of them address the actual people trying to get by. I higher minimum wage means less debt, less default. It means more money cycling through inner-city economies. It means more job openings because less people need three jobs to support their families. It means more money being spent at sandwich shops and auto parts stores....and Walmart. A higher minimum wage is better for people, so it's better for the economy. And anyone who thinks we were better off before there was a minimum wage, spend less time here and more time with a history book.

If you put "Liberal" in the name, expect a Liberal to show up, eventually. I look at the world through the individual, not the bar graph; through the family, not the statistic. And for those who think the money and the power and the decision of how much to pay workers should remain solely in the hands of the banks and big business, please explain 2008 to me.

workinstiff wrote:Actually, the minimum wage is propped up by tax money.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconno ... ssistance/

That bastion of socialism, Forbes points out how much money taxpayers are billed for to subsidize Walmart's profits. I've also read that store management helps workers to apply for this process.

I rarely enter Wal Mart. But jeez, I'd be willing to pay a couple pennies more for stuff if they would pay their workers decently.

Same applies for other mega employers.

It's not about small businesses, really.

but it is about small business unless somehow you can make them exempt,a wage increase of that size would close a lot of doors or drive the price of goods up so high it would be a wash anyhow.
lets use my wifes employer for example,it's a farm,starting wages are 10 bucks an hour with insurance,dental and optical free for employee after 90 days,add their spouses and its 25 dollars a week for the insurances,,thats a pretty damn fair wage and benefit package for a low level no skill employee.
my wife is a unit manager and makes 14.75 and it will go up as she has only been a manger for 6 months but she is excelling,,sooo
if they have to start off all new hires and give everyone on the farm,63 employees,a raise who here thinks you will not see that at the supermarket when you buy groceries?,,,,oh wait,we can buy it cheaper from south of the border and then 63 people will be unemplyed,,I'm not saying we don't need an increase in the minimum wage but one that large will have consequences,,,mostly bad,,JMHO

lurker wrote:

TrueTexan wrote:Every time we have have raised the minimum wage the economy has grown and business is better.

some actual numbers might be persuasive. graphs would be nice. could you point to some?
i admire the diversity of opinion here. and there's been very little broad-brush invective.

Numbers.

Here is an article from that bastion of liberalism, Bloomberg:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... -too-high-

I can safely say that Bloomberg bears Right, but note that the discussion is about how much minimum wage, not whether minimum wage. They also make a good argument that it depends on region. Some states are going to be more progressive when addressing this for their own workers, others not. Regions matter, and that's one reason a federal standard is tricky.

Mother Jones has a good short blurb about how the Earned Income Credit works with the minimum wage to help lower earners:

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2 ... e-and-eitc

This is two years old, but it speaks to support for a $10.10 federal standard:

http://www.epi.org/minimum-wage-statement/

For some reading on the light side, there are some good research papers on the subject here: (Bias alert: I like Cal)

http://irle.berkeley.edu/research/minimumwage/

Vodkin wrote:

workinstiff wrote:Actually, the minimum wage is propped up by tax money.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconno ... ssistance/

That bastion of socialism, Forbes points out how much money taxpayers are billed for to subsidize Walmart's profits. I've also read that store management helps workers to apply for this process.

I rarely enter Wal Mart. But jeez, I'd be willing to pay a couple pennies more for stuff if they would pay their workers decently.

Same applies for other mega employers.

It's not about small businesses, really.

but it is about small business unless somehow you can make them exempt,a wage increase of that size would close a lot of doors or drive the price of goods up so high it would be a wash anyhow.
lets use my wifes employer for example,it's a farm,starting wages are 10 bucks an hour with insurance,dental and optical free for employee after 90 days,add their spouses and its 25 dollars a week for the insurances,,thats a pretty damn fair wage and benefit package for a low level no skill employee.
my wife is a unit manager and makes 14.75 and it will go up as she has only been a manger for 6 months but she is excelling,,sooo
if they have to start off all new hires and give everyone on the farm,63 employees,a raise who here thinks you will not see that at the supermarket when you buy groceries?,,,,oh wait,we can buy it cheaper from south of the border and then 63 people will be unemplyed,,I'm not saying we don't need an increase in the minimum wage but one that large will have consequences,,,mostly bad,,JMHO

So I go to WalMart and look at their produce and country of origin Mexico, Chile, etc. I look at meat origin Brazil, Mexico. Just saw in the news where the meat industry is trying to stop having to show country of origin. These products really help your wife.

I try to by local or at least US grown foodstuff when available. I have family, I don't tal to them, that are cattle ranchers here in Texas and the import of beef has hurt them some.