For every item that gets imported to the USA, there needs to be a $1 minimum wage attached.
Is income inequality unjust, and if so, where is the injustice?
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GasBandit
Staff member
Or having to make an actual payroll on a budget - something most people who advocate for higher minimum wages don't.
They do work. But if everybody has to be paid $10 an hour, several of them will be fired and the others will have to pick up the slack. And hey, they're getting paid more for it. Good for them I guess. Sucks for the unemployed wondering why nobody will hire them.
Necronic
Staff member
So you pass the costs on, no one said you couldn't. That was my point with the previous statement, you wouldn't fire them, because you need them.
What I said was that the additional costs are pretty insignificant nationally
You pass on your costs, customers pass that on, it's an insignificant blip[DOUBLEPOST=1391640355,1391640033][/DOUBLEPOST]Wait....my math is wrong
Lol[DOUBLEPOST=1391640677][/DOUBLEPOST]Ok, whoops, forgot a few zeros in there. It would cost 660 BILLION, not million.
So it's more like a 16% increase.....that's significant.
What I said was that the additional costs are pretty insignificant nationally
You pass on your costs, customers pass that on, it's an insignificant blip[DOUBLEPOST=1391640355,1391640033][/DOUBLEPOST]Wait....my math is wrong
Lol[DOUBLEPOST=1391640677][/DOUBLEPOST]Ok, whoops, forgot a few zeros in there. It would cost 660 BILLION, not million.
So it's more like a 16% increase.....that's significant.
Necronic
Staff member
My horrendous miscalculations aside, I'm curious how significant the salaries of those 5 employees is. What % would you have to increase your budget to increase their wages to 10$/hr
GasBandit
Staff member
Unfortunately, I'm not privy to our exact budget numbers, but these are all people who have been sternly warned they were putting in too much hours and that the budget couldn't handle it, so that if they persisted they'd be let go. I do know they're all currently at minimum wage.
When you raise the minimum wage from $8 to $10, you don't end up paying your ten employees $10 an hour, and charge your customers $20 more per hour. You get rid of the two bottom performing employees, and tell your other 8 that they better pick up the slack so they're worth the increase, or you'll fire them and hire someone else who is worth $10 an hour. Then you start reevaluating your bottom line and change your business so you can reduce costs, such as using more automation.
Minimum wage increases will benefit hard workers, and ruin below average workers.
Minimum wage increases will benefit hard workers, and ruin below average workers.
Aren't you the one always harping on the fact that anecdotal evidence is irrelevant?
GasBandit
Staff member
In this case, it's the closest thing this thread has come to in the way of real world numbers.[DOUBLEPOST=1391645039,1391644993][/DOUBLEPOST]
Pretty much this.
GasBandit
Staff member
... because... we... don't want to ruin the 50% of the population who is below average?
As I've said before, we're quickly approaching the point where it's no longer necessary or practical to have all available workers working. It's really time to start talking about giving a basic standard of living to everyone and making "work" extra income to fuel the economy.
Yes. I've mentioned before about how altering the minimum wage effectively just "redefines the zero." That is, in order to get ahead, you need to earn more than everyone else (or spend a lot less, I suppose), and if everyone else gets a bump (and your wage delta goes from $2/hr to $0/hr) then you lose your economic advantage.
Well, actually you don't, since the people who get fired to bring the payroll expenses back under the budgeted cap will have to sell their belongings to make ends meet until they can get another job, and since you're still employed, you can scoop up some primo deals on Craigslist. It happens all the time.
This is why I'm more for the idea of something like my previously-mentioned subsidy. Both methods "work" (achieve the goal of putting more money into people's pockets), the difference is just who is responsible. By hiking the minimum wage, the onus of pulling us out of recession is put upon employers to administer/fund/etc., rather than the government itself. Hey, kids! Let's all give a big Welcome Back to Mr. Unfunded Mandate!
I would much rather see "redefining the zero" become the social pressure to do more than just get by. Your social status would not be determined by how much more than $0 you make, rather it would be determined by how much more than $x.00, where X is the amount of money necessary to meet your needs (and have x be the "new zero").
--Patrick
See, the Western industrial world is quickly approaching this.
The Western services industry actually needs more workers, not less.
Not to mention the Developing world needs a metric fuckton of extra workers in the agricultural industry.
Honestly? All the unemployed should be retrained as either farmers and shipped off to Africa and Asia, or, if they're capable, turned into nurses and caretakers for children/the elderly/the handicapped.
I know it's technically impossible and inhumane and all that, but it'd make sense economically.
Unfortunately, while we're all aging way too much and having children survive that would've died in their youth or in the womb 100 years or so ago, and we're automating more and more, and everything's becoming more efficient, we need less workers on actual economic growth. We need a heck of a lot more in "non-productive" sectors (care, education, but also all of those "non-productive" jobs in office buildings - cleaners, maintenance, secretary, reception,...).
Our economic model isn't quite fit to handle that, though: those non-productive people in an office (or factory) are OK and their wages are paid by their boss, but who's paying nurses in retirement homes? Handicapped childrens' caretakers?
I'm liberal as all hell, but the way our technology and society is advancing, we'd have to change into some sort of Star Trekian neocommunist state to keep it all going; which is not going to happen.
GasBandit
Staff member
When you're at a point where it would take three months of saving 100% of your disposable income to be able to afford a PS4*, your viewpoint on this changes a bit.
Also, news stories like this one all but confirming our descent into Plutocracy do not exactly inspire confidence in our economy, especially for those of us not privileged enough to be in that top 5%.
--Patrick
*Note: I do not actually desire a PS4, nor do I consider it a necessity. I chose it only because it is a familiar object to many. I could have just as easily said, "critical car repairs."
That idea would seem to me to be a massive under-utilisation of a society's resources. Why not encourage job creation by making conducting business and hiring people a little easier for the companies instead?
GasBandit
Staff member
Unemployment rate in Wisconsin when Scott Walker took office: 7.7%
Today: 6.2%
It's not Texas, but it's something.
Yeah, about that "Recession ended in 2009" bit. Does it count as having ended if the recovery didn't even start to get traction until 2011?
Unemployment was already on the decline before he even took office. He's just taking credit for the slow recovery that's happening in the region. If you look at the unemployment rates of Minnesota and Illinois, the unemployment rates are almost completely parallel from the point of the recession, and the three states have wildly different leadership.
Yet another example of where it's more important to consider the median instead of the mean. The recession "ended" because overall spending went up, etc., but "overall" spending only went up because a small segment of the population can disproportionately skew the numbers so drastically.
--Patrick
GasBandit
Staff member
... it's still early for me. Does that mean you also don't consider summer 2009 the end of the recession, or you do?
Ending a recession is easy, just have some tick upwards in the economy. But the hard times take much longer to get over.
Personally, I won't consider the recession "over" until banks and other lenders start showing a willingness to do some speculative lending again, rather than requiring the ol' "prove you don't need a loan in order to get a loan" rigamarole (so the answer to your question is "I don't."). But the people who watch the trends declared the recession technically "over" because they saw sustained growth in business. That's all well and good for businesses (and for the super-rich), but it continues to not trickle down to the lower classes. What I meant by my median/mean comment above is that the fortunes of this tiny group of wealthy people affect the overall economy so much that you can no longer trust these numbers to actually reflect the overall economy. Normally when you take statistics you throw out the high and low numbers so they don't skew the results, except that apparently these "recession is over-W00T!" folks are forgetting to do that (probably because they want to believe it so badly, or because it sells papers/clicks).
--Patrick
--Patrick
GasBandit
Staff member
I think it has more to do with pushing a political agenda. After all, remember in 2005 when the media was years into it's Bush-bashing froth, that a steady 5.35% national unemployment rate was trumpeted as an indicator that our economy was collapsing. Now we're supposed to just get used to 8+% being the new normal, apparently.
I had the same reaction.
Here's the real way to gauge the true value of your country's minimum wage -
Belgian minimum wage is almost double that of Germany, and beer is probably the last consumption article not rated a "luxury" and thus, not as heavily taxed. Both countries at 0.4 hours for a beer is nonsense.
Thinking a bit further, not taking into account they look at bars, minimum wage in Belgium leaves approximately €6.8 after all taxes. The cheapest kinds of beer (discount brands) sell for €3.43 for a crate. That's half an hour at minimum wage for a crate of beer.
Going back to bars, I know plenty of places where I can get a 25cl (so half of what they're looking at) for €1.10 - though obviously these are the "cheap" bars. That's €2.20 for a 0.5l. That's still rather 0.3 than 0.4.
Luxembourg, on the other hand, has the exact same minimum wage as Belgium, and far higher tax tariffs on beer.
Hey, I just heard about this on the radio (a portion of it was part of this show about money), and I thought I would post it here.
Now, some of you are going to think this is a crock of shit, and others are probably going to be more sympathetic.
And I am almost willing to bet that which group you fall into could be predetermined by looking at how financially well-off you are.
--Patrick
Now, some of you are going to think this is a crock of shit, and others are probably going to be more sympathetic.
And I am almost willing to bet that which group you fall into could be predetermined by looking at how financially well-off you are.
--Patrick
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