[ARCHIVED THREAD] - $22 minimum wage (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 3/19/2013 9:45:18 AM EDT
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http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/Decoder-Wire/2013/0319/22-minimum-wage-Could-it-pass-Congress
Here’s her logic: If you took the minimum wage from 1960 and indexed it for workers’ gains in productivity, it would be $22 an hour today. And why shouldn’t employees reap the benefits of their own improved labor practices?, she asked at the hearing, rhetorically. Today, the actual minimum wage is $7.25 an hour.
“What happened to the other $14.75? It sure didn’t go to the worker,” Senator Warren said. 
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Quoted:
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/Decoder-Wire/2013/0319/22-minimum-wage-Could-it-pass-Congress Here’s her logic: If you took the minimum wage from 1960 and indexed it for workers’ gains in productivity, it would be $22 an hour today. And why shouldn’t employees reap the benefits of their own improved labor practices?, she asked at the hearing, rhetorically. Today, the actual minimum wage is $7.25 an hour.
“What happened to the other $14.75? It sure didn’t go to the worker,” Senator Warren said. this may be a good jumping point to challenge federal wage laws as they are patently unconstitutional since I see nothing in article 1 section 8 that covers that power. |
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Quoted:
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/Decoder-Wire/2013/0319/22-minimum-wage-Could-it-pass-Congress Here’s her logic: If you took the minimum wage from 1960 and indexed it for workers’ gains in productivity, it would be $22 an hour today. And why shouldn’t employees reap the benefits of their own improved labor practices?, she asked at the hearing, rhetorically. Today, the actual minimum wage is $7.25 an hour.
“What happened to the other $14.75? It sure didn’t go to the worker,” Senator Warren said. 1950s CEO to worker income ratio was 1 to 40 and now it is 1 to 400. Min. Wage would have to be $44 dollars an. Hour to have kept up. |
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Quoted:
That $22/hr wouldn't buy a worker squat, seeing as how prices on EVERYTHING would go up accordingly. Of course, Congress is too stupid to realize that. Edit: Beat by sitdwnandhngon. agreed, If they gave everyone in the country $1,000,000 then the price of milk would be $1,000,003.89(just as an example) |
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If they do that then guys like me would soon start charging upwards of $100/hr just for T&M work. They don't realize that it won't give anyone more money, it will just cause a cycle of everything costing more. "I'll take a number one with a coke." "Ok that will be $52.50, please pull around." |
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That $22/hr wouldn't buy a worker squat, seeing as how prices on EVERYTHING would go up accordingly and about 87% of workers would be out of a job in less than a week. Of course, Congress is too stupid to realize that. Edit: Beat by sitdwnandhngon. FIFY |
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Screw it at this point lets go full steam ahead in full retard mode and make minimum wage $22 an hour. When people get laid off due to their company not being able to afford them the government will be right there to pick these people up and let the FSA grow even more.
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This will go a long way towards solving the "obesity crisis", by closing 90% of the fast food restaurants in the US. All that will be left is independent operator-owned hot dag stands. If $22 were to be min wage, I would think that FF places would be now paying contractors to run their fryers and cooktops while a kiosk would take your order. |
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Hmmm...,
An additional $15 per hour, per employee, not counting taxes. An extra $600 per week per employee X 20 employees = $12,000 per week $12,000 x 52 weeks = $624,000 per year Add in health insurance costs, it's cheaper to layoff and put in more automation, and still raise prices and cause inflation. |
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Quoted:
I am the extreme minority here, as per VA regulations, I can only make minimum wage, and nothing more. The only way I would see a raise is for the feds to raise min wage. But you woudn't see a 'raise'. All you would see is the buying power of $1 be lower. Your cost of living would increase and you would likely see no change in your 'extra' money. All raising min wage does is hurt those that make above min wage since now they're lifestyle goes down. You would see less people going to college, less working toward career advancement, less innovators, less small business, an increase in welfare recipiants. In order for a business to remain viable you need to earn more per hour then you're paying your workers. The truth is 90% of min wage workers aren't even really worth min wage. They only get paid that much because of law. In a true free market economy min wage wouldn't exist. |
It would have to be re-named the $10 snack menu. |
Quoted:
That $22/hr wouldn't buy a worker squat, seeing as how prices on EVERYTHING would go up accordingly. Of course, Congress is too stupid to realize that. Edit: Beat by sitdwnandhngon. Min wage was around $3.25 when I was a kid and with moderate inflation (and lately its anything but moderate) Min wage would be at least $20.00. I'm sure that will infuriate many here. |
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Quoted: They will pay an engineer a few hundred grand to design and implement a machine that makes hamburgers, fries, and fills drinks ordered by the kiosk. They then pay one guy to run the entire store and keep the machines loaded. Minimum wages depress employment. Higher minimum wages depress it more. Quoted: This will go a long way towards solving the "obesity crisis", by closing 90% of the fast food restaurants in the US. All that will be left is independent operator-owned hot dag stands. If $22 were to be min wage, I would think that FF places would be now paying contractors to run their fryers and cooktops while a kiosk would take your order. |
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Quoted:
I am the extreme minority here, as per VA regulations, I can only make minimum wage, and nothing more. The only way I would see a raise is for the feds to raise min wage. But you woudn't see a 'raise'. All you would see is the buying power of $1 be lower. Your cost of living would increase and you would likely see no change in your 'extra' money. All raising min wage does is hurt those that make above min wage since now they're lifestyle goes down. You would see less people going to college, less working toward career advancement, less innovators, less small business, an increase in welfare recipiants. In order for a business to remain viable you need to earn more per hour then you're paying your workers. The truth is 90% of min wage workers aren't even really worth min wage. They only get paid that much because of law. In a true free market economy min wage wouldn't exist. you are 100% correct. |
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And why shouldn’t employees reap the benefits of their own improved labor practices?,
This is a false premise. Anyone who has been around for even a couple of decades is well aware of the decline in minimum wage earner's productivity. It isn't even debatable. I believe it all started in the 90's when anyone who could fog a mirror was hired on site for more than they were worth. I saw this coming back then. I knew as soon as things got bad, people would be whining for more more more, while offering less less less. |
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I've run the numbers on ARFCOM before.
But basically, if you get federal welfare, you're allowed to earn up to $1000/mo. tax-free for spending money. See, people on welfare still work; that's how they pay for TVs and booze and Escalades. The stereotype that people on welfare are lazy is absolutely false. But they have no incentive to work harder to get paid more. If you earn more than that $1k/mo (which is 30 hours a week at minimum wage; or earning $11/hr at the obamacare cap of 26hr/wk for no benefits - which doesn't matter because you get federal bennies), you start to lose government benefits. You don't break even (with income + welfare bennies) until you're earning $14/hr and working a full 40hr/wk. So everyone with an earning potential less than $14/hr, or who can't get at least 40hr of work a week, gets screwed. The person on welfare with a part-time minimum wage job is better off, in fact. That's a $30k/yr income, by the way, which represents about the 25th percentile of the workforce. So, five percent of the country just gets welfare, and then lives better than the next twenty percent above them. There's such a huge income gap that they need to jump to make it worth bucking welfare that it's not worth it for them to do it. It's not that companies are being greedy and keeping the value of what their employees are making, it's that the government has literally removed the incentive for anyone at the low end to do better for themselves. You want to talk about "the man keeping you down," well, this is what it looks like. You subsidize poverty in such a way as to ensure that nobody ever wants to climb out. It's not that they CAN'T, it's that all the hard work required won't pay off until 10 or more years down the road. Who wants to expend that kind of effort to be self-sufficient in the future when you can be moderately comfortable on welfare right now? The other thing is this... let's say a company DOES make $22/hr from an employee thay only pay $7.25/hr. That's a 3.0x overhead rate. If you assume 10% profit (which is very reasonable, depending on the industry, as that has to cover all the organizational and programmatic risk), and assuming a 2.1x overhead multiplier is needed for taxes, facility costs, overhead personnel, etc. you're left with $5.25/hr of wiggle room. That's all you have left to incentivise the employee, pay for extra benefits above what the overhead rate covers, bonuses, reinvestments into the company, etc. Maybe the employee does generate $22/hr but if you think the employee can be paid 100% of what they generate, you clearly don't know shit about business. I thought she was an econ professor? And she doesn't know about this shit? |
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Quoted: The market wouldn't allow everything to go up proportionally to the new $22/hr min cost of labor due to competition. However a LOT of people would find themselves unemployed. "either make 22/hr or collect unemp bennies... either way ill buy your vote!!!" |
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The numbers don't lie. The purchasing power of the lower & middle classes have degraded catastrophically. Minimum wage in 1960 was effectively $45K today? I would not have guessed that, but it doesn't exactly surprise me. $45K is a decent middle class income in much of the country, and if you've got a two-earner household with 2x $45K wage earners you're well into the high side of the middle class in many locales. Additionally, it's not like a lot of workers in 1960 were making minimum wage - most people made more than that, even for "menial" jobs. Over that same period, the rich have gotten richer - to a tremendous degree. The wealth concentration in the US over the last 50 years or so is ridiculous. I am generally a laissez-faire/free market kind of guy but there's no denying that in a truly free market the poor get fucked. See pre-Bolshevik Russian capitalism for the textbook example, though the last 40 years in the US is gaining traction as the example of choice. You know how you prevent the commies from taking over? You treat your workers well. Real well. |
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Quoted: I've run the numbers on ARFCOM before. But basically, if you get federal welfare, you're allowed to earn up to $1000/mo. tax-free for spending money. See, people on welfare still work; that's how they pay for TVs and booze and Escalades. The stereotype that people on welfare are lazy is absolutely false. But they have no incentive to work harder to get paid more. If you earn more than that $1k/mo (which is 30 hours a week at minimum wage; or earning $11/hr at the obamacare cap of 26hr/wk for no benefits - which doesn't matter because you get federal bennies), you start to lose government benefits. You don't break even (with income + welfare bennies) until you're earning $14/hr and working a full 40hr/wk. So everyone with an earning potential less than $14/hr, or who can't get at least 40hr of work a week, gets screwed. The person on welfare with a part-time minimum wage job is better off, in fact. That's a $30k/yr income, by the way, which represents about the 25th percentile of the workforce. So, five percent of the country just gets welfare, and then lives better than the next twenty percent above them. There's such a huge income gap that they need to jump to make it worth bucking welfare that it's not worth it for them to do it. It's not that companies are being greedy and keeping the value of what their employees are making, it's that the government has literally removed the incentive for anyone at the low end to do better for themselves. You want to talk about "the man keeping you down," well, this is what it looks like. You subsidize poverty in such a way as to ensure that nobody ever wants to climb out. It's not that they CAN'T, it's that all the hard work required won't pay off until 10 or more years down the road. Who wants to expend that kind of effort to be self-sufficient in the future when you can be moderately comfortable on welfare right now? The other thing is this... let's say a company DOES make $22/hr from an employee thay only pay $7.25/hr. That's a 3.0x overhead rate. If you assume 10% profit (which is very reasonable, depending on the industry, as that has to cover all the organizational and programmatic risk), and assuming a 2.1x overhead multiplier is needed for taxes, facility costs, overhead personnel, etc. you're left with $5.25/hr of wiggle room. That's all you have left to incentivise the employee, pay for extra benefits above what the overhead rate covers, bonuses, reinvestments into the company, etc. Maybe the employee does generate $22/hr but if you think the employee can be paid 100% of what they generate, you clearly don't know shit about business. I thought she was an econ professor? And she doesn't know about this shit? Also, this. Why a single mom is better off on welfare  |
