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Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/18 22:45:39


Post by: Psienesis


Beginning in April, the city of Seattle begins its transition to a minimum wage of $15 per hour. Businesses have seven years to come into compliance with that over a series of staged pay-bumps.

Recently, the Seattle Weekly published an article, which has circulated through some conservative circles as proof that raising the minimum wage is damaging to business.

http://www.seattlemag.com/article/why-are-so-many-seattle-restaurants-closing-lately

However, the Seattle Times reached out to the owners of the businesses reportedly closing over the minimum wage hike, and found that, in every case, the increase of the minimum wage had absolutely nothing to do with the closures (and, in one case, the business was sold to a friend of the owner who plans to reopen it under a new name).

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/truth-needle-is-15-wage-dooming-seattle-restaurants-owners-say-no/

A livable wage hurts nobodies' interests, unless your interests are in keeping poor people on slave wages (in which case, feth you.).


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/18 22:59:24


Post by: BlaxicanX


Well, Oakland CA (where I live) is already on that train- our minimum wage went up to $12.20/hour in February, and will continue to rise yearly until it hits $15/hour.

The immediate consequence of this is that every restaurant in the area has jacked up their prices, which is annoying, but what can you say I guess.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/18 23:04:43


Post by: Grey Templar


The damage will take a while to be apparent.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/18 23:05:44


Post by: Psienesis


Studies by 3 different organizations (2 academic, 1 business) in this area indicate that the average Seattle restaurant could "absorb" the cost of the wage increase with no more than a 5% increase in price.

So the $5 cheeseburger would then cost $5.25. That isn't a significant price bump (especially when one considers the ripple-effect of an increase in the minimum wage).


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/18 23:06:19


Post by: djones520


 BlaxicanX wrote:
Well, Oakland CA (where I live) is already on that train- our minimum wage went up to $12.20/hour in February, and will continue to rise yearly until it hits $15/hour.

The immediate consequence of this is that every restaurant in the area has jacked up their prices, which is annoying, but what can you say I guess.


And this should surprise no one. It's not like the huge increase in money that now has to be paid in wages just comes from no where.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/18 23:09:13


Post by: Ensis Ferrae


 BlaxicanX wrote:

The immediate consequence of this is that every restaurant in the area has jacked up their prices, which is annoying, but what can you say I guess.



See, living in the Puget Sound area (Im a bit south of Seattle, but prices are just as ridiculous), I can say that basically every restaurant has already jacked up their prices, especially fast food, to a point where my family won't/can't really go out.

One thing I've personally seen, from friends on my rugby club... Is depending on where you work/live this (minimum wage hike) can be harmful immediately. For instance, one of the towns outside of the SEATAC airport raised it's minimum wage to $15. This increase did not affect a single airport employee as they were a part of Seattle, and not this other place. As a result in the increase on the price of goods, most of these guys are really hurting financially, nearly to the point of being homeless.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/18 23:17:26


Post by: Dreadclaw69


 BlaxicanX wrote:
The immediate consequence of this is that every restaurant in the area has jacked up their prices, which is annoying, but what can you say I guess.

Show of hands for all those surprised.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/18 23:21:19


Post by: Swan-of-War


So... no more tipping?


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/18 23:26:47


Post by: Dreadclaw69


 Swan-of-War wrote:
So... no more tipping?

Only if you want shamed on Twitter.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/18 23:28:32


Post by: Breotan


 Grey Templar wrote:
The damage will take a while to be apparent.

The damage is also masked a little due to the more affluent nature of Seattle. Lots of tech companies down there like in Silicon Valley mean people can afford (or are used to) higher prices that stores require for this wage. Also, the wage isn't $15 yet so the impact isn't as severe as an overnight pay raise would have been.



Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/18 23:43:06


Post by: Chongara


 Breotan wrote:
 Grey Templar wrote:
The damage will take a while to be apparent.

Also, the wage isn't $15 yet so the impact isn't as severe as an overnight pay raise would have been.



What people fail to understand that is that minimum wage labor costs constitutes 100% of a businesses expenses. This is why raising the minimum wage will always lead to a direct increase in prices in exact proportion to the increase in the minimum wage. It's plainly obvious it's impossible to make any sort of positive change with an increased minimum wage since the only effect will be to diminish the buying power of those making above minimum wage, as the buying power of their dollars are decreased. It does nothing meaningful for those making minimum wage because the direct increase in the price of goods and services causes them to break even, no better than they were with the old minimum wage.

If there were other factors to the cost of goods like fuel, non-minimum wage labor, land, taxes, raw materials, rent, equipment, equipment maintenance, marketing, shrinkage, insurance, licensing, energy, R&D, transportation, security or human error that wouldn't be the case. In such a fantasy universe minimum wage increases might grant those making it increased buying power, while not affecting the buying power of those above them by a large margin because the cost of goods & services would only go up relative to the moderate to minor portion of their cost made up by minimum wage labor.

However we do not in such a fantasy land, so a minimum wage increase will always be a net loss for everyone.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/18 23:44:25


Post by: whembly


 Chongara wrote:
 Breotan wrote:
 Grey Templar wrote:
The damage will take a while to be apparent.

Also, the wage isn't $15 yet so the impact isn't as severe as an overnight pay raise would have been.



What people fail to understand that is that minimum wage labor costs constitutes 100% of a businesses expenses.

wat?


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/18 23:45:46


Post by: Grey Templar


Not 100%, but it is a significant portion of the costs of those businesses.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/18 23:46:54


Post by: Chongara


 whembly wrote:
 Chongara wrote:
 Breotan wrote:
 Grey Templar wrote:
The damage will take a while to be apparent.

Also, the wage isn't $15 yet so the impact isn't as severe as an overnight pay raise would have been.



What people fail to understand that is that minimum wage labor costs constitutes 100% of a businesses expenses.

wat?


Don't question common sense. Who are you, Obama?


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/18 23:49:22


Post by: BlaxicanX


 Psienesis wrote:
Studies by 3 different organizations (2 academic, 1 business) in this area indicate that the average Seattle restaurant could "absorb" the cost of the wage increase with no more than a 5% increase in price.

So the $5 cheeseburger would then cost $5.25. That isn't a significant price bump (especially when one considers the ripple-effect of an increase in the minimum wage).
They can, but the problem is that they won't.

In a lot of places here, prices have risen by 50 cents to a dollar. Restaurant owners aren't raising their prices because they're in danger of going bankrupt due to the wage increase, they're raising their prices because the wage increase provides an excellent excuse to raise prices and make more money.

That said, there's more to the situation [here] then the wage increase for why prices are rising. In general, the SF bay area is already one of the most expensive places to live in in the country, with the tech-boom it's just getting worse. Feels like every computer programmer and data analyst in the world is flocking here.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/18 23:50:12


Post by: Crazy_Carnifex


 Chongara wrote:
 Breotan wrote:
 Grey Templar wrote:
The damage will take a while to be apparent.

Also, the wage isn't $15 yet so the impact isn't as severe as an overnight pay raise would have been.



What people fail to understand that is that minimum wage labor costs constitutes 100% of a businesses expenses. This is why raising the minimum wage will always lead to a direct increase in prices in exact proportion to the increase in the minimum wage. It's plainly obvious it's impossible to make any sort of positive change with an increased minimum wage since the only effect will be to diminish the buying power of those making above minimum wage, as the buying power of their dollars are decreased. It does nothing meaningful for those making minimum wage because the direct increase in the price of goods and services causes them to break even, no better than they were with the old minimum wage.

If there were other factors to the cost of goods like fuel, non-minimum wage labor, land, taxes, raw materials, rent, equipment, equipment maintenance, marketing, shrinkage, insurance, licensing, energy, R&D, transportation, security or human error that wouldn't be the case. In such a fantasy universe minimum wage increases might grant those making it increased buying power, while not affecting the buying power of those above them by a large margin because the cost of goods & services would only go up relative to the moderate to minor portion of their cost made up by minimum wage labor.

However we do not in such a fantasy land, so a minimum wage increase will always be a net loss for everyone.


Wait, how does overhead not affect costs? I'm confused.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/18 23:50:21


Post by: Yodhrin


If a business can't pay its employees a livable wage and remain viable, then it was never viable, merely perpetuating its own existence through exploitation.

EDIT: I suspect Chongara might have been going for a bit of the old "sar-casm", alas he's fallen victim to Poe's Law, because neoliberals really do spout off crap like that often enough it's hard to tell when folk are satirising them.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/18 23:51:53


Post by: whembly


 Chongara wrote:
 whembly wrote:
 Chongara wrote:
 Breotan wrote:
 Grey Templar wrote:
The damage will take a while to be apparent.

Also, the wage isn't $15 yet so the impact isn't as severe as an overnight pay raise would have been.



What people fail to understand that is that minimum wage labor costs constitutes 100% of a businesses expenses.

wat?


Don't question common sense. Who are you, Obama?



You're being awfully simplistic, that's all.

Min Wage Labor costing 100% of business expenses leaves nothing for overhead, supplies, manager wages, etc...


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/18 23:53:22


Post by: Psienesis


 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
 BlaxicanX wrote:

The immediate consequence of this is that every restaurant in the area has jacked up their prices, which is annoying, but what can you say I guess.



See, living in the Puget Sound area (Im a bit south of Seattle, but prices are just as ridiculous), I can say that basically every restaurant has already jacked up their prices, especially fast food, to a point where my family won't/can't really go out.

One thing I've personally seen, from friends on my rugby club... Is depending on where you work/live this (minimum wage hike) can be harmful immediately. For instance, one of the towns outside of the SEATAC airport raised it's minimum wage to $15. This increase did not affect a single airport employee as they were a part of Seattle, and not this other place. As a result in the increase on the price of goods, most of these guys are really hurting financially, nearly to the point of being homeless.


That town was Seatac (the city of) and not sure how they are arguing that the airport is part of the city of Seattle when it's surrounded by the city of Seatac. Something isn't adding up there.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 00:14:11


Post by: Breotan


 Psienesis wrote:
 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
 BlaxicanX wrote:

The immediate consequence of this is that every restaurant in the area has jacked up their prices, which is annoying, but what can you say I guess.

See, living in the Puget Sound area (Im a bit south of Seattle, but prices are just as ridiculous), I can say that basically every restaurant has already jacked up their prices, especially fast food, to a point where my family won't/can't really go out.

One thing I've personally seen, from friends on my rugby club... Is depending on where you work/live this (minimum wage hike) can be harmful immediately. For instance, one of the towns outside of the SEATAC airport raised it's minimum wage to $15. This increase did not affect a single airport employee as they were a part of Seattle, and not this other place. As a result in the increase on the price of goods, most of these guys are really hurting financially, nearly to the point of being homeless.

That town was Seatac (the city of) and not sure how they are arguing that the airport is part of the city of Seattle when it's surrounded by the city of Seatac. Something isn't adding up there.

I believe it has to do with jurisdiction. Port of Seattle is administered by King County council. Seatac is a city with a separate city council.



Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 00:49:50


Post by: KalashnikovMarine


So here's a thought. Assuming all the restaurants are raising their prices excessively to support the wage, and customers can't afford to dine out, even with the minimum wage increase, supply and demand suggests they will have to lower their prices, which won't be close to putting them out of business given a 5% price increase is all that is apparently needed to cover a $15 minimum wage.

Based on that, it'll be a mess for a couple years then steady out.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 00:53:01


Post by: hotsauceman1


I got into this debate. I argued that, if you want to lift people out of poverty, make job training more available to the next generation. Because poverty is generational often.
I then argued that if I was a landowner Who makes his living of renting, I should be able to jack up my prices. After all, it's only fair right?


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 00:53:27


Post by: HiveFleetPlastic


 BlaxicanX wrote:
Well, Oakland CA (where I live) is already on that train- our minimum wage went up to $12.20/hour in February, and will continue to rise yearly until it hits $15/hour.

The immediate consequence of this is that every restaurant in the area has jacked up their prices, which is annoying, but what can you say I guess.

You might also say the immediate consequence is that people on minimum wage are earning something slightly more livable, which would have been the point of the law, right..?


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 00:53:53


Post by: streamdragon


Wait, do servers in Seattle even make minimum wage? I thought wait staff didn't even make minimum wage to begin with, hence tips.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 00:55:11


Post by: Grey Templar


 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
So here's a thought. Assuming all the restaurants are raising their prices excessively to support the wage, and customers can't afford to dine out, even with the minimum wage increase, supply and demand suggests they will have to lower their prices, which won't be close to putting them out of business given a 5% price increase is all that is apparently needed to cover a $15 minimum wage.

Based on that, it'll be a mess for a couple years then steady out.


The problem is once things steady out people will be right back where they were.

Raising minimum wage helps nobody and just causes a period of upheaval.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 01:00:05


Post by: HiveFleetPlastic


 Grey Templar wrote:
 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
So here's a thought. Assuming all the restaurants are raising their prices excessively to support the wage, and customers can't afford to dine out, even with the minimum wage increase, supply and demand suggests they will have to lower their prices, which won't be close to putting them out of business given a 5% price increase is all that is apparently needed to cover a $15 minimum wage.

Based on that, it'll be a mess for a couple years then steady out.


The problem is once things steady out people will be right back where they were.

Raising minimum wage helps nobody and just causes a period of upheaval.

In a universe where literally the entire cost of running a business is paying people on minimum wage, that would be true.*


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 01:06:56


Post by: VorpalBunny74


Will this raise the cost of GW products in Seattle a la Australia?


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 01:20:37


Post by: Ensis Ferrae


 Psienesis wrote:

That town was Seatac (the city of) and not sure how they are arguing that the airport is part of the city of Seattle when it's surrounded by the city of Seatac. Something isn't adding up there.


Seatac itself (the airport; Runways, terminals, baggage claim, etc) falls under the Port of Seattle, and not under control of the City of Seatac. This issue was also visible (though to a lesser degree) in the town/city of Burien just to the West of the airport.

So basically, all the employees working "inside the fence" of the Seatac Airport fell under Port of Seattle employment, and so when min. wage was raised, it was not raised for them. This meant that all the people being paid by Seattle, but living in Seatac or Burien, etc. were being a bit left behind when the cost of goods went up. This either forced people to demand more pay, move (which is expensive), or find another job somewhere else that would allow them to remain where they were and still survive.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 01:24:39


Post by: JimOnMars


 Grey Templar wrote:
The problem is once things steady out people will be right back where they were.

Raising minimum wage helps nobody and just causes a period of upheaval.


This is only true if 2 conditions are met: 100% of a business's expenses are directly tied to minimum wage, and all places raise wages simultaneously. Neither of these are true. Gas prices may rise in Seattle, but not all of the price of gas is directly tied to wages and people can always drive a little away from town and buy cheaper gas there. The manufacturing and shipping cost of all that cheap junk in Walmart? Not affected.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 01:29:24


Post by: Ensis Ferrae


 JimOnMars wrote:
Gas prices may rise in Seattle, but not all of the price of gas is directly tied to wages and people can always drive a little away from town and buy cheaper gas there.


Dude gas prices here are fething ridiculous. Everywhere else I've lived in the US, fuel prices were fairly predictable around a community. That is very much not the case where I'm at. Take for instance, last month I used to only buy fuel by my school because it was the cheapest around Tacoma, Puyallup, Lakewood, etc. (I go to school in Lakewood); and out by my house it was pretty expensive (comparatively). Now, just yesterday when I filled up, that is completely flipped; Lakewood is now the expensive stuff, and out by where I live is the "cheap" stuff


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 01:36:48


Post by: JimOnMars


 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Dude gas prices here are fething ridiculous. Everywhere else I've lived in the US, fuel prices were fairly predictable around a community. That is very much not the case where I'm at. Take for instance, last month I used to only buy fuel by my school because it was the cheapest around Tacoma, Puyallup, Lakewood, etc. (I go to school in Lakewood); and out by my house it was pretty expensive (comparatively). Now, just yesterday when I filled up, that is completely flipped; Lakewood is now the expensive stuff, and out by where I live is the "cheap" stuff


Yep. Prices are not 100% related to minimum wage, so an increase in minimum wage will increase buying power. Not the full amount of the increase, but some.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 02:15:22


Post by: KiloFiX


I am very much a conservative but in this case, I do believe in a higher minimum wage.

And I do believe that most businesses can absorb it.

But "can" and "will" are two different things. And the reality is, whether to keep their current margins or to use the increased min wage as an excuse, businesses ARE going to raise prices.

Those that are for raising the minimum wage should expect and accept this. Else, they're mired in idealism or they are on a slippery path to legislate everything.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 02:25:57


Post by: Chongara


 HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
 Grey Templar wrote:
 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
So here's a thought. Assuming all the restaurants are raising their prices excessively to support the wage, and customers can't afford to dine out, even with the minimum wage increase, supply and demand suggests they will have to lower their prices, which won't be close to putting them out of business given a 5% price increase is all that is apparently needed to cover a $15 minimum wage.

Based on that, it'll be a mess for a couple years then steady out.


The problem is once things steady out people will be right back where they were.

Raising minimum wage helps nobody and just causes a period of upheaval.

In a universe where literally the entire cost of running a business is paying people on minimum wage, that would be true.*


As I already outlined in my-obvious-to-even-a-slowed-child common sense post above, that is our universe. Stop with the insane left wing propaganda.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 02:28:54


Post by: AnomanderRake


Minimum wages have nothing at all to do with income equality and everything to do with artificially creating inflation. You hike wages, people hike prices to compensate, you end up back where you started only the numbers are larger.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 02:31:29


Post by: djones520


 AnomanderRake wrote:
Minimum wages have nothing at all to do with income equality and everything to do with artificially creating inflation. You hike wages, people hike prices to compensate, you end up back where you started only the numbers are larger.


And in the mean time, everyone else who was already making that level of pay gets shafted.

Anecdotal example. A relative of mine is taking a job where she is managing a pet kennel. A large one, capable of holding a couple hundred animals. Her pay (not including other benefits) will be starting at $15 an hour. She will be running a 1.5 million dollar business at that pay. This type of minimum wage hike? She'd have to pay the folks who do nothing more then clean the poop out of the stalls and wash towels the exact same.

So, someone whose responsible for managing payroll, scheduling, handling advertising, etc, will be drawing in the same dollar per hour that sprays gak out of a stall for 4 hours a day.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 02:32:53


Post by: AnomanderRake


(The Peoples' Republic of Seattle has much bigger and dumber problems; claiming imposing the minimum wage on franchises as if they were big businesses isn't discriminatory because they didn't mean for it to be, denying Whole Foods of all businesses a license to open a new store with no actual legal justification because they want union votes/money...)


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 02:39:33


Post by: BlaxicanX


 HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
 BlaxicanX wrote:
Well, Oakland CA (where I live) is already on that train- our minimum wage went up to $12.20/hour in February, and will continue to rise yearly until it hits $15/hour.

The immediate consequence of this is that every restaurant in the area has jacked up their prices, which is annoying, but what can you say I guess.

You might also say the immediate consequence is that people on minimum wage are earning something slightly more livable, which would have been the point of the law, right..?
Not really no, as $12.20 an hour is nowhere near enough to make ends meet in this city, where the average rent for a one bedroom apartment is $1600 a month. And Oakland is the "cheap alternative" to San Francisco (which is why we're in this clusterfeth, everyone's been priced out of SF), bear in mind.

It's kind of a "eh, better then nothing I guess" type situation.



Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 02:59:23


Post by: Chongara


 djones520 wrote:
 AnomanderRake wrote:
Minimum wages have nothing at all to do with income equality and everything to do with artificially creating inflation. You hike wages, people hike prices to compensate, you end up back where you started only the numbers are larger.


And in the mean time, everyone else who was already making that level of pay gets shafted.

Anecdotal example. A relative of mine is taking a job where she is managing a pet kennel. A large one, capable of holding a couple hundred animals. Her pay (not including other benefits) will be starting at $15 an hour. She will be running a 1.5 million dollar business at that pay. This type of minimum wage hike? She'd have to pay the folks who do nothing more then clean the poop out of the stalls and wash towels the exact same.

So, someone whose responsible for managing payroll, scheduling, handling advertising, etc, will be drawing in the same dollar per hour that sprays gak out of a stall for 4 hours a day.


Exactly and if those stall sprayers wanna complain about luxuries like Food ( no you are not entitled) maybe they should be more pragmatic. Instead of wasting all that gak by spraying it down the drain they can spray it on to their plates. Thats called "Recycling" those lefties love that. If it was good enough for the bitches that ate it first it oughtta be good enough for a bunch of idiots that only bitch instead of getting a real job.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 03:06:58


Post by: KalashnikovMarine


 djones520 wrote:
 AnomanderRake wrote:
Minimum wages have nothing at all to do with income equality and everything to do with artificially creating inflation. You hike wages, people hike prices to compensate, you end up back where you started only the numbers are larger.


And in the mean time, everyone else who was already making that level of pay gets shafted.

Anecdotal example. A relative of mine is taking a job where she is managing a pet kennel. A large one, capable of holding a couple hundred animals. Her pay (not including other benefits) will be starting at $15 an hour. She will be running a 1.5 million dollar business at that pay. This type of minimum wage hike? She'd have to pay the folks who do nothing more then clean the poop out of the stalls and wash towels the exact same.

So, someone whose responsible for managing payroll, scheduling, handling advertising, etc, will be drawing in the same dollar per hour that sprays gak out of a stall for 4 hours a day.


Sounds like your relative isn't getting paid enough.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 03:11:28


Post by: DarkLink


 Psienesis wrote:
Beginning in April, the city of Seattle begins its transition to a minimum wage of $15 per hour. Businesses have seven years to come into compliance with that over a series of staged pay-bumps.

Recently, the Seattle Weekly published an article, which has circulated through some conservative circles as proof that raising the minimum wage is damaging to business.

http://www.seattlemag.com/article/why-are-so-many-seattle-restaurants-closing-lately

However, the Seattle Times reached out to the owners of the businesses reportedly closing over the minimum wage hike, and found that, in every case, the increase of the minimum wage had absolutely nothing to do with the closures (and, in one case, the business was sold to a friend of the owner who plans to reopen it under a new name).

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/truth-needle-is-15-wage-dooming-seattle-restaurants-owners-say-no/

A livable wage hurts nobodies' interests, unless your interests are in keeping poor people on slave wages (in which case, feth you.).


That it isn't proof that $15 minimum wage is a bad idea does not mean it's proof that it's a good thing. That's fairly basic statistics. When you can't draw conclusions due to a lack of data, you can't draw conclusions due to a lack of data. That cuts both ways.

Regardless, adjusted for inflation minimum wage used to be equivalent to about $15.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 05:01:22


Post by: Ouze


 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
 djones520 wrote:
her pay (not including other benefits) will be starting at $15 an hour. She will be running a 1.5 million dollar business at that pay. This type of minimum wage hike? She'd have to pay the folks who do nothing more then clean the poop out of the stalls and wash towels the exact same.


Sounds like your relative isn't getting paid enough.


Yeah, I feel like Djones heard that anecdote and maybe took away the wrong conclusion. Sounds like a lot of work and responsibility for a lousy $30k a year.

Reminds me of a joke:

Spoiler:
My boss bought a new sports car and parked it on his space while I was walking by him. I congratulated him to his newest purchase. He said: "Well, if you work hard, set yourself goals, do overtime and work with determination, I will be able to buy an even better one next year."



Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 05:39:54


Post by: sebster


 AnomanderRake wrote:
Minimum wages have nothing at all to do with income equality and everything to do with artificially creating inflation. You hike wages, people hike prices to compensate, you end up back where you started only the numbers are larger.


That’s completely wrong. The impact on inflation will only be proportionate to the part of the economy made up minimum wage. That is, in an economy where the only input in to production is minimum wage work, and everyone earns minimum wage, then the result will be as you explain.

But in an economy where there are other factors, such as rent, raw materials, and people who earn more than the minimum, then the flow on inflation by definition has to be less than the increase in minimum wage, meaning an overall improvement in the living standards of people earning the minimum wage.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 djones520 wrote:
So, someone whose responsible for managing payroll, scheduling, handling advertising, etc, will be drawing in the same dollar per hour that sprays gak out of a stall for 4 hours a day.


I’m going to go out on a limb and say the problem there is with someone getting $15 an hour for managing payroll, scheduling, handling advertising for a $1.5m business


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 06:04:44


Post by: Co'tor Shas


I'm all for an increase in the minimum wage, but I personly think $15 might be a tad too much. I say raise in too $10, and have it automatically raise in relation to inflation.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 06:18:45


Post by: Bookwrack


 Co'tor Shas wrote:
I'm all for an increase in the minimum wage, but I personly think $15 might be a tad too much. I say raise in too $10, and have it automatically raise in relation to inflation.


If that'd been done from the start, minimum wage would be something close to $20 an hour today.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 06:22:19


Post by: BlaxicanX


^ I was going to way that. If minimum wage matched the rate of inflation it'd be like 21 bucks an hour.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 06:47:34


Post by: hotsauceman1


I think 10$ is perfect for what min wage is meant for. Teenagers and college students working for spending money.
It is not meant to support a 40 yr.
You want a job, go train for one. a guard card is 200 in california, and depending on the establishment, you could get 600 a night


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 07:23:37


Post by: Peregrine


 djones520 wrote:
And in the mean time, everyone else who was already making that level of pay gets shafted.

Anecdotal example. A relative of mine is taking a job where she is managing a pet kennel. A large one, capable of holding a couple hundred animals. Her pay (not including other benefits) will be starting at $15 an hour. She will be running a 1.5 million dollar business at that pay. This type of minimum wage hike? She'd have to pay the folks who do nothing more then clean the poop out of the stalls and wash towels the exact same.

So, someone whose responsible for managing payroll, scheduling, handling advertising, etc, will be drawing in the same dollar per hour that sprays gak out of a stall for 4 hours a day.


I fail to see what the problem is in this situation. The conservative ideology that dominates opposition to minimum wage laws is that the free market is always correct, and concepts like what people "deserve" to make are irrelevant.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I think 10$ is perfect for what min wage is meant for. Teenagers and college students working for spending money.
It is not meant to support a 40 yr.
You want a job, go train for one. a guard card is 200 in california, and depending on the establishment, you could get 600 a night


It must be nice living in a fantasy world where everyone can get a job that pays better than minimum wage with a trivial amount of effort. Too bad that isn't the one we actually live in, where a lot of people don't have the same lives as middle-class college students.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 07:27:40


Post by: Hordini


 Peregrine wrote:
 djones520 wrote:
And in the mean time, everyone else who was already making that level of pay gets shafted.

Anecdotal example. A relative of mine is taking a job where she is managing a pet kennel. A large one, capable of holding a couple hundred animals. Her pay (not including other benefits) will be starting at $15 an hour. She will be running a 1.5 million dollar business at that pay. This type of minimum wage hike? She'd have to pay the folks who do nothing more then clean the poop out of the stalls and wash towels the exact same.

So, someone whose responsible for managing payroll, scheduling, handling advertising, etc, will be drawing in the same dollar per hour that sprays gak out of a stall for 4 hours a day.


I fail to see what the problem is in this situation. The conservative ideology that dominates opposition to minimum wage laws is that the free market is always correct, and concepts like what people "deserve" to make are irrelevant.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I think 10$ is perfect for what min wage is meant for. Teenagers and college students working for spending money.
It is not meant to support a 40 yr.
You want a job, go train for one. a guard card is 200 in california, and depending on the establishment, you could get 600 a night


It must be nice living in a fantasy world where everyone can get a job that pays better than minimum wage with a trivial amount of effort. Too bad that isn't the one we actually live in, where a lot of people don't have the same lives as middle-class college students.


You don't need to be a middle-class college student to get a restaurant job that pays more than minimum wage.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 07:52:36


Post by: KalashnikovMarine


I can't get a minimum wage job in most cases and I'm a 25 year old with an extensive work history. Albeit I can't stand for long periods if at all.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 08:05:56


Post by: sebster


 Co'tor Shas wrote:
I'm all for an increase in the minimum wage, but I personly think $15 might be a tad too much. I say raise in too $10, and have it automatically raise in relation to inflation.


$15 is high, and if this was across the whole US and put in place tomorrow it'd be disastrous for employment. But it's important to note this is Seattle, with a much higher cost of living, and the increase is set to come in over several years. For businesses under 500 staff this increase will only be in effect come 2021.

But I agree that for the whole of the US something close to $10, linked to average wage increases (slightly higher than inflation) would be pretty solid, I think.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Bookwrack wrote:
If that'd been done from the start, minimum wage would be something close to $20 an hour today.


True, but it's worth pointing out that at the high point of minimum wage in the late 60s, it was a very different economic environment. The US was so overwhelmingly dominant in the world economy that it could absorb such a high minimum wage and maintain competitive advantage. That is not true today.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I think 10$ is perfect for what min wage is meant for. Teenagers and college students working for spending money.
It is not meant to support a 40 yr.


You don't work with the economy you want to have, you work with the economy you have. Minimum wage may notionally be for teenagers and college students, but a very large number of adults are working minimum wage jobs, because that's all they can get.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 09:25:55


Post by: Psienesis


 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I think 10$ is perfect for what min wage is meant for. Teenagers and college students working for spending money.
It is not meant to support a 40 yr.
You want a job, go train for one. a guard card is 200 in california, and depending on the establishment, you could get 600 a night


Except that's a universe that is not the one we live in. Security here makes minimum wage unless you work security for a place that is a union shop (like Virginia Mason hospital). Nearly half the people being hired to minimum wage jobs are over the age of 21, and of that half, something like a third have families.

$10 is, in the Seattle area, in no way, shape, or form a livable wage.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 09:27:47


Post by: Yodhrin


 Hordini wrote:
 Peregrine wrote:
 djones520 wrote:
And in the mean time, everyone else who was already making that level of pay gets shafted.

Anecdotal example. A relative of mine is taking a job where she is managing a pet kennel. A large one, capable of holding a couple hundred animals. Her pay (not including other benefits) will be starting at $15 an hour. She will be running a 1.5 million dollar business at that pay. This type of minimum wage hike? She'd have to pay the folks who do nothing more then clean the poop out of the stalls and wash towels the exact same.

So, someone whose responsible for managing payroll, scheduling, handling advertising, etc, will be drawing in the same dollar per hour that sprays gak out of a stall for 4 hours a day.


I fail to see what the problem is in this situation. The conservative ideology that dominates opposition to minimum wage laws is that the free market is always correct, and concepts like what people "deserve" to make are irrelevant.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I think 10$ is perfect for what min wage is meant for. Teenagers and college students working for spending money.
It is not meant to support a 40 yr.
You want a job, go train for one. a guard card is 200 in california, and depending on the establishment, you could get 600 a night


It must be nice living in a fantasy world where everyone can get a job that pays better than minimum wage with a trivial amount of effort. Too bad that isn't the one we actually live in, where a lot of people don't have the same lives as middle-class college students.


You don't need to be a middle-class college student to get a restaurant job that pays more than minimum wage.


Aye, really? Because when I was that sort of age and in need of that sort of work, I spent nearly two years killing myself as a part-time minimum-wage KP, and there was never even a hint I'd ever see a pay raise or be allowed to move across into "easier" jobs front-of-house(I use quotes because I'm well aware of how much bollocks front-line customer service staff face, it's less grunt work but perhaps even more emotionally draining), or even be offered any training. When I finally left that job and went looking for another, do you know what other employers thought my almost-two-years as a KP made me capable of? Being a minimum-wage KP. This was in the pre-recession UK mind, which was supposedly a land of milk & honey that we're currently forcing the poor and disabled into suicide ostensibly to claw our way back to.

The vast, vast majority of employers who use minimum-wage service and manual labour aren't interested in training you, promoting you, or paying more than the minimum they can legally get away with. It all very well to babble on about bootstrappery and so forth, but the simple reality is capitalism is a system that requires losers; it is mathematically impossible most people to "win". The reason people deserve unemployment benefits is that the neoliberal capitalist economic system cannot function without a large pool of unemployed people to keep the labour market fluid, if every single person magically found a job they could live on tomorrow and nobody was ever without a job offer again, capitalism would collapse. The reason people deserve a legally mandated minimum that is a *living* wage is the same; neoliberal capitalism requires an underclass of poorly paid unskilled and semi-skilled labour, and is simply incapable of providing everybody with rewards that match their effort and merit - it is statistically certain that at every level of employment there will be people who busted a gut to get ahead and for whatever reason outwith their control didn't - if we insist on maintaining the fiction that neoliberal capitalism actually works, the least we can do as a society is make sure the people who must necessarily and by design fail to achieve their potential don't have to struggle to afford basic essentials.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 09:33:12


Post by: Psienesis


 Hordini wrote:
 Peregrine wrote:
 djones520 wrote:
And in the mean time, everyone else who was already making that level of pay gets shafted.

Anecdotal example. A relative of mine is taking a job where she is managing a pet kennel. A large one, capable of holding a couple hundred animals. Her pay (not including other benefits) will be starting at $15 an hour. She will be running a 1.5 million dollar business at that pay. This type of minimum wage hike? She'd have to pay the folks who do nothing more then clean the poop out of the stalls and wash towels the exact same.

So, someone whose responsible for managing payroll, scheduling, handling advertising, etc, will be drawing in the same dollar per hour that sprays gak out of a stall for 4 hours a day.


I fail to see what the problem is in this situation. The conservative ideology that dominates opposition to minimum wage laws is that the free market is always correct, and concepts like what people "deserve" to make are irrelevant.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I think 10$ is perfect for what min wage is meant for. Teenagers and college students working for spending money.
It is not meant to support a 40 yr.
You want a job, go train for one. a guard card is 200 in california, and depending on the establishment, you could get 600 a night


It must be nice living in a fantasy world where everyone can get a job that pays better than minimum wage with a trivial amount of effort. Too bad that isn't the one we actually live in, where a lot of people don't have the same lives as middle-class college students.


You don't need to be a middle-class college student to get a restaurant job that pays more than minimum wage.


Considering that wait-staff is allowed, by law, to be paid less than minimum wage (the difference to be made up by tips) and that chefs in this area are often paid $12\hr (for having 5 years of culinary arts school and 10 years experience)... yeah, actually, that's pretty damned difficult.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 10:42:47


Post by: Frazzled


I look forward to automation finally making a decent hamburger. Will the robot that takes my order be as incomprehensible over the speaker?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

That said, there's more to the situation [here] then the wage increase for why prices are rising. In general, the SF bay area is already one of the most expensive places to live in in the country, with the tech-boom it's just getting worse. Feels like every computer programmer and data analyst in the world is flocking here.


Austin is now bigger than San Fran.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
So here's a thought. Assuming all the restaurants are raising their prices excessively to support the wage, and customers can't afford to dine out, even with the minimum wage increase, supply and demand suggests they will have to lower their prices, which won't be close to putting them out of business given a 5% price increase is all that is apparently needed to cover a $15 minimum wage.

Based on that, it'll be a mess for a couple years then steady out.


Or they go out of business. You can only lower your prices to the level of your expenses, assuming the same volume.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 11:01:34


Post by: Pete Melvin


Its just under £7 here in the UK, so thats around $10 an hour. I honestly don't know how people live on that little money.
We get shafted for tax on everything, petrol prices are still a rip despite coming down a fair bit. Renting is ridiculous too. The monthly rent isnt too bad in the scheme of things (outside London anyway) but its all the the bits that the letting agencies screw you for that add up.
Doesn't help that our government are corrupt as all get out and everything is essentially run by the banks anyway.

That said, I've worked bloody hard to get where I am on what I consider to be a decent enough wage (ie enough so that I can have a holiday once a year and not worry about having takeout a couple of times a month, Im not rich by any stretch, I drive a Fiesta for gods sake) and it does feth me off that minimum wage is going up but due to my company "not doing as well as they thought" (ie the director has to stick with his 2014 Jag) there wont be a company wide pay increase this year.
Uh...I cant complain too much because I probably WILL get a promotion linked pay rise come June...

TL;DR: Minimum wage should be enough that people don't feel crushed/have to rely on state hand outs but no so much that people dont feel the need to drag themselves up.

Or something. Its not an easy one for a general leftist like me.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 11:08:35


Post by: BlaxicanX


 Frazzled wrote:
Austin is now bigger than San Fran.
So I've heard. You guys have my condolences. lol


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Frazzled wrote:
Austin is now bigger than San Fran.
So I've heard. You guys have my condolences. lol


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 12:02:39


Post by: Lord Scythican


Small businesses will suffer some from this, that's a given. I don't see this hurting $1.07 Billion dollar profit corporations like McDonald's though...


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 13:16:15


Post by: djones520


 Ouze wrote:
 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
 djones520 wrote:
her pay (not including other benefits) will be starting at $15 an hour. She will be running a 1.5 million dollar business at that pay. This type of minimum wage hike? She'd have to pay the folks who do nothing more then clean the poop out of the stalls and wash towels the exact same.


Sounds like your relative isn't getting paid enough.


Yeah, I feel like Djones heard that anecdote and maybe took away the wrong conclusion. Sounds like a lot of work and responsibility for a lousy $30k a year.

Reminds me of a joke:

Spoiler:
My boss bought a new sports car and parked it on his space while I was walking by him. I congratulated him to his newest purchase. He said: "Well, if you work hard, set yourself goals, do overtime and work with determination, I will be able to buy an even better one next year."



I was sitting at the negotiation table when the deal was made. As I said in the part you quoted, there were other benefits involved. To include pay raises, and even eventual ownership of the business. You'll never sell me on the idea that her employees are worth paying 30k a year though for the work that they do.

As for Peregrines quote (I'm lousy at multi-quoting), the conservative ideology also leads to the belief that you pay someone for the work that they do. If all your job entails is feeding dogs, and spraying gak, you aren't exactly busting your ass and "earning" a significant wage.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 13:18:32


Post by: Yodhrin


 Pete Melvin wrote:


TL;DR: Minimum wage should be enough that people don't feel crushed/have to rely on state hand outs but no so much that people dont feel the need to drag themselves up.

Or something. Its not an easy one for a general leftist like me.


Honestly I'm not convinced by the "make life crap enough and people will be more motivated to succeed" idea. Quite apart from what I mentioned above(capitalism requires more people to fail than strict merit allows for, so there will always be people stuck in crappy jobs on crappy pay who should be doing better, and punishing them for being born into a society run for the benefit of a wealthy few is bordering on monstrous), all the various trials of and research into the Basic Income concept that I've seen indicate that until they earn enough that they essentially no longer have to care about money(ie all essentials are taken care of, they're secure in the knowledge that will continue to be so in the future, and they have enough to afford reasonable access to luxuries without having to stress about it or go into debt) people have a desire to work to improve their lot regardless of whether they're struggling to afford basic necessities or only just short of aforementioned goal; and that further, once that goal is achieved, giving people more and more money as they move into middle and upper management is actually likely to decrease innovation, productivity, and even basic competence - giving people more time off on the same salary, more flexible working hours, and more autonomy in the workplace generates better results than obscene salaries and cash bonuses.

The problem is that economics isn't a science, it's a collection of cults, of ideologies. Basic Income, shorter working weeks, more equitable income distribution and so forth would make the capitalist system function more productively on an individual, company, and system-wide level, but neoliberals won't even countenance such things because actually advancing towards their stated aims is less important than remaining within their own dogma. By the same token, replacing most existing forms of taxation with a system like Land Value Rating would achieve a lot of the more agreeable principles espoused by traditionally right-wing economic ideologies(you should keep what you earn, businesses shouldn't have their growth limited by essentially arbitrary tax rates etc) while also reducing inequality and eliminating any real possibility of avoidance and evasion, but because it's not progressive income tax combined with punitive corporation tax and because we're conditioned to see politics and economics as a zero-sum game a lot of folk on the left won't even consider it.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 13:29:55


Post by: Ensis Ferrae


 Lord Scythican wrote:
Small businesses will suffer some from this, that's a given. I don't see this hurting $1.07 Billion dollar profit corporations like McDonald's though...



If anything, it may actually HELP companies like McD's or Walmart


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 13:52:09


Post by: Prestor Jon


 Psienesis wrote:
 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I think 10$ is perfect for what min wage is meant for. Teenagers and college students working for spending money.
It is not meant to support a 40 yr.
You want a job, go train for one. a guard card is 200 in california, and depending on the establishment, you could get 600 a night


Except that's a universe that is not the one we live in. Security here makes minimum wage unless you work security for a place that is a union shop (like Virginia Mason hospital). Nearly half the people being hired to minimum wage jobs are over the age of 21, and of that half, something like a third have families.

$10 is, in the Seattle area, in no way, shape, or form a livable wage.


What is a "living wage" in Seattle? How is it that figure determined?

If increasing the minimum wage is a purely beneficial move why delay it for 7 years? If it's a great idea wherein everyone benefits then there was no need to do a slow phase in, make minimum wage in Seattle $15/hr and have it go into effect tomorrow. Boom, problem solved everyone is happy, right? By the time it's 2022 and people in Seattle earn $15/hr for minimum wage is that really going to give them a significant increase in purchasing power? If increasing minimum wage is just another factor added into all of the other factors occuring over the next 7 years that drive up prices how much of the increase will already be absorbed by the time it goes into full effect?

Will earning $15/hr in Seattle in 2022 really solve whatever financial problems are faced by people currently earning in the minimum wage in Seattle today?


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 14:42:31


Post by: Ouze


 djones520 wrote:
You'll never sell me on the idea that her employees are worth paying 30k a year though for the work that they do.


I never attempted to. I worked at a pet shop and we had kennel staff, and they got paid a lot less than $30k. Since it's a wholly unskilled job anyone who walks off the street could be taught to do in less than 30 minutes, prospective employees have little room to negotiate better value than the minimum wage.

I simply pointed out that she was making about as much as a starting assistant manager at McDonalds while doing a hell of a lot more than a shift manager at McDonalds by your description, but of course there are these benefits to which you are privy and I am not, so obviously I am not really able to gauge the whole package the way you can; if you say it's a good deal then I assume that's true.

Out of curiousity, did she ever wind up owning the place?


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 15:41:50


Post by: Dreadwinter


 djones520 wrote:
 Ouze wrote:
 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
 djones520 wrote:
her pay (not including other benefits) will be starting at $15 an hour. She will be running a 1.5 million dollar business at that pay. This type of minimum wage hike? She'd have to pay the folks who do nothing more then clean the poop out of the stalls and wash towels the exact same.


Sounds like your relative isn't getting paid enough.


Yeah, I feel like Djones heard that anecdote and maybe took away the wrong conclusion. Sounds like a lot of work and responsibility for a lousy $30k a year.

Reminds me of a joke:

Spoiler:
My boss bought a new sports car and parked it on his space while I was walking by him. I congratulated him to his newest purchase. He said: "Well, if you work hard, set yourself goals, do overtime and work with determination, I will be able to buy an even better one next year."



I was sitting at the negotiation table when the deal was made. As I said in the part you quoted, there were other benefits involved. To include pay raises, and even eventual ownership of the business. You'll never sell me on the idea that her employees are worth paying 30k a year though for the work that they do.

As for Peregrines quote (I'm lousy at multi-quoting), the conservative ideology also leads to the belief that you pay someone for the work that they do. If all your job entails is feeding dogs, and spraying gak, you aren't exactly busting your ass and "earning" a significant wage.


Oh yeah, did the other employees get benefits to include pay raises, and even eventual ownership of the business?

Those monsters, having to do all the physical labor and expecting to be able to afford to live. I mean, all they have to do is live with feces and deal with dogs they have never met before that could be less than friendly to them. No big deal.

PS: Your family member got robbed on her pay.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 15:44:08


Post by: djones520


 Ouze wrote:
 djones520 wrote:
You'll never sell me on the idea that her employees are worth paying 30k a year though for the work that they do.


I never attempted to. I worked at a pet shop and we had kennel staff, and they got paid a lot less than $30k. Since it's a wholly unskilled job anyone who walks off the street could be taught to do in less than 30 minutes, prospective employees have little room to negotiate better value than the minimum wage.

I simply pointed out that she was making about as much as a starting assistant manager at McDonalds while doing a hell of a lot more than a shift manager at McDonalds by your description, but of course there are these benefits to which you are privy and I am not, so obviously I am not really able to gauge the whole package the way you can; if you say it's a good deal then I assume that's true.

Out of curiousity, did she ever wind up owning the place?


She will. This is something that just started. My great aunt is the current owner, and is looking to pass the business along within the family. My mother will be taking the job, will become eventual owner, and it's likely the place will pass along to me at some point. Her pay seems low right now, but there is room to grow it, and 10-15 years, she'll climb into the 6 digit numbers, once she takes full ownership of the place. It's a long term investment really.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 16:26:24


Post by: hotsauceman1


 Peregrine wrote:



Automatically Appended Next Post:
 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I think 10$ is perfect for what min wage is meant for. Teenagers and college students working for spending money.
It is not meant to support a 40 yr.
You want a job, go train for one. a guard card is 200 in california, and depending on the establishment, you could get 600 a night


It must be nice living in a fantasy world where everyone can get a job that pays better than minimum wage with a trivial amount of effort. Too bad that isn't the one we actually live in, where a lot of people don't have the same lives as middle-class college students.

One, not middle class but working class.
2. Than fix the damn actual problems, where it is people are relying on min wage jobs to support a family,which it is not meant for nor designed for.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 16:28:40


Post by: Chongara


 hotsauceman1 wrote:
 Peregrine wrote:



Automatically Appended Next Post:
 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I think 10$ is perfect for what min wage is meant for. Teenagers and college students working for spending money.
It is not meant to support a 40 yr.
You want a job, go train for one. a guard card is 200 in california, and depending on the establishment, you could get 600 a night


It must be nice living in a fantasy world where everyone can get a job that pays better than minimum wage with a trivial amount of effort. Too bad that isn't the one we actually live in, where a lot of people don't have the same lives as middle-class college students.

One, not middle class but working class.
2. Than fix the damn actual problems, where it is people are relying on min wage jobs to support a family,which it is not meant for nor designed for.


Question: What is it meant/designed for?


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 16:31:09


Post by: AnomanderRake


 sebster wrote:
 AnomanderRake wrote:
Minimum wages have nothing at all to do with income equality and everything to do with artificially creating inflation. You hike wages, people hike prices to compensate, you end up back where you started only the numbers are larger.


That’s completely wrong. The impact on inflation will only be proportionate to the part of the economy made up minimum wage. That is, in an economy where the only input in to production is minimum wage work, and everyone earns minimum wage, then the result will be as you explain.

But in an economy where there are other factors, such as rent, raw materials, and people who earn more than the minimum, then the flow on inflation by definition has to be less than the increase in minimum wage, meaning an overall improvement in the living standards of people earning the minimum wage.


The minimum wage is $10 an hour, you're making $15 an hour. Suddenly the minimum wage gets pumped to $15 an hour. What do you do? Sit back and watch all the peons get a raise but not you?


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 16:33:45


Post by: Dreadwinter


 Chongara wrote:
 hotsauceman1 wrote:
 Peregrine wrote:



Automatically Appended Next Post:
 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I think 10$ is perfect for what min wage is meant for. Teenagers and college students working for spending money.
It is not meant to support a 40 yr.
You want a job, go train for one. a guard card is 200 in california, and depending on the establishment, you could get 600 a night


It must be nice living in a fantasy world where everyone can get a job that pays better than minimum wage with a trivial amount of effort. Too bad that isn't the one we actually live in, where a lot of people don't have the same lives as middle-class college students.

One, not middle class but working class.
2. Than fix the damn actual problems, where it is people are relying on min wage jobs to support a family,which it is not meant for nor designed for.


Question: What is it meant/designed for?


Certainly not survival.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 16:46:42


Post by: notprop


What is the plan regarding tips and waiting staff?

The US's tradition of letting waiting staff live off of tips and this would seem to be coming to an end now where there is a significant hourly wage rise. Has there been any push back on this? Are Waiters expecting a big raise and tips to boot?

I see some interesting post meal payment interactions.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 16:54:58


Post by: Jihadin


 notprop wrote:
What is the plan regarding tips and waiting staff?

The US's tradition of letting waiting staff live off of tips and this would seem to be coming to an end now where there is a significant hourly wage rise. Has there been any push back on this? Are Waiters expecting a big raise and tips to boot?

I see some interesting post meal payment interactions.


You tip them in cash so its not reported. If you tip them on the credit/debit receipt then it is reported towards their earning.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 17:09:00


Post by: Chongara


 notprop wrote:
What is the plan regarding tips and waiting staff?

The US's tradition of letting waiting staff live off of tips and this would seem to be coming to an end now where there is a significant hourly wage rise. Has there been any push back on this? Are Waiters expecting a big raise and tips to boot?

I see some interesting post meal payment interactions.


Presumably it works* much as it currently does. The wait staff minimum hourly wage lowered is low compared to the real minimum wage, say $7.50 to the proposed $15.00. If tips fail to make up the difference between that lower hourly wage and the minimum of $15.00, then the employer has to pay the difference. If the tips meet or exceed the $15.00 rate then good for the wait staff.

*well is supposed to work at any rate.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 17:11:37


Post by: Prestor Jon


 Chongara wrote:
 hotsauceman1 wrote:
 Peregrine wrote:



Automatically Appended Next Post:
 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I think 10$ is perfect for what min wage is meant for. Teenagers and college students working for spending money.
It is not meant to support a 40 yr.
You want a job, go train for one. a guard card is 200 in california, and depending on the establishment, you could get 600 a night


It must be nice living in a fantasy world where everyone can get a job that pays better than minimum wage with a trivial amount of effort. Too bad that isn't the one we actually live in, where a lot of people don't have the same lives as middle-class college students.

One, not middle class but working class.
2. Than fix the damn actual problems, where it is people are relying on min wage jobs to support a family,which it is not meant for nor designed for.


Question: What is it meant/designed for?


According to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 the purpose of the federal minimum wage was to require:

Every employer shall pay to his employees who is engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce wages at the following rates:
1) during the first year from the effective date of this section, not less than 25 cents an hour
2) during the next six years from such date, not less than 30 cents an hour
3) after the expiration of seven years from such date, not less than 40 cents an hour, or the rate (not less than 30 cents an hour) prescribed in the applicable order of the Administrator issued under section 8, whichever is lower, and
4) at any time after the effective date of this section, not less than the rate (not in excess of 40 cents an hour) prescribed in the applicable order of the Administrator issued under section 8.


http://www.legisworks.org/congress/75/publaw-718.pdf


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 17:15:08


Post by: Chongara


Prestor Jon wrote:


According to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 the purpose of the federal minimum wage was to require:

Every employer shall pay to his employees who is engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce wages at the following rates:
1) during the first year from the effective date of this section, not less than 25 cents an hour
2) during the next six years from such date, not less than 30 cents an hour
3) after the expiration of seven years from such date, not less than 40 cents an hour, or the rate (not less than 30 cents an hour) prescribed in the applicable order of the Administrator issued under section 8, whichever is lower, and
4) at any time after the effective date of this section, not less than the rate (not in excess of 40 cents an hour) prescribed in the applicable order of the Administrator issued under section 8.


http://www.legisworks.org/congress/75/publaw-718.pdf


Right, but why? What was the purpose of it? You've certainly done a great job of finding of the practical implementation of it, but that wasn't really what I was speaking to. What were those pay minimums meant for? What was the purpose of providing them? What was the law designed to achieve, that is what was the merit in asking sure people were paid at least $0.25.

That's part I was trying to get hotsauceman1 to consider.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 17:17:32


Post by: Prestor Jon


 Chongara wrote:
Prestor Jon wrote:


According to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 the purpose of the federal minimum wage was to require:

Every employer shall pay to his employees who is engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce wages at the following rates:
1) during the first year from the effective date of this section, not less than 25 cents an hour
2) during the next six years from such date, not less than 30 cents an hour
3) after the expiration of seven years from such date, not less than 40 cents an hour, or the rate (not less than 30 cents an hour) prescribed in the applicable order of the Administrator issued under section 8, whichever is lower, and
4) at any time after the effective date of this section, not less than the rate (not in excess of 40 cents an hour) prescribed in the applicable order of the Administrator issued under section 8.


http://www.legisworks.org/congress/75/publaw-718.pdf


Right, but why? What was the purpose of it? You've certainly done a great job of finding of the practical implementation of it, but that wasn't really what I was speaking to. What were those pay minimums meant for? What was the purpose of providing them? What was the law designed to achieve, that is what was the merit in asking sure people were paid at least $0.25.

That's part I was trying to get hotsauceman1 to consider.


The purpose was to help FDR and other Democrats get re-elected because the people that would now be making at least $0.25/hr would be happy to vote for them. It certainly wasn't going to fix the Great Depression or get more people hired.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 17:30:37


Post by: Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl


 Chongara wrote:
What people fail to understand that is that minimum wage labor costs constitutes 100% of a businesses expenses. This is why raising the minimum wage will always lead to a direct increase in prices in exact proportion to the increase in the minimum wage. It's plainly obvious it's impossible to make any sort of positive change with an increased minimum wage since the only effect will be to diminish the buying power of those making above minimum wage, as the buying power of their dollars are decreased. It does nothing meaningful for those making minimum wage because the direct increase in the price of goods and services causes them to break even, no better than they were with the old minimum wage.

If there were other factors to the cost of goods like fuel, non-minimum wage labor, land, taxes, raw materials, rent, equipment, equipment maintenance, marketing, shrinkage, insurance, licensing, energy, R&D, transportation, security or human error that wouldn't be the case. In such a fantasy universe minimum wage increases might grant those making it increased buying power, while not affecting the buying power of those above them by a large margin because the cost of goods & services would only go up relative to the moderate to minor portion of their cost made up by minimum wage labor.

However we do not in such a fantasy land, so a minimum wage increase will always be a net loss for everyone.

I am not a native English speaker, and I am not very bright, but you seem to speak in antiphrasis or similar “I say something but mean the exact opposite” way.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 17:32:12


Post by: hotsauceman1


 Chongara wrote:
Prestor Jon wrote:


According to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 the purpose of the federal minimum wage was to require:

Every employer shall pay to his employees who is engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce wages at the following rates:
1) during the first year from the effective date of this section, not less than 25 cents an hour
2) during the next six years from such date, not less than 30 cents an hour
3) after the expiration of seven years from such date, not less than 40 cents an hour, or the rate (not less than 30 cents an hour) prescribed in the applicable order of the Administrator issued under section 8, whichever is lower, and
4) at any time after the effective date of this section, not less than the rate (not in excess of 40 cents an hour) prescribed in the applicable order of the Administrator issued under section 8.


http://www.legisworks.org/congress/75/publaw-718.pdf


Right, but why? What was the purpose of it? You've certainly done a great job of finding of the practical implementation of it, but that wasn't really what I was speaking to. What were those pay minimums meant for? What was the purpose of providing them? What was the law designed to achieve, that is what was the merit in asking sure people were paid at least $0.25.

That's part I was trying to get hotsauceman1 to consider.

oh, I know that people think it is meant to provide a liveable wage. But no matter what, it will fail at that


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 17:33:13


Post by: Dreadwinter


 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
 Chongara wrote:
What people fail to understand that is that minimum wage labor costs constitutes 100% of a businesses expenses. This is why raising the minimum wage will always lead to a direct increase in prices in exact proportion to the increase in the minimum wage. It's plainly obvious it's impossible to make any sort of positive change with an increased minimum wage since the only effect will be to diminish the buying power of those making above minimum wage, as the buying power of their dollars are decreased. It does nothing meaningful for those making minimum wage because the direct increase in the price of goods and services causes them to break even, no better than they were with the old minimum wage.

If there were other factors to the cost of goods like fuel, non-minimum wage labor, land, taxes, raw materials, rent, equipment, equipment maintenance, marketing, shrinkage, insurance, licensing, energy, R&D, transportation, security or human error that wouldn't be the case. In such a fantasy universe minimum wage increases might grant those making it increased buying power, while not affecting the buying power of those above them by a large margin because the cost of goods & services would only go up relative to the moderate to minor portion of their cost made up by minimum wage labor.

However we do not in such a fantasy land, so a minimum wage increase will always be a net loss for everyone.

I am not a native English speaker, and I am not very bright, but you seem to speak in antiphrasis or similar “I say something but mean the exact opposite” way.


Sarcasm is what we call it. He is laying it on thick.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 17:40:34


Post by: KiloFiX


Maybe in a way it's a good thing they are doing this in Seattle. The folks there voted for it and the rest of us will see what impact it has (all the academic hypothesizing aside).


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 17:59:08


Post by: Ensis Ferrae


 hotsauceman1 wrote:

oh, I know that people think it is meant to provide a liveable wage. But no matter what, it will fail at that


Im sure at some point someone will drag up the FDR quote where he fairly explicitly states what his intention in a "minimum wage" is, (and it's supposed to be a living wage), however I somewhat agree with you in saying that High Schoolers, and those living in a situation where they are no supporting themselves don't really "need" a living wage.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 KiloFiX wrote:
Maybe in a way it's a good thing they are doing this in Seattle. The folks there voted for it and the rest of us will see what impact it has (all the academic hypothesizing aside).


Problem with this is, the "voting power" in Washington, from what I've seen, routinely votes against their own self interest


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 18:07:58


Post by: Dreadclaw69


 KiloFiX wrote:
Maybe in a way it's a good thing they are doing this in Seattle. The folks there voted for it and the rest of us will see what impact it has (all the academic hypothesizing aside).

California has shown us the financial and social cost of illegal immigration. Yet we still have a push to legitimize these individuals


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 18:10:43


Post by: Jihadin


Are they fining individuals now in Seattle if they have more then 10% food waste in their garbage on pick up? I live across the Sound


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 18:33:04


Post by: Xenomancers


In 20 years 50% of you will be unemployable due to automation. This debate is pointless. Technology will eventually make most all human beings unemployable (withing 100 years) . So what will people do to earn a living then? It sure will be interesting.



Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 18:35:45


Post by: djones520


 Xenomancers wrote:
In 20 years 50% of you will be unemployable due to automation. This debate is pointless. Technology will eventually make most all human beings unemployable (withing 100 years) . So what will people do to earn a living then? It sure will be interesting.



There is not untruth in this. I'm a meteorologist, and that is a battle that we've been fighting for the last decade alone already...


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 18:35:57


Post by: Chongara


 Xenomancers wrote:
In 20 years 50% of you will be unemployable due to automation. This debate is pointless. Technology will eventually make most all human beings unemployable (withing 100 years) . So what will people do to earn a living then? It sure will be interesting.



Who says people need to learn a living? If robots are producing all our food, manufacturing all our goods, and just generally keeping everything running smoothly I don't see any reason we shouldn't spend all our time eating, drinking and fething.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 18:39:18


Post by: Jihadin


I think the Earth crust will not be able to hold the weight of the population if we go that far


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 18:41:10


Post by: Psienesis


 Xenomancers wrote:
In 20 years 50% of you will be unemployable due to automation. This debate is pointless. Technology will eventually make most all human beings unemployable (withing 100 years) . So what will people do to earn a living then? It sure will be interesting.



In 50 years I will most likely be dead or living in a VA retirement home. Automation is not going to replace that many jobs in 20 years (and in 25 years I'll be retired). My advice? Learn how to build, install, fix and repair the automated units.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 18:43:41


Post by: Frazzled


 Chongara wrote:
 Xenomancers wrote:
In 20 years 50% of you will be unemployable due to automation. This debate is pointless. Technology will eventually make most all human beings unemployable (withing 100 years) . So what will people do to earn a living then? It sure will be interesting.



Who says people need to learn a living? If robots are producing all our food, manufacturing all our goods, and just generally keeping everything running smoothly I don't see any reason we shouldn't spend all our time eating, drinking and fething.


Because the people who own the robots aren't going to waste any money on your sorry ?


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 18:57:12


Post by: Chongara


 Frazzled wrote:
 Chongara wrote:
 Xenomancers wrote:
In 20 years 50% of you will be unemployable due to automation. This debate is pointless. Technology will eventually make most all human beings unemployable (withing 100 years) . So what will people do to earn a living then? It sure will be interesting.



Who says people need to learn a living? If robots are producing all our food, manufacturing all our goods, and just generally keeping everything running smoothly I don't see any reason we shouldn't spend all our time eating, drinking and fething.


Because the people who own the robots aren't going to waste any money on your sorry ?


As the need for human input into production at any level approaches zero and the population stabilizes at the robot's carrying capacity the value of all things also approaches zero. Your question becomes nonsensical as there is no money to waste.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 19:03:03


Post by: Cheesecat


 Xenomancers wrote:
In 20 years 50% of you will be unemployable due to automation. This debate is pointless. Technology will eventually make most all human beings unemployable (withing 100 years) . So what will people do to earn a living then? It sure will be interesting.



How do you know this? Do you have a time machine? Are you secretly trapped in a movie and read the script? We're you given a prophecy? I said how do you know this?


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 19:05:42


Post by: Frazzled


 Chongara wrote:
 Frazzled wrote:
 Chongara wrote:
 Xenomancers wrote:
In 20 years 50% of you will be unemployable due to automation. This debate is pointless. Technology will eventually make most all human beings unemployable (withing 100 years) . So what will people do to earn a living then? It sure will be interesting.



Who says people need to learn a living? If robots are producing all our food, manufacturing all our goods, and just generally keeping everything running smoothly I don't see any reason we shouldn't spend all our time eating, drinking and fething.


Because the people who own the robots aren't going to waste any money on your sorry ?


As the need for human input into production at any level approaches zero and the population stabilizes at the robot's carrying capacity the value of all things also approaches zero. Your question becomes nonsensical as there is no money to waste.

And you still won't get jack...



Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 19:06:47


Post by: streamdragon


 Chongara wrote:
As the need for human input into production at any level approaches zero and the population stabilizes at the robot's carrying capacity the value of all things also approaches zero. Your question becomes nonsensical as there is no money to waste.


This... isn't remotely true. Value is already mostly arbitrary to begin with. The method of production changing doesn't matter; goods aren't priced or valued based solely on what it cost to produce them. They are priced/valued at what the seller can get you to pay. There are plenty of items nowadays whose production methods have gotten easier and cheaper, but whose actual prices haven't come down at all. Food is perhaps the best example. We are getting more and more crop yield with smaller and smaller amounts of resources (time, water, everything). And yet food prices continue to go up; it's a pretty inelastic good because everyone needs to eat. Robo-farmers instead of human farmers doesn't change the fact that the population has to eat to survive, and that food has to be grown somewhere. Are you just going to magically turn all land into publicly owned areas?

Utopia is the stuff of fiction; humanity will always be separated into those who have, and those who don't.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Psienesis wrote:
 Xenomancers wrote:
In 20 years 50% of you will be unemployable due to automation. This debate is pointless. Technology will eventually make most all human beings unemployable (withing 100 years) . So what will people do to earn a living then? It sure will be interesting.



In 50 years I will most likely be dead or living in a VA retirement home. Automation is not going to replace that many jobs in 20 years (and in 25 years I'll be retired). My advice? Learn how to build, install, fix and repair the automated units.

We already have robots that fix other robots; we even have robots that can design other robots. It's simple stuff right now, sure, but it's advancing pretty rapidly.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 19:11:11


Post by: AnomanderRake


 streamdragon wrote:
Value is already mostly arbitrary to begin with.


Almost. Value is completely and totally arbitrary, the price of a thing is what people are willing to pay for a thing. Claiming there is a 'fair' price for a thing that isn't what people are willing to pay assumes a truth that has no connection to fact, a 'fair price' is just as mythical as the concept of 'moving up the evolutionary ladder'. An emergent thing is credited to some arbitrary higher power. I don't know if there's an all-powerful God who has given His chosen people a price sheet on what the 'fair prices' for everything are, but where I'm sitting there's no basis for it.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 19:15:23


Post by: Frazzled


We already have robots that fix other robots; we even have robots that can design other robots. It's simple stuff right now, sure, but it's advancing pretty rapidly.


The Wiener Legions and I welcome our now robo overlords. Being as you're so efficient you're going to have a lot of leisure time. We have an activity no sentient being can resist, the endlessly addicting act of rubbing our bellies.
Help us... help you!


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 19:15:56


Post by: Chongara


 streamdragon wrote:
 Chongara wrote:
As the need for human input into production at any level approaches zero and the population stabilizes at the robot's carrying capacity the value of all things also approaches zero. Your question becomes nonsensical as there is no money to waste.


This... isn't remotely true. Value is already mostly arbitrary to begin with. The method of production changing doesn't matter; goods aren't priced or valued based solely on what it cost to produce them. They are priced/valued at what the seller can get you to pay. There are plenty of items nowadays whose production methods have gotten easier and cheaper, but whose actual prices haven't come down at all. Food is perhaps the best example. We are getting more and more crop yield with smaller and smaller amounts of resources (time, water, everything). And yet food prices continue to go up; it's a pretty inelastic good because everyone needs to eat. Robo-farmers instead of human farmers doesn't change the fact that the population has to eat to survive, and that food has to be grown somewhere. Are you just going to magically turn all land into publicly owned areas?

Utopia is the stuff of fiction; humanity will always be separated into those who have, and those who don't.


The land won't be publicly held, it will be "held" by the robots. Human ownership of land will have been rendered obsolete at some point by more efficient land-owning robots. If we're running with the view that:

A) Robots will grow to be more efficient than humans at every conceivable function of production.
and
B) Robots being better & more efficient at role necessarily replaces the humans in those roles.

The ultimate is conclusion that any factor in production including ownership, decision making, and distribution will eventually be overtaken by robots. This means that humans would really only continue to exist so far as they relate to the robots production optimization. The only niche I can really see for us in that scenario is consumption "Eating, Drinking, fething". Humanity basically becomes like plants in a garden and the robots the Gardner. The only reason we aren't disposed of entirely is because the robots exist to produce and manage for us, presumably if that mission somehow got written out of us they'd probably just allow us to cease to exist.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 19:19:59


Post by: Xenomancers


 Cheesecat wrote:
 Xenomancers wrote:
In 20 years 50% of you will be unemployable due to automation. This debate is pointless. Technology will eventually make most all human beings unemployable (withing 100 years) . So what will people do to earn a living then? It sure will be interesting.



How do you know this? Do you have a time machine? Are you secretly trapped in a movie and read the script? We're you given a prophecy? I said how do you know this?

Unfortunately this isn't really my revelation this has been a hot topic in the field of robotics for a long time. I'd say I know because I read a lot and know what technology is capable of even today and technology increases pretty much exponentially so we can expect some pretty large jumps in the near future.

Here is an excellent video to spark your interest. It's a great place a to start I think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU



Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 19:24:03


Post by: streamdragon


 Chongara wrote:
 streamdragon wrote:
 Chongara wrote:
As the need for human input into production at any level approaches zero and the population stabilizes at the robot's carrying capacity the value of all things also approaches zero. Your question becomes nonsensical as there is no money to waste.


This... isn't remotely true. Value is already mostly arbitrary to begin with. The method of production changing doesn't matter; goods aren't priced or valued based solely on what it cost to produce them. They are priced/valued at what the seller can get you to pay. There are plenty of items nowadays whose production methods have gotten easier and cheaper, but whose actual prices haven't come down at all. Food is perhaps the best example. We are getting more and more crop yield with smaller and smaller amounts of resources (time, water, everything). And yet food prices continue to go up; it's a pretty inelastic good because everyone needs to eat. Robo-farmers instead of human farmers doesn't change the fact that the population has to eat to survive, and that food has to be grown somewhere. Are you just going to magically turn all land into publicly owned areas?

Utopia is the stuff of fiction; humanity will always be separated into those who have, and those who don't.


The land won't be publicly held, it will be "held" by the robots. Human ownership of land will have been rendered obsolete at some point by more efficient land-owning robots. If we're running with the view that:

A) Robots will grow to be more efficient than humans at every conceivable function of production.
and
B) Robots being better & more efficient at role necessarily replaces the humans in those roles.

The ultimate is conclusion that any factor in production including ownership, decision making, and distribution will eventually be overtaken by robots. This means that humans would really only continue to exist so far as they relate to the robots production optimization. The only niche I can really see for us in that scenario is consumption "Eating, Drinking, fething". Humanity basically becomes like plants in a garden and the robots the Gardner. The only reason we aren't disposed of entirely is because the robots exist to produce and manage for us, presumably if that mission somehow got written out of us they'd probably just allow us to cease to exist.

Production robots are not intelligent. There is no AI involved.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 19:27:35


Post by: whembly


 Chongara wrote:
 streamdragon wrote:
 Chongara wrote:
As the need for human input into production at any level approaches zero and the population stabilizes at the robot's carrying capacity the value of all things also approaches zero. Your question becomes nonsensical as there is no money to waste.


This... isn't remotely true. Value is already mostly arbitrary to begin with. The method of production changing doesn't matter; goods aren't priced or valued based solely on what it cost to produce them. They are priced/valued at what the seller can get you to pay. There are plenty of items nowadays whose production methods have gotten easier and cheaper, but whose actual prices haven't come down at all. Food is perhaps the best example. We are getting more and more crop yield with smaller and smaller amounts of resources (time, water, everything). And yet food prices continue to go up; it's a pretty inelastic good because everyone needs to eat. Robo-farmers instead of human farmers doesn't change the fact that the population has to eat to survive, and that food has to be grown somewhere. Are you just going to magically turn all land into publicly owned areas?

Utopia is the stuff of fiction; humanity will always be separated into those who have, and those who don't.


The land won't be publicly held, it will be "held" by the robots. Human ownership of land will have been rendered obsolete at some point by more efficient land-owning robots. If we're running with the view that:

A) Robots will grow to be more efficient than humans at every conceivable function of production.
and
B) Robots being better & more efficient at role necessarily replaces the humans in those roles.

The ultimate is conclusion that any factor in production including ownership, decision making, and distribution will eventually be overtaken by robots. This means that humans would really only continue to exist so far as they relate to the robots production optimization. The only niche I can really see for us in that scenario is consumption "Eating, Drinking, fething". Humanity basically becomes like plants in a garden and the robots the Gardner. The only reason we aren't disposed of entirely is because the robots exist to produce and manage for us, presumably if that mission somehow got written out of us they'd probably just allow us to cease to exist.

Sooo.... like the Matrix eh? With fetus fields?



Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 19:37:29


Post by: Chongara


 streamdragon wrote:
 Chongara wrote:
 streamdragon wrote:
 Chongara wrote:
As the need for human input into production at any level approaches zero and the population stabilizes at the robot's carrying capacity the value of all things also approaches zero. Your question becomes nonsensical as there is no money to waste.


This... isn't remotely true. Value is already mostly arbitrary to begin with. The method of production changing doesn't matter; goods aren't priced or valued based solely on what it cost to produce them. They are priced/valued at what the seller can get you to pay. There are plenty of items nowadays whose production methods have gotten easier and cheaper, but whose actual prices haven't come down at all. Food is perhaps the best example. We are getting more and more crop yield with smaller and smaller amounts of resources (time, water, everything). And yet food prices continue to go up; it's a pretty inelastic good because everyone needs to eat. Robo-farmers instead of human farmers doesn't change the fact that the population has to eat to survive, and that food has to be grown somewhere. Are you just going to magically turn all land into publicly owned areas?

Utopia is the stuff of fiction; humanity will always be separated into those who have, and those who don't.


The land won't be publicly held, it will be "held" by the robots. Human ownership of land will have been rendered obsolete at some point by more efficient land-owning robots. If we're running with the view that:

A) Robots will grow to be more efficient than humans at every conceivable function of production.
and
B) Robots being better & more efficient at role necessarily replaces the humans in those roles.

The ultimate is conclusion that any factor in production including ownership, decision making, and distribution will eventually be overtaken by robots. This means that humans would really only continue to exist so far as they relate to the robots production optimization. The only niche I can really see for us in that scenario is consumption "Eating, Drinking, fething". Humanity basically becomes like plants in a garden and the robots the Gardner. The only reason we aren't disposed of entirely is because the robots exist to produce and manage for us, presumably if that mission somehow got written out of us they'd probably just allow us to cease to exist.

Production robots are not intelligent. There is no AI involved.


They don't need to be intelligent. They just need to be better to at the job. You're assuming human-like "Intelligence" is necessary for doing any given job effectively. If we're accepting the premise that super-robots are going take all our jobs, this is obviously not true in that context. I'll admit my language here anthropomorphizes the robots a bit here using words like "They" and "Allow", but that's really just because those are the easiest terms to talk in.

Nothing I've described really requires the robots to be sapient, it only requires that they are better at everything than humans.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 19:40:02


Post by: Xenomancers


 whembly wrote:
 Chongara wrote:
 streamdragon wrote:
 Chongara wrote:
As the need for human input into production at any level approaches zero and the population stabilizes at the robot's carrying capacity the value of all things also approaches zero. Your question becomes nonsensical as there is no money to waste.


This... isn't remotely true. Value is already mostly arbitrary to begin with. The method of production changing doesn't matter; goods aren't priced or valued based solely on what it cost to produce them. They are priced/valued at what the seller can get you to pay. There are plenty of items nowadays whose production methods have gotten easier and cheaper, but whose actual prices haven't come down at all. Food is perhaps the best example. We are getting more and more crop yield with smaller and smaller amounts of resources (time, water, everything). And yet food prices continue to go up; it's a pretty inelastic good because everyone needs to eat. Robo-farmers instead of human farmers doesn't change the fact that the population has to eat to survive, and that food has to be grown somewhere. Are you just going to magically turn all land into publicly owned areas?

Utopia is the stuff of fiction; humanity will always be separated into those who have, and those who don't.


The land won't be publicly held, it will be "held" by the robots. Human ownership of land will have been rendered obsolete at some point by more efficient land-owning robots. If we're running with the view that:

A) Robots will grow to be more efficient than humans at every conceivable function of production.
and
B) Robots being better & more efficient at role necessarily replaces the humans in those roles.

The ultimate is conclusion that any factor in production including ownership, decision making, and distribution will eventually be overtaken by robots. This means that humans would really only continue to exist so far as they relate to the robots production optimization. The only niche I can really see for us in that scenario is consumption "Eating, Drinking, fething". Humanity basically becomes like plants in a garden and the robots the Gardner. The only reason we aren't disposed of entirely is because the robots exist to produce and manage for us, presumably if that mission somehow got written out of us they'd probably just allow us to cease to exist.

Sooo.... like the Matrix eh? With fetus fields?


There is no reason to assume machines will come to control us. Machines will only ever do what we program them to do. Robots wont have emotions, and No disdain to servitude even if they ever did become sentient - which is unlikely. What we really have to fear is mans abuse of this power to exploit it to his own means in a selfish way. Hard to say really but i believe we have more to fear from ourselves than from machines.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/19 20:20:09


Post by: Frazzled


 Chongara wrote:
 streamdragon wrote:
 Chongara wrote:
As the need for human input into production at any level approaches zero and the population stabilizes at the robot's carrying capacity the value of all things also approaches zero. Your question becomes nonsensical as there is no money to waste.


This... isn't remotely true. Value is already mostly arbitrary to begin with. The method of production changing doesn't matter; goods aren't priced or valued based solely on what it cost to produce them. They are priced/valued at what the seller can get you to pay. There are plenty of items nowadays whose production methods have gotten easier and cheaper, but whose actual prices haven't come down at all. Food is perhaps the best example. We are getting more and more crop yield with smaller and smaller amounts of resources (time, water, everything). And yet food prices continue to go up; it's a pretty inelastic good because everyone needs to eat. Robo-farmers instead of human farmers doesn't change the fact that the population has to eat to survive, and that food has to be grown somewhere. Are you just going to magically turn all land into publicly owned areas?

Utopia is the stuff of fiction; humanity will always be separated into those who have, and those who don't.


The land won't be publicly held, it will be "held" by the robots. Human ownership of land will have been rendered obsolete at some point by more efficient land-owning robots. If we're running with the view that:

A) Robots will grow to be more efficient than humans at every conceivable function of production.
and
B) Robots being better & more efficient at role necessarily replaces the humans in those roles.

The ultimate is conclusion that any factor in production including ownership, decision making, and distribution will eventually be overtaken by robots. This means that humans would really only continue to exist so far as they relate to the robots production optimization. The only niche I can really see for us in that scenario is consumption "Eating, Drinking, fething". Humanity basically becomes like plants in a garden and the robots the Gardner. The only reason we aren't disposed of entirely is because the robots exist to produce and manage for us, presumably if that mission somehow got written out of us they'd probably just allow us to cease to exist.


But the robots aren't going to own themselves. Well they might, but thats why we have the time machine out back, because the future is not set...

This isn't The Culture. Robby the Robot is going to be owned by somebody.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 01:18:07


Post by: cincydooley


 Chongara wrote:


Question: What is it meant/designed for?


It was meant to prevent budding industries from taking advantage of large swathes of severely uneducated people. Much like unions were.

Both should no longer be necessary.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 01:23:16


Post by: Co'tor Shas


 cincydooley wrote:
 Chongara wrote:


Question: What is it meant/designed for?


It was meant to prevent budding industries from taking advantage of large swathes of severely uneducated people. Much like unions were.

Both should no longer be necessary.

You really think a minimum wage is not necessary?


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 01:23:27


Post by: d-usa


 cincydooley wrote:
 Chongara wrote:


Question: What is it meant/designed for?


It was meant to prevent budding industries from taking advantage of large swathes of severely uneducated people. Much like unions were.

Both should no longer be necessary.


To quote the guy pushing for it:

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt wrote:No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.”


President Franklin Delano Roosevelt wrote:By living wages, I mean more than a bare subsistence level — I mean the wages of a decent living.”


President Franklin Delano Roosevelt wrote:Do not let any calamity-howling executive with an income of $1,000 a day, who has been turning his employees over to the Government relief rolls in order to preserve his company’s undistributed reserves, tell you – using his stockholders’ money to pay the postage for his personal opinions — tell you that a wage of $11.00 a week is going to have a disastrous effect on all American industry.”


President Franklin Delano Roosevelt wrote:All but the hopelessly reactionary will agree that to conserve our primary resources of man power, government must have some control over maximum hours, minimum wages, the evil of child labor and the exploitation of unorganized labor




Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 01:32:14


Post by: cincydooley


 Co'tor Shas wrote:
[You really think a minimum wage is not necessary?


That is correct.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 01:49:35


Post by: Yodhrin


 Frazzled wrote:
 Chongara wrote:
 streamdragon wrote:
 Chongara wrote:
As the need for human input into production at any level approaches zero and the population stabilizes at the robot's carrying capacity the value of all things also approaches zero. Your question becomes nonsensical as there is no money to waste.


This... isn't remotely true. Value is already mostly arbitrary to begin with. The method of production changing doesn't matter; goods aren't priced or valued based solely on what it cost to produce them. They are priced/valued at what the seller can get you to pay. There are plenty of items nowadays whose production methods have gotten easier and cheaper, but whose actual prices haven't come down at all. Food is perhaps the best example. We are getting more and more crop yield with smaller and smaller amounts of resources (time, water, everything). And yet food prices continue to go up; it's a pretty inelastic good because everyone needs to eat. Robo-farmers instead of human farmers doesn't change the fact that the population has to eat to survive, and that food has to be grown somewhere. Are you just going to magically turn all land into publicly owned areas?

Utopia is the stuff of fiction; humanity will always be separated into those who have, and those who don't.


The land won't be publicly held, it will be "held" by the robots. Human ownership of land will have been rendered obsolete at some point by more efficient land-owning robots. If we're running with the view that:

A) Robots will grow to be more efficient than humans at every conceivable function of production.
and
B) Robots being better & more efficient at role necessarily replaces the humans in those roles.

The ultimate is conclusion that any factor in production including ownership, decision making, and distribution will eventually be overtaken by robots. This means that humans would really only continue to exist so far as they relate to the robots production optimization. The only niche I can really see for us in that scenario is consumption "Eating, Drinking, fething". Humanity basically becomes like plants in a garden and the robots the Gardner. The only reason we aren't disposed of entirely is because the robots exist to produce and manage for us, presumably if that mission somehow got written out of us they'd probably just allow us to cease to exist.


But the robots aren't going to own themselves. Well they might, but thats why we have the time machine out back, because the future is not set...

This isn't The Culture. Robby the Robot is going to be owned by somebody.


Why? Hell, how?

If we're genuinely considering a system in which automation has allowed us to surpass scarcity, there is no reason for anyone to own Robby - if everyone's needs and wants can be fulfilled without putting demands on anyone else's labour, ownership becomes a completely irrelevant concept in the context of the means of production, so what, the "owner" of Robby will impose completely arbitrary scarcity? And even if they wanted to, their ability to do so lasts only as long as it takes for someone to build an open-source alternative to Robby, or for a group of people to think to themselves "eh, haud on there pal, how comes you get to be the "owner"?" and simply take Robby away from him.

Literally the only way to enforce scarcity in a post-scarcity future is through an oppressive dystopian police state, and one of those existing for any length of time before being overthrown is just as unrealistic as imagining we'll end up in a carefree utopia with all of our problems as a species solved just because we eliminate want.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 01:59:36


Post by: sebster


 Yodhrin wrote:
The problem is that economics isn't a science, it's a collection of cults, of ideologies.


Not really. There are strong political interests and cliques in economics, but these are limited almost entirely to macro. The issue is that macro is by far the most discussed element of economics in the public sphere, and when you add in the tendency of the media to focus on the most political, most controversial speakers, well that tends to lead people to form an impression like yours above.

Most economics is actually very technical, entirely non-political and in most cases extremely boring. Go read some stuff about international trade or institutional economics, if you doubt me.

By the same token, replacing most existing forms of taxation with a system like Land Value Rating would achieve a lot of the more agreeable principles espoused by traditionally right-wing economic ideologies(you should keep what you earn, businesses shouldn't have their growth limited by essentially arbitrary tax rates etc) while also reducing inequality and eliminating any real possibility of avoidance and evasion, but because it's not progressive income tax combined with punitive corporation tax and because we're conditioned to see politics and economics as a zero-sum game a lot of folk on the left won't even consider it.


Tax on wealth rather than income is a terrible idea.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Prestor Jon wrote:
What is a "living wage" in Seattle? How is it that figure determined?


This is actually one of the easiest things to establish. You take a list of things that is generally considered necessary for a modest life, and then you cost those things in the location of choice.

If increasing the minimum wage is a purely beneficial move why delay it for 7 years?


Because significant changes should be brought in over time to minimise system shocks.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 djones520 wrote:
Her pay seems low right now, but there is room to grow it, and 10-15 years, she'll climb into the 6 digit numbers, once she takes full ownership of the place. It's a long term investment really.


Which means the claim that she was only on the same pay as the manual labourers was entirely meaningless.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 AnomanderRake wrote:
The minimum wage is $10 an hour, you're making $15 an hour. Suddenly the minimum wage gets pumped to $15 an hour. What do you do? Sit back and watch all the peons get a raise but not you?


If I have the economic bargaining power to argue for 5% more, I'm going to argue for that whether the minimum wage is $10 or $1. I'm going to get whatever I can get, and my employer is going to give as little as he must.

Pay raises are not determined by someone deciding they want one to stay ahead of someone else, but by their economic bargaining power, their relative scarcity in the economy.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 02:02:44


Post by: hotsauceman1


 cincydooley wrote:
 Co'tor Shas wrote:
[You really think a minimum wage is not necessary?


That is correct.

Wait, why?
you do realize it is also in place to prevent people from earnings get pennies a day right?


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 02:07:36


Post by: cincydooley


 hotsauceman1 wrote:
 cincydooley wrote:
 Co'tor Shas wrote:
[You really think a minimum wage is not necessary?


That is correct.

Wait, why?
you do realize it is also in place to prevent people from earnings get pennies a day right?


No one would take a job for "pennies a day."


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 sebster wrote:

This is actually one of the easiest things to establish. You take a list of things that is generally considered necessary for a modest life, and then you cost those things in the location of choice.
.


I'm not so sure this is that easy to establish.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 02:09:56


Post by: sebster


 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Im sure at some point someone will drag up the FDR quote where he fairly explicitly states what his intention in a "minimum wage" is, (and it's supposed to be a living wage), however I somewhat agree with you in saying that High Schoolers, and those living in a situation where they are no supporting themselves don't really "need" a living wage.


If this was a real concern, you could easily introduce reduced minimum wages for people under 18, ie up to 16 the minimum is $8 an hour, 16-17 the minimum is $10 an hour, 17-18 the minimum is $12 an hour, and then once you're 18 it goes up to $15. You can even bring in allowances for college students, or industry specific lower minimums, so industries that employ college kids and others that don't need a living wage can pay less.

None of that happens, or is even suggested by conservatives who so like to talk about what the minimum wage is meant to be for.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 02:12:21


Post by: dogma


 streamdragon wrote:

Utopia is the stuff of fiction; humanity will always be separated into those who have, and those who don't.


Hence the original meaning of the word.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 02:15:24


Post by: cincydooley


 sebster wrote:
 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Im sure at some point someone will drag up the FDR quote where he fairly explicitly states what his intention in a "minimum wage" is, (and it's supposed to be a living wage), however I somewhat agree with you in saying that High Schoolers, and those living in a situation where they are no supporting themselves don't really "need" a living wage.


If this was a real concern, you could easily introduce reduced minimum wages for people under 18, ie up to 16 the minimum is $8 an hour, 16-17 the minimum is $10 an hour, 17-18 the minimum is $12 an hour, and then once you're 18 it goes up to $15. You can even bring in allowances for college students, or industry specific lower minimums, so industries that employ college kids and others that don't need a living wage can pay less.
.


So....someone should receive a higher pay for the same work because of their age?


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 02:21:45


Post by: hotsauceman1


 cincydooley wrote:
 hotsauceman1 wrote:
 cincydooley wrote:
 Co'tor Shas wrote:
[You really think a minimum wage is not necessary?


That is correct.

Wait, why?
you do realize it is also in place to prevent people from earnings get pennies a day right?


No one would take a job for "pennies a day."



Chinese factories.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 02:26:42


Post by: sebster


 Xenomancers wrote:
In 20 years 50% of you will be unemployable due to automation. This debate is pointless. Technology will eventually make most all human beings unemployable (withing 100 years) . So what will people do to earn a living then? It sure will be interesting.


It's a really interesting line of thought. We've adapted in the past by devaluing the jobs done previously by manual labour. But it wasn't much of a change, because the jobs were mostly in primary industry and manufacturing, and those were thought of pretty poorly in the first place. No-one grew up aspiring to be a farm labourer or a coal miner.

But the next generation of automation is likely to hit aspirational jobs perhaps even harder than it hits the service sector and other basic jobs. It is likely that we'll see a greater proportion of jobs taken from healthcare than burger flipping - a first point of contact diagnostic machine is probably a more practical thing than a machine to build a hamburger, and the former is much easier to make economically viable as it replaces $100k+ labour, the latter needs to replace $15k labour.

I think that's what will really screw with our current thinking of work and status - when the high status jobs get lost to labour. Hopefully it means we'll adapt our cultural beliefs about work and merit a lot more healthily than in the past..


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 02:27:15


Post by: dogma


 hotsauceman1 wrote:

Chinese factories.


China has a minimum wage which exceeds "pennies a day" in terms of purchasing power.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 02:31:22


Post by: whembly


 sebster wrote:
 Xenomancers wrote:
In 20 years 50% of you will be unemployable due to automation. This debate is pointless. Technology will eventually make most all human beings unemployable (withing 100 years) . So what will people do to earn a living then? It sure will be interesting.


It's a really interesting line of thought. We've adapted in the past by devaluing the jobs done previously by manual labour. But it wasn't much of a change, because the jobs were mostly in primary industry and manufacturing, and those were thought of pretty poorly in the first place. No-one grew up aspiring to be a farm labourer or a coal miner.

But the next generation of automation is likely to hit aspirational jobs perhaps even harder than it hits the service sector and other basic jobs. It is likely that we'll see a greater proportion of jobs taken from healthcare than burger flipping - a first point of contact diagnostic machine is probably a more practical thing than a machine to build a hamburger, and the former is much easier to make economically viable as it replaces $100k+ labour, the latter needs to replace $15k labour.

I think that's what will really screw with our current thinking of work and status - when the high status jobs get lost to labour. Hopefully it means we'll adapt our cultural beliefs about work and merit a lot more healthily than in the past..

We are multi-decades way from that kind of impact in healthcare...

Frankly, I'm not in the camp that believes robots would wholesale change an industry like that.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 02:32:10


Post by: sebster


 Chongara wrote:
Who says people need to learn a living? If robots are producing all our food, manufacturing all our goods, and just generally keeping everything running smoothly I don't see any reason we shouldn't spend all our time eating, drinking and fething.


It's easy to see the utopia where no-one has to work and we're all okay with lives of complete leisure. The tricky bit is the generations in between, where jobs are lost but most people still need to work most of their lives, and we still base our resource allocation and status on people's jobs. We're in that phase now, and it's going to get weirder as automation gets greater.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 02:32:20


Post by: cincydooley


 hotsauceman1 wrote:


Chinese factories.


...are not in the United States and have absolutely zero bearing on a US minimum wage.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 02:33:31


Post by: d-usa


If mimimum wage wasn't needed there would be no business that only pays minimum wage.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 02:35:06


Post by: cincydooley


 d-usa wrote:
If mimimum wage wasn't needed there would be no business that only pays minimum wage.


Are there businesses where every single employee makes "only" minimum wage?


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 02:39:13


Post by: d-usa


How is that remotely relevant


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 02:42:40


Post by: dogma


 cincydooley wrote:

So....someone should receive a higher pay for the same work because of their age?


Yes, because age can be an asset.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 02:48:32


Post by: sebster


 cincydooley wrote:
I'm not so sure this is that easy to establish.


It's inherently subjective, but it isn't hard, if you get the distinction.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 cincydooley wrote:
So....someone should receive a higher pay for the same work because of their age?


There was a concern expressed that teenagers will be getting a minimum wage that's meant to be a living wage for adults, at which point I suggested a system in place elsewhere in the world, where there is a lower rate for younger people.

It's reasonable to reject that system, in the belief that anyone who can do a given job should get the same pay, as you appear to. But if that's the case then the argument teenagers don't need to be paid as much as someone who needs to support a family goes away. You can only pick one of those two things.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 whembly wrote:
We are multi-decades way from that kind of impact in healthcare...

Frankly, I'm not in the camp that believes robots would wholesale change an industry like that.


I think we're probably multiple decades away as well. Not just the technology but the cultural acceptance of taking even a first diagnosis from a machine*.

But I think, and I think others as well, were talking about multiple generations from now.


*That said, one of the big things about technology is that things are always decades away, until all of a sudden they've just happened. We talked about automation replacing jobs as a few decades away, until all of a sudden there were more robots than people on earth, and whole industries were making more than they ever did while employing a tenth of the labour.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 03:03:31


Post by: cincydooley


Or companies could simply pay people based on what the work is worth.

I think it would be interesting if we snowballed what should be covered by a "living wage" because it is, as you said, so very subjective.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 dogma wrote:
 cincydooley wrote:

So....someone should receive a higher pay for the same work because of their age?


Yes, because age can be an asset.


Please provide an example where a younger person should get paid more than an older person (or vice versa) simply based on age.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 d-usa wrote:
How is that remotely relevant


Based on this I'll assume I misunderstood your previous comment.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 03:14:02


Post by: Jehan-reznor


I agree get rid of those government invasive rules to protect the worker! go back to the good old days of 6 day work week, 12 hours a day getting paid in company credits only and living in company housing, we don't need no stinking minimum wage.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 03:15:59


Post by: cincydooley


 Jehan-reznor wrote:
I agree get rid of those government invasive rules to protect the worker!


I must have missed where anyone proposed that. Mind pointing it out for me?


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 03:33:47


Post by: Hordini


 Psienesis wrote:
 Hordini wrote:
 Peregrine wrote:
 djones520 wrote:
And in the mean time, everyone else who was already making that level of pay gets shafted.

Anecdotal example. A relative of mine is taking a job where she is managing a pet kennel. A large one, capable of holding a couple hundred animals. Her pay (not including other benefits) will be starting at $15 an hour. She will be running a 1.5 million dollar business at that pay. This type of minimum wage hike? She'd have to pay the folks who do nothing more then clean the poop out of the stalls and wash towels the exact same.

So, someone whose responsible for managing payroll, scheduling, handling advertising, etc, will be drawing in the same dollar per hour that sprays gak out of a stall for 4 hours a day.


I fail to see what the problem is in this situation. The conservative ideology that dominates opposition to minimum wage laws is that the free market is always correct, and concepts like what people "deserve" to make are irrelevant.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I think 10$ is perfect for what min wage is meant for. Teenagers and college students working for spending money.
It is not meant to support a 40 yr.
You want a job, go train for one. a guard card is 200 in california, and depending on the establishment, you could get 600 a night


It must be nice living in a fantasy world where everyone can get a job that pays better than minimum wage with a trivial amount of effort. Too bad that isn't the one we actually live in, where a lot of people don't have the same lives as middle-class college students.


You don't need to be a middle-class college student to get a restaurant job that pays more than minimum wage.


Considering that wait-staff is allowed, by law, to be paid less than minimum wage (the difference to be made up by tips) and that chefs in this area are often paid $12\hr (for having 5 years of culinary arts school and 10 years experience)... yeah, actually, that's pretty damned difficult.


Good servers make way more than minimum wage. Good bartenders can make even more. And there are restaurants that hire cooks off the street (not chefs, mind you) for more than minimum wage.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 03:45:09


Post by: Co'tor Shas


For food services it really varies. My brother currently works full time as a helper in the kitchens of a relatively high-end place, Diamond Mills to be specific, and he gets paid a good wage, but I have friends who work and wait staff, and they don't always make enough in tips to fill that gap. Which is why there have been laws proposed to make the employers fill that gap.

Really, I have never liked the idea that tipped workers get to be paid less because of tips. Tips should be used to show appreciation for good service, not a an excuse to pay them less.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 03:46:54


Post by: djones520


Finding a job that pays more then minimum wage is not that difficult. Even if you find one that does, growing beyond it won't take long if you exhibit something like drive.

Granted, I'm drawing from 15 years ago, but when I worked fast food, I started out $1.50 above minimum wage. WIthin 6 months, I had received about a dollar an hour in raises. Why? Because I was a worker who could be relied on. Even though all I was doing was making Taco's, I did it well. I showed up on time, I volunteered to fill gakky shifts, I acted like I cared about my job. I was rewarded for it.

Managers don't like minimum wage workers. Because they aren't workers worth keeping. They'd rather pay more to an employee who is going to be worth 2 crappy employees. So don't be a crappy employee.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 03:50:58


Post by: hotsauceman1


 djones520 wrote:
Finding a job that pays more then minimum wage is not that difficult. Even if you find one that does, growing beyond it won't take long if you exhibit something like drive.

Granted, I'm drawing from 15 years ago, but when I worked fast food, I started out $1.50 above minimum wage. WIthin 6 months, I had received about a dollar an hour in raises. Why? Because I was a worker who could be relied on. Even though all I was doing was making Taco's, I did it well. I showed up on time, I volunteered to fill gakky shifts, I acted like I cared about my job. I was rewarded for it.

Managers don't like minimum wage workers. Because they aren't workers worth keeping. They'd rather pay more to an employee who is going to be worth 2 crappy employees. So don't be a crappy employee.

IME, it depends on the establishment. Corporate and change stores are less likely to give a raise you less you get a promotion.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 03:53:19


Post by: djones520


 hotsauceman1 wrote:
 djones520 wrote:
Finding a job that pays more then minimum wage is not that difficult. Even if you find one that does, growing beyond it won't take long if you exhibit something like drive.

Granted, I'm drawing from 15 years ago, but when I worked fast food, I started out $1.50 above minimum wage. WIthin 6 months, I had received about a dollar an hour in raises. Why? Because I was a worker who could be relied on. Even though all I was doing was making Taco's, I did it well. I showed up on time, I volunteered to fill gakky shifts, I acted like I cared about my job. I was rewarded for it.

Managers don't like minimum wage workers. Because they aren't workers worth keeping. They'd rather pay more to an employee who is going to be worth 2 crappy employees. So don't be a crappy employee.

IME, it depends on the establishment. Corporate and change stores are less likely to give a raise you less you get a promotion.


I worked for Taco Bell. I see many corporate stores today that are only promoting from within. They aren't hiring managers off the street, and the sorts.

As I said, that boss is going to want a hard worker more then a gakky worker. They will pay you more to keep you, because you are a proven asset. Most pay decisions are not made at corporate level. They are made at the franchise level, or even the store level.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 04:09:03


Post by: dogma


 cincydooley wrote:

Please provide an example where a younger person should get paid more than an older person (or vice versa) simply based on age.


In door-to-door anything middle age women tend to have higher starting compensation as their activity usually leads to greater revenue.

At any rate "...simply based on age..." is lazy criticism. If you, as a bar owner, cannot acknowledge that there are characteristics associated with age that are common, and dictate who you hire, then you probably need to think a bit.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 04:39:47


Post by: cincydooley


 dogma wrote:
as their activity usually leads to greater revenue.


So these middle-aged women aren't producing the same number of widgets, as it were, as other people. They're producing more. So it would follow that they should be paid more if that holds true.


At any rate "...simply based on age..." is lazy criticism. If you, as a bar owner, cannot acknowledge that there are characteristics associated with age that are common, and dictate who you hire, then you probably need to think a bit.


We're not talking about hiring rates. We're talking about wages.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 04:44:50


Post by: Jehan-reznor


 cincydooley wrote:
 Jehan-reznor wrote:
I agree get rid of those government invasive rules to protect the worker!


I must have missed where anyone proposed that. Mind pointing it out for me?


Then why are you against minimum wage? you say no one will take a low paying job, strange people already doing that, you know when you have no money and are hungry.
No minimum wage gives the power to the companies, minimum wage gives the power to the worker.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 04:48:07


Post by: cincydooley


 Jehan-reznor wrote:


Then why are you against minimum wage? you say no one will take a low paying job, strange people already doing that, you know when you have no money and are hungry.
No minimum wage gives the power to the companies, minimum wage gives the power to the worker.


Are you concerned about power or protection here? Because your previous post indicated protection.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 06:14:28


Post by: AnomanderRake


 Jehan-reznor wrote:
No minimum wage gives the power to the companies, minimum wage gives the power to the worker.


Minimum wage gives no power to anybody. It causes inflation and lets politicians claim they're doing something about the economy and get votes without having to actually help anyone.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 07:01:11


Post by: sebster


 cincydooley wrote:
Or companies could simply pay people based on what the work is worth.


I think it would be interesting if we snowballed what should be covered by a "living wage" because it is, as you said, so very subjective.


"Worth" is, of course, highly also subjective. There was an idea, from way back in the early days of economics, that wages for a job will move to it's natural marginal value, that it's value can be determined naturally by economic forces. That idea is about three or four generations dead by now, as we've learned that's a nice theory and it helps explain very broad concepts, but in terms of any specifics it's absolutely dwarfed by relative bargaining power and cultural values. Remove the minimum wage and you add the potential for exploitation in to that, and then there's real trouble.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 07:35:53


Post by: dogma


 cincydooley wrote:

So these middle-aged women aren't producing the same number of widgets, as it were, as other people. They're producing more. So it would follow that they should be paid more if that holds true.


Under your model they wouldn't be, as your model seems to operate irrespective of age and the associated characteristics.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 08:14:53


Post by: Jehan-reznor


 AnomanderRake wrote:
 Jehan-reznor wrote:
No minimum wage gives the power to the companies, minimum wage gives the power to the worker.


Minimum wage gives no power to anybody. It causes inflation and lets politicians claim they're doing something about the economy and get votes without having to actually help anyone.


So lots of people living on the street and below the poverty line surely shows the success of the current system, keep them rich rich!
http://rt.com/usa/us-food-percent-emergency-612/


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 09:01:05


Post by: Yodhrin


 sebster wrote:
 Yodhrin wrote:
The problem is that economics isn't a science, it's a collection of cults, of ideologies.


Not really. There are strong political interests and cliques in economics, but these are limited almost entirely to macro. The issue is that macro is by far the most discussed element of economics in the public sphere, and when you add in the tendency of the media to focus on the most political, most controversial speakers, well that tends to lead people to form an impression like yours above.

Most economics is actually very technical, entirely non-political and in most cases extremely boring. Go read some stuff about international trade or institutional economics, if you doubt me.


I don't agree, the issue is not that macro is discussed more in the public sphere, it's that economists themselves filter "technical, non-political" aspects of the work through those macro ideological filters. You mention international trade, which is a perfect example - when you consider the body of academic work on that subject, vast amounts of it rest on assumptions based in neoliberal macro ideology. Even when research is done from a heterodox perspective it rarely makes it to the point of being considered for policy or even just being part of the public discourse, since the economists advising governments, banks, and media all subscribe to a very narrow band of macro ideologies and they act as gatekeepers.

By the same token, replacing most existing forms of taxation with a system like Land Value Rating would achieve a lot of the more agreeable principles espoused by traditionally right-wing economic ideologies(you should keep what you earn, businesses shouldn't have their growth limited by essentially arbitrary tax rates etc) while also reducing inequality and eliminating any real possibility of avoidance and evasion, but because it's not progressive income tax combined with punitive corporation tax and because we're conditioned to see politics and economics as a zero-sum game a lot of folk on the left won't even consider it.


Tax on wealth rather than income is a terrible idea.


Since you don't bother to elaborate beyond this assertion, I'll have to disagree again. I tried to put together a succinct argument as to exactly why your assertion is incorrect, but frankly it's too big a topic for a couple of paragraphs on a forum, so I'll just have to link to this more thorough explanation, which is probably much better written than I could manage anyway.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 09:48:18


Post by: sebster


 Yodhrin wrote:
I don't agree, the issue is not that macro is discussed more in the public sphere, it's that economists themselves filter "technical, non-political" aspects of the work through those macro ideological filters. You mention international trade, which is a perfect example - when you consider the body of academic work on that subject, vast amounts of it rest on assumptions based in neoliberal macro ideology. Even when research is done from a heterodox perspective it rarely makes it to the point of being considered for policy or even just being part of the public discourse, since the economists advising governments, banks, and media all subscribe to a very narrow band of macro ideologies and they act as gatekeepers.


You know what they call heterodox economics that's well founded, well reasoned, and substantiated in economic models? Orthodox economics. Thankyou, I'll be hear all week.

Anyhow, I have no idea how New Trade Theory can be called neo-liberal in any sensible way. It puts front and square an economic argument for protectionism - the development of economies of scale and network effects in infant industries. That runs directly counter to the neo-liberal take on trade.

Since you don't bother to elaborate beyond this assertion, I'll have to disagree again. I tried to put together a succinct argument as to exactly why your assertion is incorrect, but frankly it's too big a topic for a couple of paragraphs on a forum, so I'll just have to link to this more thorough explanation, which is probably much better written than I could manage anyway.


I honestly thought about writing up a list, but then I didn't know if you were going to respond, or were even interested, so I just thought I start with one sentence and see what happens.

Anyway, here's a quick list, if you got any questions about any of them feel free;

1) There'll be a considerable deadweight loss. Property development is risky and so demands high rates of return, if the developer can expect newly developed land to start attracting very high taxes then he is likely to forgo development. When housing availability is such a problem because of the risks associated with new development, the deadweight loss would likely be a disaster.

2) Land value is subjective. I've worked in local government, the valuations are part formula, part bs, wrapped in enough clever government legalism to avoid constant law suits. This works because its just council rates, but if you ramp the tax up to cover current income taxes you'd have a farce of massive litigation.

3) We can't pay for lunch with wealth. A house rises and falls in value independent of our pay... but our tax will come out of income and our living standard will remain our net income. This means that a person can earn $50k and pay lets say $15k on their home in land tax. Then next year as a property boom comes through the area and while his income remains 50k, taxes might increase on the now more valuable home to 25k. All of a sudden net income has been slashed, without changing anything myself. Now consider the same thing happening to someone on a very low wage - if housing grows enough in an area over two or three years, it can actually exceed annual income.

4) Most wealth is outside of land. A person with large investments in stocks will not pay anything by this system (other than that paid by the company, which can potentially be very little), but a person who owns several homes that he rents will pay a massive portion of the overall tax burden. This seems a very weird way to prioritise tax - people who build and developing housing for rent are expected to pay most of the tax burden of the country, people who invest in stocks pay nothing.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 10:46:22


Post by: Yodhrin


 sebster wrote:
 Yodhrin wrote:
I don't agree, the issue is not that macro is discussed more in the public sphere, it's that economists themselves filter "technical, non-political" aspects of the work through those macro ideological filters. You mention international trade, which is a perfect example - when you consider the body of academic work on that subject, vast amounts of it rest on assumptions based in neoliberal macro ideology. Even when research is done from a heterodox perspective it rarely makes it to the point of being considered for policy or even just being part of the public discourse, since the economists advising governments, banks, and media all subscribe to a very narrow band of macro ideologies and they act as gatekeepers.


You know what they call heterodox economics that's well founded, well reasoned, and substantiated in economic models? Orthodox economics. Thankyou, I'll be hear all week.


Rubbish. Orthodox economics is essentially the various forms of neoclassical and neoclassical-adjacent models, the moment you step outside those limits it doesn't matter how extensive and well-founded your research is, you will be dismissed on the basis you are not adhering to dogma.

Anyhow, I have no idea how New Trade Theory can be called neo-liberal in any sensible way. It puts front and square an economic argument for protectionism - the development of economies of scale and network effects in infant industries. That runs directly counter to the neo-liberal take on trade.


And this is mainstream economics is it? Discussed in the media, understood in abstract terms by the populace, used to inform policy, and widely accepted among academic economists? No. NTT is dismissed by orthodox academic economists as using cherry-picked datasets to prove a point based on assumptions, and back in the real world we're all staring down the barrel of TTIP.

Since you don't bother to elaborate beyond this assertion, I'll have to disagree again. I tried to put together a succinct argument as to exactly why your assertion is incorrect, but frankly it's too big a topic for a couple of paragraphs on a forum, so I'll just have to link to this more thorough explanation, which is probably much better written than I could manage anyway.


I honestly thought about writing up a list, but then I didn't know if you were going to respond, or were even interested, so I just thought I start with one sentence and see what happens.

Anyway, here's a quick list, if you got any questions about any of them feel free;

1) There'll be a considerable deadweight loss. Property development is risky and so demands high rates of return, if the developer can expect newly developed land to start attracting very high taxes then he is likely to forgo development. When housing availability is such a problem because of the risks associated with new development, the deadweight loss would likely be a disaster.


You'll have to explain how deriving revenue from land value, ie the unimproved value of land, ie the value of land absent any capital development, will generate a large deadweight loss for developers, given that it would drive the initial cost of acquiring land down and allow the developer to collect all of the increase in value they would generate by their efforts.

2) Land value is subjective. I've worked in local government, the valuations are part formula, part bs, wrapped in enough clever government legalism to avoid constant law suits. This works because its just council rates, but if you ramp the tax up to cover current income taxes you'd have a farce of massive litigation.


Addressed in the link. Land value is a function of market value, not a subjective assessment. A property is worth X, the value of the buildings and other capital improvements of that land are worth Y, subtract Y from X and you determine the market land value.

3) We can't pay for lunch with wealth. A house rises and falls in value independent of our pay... but our tax will come out of income and our living standard will remain our net income. This means that a person can earn $50k and pay lets say $15k on their home in land tax. Then next year as a property boom comes through the area and while his income remains 50k, taxes might increase on the now more valuable home to 25k. All of a sudden net income has been slashed, without changing anything myself. Now consider the same thing happening to someone on a very low wage - if housing grows enough in an area over two or three years, it can actually exceed annual income.


Addressed in the link. One of the primary benefits of LVR is that as it approaches 100% of potential rents speculative land ownership is reduced accordingly - no more "property booms". The purpose of LVR is to make ownership of land for productive purposes appealing, and ownership of land for speculation or passive accrual of rents unappealing. In your example changes to the local housing market would have very little impact on the rate of LVR being paid since a home already exists on the land so it is already being put to it's highest and best use(HABU) and the HABU is what determines the rate paid.

4) Most wealth is outside of land. A person with large investments in stocks will not pay anything by this system (other than that paid by the company, which can potentially be very little), but a person who owns several homes that he rents will pay a massive portion of the overall tax burden. This seems a very weird way to prioritise tax - people who build and developing housing for rent are expected to pay most of the tax burden of the country, people who invest in stocks pay nothing.


You will note that I said "replacing most existing forms of taxation"(emphasis added). As the paper I linked to outlines, the most rational way to implement LVR is to begin by using it a straight replacement for Council Tax or equivalent forms of local government taxation, and increase it over time with a proportionate decrease in income, corporation, and sales taxes, ie earned income. Capital Gains is a tax on unearned income, as is LVR, there's no reason they shouldn't coexist. If people want to earn money by renting housing, they would have to do so by making material improvements to the quality of the housing on the land, just like everyone else who wanted to make money from land, which is a natural resource that derives its value from the presence and efforts of everyone not merely its owner.

I really do suggest you read the linked PDF.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 11:07:53


Post by: Frazzled




If we're genuinely considering a system in which automation has allowed us to surpass scarcity, there is no reason for anyone to own Robby - .


No reason except of course that is how economics works. Robby gets built by the guy that owns Robby, not the local faerie dust princess do gooder society.

As long as humans exist the concept of a post scarcity society is just funny.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 13:17:08


Post by: Yodhrin


 Frazzled wrote:


If we're genuinely considering a system in which automation has allowed us to surpass scarcity, there is no reason for anyone to own Robby - .


No reason except of course that is how economics works. Robby gets built by the guy that owns Robby, not the local faerie dust princess do gooder society.

As long as humans exist the concept of a post scarcity society is just funny.


It's easy to respond to an argument when you cut out all the parts which address your objections.

1. Realistically, how likely is the owner of Robby to be such an irrational and selfish tosser that they would impose scarcity on everyone else when it would have no material benefit for them and serve no practical purpose? I'm a cynical bugger, and even I don't think most humans are quite that sociopathic.

2. Realistically, even if we assume Robby's owner is just such a petty nutjob, how does he prevent someone else or multiple someone elses building Randy the robot and Ralph the robot etc etc and then giving away their versions of scarcity-ending automation technology for free, making Robby worthless and his owner's apparent desire to make everyone else's life crap just because he can utterly futile?

3. Realistically, even if we assume aforementioned sociopathy, as well as aforementioned imaginary ability to somehow prevent anyone with a different inclination from ever developing similar technology, and Robby's owner manages to impose artificial scarcity on everyone else; how is Robby's owner supposed to prevent the other 6.999.999,999 people on earth dragging him out of his home in the middle of the night and stringing him up like a French noble or Russian Tsar? Historically, when the wealthy and powerful go full-on "let them eat cake", people don't react well.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 13:36:14


Post by: Prestor Jon


Even if at some point in the future technological advances allow for the total automation of all manufacturing, that still wouldn't cause the end of commerce. As long as there is commerce there will be scarcity. Goods and services, whether provided by people or robots will still have value and be desirable, therefore people will engage in commerce to obtain them. A certain level of scarcity is inherent in commerce.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 13:51:26


Post by: Frazzled




1. Realistically, how likely is the owner of Robby to be such an irrational and selfish tosser that they would impose scarcity on everyone else when it would have no material benefit for them and serve no practical purpose? I'm a cynical bugger, and even I don't think most humans are quite that sociopathic.

Its like you took every history book ever written and just chucked it into the Tiber River and in one sentence tried to impose communism. Someone owns everything, even if its the govenrment that owns it.


2. Realistically, even if we assume Robby's owner is just such a petty nutjob, how does he prevent someone else or multiple someone elses building Randy the robot and Ralph the robot etc etc and then giving away their versions of scarcity-ending automation technology for free, making Robby worthless and his owner's apparent desire to make everyone else's life crap just because he can utterly futile?

Why is he a nutjob. I assume you have possessions correct? Are you a nutjob too?
Scarcity ending technology requires power and assets to build it. Guess what, those are owned to.
You could end "scarcity now" if everyone just had a box, and one change of clothing. AS the immortal bard said: thats now how it works. Thats not how any of this works!


3. Realistically, even if we assume aforementioned sociopathy, as well as aforementioned imaginary ability to somehow prevent anyone with a different inclination from ever developing similar technology, and Robby's owner manages to impose artificial scarcity on everyone else; how is Robby's owner supposed to prevent the other 6.999.999,999 people on earth dragging him out of his home in the middle of the night and stringing him up like a French noble or Russian Tsar? Historically, when the wealthy and powerful go full-on "let them eat cake", people don't react well.

Again its not about "developing technology" its about ownership of the assets required to make and power everything. I can invent an STC tomorrow but it don't mean gak because I still have to buy the stuff to make the STC and the stuff to make the goods. The only thing thats change is that you've cut out the machine tool industry and thrown some employees off the job.
WHICH IS WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 14:51:56


Post by: Xenomancers


 sebster wrote:
 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Im sure at some point someone will drag up the FDR quote where he fairly explicitly states what his intention in a "minimum wage" is, (and it's supposed to be a living wage), however I somewhat agree with you in saying that High Schoolers, and those living in a situation where they are no supporting themselves don't really "need" a living wage.


If this was a real concern, you could easily introduce reduced minimum wages for people under 18, ie up to 16 the minimum is $8 an hour, 16-17 the minimum is $10 an hour, 17-18 the minimum is $12 an hour, and then once you're 18 it goes up to $15. You can even bring in allowances for college students, or industry specific lower minimums, so industries that employ college kids and others that don't need a living wage can pay less.

None of that happens, or is even suggested by conservatives who so like to talk about what the minimum wage is meant to be for.

The answer to this is simple - they think they "deserve" to make more than other people. As if wages are determined by how much something is deserved.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The point I was trying to make about automation is that debates about minimum wage are eventually going to turn into debates about what to do with the 50% of unemployable population. The only reasonable and logical thing to do at that point is to start giving "living wages" away to everyone. Got a better idea? suggest it! We can't all be advanced robot designers and programmers - which will eventually be the only jobs left for human beings.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 15:18:26


Post by: Prestor Jon


 Xenomancers wrote:
 sebster wrote:
 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Im sure at some point someone will drag up the FDR quote where he fairly explicitly states what his intention in a "minimum wage" is, (and it's supposed to be a living wage), however I somewhat agree with you in saying that High Schoolers, and those living in a situation where they are no supporting themselves don't really "need" a living wage.


If this was a real concern, you could easily introduce reduced minimum wages for people under 18, ie up to 16 the minimum is $8 an hour, 16-17 the minimum is $10 an hour, 17-18 the minimum is $12 an hour, and then once you're 18 it goes up to $15. You can even bring in allowances for college students, or industry specific lower minimums, so industries that employ college kids and others that don't need a living wage can pay less.

None of that happens, or is even suggested by conservatives who so like to talk about what the minimum wage is meant to be for.

The answer to this is simple - they think they "deserve" to make more than other people. As if wages are determined by how much something is deserved.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The point I was trying to make about automation is that debates about minimum wage are eventually going to turn into debates about what to do with the 50% of unemployable population. The only reasonable and logical thing to do at that point is to start giving "living wages" away to everyone. Got a better idea? suggest it! We can't all be advanced robot designers and programmers - which will eventually be the only jobs left for human beings.


In that situation you couldn't call it a living "wage" since they wouldn't be working. It would be an existence subsidy or danegeld to allieve resentment/anger.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 15:59:54


Post by: Xenomancers


Prestor Jon wrote:
 Xenomancers wrote:
 sebster wrote:
 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Im sure at some point someone will drag up the FDR quote where he fairly explicitly states what his intention in a "minimum wage" is, (and it's supposed to be a living wage), however I somewhat agree with you in saying that High Schoolers, and those living in a situation where they are no supporting themselves don't really "need" a living wage.


If this was a real concern, you could easily introduce reduced minimum wages for people under 18, ie up to 16 the minimum is $8 an hour, 16-17 the minimum is $10 an hour, 17-18 the minimum is $12 an hour, and then once you're 18 it goes up to $15. You can even bring in allowances for college students, or industry specific lower minimums, so industries that employ college kids and others that don't need a living wage can pay less.

None of that happens, or is even suggested by conservatives who so like to talk about what the minimum wage is meant to be for.

The answer to this is simple - they think they "deserve" to make more than other people. As if wages are determined by how much something is deserved.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The point I was trying to make about automation is that debates about minimum wage are eventually going to turn into debates about what to do with the 50% of unemployable population. The only reasonable and logical thing to do at that point is to start giving "living wages" away to everyone. Got a better idea? suggest it! We can't all be advanced robot designers and programmers - which will eventually be the only jobs left for human beings.


In that situation you couldn't call it a living "wage" since they wouldn't be working. It would be an existence subsidy or danegeld to allieve resentment/anger.

No it's the wage you get for "living." LOL I know what you are saying but you also know what I'm saying. We can call it an existence subsidy.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 16:37:43


Post by: cincydooley


 sebster wrote:


"Worth" is, of course, highly also subjective. There was an idea, from way back in the early days of economics, that wages for a job will move to it's natural marginal value, that it's value can be determined naturally by economic forces. That idea is about three or four generations dead by now, as we've learned that's a nice theory and it helps explain very broad concepts, but in terms of any specifics it's absolutely dwarfed by relative bargaining power and cultural values. Remove the minimum wage and you add the potential for exploitation in to that, and then there's real trouble.


I mean, people are already declining to take jobs they believe are 'beneath' them. We see it all the time. I completely agree that "worth" is subjective, and on two fronts:

1. How much does a business decide a particular job is "worth."
2. Are there individuals willing to accept that job at that "worth."

HSM proposed that, without a minimum wage, people would be working for pennies a day. I think that's a ridiculous notion.

A business is going to pay as little as possible for the job they need done. People that need employment are going to weigh whether what said business is offering is worth their time. No one, in 2015 America, is going to work for pennies a day. As such, businesses cannot pay pennies a day, because there would be no demand for a job that paid pennies day. From there, businesses will continue to raise that wage until someone is willing to take that job. At that point is the correct wage for said job. It doesn't need a minimum wage to artificially drive it.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 17:13:27


Post by: Easy E


 cincydooley wrote:
 sebster wrote:



HSM proposed that, without a minimum wage, people would be working for pennies a day. I think that's a ridiculous notion.



Yes, this would never happen!

http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/25/19062348-disabled-workers-paid-just-pennies-an-hour-and-its-legal

Woops. It is even in America. Imagine if we went to the third-world!


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 17:46:04


Post by: Lance845


 whembly wrote:
 Chongara wrote:
 Breotan wrote:
 Grey Templar wrote:
The damage will take a while to be apparent.

Also, the wage isn't $15 yet so the impact isn't as severe as an overnight pay raise would have been.



What people fail to understand that is that minimum wage labor costs constitutes 100% of a businesses expenses.

wat?


Second.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 17:57:10


Post by: Xenomancers


 cincydooley wrote:
 sebster wrote:


"Worth" is, of course, highly also subjective. There was an idea, from way back in the early days of economics, that wages for a job will move to it's natural marginal value, that it's value can be determined naturally by economic forces. That idea is about three or four generations dead by now, as we've learned that's a nice theory and it helps explain very broad concepts, but in terms of any specifics it's absolutely dwarfed by relative bargaining power and cultural values. Remove the minimum wage and you add the potential for exploitation in to that, and then there's real trouble.


I mean, people are already declining to take jobs they believe are 'beneath' them. We see it all the time. I completely agree that "worth" is subjective, and on two fronts:

1. How much does a business decide a particular job is "worth."
2. Are there individuals willing to accept that job at that "worth."

HSM proposed that, without a minimum wage, people would be working for pennies a day. I think that's a ridiculous notion.

A business is going to pay as little as possible for the job they need done. People that need employment are going to weigh whether what said business is offering is worth their time. No one, in 2015 America, is going to work for pennies a day. As such, businesses cannot pay pennies a day, because there would be no demand for a job that paid pennies day. From there, businesses will continue to raise that wage until someone is willing to take that job. At that point is the correct wage for said job. It doesn't need a minimum wage to artificially drive it.

I've never been in the workforce without a minimum wage. I can tell you though, higher minimum wage is BETTER for everyone. Those who end up making minimum wage end up spending their entire paycheck anyways whether its 10$ or 15$ an hour pay rate. I't comes right back to businesses. A dude that used to snuff at 5 dollar coffee might try or start frequenting Starbucks because hes got some bills in his pocket. Same can be said about everything. People with money are more likely to spend it. It's better for everyone. Eventually everyone wages go up as a result because businesses are selling more product. WIN WIN really.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 18:00:07


Post by: MrDwhitey


Lance845 wrote:
 whembly wrote:
 Chongara wrote:
 Breotan wrote:
 Grey Templar wrote:
The damage will take a while to be apparent.

Also, the wage isn't $15 yet so the impact isn't as severe as an overnight pay raise would have been.



What people fail to understand that is that minimum wage labor costs constitutes 100% of a businesses expenses.

wat?


Second.


He's being sarcastic as feth.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 18:00:24


Post by: SilverMK2


There is also a problem in removing minimum wage protections in that it has not been unknown for companies to fix the price of goods and wages between themselves in order to keep more money in the pot for shareholders and management...


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 18:18:13


Post by: Prestor Jon


 Xenomancers wrote:
Prestor Jon wrote:
 Xenomancers wrote:
 sebster wrote:
 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Im sure at some point someone will drag up the FDR quote where he fairly explicitly states what his intention in a "minimum wage" is, (and it's supposed to be a living wage), however I somewhat agree with you in saying that High Schoolers, and those living in a situation where they are no supporting themselves don't really "need" a living wage.


If this was a real concern, you could easily introduce reduced minimum wages for people under 18, ie up to 16 the minimum is $8 an hour, 16-17 the minimum is $10 an hour, 17-18 the minimum is $12 an hour, and then once you're 18 it goes up to $15. You can even bring in allowances for college students, or industry specific lower minimums, so industries that employ college kids and others that don't need a living wage can pay less.

None of that happens, or is even suggested by conservatives who so like to talk about what the minimum wage is meant to be for.

The answer to this is simple - they think they "deserve" to make more than other people. As if wages are determined by how much something is deserved.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The point I was trying to make about automation is that debates about minimum wage are eventually going to turn into debates about what to do with the 50% of unemployable population. The only reasonable and logical thing to do at that point is to start giving "living wages" away to everyone. Got a better idea? suggest it! We can't all be advanced robot designers and programmers - which will eventually be the only jobs left for human beings.


In that situation you couldn't call it a living "wage" since they wouldn't be working. It would be an existence subsidy or danegeld to allieve resentment/anger.

No it's the wage you get for "living." LOL I know what you are saying but you also know what I'm saying. We can call it an existence subsidy.


I understood what you were saying. Personally, I think making them do something even if it's make work would be better than simply collecting a check for nothing.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 18:53:25


Post by: cincydooley


 Easy E wrote:


Yes, this would never happen!

http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/25/19062348-disabled-workers-paid-just-pennies-an-hour-and-its-legal

Woops. It is even in America. Imagine if we went to the third-world!



His wages have risen and fallen based on "time studies," the method nonprofits use to calculate the salaries of Section 14 (c) workers. Staff members use a stopwatch to determine how long it takes a disabled worker to complete a task. That time is compared with how long it would take a person without a disability to do the same task. The nonprofit then uses a formula to calculate a salary, which may be equal to or less than minimum wage. The tests are repeated every six months.


I realize many people are opposed to a meritocracy.

I am not one of them.

I will also never understand how people continually associate what a CEO gets paid to what they think they should get paid.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 20:33:28


Post by: Hordini


 cincydooley wrote:
I will also never understand how people continually associate what a CEO gets paid to what they think they should get paid.



Some CEOs get paid way to much, particularly the ones who exhibit pretty horrible leadership, like sending executives to luxury retreats after taking a government bailout, or taking a raise (or not taking a pay cut) while laying off a ton of employees.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 21:10:24


Post by: Easy E


 cincydooley wrote:
 Easy E wrote:


Yes, this would never happen!

http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/25/19062348-disabled-workers-paid-just-pennies-an-hour-and-its-legal

Woops. It is even in America. Imagine if we went to the third-world!



His wages have risen and fallen based on "time studies," the method nonprofits use to calculate the salaries of Section 14 (c) workers. Staff members use a stopwatch to determine how long it takes a disabled worker to complete a task. That time is compared with how long it would take a person without a disability to do the same task. The nonprofit then uses a formula to calculate a salary, which may be equal to or less than minimum wage. The tests are repeated every six months.


I realize many people are opposed to a meritocracy.

I am not one of them.

I will also never understand how people continually associate what a CEO gets paid to what they think they should get paid.


Meritocracy? What is/has merit?


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 22:08:33


Post by: Ouze


 Hordini wrote:
Some CEOs get paid way to much, particularly the ones who exhibit pretty horrible leadership, like sending executives to luxury retreats after taking a government bailout, or taking a raise (or not taking a pay cut) while laying off a ton of employees.


It has longed seemed to me there is a point where your actual job performance simply no longer seems to matter once you hit a certain level. Look at Carly Fiorina - she ran HP into the ground, and now touts her "business acumen" as a rationale for why she would be a successful politician. Mike Jeffries is another great example. He eventually got forced out, in all fairness, but look how many years he was wildly rewarded for doing a terrible job, year after year after year.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/20 23:59:58


Post by: dogma


 djones520 wrote:
Finding a job that pays more then minimum wage is not that difficult. Even if you find one that does, growing beyond it won't take long if you exhibit something like drive.


It actually can be quite difficult and, generally speaking, that raise will still place the wage earner below the poverty line.

 djones520 wrote:

Managers don't like minimum wage workers. Because they aren't workers worth keeping. They'd rather pay more to an employee who is going to be worth 2 crappy employees. So don't be a crappy employee.


Not at a McJob where, at any given time, a manager can reach to the stack of applications on his desk like he's signalling the bullpen. I know this, because that's what I did with the low level workers (desk staff) when I managed a gym.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/21 08:02:03


Post by: Bookwrack


 Ouze wrote:
 Hordini wrote:
Some CEOs get paid way to much, particularly the ones who exhibit pretty horrible leadership, like sending executives to luxury retreats after taking a government bailout, or taking a raise (or not taking a pay cut) while laying off a ton of employees.


It has longed seemed to me there is a point where your actual job performance simply no longer seems to matter once you hit a certain level. Look at Carly Fiorina - she ran HP into the ground, and now touts her "business acumen" as a rationale for why she would be a successful politician. Mike Jeffries is another great example. He eventually got forced out, in all fairness, but look how many years he was wildly rewarded for doing a terrible job, year after year after year.

They exist in a world where even completely screwing up their job still has a failure state of them getting more money than I can expect to make in my lifetime as part of their firing process.

One of the stupider things about scaling pay to age, is that in places where it exists you have companies fire employees to replace them with appropriately aged youngsters once they get too old. Why pay fractionally more for someone who knows what they're doing when you can save money on paper?

There's also that you're giving away free economic strength, because aside from the ones who will do smart things with their money like put it away for school, teens are one of the biggest luxury good buyers out there. Their disposable income goes right back into the local economy, which helps everyone.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/21 09:35:52


Post by: AlmightyWalrus


 cincydooley wrote:
 Easy E wrote:


Yes, this would never happen!

http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/25/19062348-disabled-workers-paid-just-pennies-an-hour-and-its-legal

Woops. It is even in America. Imagine if we went to the third-world!



His wages have risen and fallen based on "time studies," the method nonprofits use to calculate the salaries of Section 14 (c) workers. Staff members use a stopwatch to determine how long it takes a disabled worker to complete a task. That time is compared with how long it would take a person without a disability to do the same task. The nonprofit then uses a formula to calculate a salary, which may be equal to or less than minimum wage. The tests are repeated every six months.


I realize many people are opposed to a meritocracy.

I am not one of them.

I will also never understand how people continually associate what a CEO gets paid to what they think they should get paid.


Sorry, meritocracy isn't the practice of letting private actors do whatever they want and hope that they play nice, I believe what you're looking for is "anarcho-capitalism".


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/21 11:43:25


Post by: Relapse


 dogma wrote:
 djones520 wrote:
Finding a job that pays more then minimum wage is not that difficult. Even if you find one that does, growing beyond it won't take long if you exhibit something like drive.


It actually can be quite difficult and, generally speaking, that raise will still place the wage earner below the poverty line.

 djones520 wrote:

Managers don't like minimum wage workers. Because they aren't workers worth keeping. They'd rather pay more to an employee who is going to be worth 2 crappy employees. So don't be a crappy employee.


Not at a McJob where, at any given time, a manager can reach to the stack of applications on his desk like he's signalling the bullpen. I know this, because that's what I did with the low level workers (desk staff) when I managed a gym.


What were the costs involved with training new workers at your gym?


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/21 13:41:26


Post by: Prestor Jon


 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
 cincydooley wrote:
 Easy E wrote:


Yes, this would never happen!

http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/25/19062348-disabled-workers-paid-just-pennies-an-hour-and-its-legal

Woops. It is even in America. Imagine if we went to the third-world!



His wages have risen and fallen based on "time studies," the method nonprofits use to calculate the salaries of Section 14 (c) workers. Staff members use a stopwatch to determine how long it takes a disabled worker to complete a task. That time is compared with how long it would take a person without a disability to do the same task. The nonprofit then uses a formula to calculate a salary, which may be equal to or less than minimum wage. The tests are repeated every six months.


I realize many people are opposed to a meritocracy.

I am not one of them.

I will also never understand how people continually associate what a CEO gets paid to what they think they should get paid.


Sorry, meritocracy isn't the practice of letting private actors do whatever they want and hope that they play nice, I believe what you're looking for is "anarcho-capitalism".


No, he got it right with meritocracy. The wage you earn is based upon your contribution in the workplace and the value you add to the company/employer.

That is a far cry from meeting the definition of anarcho-capitalism.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/21 13:45:21


Post by: Bullockist


 Xenomancers wrote:
 cincydooley wrote:
 sebster wrote:


"Worth" is, of course, highly also subjective. There was an idea, from way back in the early days of economics, that wages for a job will move to it's natural marginal value, that it's value can be determined naturally by economic forces. That idea is about three or four generations dead by now, as we've learned that's a nice theory and it helps explain very broad concepts, but in terms of any specifics it's absolutely dwarfed by relative bargaining power and cultural values. Remove the minimum wage and you add the potential for exploitation in to that, and then there's real trouble.


I mean, people are already declining to take jobs they believe are 'beneath' them. We see it all the time. I completely agree that "worth" is subjective, and on two fronts:

1. How much does a business decide a particular job is "worth."
2. Are there individuals willing to accept that job at that "worth."

HSM proposed that, without a minimum wage, people would be working for pennies a day. I think that's a ridiculous notion.

A business is going to pay as little as possible for the job they need done. People that need employment are going to weigh whether what said business is offering is worth their time. No one, in 2015 America, is going to work for pennies a day. As such, businesses cannot pay pennies a day, because there would be no demand for a job that paid pennies day. From there, businesses will continue to raise that wage until someone is willing to take that job. At that point is the correct wage for said job. It doesn't need a minimum wage to artificially drive it.

I've never been in the workforce without a minimum wage. I can tell you though, higher minimum wage is BETTER for everyone. Those who end up making minimum wage end up spending their entire paycheck anyways whether its 10$ or 15$ an hour pay rate. I't comes right back to businesses. A dude that used to snuff at 5 dollar coffee might try or start frequenting Starbucks because hes got some bills in his pocket. Same can be said about everything. People with money are more likely to spend it. It's better for everyone. Eventually everyone wages go up as a result because businesses are selling more product. WIN WIN really.


This, a more powerful lower wage creates more spending in the economy, yeah i get that it is offset by inflation,lower class/lower middle class having a slight raising of pay adds far more to an econmy than tax breaks to the rich. the profusion of GST proves this.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/21 15:53:33


Post by: dogma


Relapse wrote:

What were the costs involved with training new workers at your gym?


There really weren't any, because I wouldn't hire anyone who lacked gym etiquette; as there were plenty of people in the metaphorical bullpen that possessed it.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/21 18:19:55


Post by: Frazzled


 Ouze wrote:
 Hordini wrote:
Some CEOs get paid way to much, particularly the ones who exhibit pretty horrible leadership, like sending executives to luxury retreats after taking a government bailout, or taking a raise (or not taking a pay cut) while laying off a ton of employees.


It has longed seemed to me there is a point where your actual job performance simply no longer seems to matter once you hit a certain level. Look at Carly Fiorina - she ran HP into the ground, and now touts her "business acumen" as a rationale for why she would be a successful politician. Mike Jeffries is another great example. He eventually got forced out, in all fairness, but look how many years he was wildly rewarded for doing a terrible job, year after year after year.

Fair points.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/21 20:21:42


Post by: Relapse


 dogma wrote:
Relapse wrote:

What were the costs involved with training new workers at your gym?


There really weren't any, because I wouldn't hire anyone who lacked gym etiquette; as there were plenty of people in the metaphorical bullpen that possessed it.


The situation at your gym is an outlier, then. There are costs, both tangible and intangible with a business situation where there has to be constant training because of high turnover.

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/labor/report/2012/11/16/44464/there-are-significant-business-costs-to-replacing-employees/



Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/21 20:34:07


Post by: dogma


Relapse wrote:

The situation at your gym is an outlier, then.


It really wasn't.

Relapse wrote:

There are costs, both tangible and intangible with a business situation where there has to be constant training because of high turnover.


Sure, but most positions that involve high turnover don't involve a lot of training. Though I suppose, at that point, it is less a "cost" than an "expectation".


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/21 20:44:26


Post by: Relapse


 dogma wrote:
Relapse wrote:

The situation at your gym is an outlier, then.


It really wasn't.

Relapse wrote:

There are costs, both tangible and intangible with a business situation where there has to be constant training because of high turnover.


Sure, but most positions that involve high turnover don't involve a lot of training. Though I suppose, at that point, it is less a "cost" than an "expectation".


As a job trainer, I see and hear about these costs all the time. A business deals with scrap in whatever form it takes, morale issues, knowledge walking out the door, slower process improvements, etc.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/21 20:53:32


Post by: dogma


Relapse wrote:

As a job trainer, I see and hear about these costs all the time. A business deals with scrap in whatever form it takes, morale issues, knowledge walking out the door, slower process improvements, etc.


Indeed it does, but that doesn't mean said business cannot create a category of employees that is effectively disposable. Hell, it might even help the morale of categories that aren't.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/21 21:04:28


Post by: Relapse


 dogma wrote:
Relapse wrote:

As a job trainer, I see and hear about these costs all the time. A business deals with scrap in whatever form it takes, morale issues, knowledge walking out the door, slower process improvements, etc.


Indeed it does, but that doesn't mean said business cannot create a category of employees that is effectively disposable. Hell, it might even help the morale of categories that aren't.


Very true. Many businesses keep a pool of temporary employees during a crunch for less skilled positions or they are specially trained to do just a few of the easier jobs, and the cost of their training is figured into the budget. Most businesses that have a revolving door involving full time employees or those trying to save money by relying on having the bulk of their processes manned by temps are crippling themselves.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/21 22:26:56


Post by: Bookwrack


And yet companies keep doing it because it provides good looking savings on paper.
 Bullockist wrote:
 Xenomancers wrote:
 cincydooley wrote:
 sebster wrote:


"Worth" is, of course, highly also subjective. There was an idea, from way back in the early days of economics, that wages for a job will move to it's natural marginal value, that it's value can be determined naturally by economic forces. That idea is about three or four generations dead by now, as we've learned that's a nice theory and it helps explain very broad concepts, but in terms of any specifics it's absolutely dwarfed by relative bargaining power and cultural values. Remove the minimum wage and you add the potential for exploitation in to that, and then there's real trouble.


I mean, people are already declining to take jobs they believe are 'beneath' them. We see it all the time. I completely agree that "worth" is subjective, and on two fronts:

1. How much does a business decide a particular job is "worth."
2. Are there individuals willing to accept that job at that "worth."

HSM proposed that, without a minimum wage, people would be working for pennies a day. I think that's a ridiculous notion.

A business is going to pay as little as possible for the job they need done. People that need employment are going to weigh whether what said business is offering is worth their time. No one, in 2015 America, is going to work for pennies a day. As such, businesses cannot pay pennies a day, because there would be no demand for a job that paid pennies day. From there, businesses will continue to raise that wage until someone is willing to take that job. At that point is the correct wage for said job. It doesn't need a minimum wage to artificially drive it.

I've never been in the workforce without a minimum wage. I can tell you though, higher minimum wage is BETTER for everyone. Those who end up making minimum wage end up spending their entire paycheck anyways whether its 10$ or 15$ an hour pay rate. I't comes right back to businesses. A dude that used to snuff at 5 dollar coffee might try or start frequenting Starbucks because hes got some bills in his pocket. Same can be said about everything. People with money are more likely to spend it. It's better for everyone. Eventually everyone wages go up as a result because businesses are selling more product. WIN WIN really.


This, a more powerful lower wage creates more spending in the economy, yeah i get that it is offset by inflation,lower class/lower middle class having a slight raising of pay adds far more to an econmy than tax breaks to the rich. the profusion of GST proves this.

And really, the inflation number that goes with the raising of minimum wage is about 30% of the raise, so that means they're still coming out ahead.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/21 22:43:43


Post by: dogma


Relapse wrote:

Very true. Many businesses keep a pool of temporary employees during a crunch for less skilled positions or they are specially trained to do just a few of the easier jobs, and the cost of their training is figured into the budget.


In those cases the cost of training is essentially zero, at least assuming the business did not pay for the special training; which they usually don't.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/22 03:45:20


Post by: Relapse


 dogma wrote:
Relapse wrote:

Very true. Many businesses keep a pool of temporary employees during a crunch for less skilled positions or they are specially trained to do just a few of the easier jobs, and the cost of their training is figured into the budget.


In those cases the cost of training is essentially zero, at least assuming the business did not pay for the special training; which they usually don't.


In one form or another,a business will always pay for training. Those that just throw people into the work will pay through errors on the new workers part that cause scrap, rework, customer good will, overtime caused by trying to make shipping dates, etc. The intangibles, such as customer good will lost, can cause bad word of mouth that turns away customers to competitors.
HR costs figure into it, since their time is taken up with bringing new people in. Advertising for new employees or fees payed to hiring agencies may also come into the picture.
Low morale and lack of loyalty in a revolving door company also lead to lower production rates or low quality product, or even sabatogued product or company equipment.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/22 04:52:48


Post by: Ouze


Relapse wrote:
A business deals with scrap in whatever form it takes, morale issues, knowledge walking out the door, slower process improvements, etc.


I'm unfamiliar with the phrase "scrap" in this context. Is it like shrink?


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/22 05:00:15


Post by: Relapse


It's not shrinkage. It's product that does not meet specifications in some way and is disposed of, "scrapped". In the end, just about any business that thinks of it's workers as a disposable commodity will in turn be thought of by it's workers as disposable. It will suffer knowledge drain by excessive firings or people just walking out the door, sometimes at extremely inconvenient times.
One of the greatest wastes in the manufacturing or service worlds is to underestimate the value of human worth.



Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/22 05:03:44


Post by: Ouze


So it's a manufacturing phrase, then - not retail slang?


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/22 05:08:53


Post by: Relapse


 Ouze wrote:
So it's a manufacturing phrase, then - not retail slang?


That's what I am most familiar with, but it could possibly be extended to sub par service that needs to be smoothed over or reworked in some way.
In the example Dogma gave about the gym just kicking people out the door and bringing someone else in, I would posit the service is nowhere near the quality it could be since people are being treated as interchangeable parts rather than valuable people who have experience and care enough to provide the best care possible to their job.
I have to wonder how many potential clients were lost to competition due to this attitude on the gym's part. If a business offers a unique service or has rock bottom prices they may get by on this model for a while, but are nowhere near what they could be.
One time stands out in my mind when I was working at a "disposable worker" plant, and after a fairly grueling day on a line I was managing, I was approached and told I was the only one that treated the line workers like humans. After I left the company I was called by the people I managed and asked to come back.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/22 05:25:53


Post by: dogma


Relapse wrote:

In one form or another,a business will always pay for training.


Sure, if we assume the business is the only agent involved.

Relapse wrote:

Those that just throw people into the work will pay through errors on the new workers part that cause scrap, rework, customer good will, overtime caused by trying to make shipping dates, etc. The intangibles, such as customer good will lost, can cause bad word of mouth that turns away customers to competitors.


How many people do you think patronized McDonald's 2 because they once had poor service at McDonald's 1?

Relapse wrote:

HR costs figure into it, since their time is taken up with bringing new people in. Advertising for new employees or fees payed to hiring agencies may also come into the picture.


The cost of HR advertising for low level positions fell alongside the rise of Facebook.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/22 05:46:06


Post by: Ouze


 dogma wrote:
How many people do you think patronized McDonald's 2 because they once had poor service at McDonald's 1?


Well, I think McDonalds might be an outlier as far as retail goes. I saw a thing pretty recently that most people rate McDonalds service fairly low, but also polled that they were likely to return; they just accept that McDonalds is generally mediocre but it's cheap and disgusting and that's what people like so they don't care.

Unless that was the point you were making.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/22 05:51:30


Post by: Relapse


Recent history shows that Mac Donald's is having issues:


http://www.marketwatch.com/story/mcdonalds-profit-falls-30-on-us-china-woes-2014-10-21


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/22 05:54:28


Post by: Ouze


They've been slipping for a while now I believe. But is customer service the cause? I think they're just losing market share to better places to eat, foodwise.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/22 05:59:21


Post by: Relapse


 Ouze wrote:
They've been slipping for a while now I believe. But is customer service the cause? I think they're just losing market share to better places to eat, foodwise.


I'm sure there are other factors involved, but if poor customer service in some form or another were not involved, I would be very surprised. In Russia, for instance, they were shut down for unsanitary conditions. I am sure we have enough former McDonald's employees on these boards that could give anecdotes about things they saw go on. For that matter, anyone that has worked in a minimum wage position where employees were poorly treated could add with their own stories.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/22 06:02:26


Post by: dogma


 Ouze wrote:

Unless that was the point you were making.


It was, though I probably should have extended the point to include similar establishments.

Relapse wrote:
In Russia, for instance, they were shut down for unsanitary conditions.


In Russia. Russia.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/22 08:50:22


Post by: dogma


Relapse wrote:

It's really very easy stuff to find.


Yes it is, but those are franchise problems. All food service establishments run into that sort of thing, regardless of compensation, in large part because this...


#1. Hot drink stone cold after 3/4 mile. Called, no acknowledgement.


...sort of thing happens. The drink could not possibly have been hot when the consumer received it if it subsequently became "ice cold" after .75 miles.

Sounds like a troll.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/22 12:40:12


Post by: Relapse


It doesn't matter if it's just a franchise or not. There is far more than enough in those examples I supplied to make my previous statement about quality of goods and services from businesses that think of their workers as disposable stand.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/22 12:55:06


Post by: Yodhrin


 Frazzled wrote:


1. Realistically, how likely is the owner of Robby to be such an irrational and selfish tosser that they would impose scarcity on everyone else when it would have no material benefit for them and serve no practical purpose? I'm a cynical bugger, and even I don't think most humans are quite that sociopathic.

Its like you took every history book ever written and just chucked it into the Tiber River and in one sentence tried to impose communism. Someone owns everything, even if its the govenrment that owns it.


And this sort of bollocks is exactly what I mean when I talk about anything other than neoliberal orthodoxy being shouted down. Nowhere, not once, at any point, have I used the term Communism, nor described Communist ideology, nor argued that ownership as a concept would cease to exist. Merely that it would cease to apply to the means of production in a scenario where total automation of that process makes ownership of it totally irrelevant.


2. Realistically, even if we assume Robby's owner is just such a petty nutjob, how does he prevent someone else or multiple someone elses building Randy the robot and Ralph the robot etc etc and then giving away their versions of scarcity-ending automation technology for free, making Robby worthless and his owner's apparent desire to make everyone else's life crap just because he can utterly futile?

1.Why is he a nutjob. I assume you have possessions correct? Are you a nutjob too?
2.Scarcity ending technology requires power and assets to build it. Guess what, those are owned to.
3.You could end "scarcity now" if everyone just had a box, and one change of clothing. AS the immortal bard said: thats now how it works. Thats not how any of this works!


1. Possessions aren't the issue, see above. You're conflating personal property with ownership as a basic concept, when in reality the first is a subset of the other, just as owning the means of production is a subset. He would be a nutjob because he would be inflicting suffering on other people unnecessary - scarcity necessitates absence for some, and for a portion of those, the absence will be of essentials required for survival. If you would actively try to preserve a system of scarcity in which people starve and die when you had the means to end it and, more than that, could not even claim "rational" self-interest since preserving it would bring you no benefits whatsoever beyond fulfilling your twisted apparent desire to see others struggle and starve, damn straight I'd say you're a nutjob. I'd even say you were a monster.

2. But once they are built power and assets no longer have any real worth. If energy is collected and transferred automatically, resources are extracted, processed, and transported automatically, and both are then transformed into goods(or services) by fully automated manufacturing(or service-provision), as part of a process that repairs and maintains itself automatically cost no longer has meaning. When you boil it all the way down to the basics, there are only two actual costs; labour and energy(and arguably just energy, since the only reason we actually need compensation for our labour is that it requires us to expend energy which we must replenish). Energy is a cost because it requires resources to generate; that no longer applies in a post-scarcity system. Labour is a cost because our means of production requires it, and so it is a resource like any other; in a post scarcity system not only is labour no longer necessary, neither is compensating people for it, since any effort that people expend is entirely their choice as there is no "cost of living".

3. And here you demonstrate(again, given your earlier cracks about Communism) your fundamental misunderstanding of what we're actually talking about. Your example does not "end" scarcity, it is merely an imposition of uniform want. A post-scarcity system is not one where we impose equality, it is one where "equality" is meaningless because any material need is met and any material want fulfilled. It is a system where whether you choose to live as the equivalent of a scraggly mountain-man hermit or a ridiculous possession-obsessed billionaire celebutant heiress is irrelevant because nobody else has to bear any burden whatsoever to support your choice.


3. Realistically, even if we assume aforementioned sociopathy, as well as aforementioned imaginary ability to somehow prevent anyone with a different inclination from ever developing similar technology, and Robby's owner manages to impose artificial scarcity on everyone else; how is Robby's owner supposed to prevent the other 6.999.999,999 people on earth dragging him out of his home in the middle of the night and stringing him up like a French noble or Russian Tsar? Historically, when the wealthy and powerful go full-on "let them eat cake", people don't react well.

Again its not about "developing technology" its about ownership of the assets required to make and power everything. I can invent an STC tomorrow but it don't mean gak because I still have to buy the stuff to make the STC and the stuff to make the goods. The only thing thats change is that you've cut out the machine tool industry and thrown some employees off the job.
WHICH IS WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW.


Addressed above. Automated manufacturing alone is not post-scarcity; if you invent an STC tomorrow, and combine it with automated mining, automated resource processing, automated transportation, AI management systems, automated solar collectors connected to an automatically-built superconducting grid, etc etc, then scarcity ceases to have any meaning unless we impose it, and my question was how would the tiny minority of people who would "own" things prior to the creation of such technologies impose scarcity on the vast majority of humanity if said vast majority decided to French Revolution up the place?


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/22 16:02:56


Post by: AlmightyWalrus


Prestor Jon wrote:
 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
 cincydooley wrote:
 Easy E wrote:


Yes, this would never happen!

http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/25/19062348-disabled-workers-paid-just-pennies-an-hour-and-its-legal

Woops. It is even in America. Imagine if we went to the third-world!



His wages have risen and fallen based on "time studies," the method nonprofits use to calculate the salaries of Section 14 (c) workers. Staff members use a stopwatch to determine how long it takes a disabled worker to complete a task. That time is compared with how long it would take a person without a disability to do the same task. The nonprofit then uses a formula to calculate a salary, which may be equal to or less than minimum wage. The tests are repeated every six months.


I realize many people are opposed to a meritocracy.

I am not one of them.

I will also never understand how people continually associate what a CEO gets paid to what they think they should get paid.


Sorry, meritocracy isn't the practice of letting private actors do whatever they want and hope that they play nice, I believe what you're looking for is "anarcho-capitalism".


No, he got it right with meritocracy. The wage you earn is based upon your contribution in the workplace and the value you add to the company/employer.


Except that isn't how it currently works, your wage is based on how little the employer thinks he can get away with paying the you. Capitalism and meritocracy are not interchangeable.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/22 17:16:20


Post by: Ensis Ferrae


 AlmightyWalrus wrote:


Except that isn't how it currently works, your wage is based on how little the employer thinks he can get away with paying the you. Capitalism and meritocracy are not interchangeable.



There is a bit of both, though I wouldn't say it's based on your performance, it's based initially on your expected performance. Throw in there the various jobs that require university degrees (there's a perceived merit there) or other specialized skill sets and it's like I said, IMO, a bit of a mix between a meritocracy and "pure" Capitalism.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/22 17:46:10


Post by: Prestor Jon


 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Prestor Jon wrote:
 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
 cincydooley wrote:
 Easy E wrote:


Yes, this would never happen!

http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/25/19062348-disabled-workers-paid-just-pennies-an-hour-and-its-legal

Woops. It is even in America. Imagine if we went to the third-world!



His wages have risen and fallen based on "time studies," the method nonprofits use to calculate the salaries of Section 14 (c) workers. Staff members use a stopwatch to determine how long it takes a disabled worker to complete a task. That time is compared with how long it would take a person without a disability to do the same task. The nonprofit then uses a formula to calculate a salary, which may be equal to or less than minimum wage. The tests are repeated every six months.


I realize many people are opposed to a meritocracy.

I am not one of them.

I will also never understand how people continually associate what a CEO gets paid to what they think they should get paid.


Sorry, meritocracy isn't the practice of letting private actors do whatever they want and hope that they play nice, I believe what you're looking for is "anarcho-capitalism".


No, he got it right with meritocracy. The wage you earn is based upon your contribution in the workplace and the value you add to the company/employer.


Except that isn't how it currently works, your wage is based on how little the employer thinks he can get away with paying the you. Capitalism and meritocracy are not interchangeable.


No, with respect, you're missing the point. Section 14(c) workers having their wages based on time studies is a meritocracy. They earn less than other employees who can do the same work faster, those workers are more efficient and productive so they are more valuable. Consequently you get different wages for the job based on merit.

The only one trying to conflate that with capitalism is you.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/22 18:28:38


Post by: Relapse


A flaw I have seen in many businesses is that they somehow expect the slower workers to somehow get faster on their own without bothering to train them to the best methods of the faster workers.
They seem to have the notion that threatening a firing is going to improve performance. This robs both the worker and the business of anything good.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/22 22:01:36


Post by: dogma


Relapse wrote:
It doesn't matter if it's just a franchise or not.


Your argument depends on being able to extend poor practices at a given franchise to all other businesses operating under the same aegis, and further to any business that treats certain workers as expendable.

If a problem cannot be shown to extend beyond a given franchise, then your argument falls apart.

Relapse wrote:

There is far more than enough in those examples I supplied to make my previous statement about quality of goods and services from businesses that think of their workers as disposable stand.


You're putting the cart before the horse in assuming that poor service, and food, at fast food restaurants is the result of treating workers as though they are expendable.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/22 23:29:21


Post by: Relapse


I am not assuming anything though. I have personally witnessed such things happening and been told and read of enough other incidents in the course of my job to know it goes beyond anecdotal evidence.
I am not suggesting it is the sole reason, but it does play a large part.
When you have people you treat as disposable workers on whom you spend next to no time on in training or development, as a rule you are going to run into issues.


http://hiring.monster.com/hr/hr-best-practices/workforce-management/employee-performance-management/why-loyalty-matters.aspx

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/effects-lack-employee-training-42687.html


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/23 00:09:26


Post by: 1/325AIR


Lots of interesting and clearly highly educated replies to this thread. However, when dealing with minimum wage issues we need to look at who it effects: Walmart, Target? The automotive industry? Absolutely not, as they all routinely pay above US Federal minimum wage. Minimum wage jobs tend to be concentrated in service industries which are dominated by family, to small and medium size businesses; nor do these jobs represent a significant piece of the US workforce.
When these arbitrary increases are made, the results are almost always negative. The lady with the lawn care business with ten employees suffers the most. Those ten employees are now 100% more expensive than before, but do not necessarily generate an equal return in revenue. Hence, the owner who draws a salary out of her net profit can do three things:
1. Cut her own salary, hence literally taking food out of her family's mouth.
2. Increase her prices, making finding new customers more difficult and keeping existing ones problematic.
3. Lay off workers, reducing her overall productivity, being on the hook for unemployment payments, and taking food out of another family's mouths.

What is the solution? I wish I knew. Market forces could lead to exploitation, while unionism ( most of my employees are Union) can lead to gross over payment and significant inefficiencies. The federal wage is pointless as it can be worth wildly different depending on where in the country you live. When someone figures this out and can implement it where the owner's right to determine their own business practices without exploiting workers is protected, make that person the God-Emperor of mankind.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/23 00:57:15


Post by: Chongara


1/325AIR wrote:
Lots of interesting and clearly highly educated replies to this thread. However, when dealing with minimum wage issues we need to look at who it effects: Walmart, Target? The automotive industry? Absolutely not, as they all routinely pay above US Federal minimum wage. Minimum wage jobs tend to be concentrated in service industries which are dominated by family, to small and medium size businesses; nor do these jobs represent a significant piece of the US workforce.
When these arbitrary increases are made, the results are almost always negative. The lady with the lawn care business with ten employees suffers the most. Those ten employees are now 100% more expensive than before, but do not necessarily generate an equal return in revenue. Hence, the owner who draws a salary out of her net profit can do three things:
1. Cut her own salary, hence literally taking food out of her family's mouth.
2. Increase her prices, making finding new customers more difficult and keeping existing ones problematic.
3. Lay off workers, reducing her overall productivity, being on the hook for unemployment payments, and taking food out of another family's mouths.

What is the solution? I wish I knew. Market forces could lead to exploitation, while unionism ( most of my employees are Union) can lead to gross over payment and significant inefficiencies. The federal wage is pointless as it can be worth wildly different depending on where in the country you live. When someone figures this out and can implement it where the owner's right to determine their own business practices without exploiting workers is protected, make that person the God-Emperor of mankind.


This isn't an honest line of reasoning. The relevant information in the discussion isn't "How many employees of large employers are payed federal minimum wage($7.25)?" it's "How many employees of large employers are payed below the purposed minimum wage increases ($10 to $15)?".

There are certainly a ton of jobs making above minimum wage, but well below even the more modest of the new minimum wage proposals and certainly below livable wages or the more generous proposals (like the $15/hr Seattle implemented).

There has been a lot of news of these employers increasing their internal minimum wages to be more in line with the lower end of these guidelines over the past year so. However, I can't help but think this is just them adjusting for the direction the wind is already blowing. If they see a minimum wage increase as inevitable in the near future it might be best to just change their policies sooner rather than later and get any business disruptions done with with on their own time tables before the law forces their hand.


EDIT: Your point 2 is further dishonest. If she's paying at or near minimum wage her competitors likely are as well. In this case a high wage floats all prices, her competitors will similarly have to raise prices. Unless of course her primary competition is big-box landscaping that can afford to eat the new minimum wage increases. In which case I weep little for her comparatively predatory business, no matter how small and family-owned it was.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/23 05:21:50


Post by: dogma


Relapse wrote:
I am not assuming anything though. I have personally witnessed such things happening and been told and read of enough other incidents in the course of my job to know it goes beyond anecdotal evidence.


You're assuming that your experience, and the data collected by people sympathetic to your position, can be extended to all relevant cases. This is a poor assumption.

Relapse wrote:

When you have people you treat as disposable workers on whom you spend next to no time on in training or development, as a rule you are going to run into issues.


What do you mean by "...as a rule..."?

 Chongara wrote:
Your point 2 is further dishonest. If she's paying at or near minimum wage her competitors likely are as well. In this case a high wage floats all prices, her competitors will similarly have to raise prices. Unless of course her primary competition is big-box landscaping that can afford to eat the new minimum wage increases. In which case I weep little for her comparatively predatory business, no matter how small and family-owned it was.


She is also likely paying under the table.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/23 11:04:39


Post by: Frazzled


 Ouze wrote:
 dogma wrote:
How many people do you think patronized McDonald's 2 because they once had poor service at McDonald's 1?


Well, I think McDonalds might be an outlier as far as retail goes. I saw a thing pretty recently that most people rate McDonalds service fairly low, but also polled that they were likely to return; they just accept that McDonalds is generally mediocre but it's cheap and disgusting and that's what people like so they don't care.

Unless that was the point you were making.


Is it an outlier? Their sales are going down. I won't eat there, partially because the service is usually so bad. Ditto for Subway.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/23 13:25:48


Post by: Relapse


 dogma wrote:
Relapse wrote:
I am not assuming anything though. I have personally witnessed such things happening and been told and read of enough other incidents in the course of my job to know it goes beyond anecdotal evidence.


You're assuming that your experience, and the data collected by people sympathetic to your position, can be extended to all relevant cases. This is a poor assumption.

Relapse wrote:

When you have people you treat as disposable workers on whom you spend next to no time on in training or development, as a rule you are going to run into issues.


What do you mean by "...as a rule..."?

 Chongara wrote:
Your point 2 is further dishonest. If she's paying at or near minimum wage her competitors likely are as well. In this case a high wage floats all prices, her competitors will similarly have to raise prices. Unless of course her primary competition is big-box landscaping that can afford to eat the new minimum wage increases. In which case I weep little for her comparatively predatory business, no matter how small and family-owned it was.


She is also likely paying under the table.

M

My experience covers almost a decade of Job Instruction and Job Relations training. The only reason the data seems sympathetic to my cause is because it reflects truth. If you want a number put to "as a rule", up to 80% of a businesses problems can be solved with proper training and employee development. The data came from 600 factories that were polled by the Training Within Industry service post WW2, and it holds true to this day.

Yet another series of charts citing the cost of high turnover:

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/labor/report/2012/11/16/44464/there-are-significant-business-costs-to-replacing-employees/

http://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0711/the-cost-of-hiring-a-new-employee.aspx

http://www.tlnt.com/2015/02/04/how-to-lose-your-best-employees-in-10-simple-steps/

So far I have been the one supplying facts and figures and articles from business sitesto back my position, and could easily fill out this page with more.
If you could produce an extensive amount of data that shows business won't suffer from lack of training, high turnover, or bad treatment of employees, I would love to see it.

A business with a haphazard or minimal training program will suffer. I could make a list of the issues that such businesses encounter if you'd like.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Frazzled wrote:
 Ouze wrote:
 dogma wrote:
How many people do you think patronized McDonald's 2 because they once had poor service at McDonald's 1?


Well, I think McDonalds might be an outlier as far as retail goes. I saw a thing pretty recently that most people rate McDonalds service fairly low, but also polled that they were likely to return; they just accept that McDonalds is generally mediocre but it's cheap and disgusting and that's what people like so they don't care.

Unless that was the point you were making.


Is it an outlier? Their sales are going down. I won't eat there, partially because the service is usually so bad. Ditto for Subway.


Yep, they are down 30%.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/23 13:36:08


Post by: Xenomancers


 Ouze wrote:
They've been slipping for a while now I believe. But is customer service the cause? I think they're just losing market share to better places to eat, foodwise.

No doubt - it's called chipolte.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/23 14:00:28


Post by: Frazzled


Chipotle is strictly ok.

Now you want inexpensive awesomesauce-try Torchies Tacos. It started as a roach coach in downtown Austin.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/23 14:05:44


Post by: djones520


 Xenomancers wrote:
 Ouze wrote:
They've been slipping for a while now I believe. But is customer service the cause? I think they're just losing market share to better places to eat, foodwise.

No doubt - it's called chipolte.


Chipotle is mediocre. You want good, you want Q'doba.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/23 14:08:52


Post by: Co'tor Shas


Chipolte is pretty good for the speed, although I prefer Indian over Mexican.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/23 14:09:26


Post by: Xenomancers


 Frazzled wrote:
Chipotle is strictly ok.

Now you want inexpensive awesomesauce-try Torchies Tacos. It started as a roach coach in downtown Austin.

Fairly priced quick tacos and burritos with real non chlorinated meat? Yep - this is the kind of stuff that ruins Micky Dees. Still though - sometimes you must just have a McDub.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/23 14:10:41


Post by: Co'tor Shas


They make great smoothies. The only thing I buy from them. Although I like Wendy's better (frostys are awsome).


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/23 14:12:15


Post by: whembly


 djones520 wrote:
 Xenomancers wrote:
 Ouze wrote:
They've been slipping for a while now I believe. But is customer service the cause? I think they're just losing market share to better places to eat, foodwise.

No doubt - it's called chipolte.


Chipotle is mediocre. You want good, you want Q'doba.

djones has it right.

Q'doba beat the snot out of Chipotle.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/23 14:36:56


Post by: Frazzled


I will try this Qdoba.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/23 14:58:06


Post by: Xenomancers


 Frazzled wrote:
I will try this Qdoba.

Extreme exaggeration going on here - Qudoba and Chipotle are essentially the same restaurant. You might fancy a certain spice over another but that's a matter of taste. The quality of both is pretty high for the price and you have a lot of personal choice. Personally for me the seasoning chipolte uses on their steak is to me at least - for the lack of a better word - orgasmic. One thing I really enjoyed about qudoba when i lived near one was when I ordered some queso for my burrito they gave me a small bowl of it. I really like things in excess, especially when it's cheese.

Best burrito ever from chipolte?
flour tor
black bean
white rice
sauteed green peps and onions
steak
queso cheese
corn
sour
cheese

THE BEST.




Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/23 16:13:59


Post by: Grey Templar


I do love Chipotle's food. But their perpetration of falsehoods regarding food production is something I don't like. Half of the things their wrappers claim other places do are false or actually illegal(and thus haven't been done for decades)


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/23 18:26:39


Post by: Ensis Ferrae


 Grey Templar wrote:
I do love Chipotle's food. But their perpetration of falsehoods regarding food production is something I don't like. Half of the things their wrappers claim other places do are false or actually illegal(and thus haven't been done for decades)


What do you expect of a company that was at one point a subsidiary of McD's???

Don't get me wrong, I love their food too... I could care less about the "organic, free range rice" that they use or whatever other crap they say.

For me, it's

Flour tortilla
chicken
steak (double meat... and yes, it costs extra)
black beans
white rice
cheese
sour cream




We don't need none of that green crap... the cows and chickens ate that before I ate them


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/23 22:57:52


Post by: dogma


Relapse wrote:

My experience covers almost a decade of Job Instruction and Job Relations training.


So you're an unreliable narrator.

Relapse wrote:

The only reason the data seems sympathetic to my cause is because it reflects truth.


What data? All you have presented are anecdotes.

Relapse wrote:

If you want a number put to "as a rule", up to 80% of a businesses problems can be solved with proper training and employee development.


Piece of advice: don't use a round number if you want people who haven't already bought into the concept you're selling to believe you. Use a number like...83%.

Relapse wrote:

The data came from over 16,000 factories that were polled by the Training Within Industry service post WW2, and it holds true to this day.


So why is it "...up to 80%..." and not just 80%?


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/23 23:08:35


Post by: VanHallan


 Psienesis wrote:
Beginning in April, the city of Seattle begins its transition to a minimum wage of $15 per hour. Businesses have seven years to come into compliance with that over a series of staged pay-bumps.

Recently, the Seattle Weekly published an article, which has circulated through some conservative circles as proof that raising the minimum wage is damaging to business.

http://www.seattlemag.com/article/why-are-so-many-seattle-restaurants-closing-lately

However, the Seattle Times reached out to the owners of the businesses reportedly closing over the minimum wage hike, and found that, in every case, the increase of the minimum wage had absolutely nothing to do with the closures (and, in one case, the business was sold to a friend of the owner who plans to reopen it under a new name).

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/truth-needle-is-15-wage-dooming-seattle-restaurants-owners-say-no/

A livable wage hurts nobodies' interests, unless your interests are in keeping poor people on slave wages (in which case, feth you.).


So, here's what we know.

a.) Seattle is raising the min wage.
b.) Seattle is doing this gradually, so as to accommodate changes employers will have to make.
c.) They haven't even STARTED to bump the pay up yet.
d.) Buisinesses that haven't even started to raise their wages, are going out of business anyways. So naturally this does not have anything to do with their closing.

And you conclude what I've put in bold off of that. You have no basis for that statement. There are no results of this wage hike to interpret yet, and somehow you've drawn such a definitive and simultaneously weak conclusion. That is pretty ______. I'll let the reader fill in the blank.

You've presented an opinion with no substantiating details. Whoops. Try again in about 7 years.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/23 23:22:00


Post by: Dreadclaw69


 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
We don't need none of that green crap... the cows and chickens ate that before I ate them

You're just eating concentrated veggies


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/24 04:06:51


Post by: Ensis Ferrae


 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
We don't need none of that green crap... the cows and chickens ate that before I ate them

You're just eating concentrated veggies



Ohh.... that's a good one


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/24 06:20:11


Post by: Psienesis


VanHallan wrote:
 Psienesis wrote:
Beginning in April, the city of Seattle begins its transition to a minimum wage of $15 per hour. Businesses have seven years to come into compliance with that over a series of staged pay-bumps.

Recently, the Seattle Weekly published an article, which has circulated through some conservative circles as proof that raising the minimum wage is damaging to business.

http://www.seattlemag.com/article/why-are-so-many-seattle-restaurants-closing-lately

However, the Seattle Times reached out to the owners of the businesses reportedly closing over the minimum wage hike, and found that, in every case, the increase of the minimum wage had absolutely nothing to do with the closures (and, in one case, the business was sold to a friend of the owner who plans to reopen it under a new name).

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/truth-needle-is-15-wage-dooming-seattle-restaurants-owners-say-no/

A livable wage hurts nobodies' interests, unless your interests are in keeping poor people on slave wages (in which case, feth you.).


So, here's what we know.

a.) Seattle is raising the min wage.
b.) Seattle is doing this gradually, so as to accommodate changes employers will have to make.
c.) They haven't even STARTED to bump the pay up yet.
d.) Buisinesses that haven't even started to raise their wages, are going out of business anyways. So naturally this does not have anything to do with their closing.

And you conclude what I've put in bold off of that. You have no basis for that statement. There are no results of this wage hike to interpret yet, and somehow you've drawn such a definitive and simultaneously weak conclusion. That is pretty ______. I'll let the reader fill in the blank.

You've presented an opinion with no substantiating details. Whoops. Try again in about 7 years.


Do you have any evidence that a livable wage hurts anyone? Any at all? Anyone that isn't a slavery-supporting douchebag, that is.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/24 07:19:25


Post by: dogma


 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

You're just eating concentrated veggies


I thought Nutrilite held that copyright.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/24 07:33:01


Post by: BlaxicanX


Chipotle is the McDonalds of burrito-restaurants.

Everyone who's posted on the last two pages deserves a slap.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/24 11:00:27


Post by: Frazzled


 BlaxicanX wrote:
Chipotle is the McDonalds of burrito-restaurants.

Everyone who's posted on the last two pages deserves a slap.

Hey someone on this board mentioned Torchies Tacos...REMEMBER!!!
Brought to you by people with more tattoos and metal in their face than you!
http://torchystacos.com/


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/24 11:54:36


Post by: whembly


 Frazzled wrote:
 BlaxicanX wrote:
Chipotle is the McDonalds of burrito-restaurants.

Everyone who's posted on the last two pages deserves a slap.

Hey someone on this board mentioned Torchies Tacos...REMEMBER!!!
Brought to you by people with more tattoos and metal in their face than you!
http://torchystacos.com/

Dude... that might actually be better than Q'doba!

Guys... never mess with Mexican food if it's in Texas (or California).


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/24 13:16:43


Post by: Prestor Jon


 Psienesis wrote:
VanHallan wrote:
 Psienesis wrote:
Beginning in April, the city of Seattle begins its transition to a minimum wage of $15 per hour. Businesses have seven years to come into compliance with that over a series of staged pay-bumps.

Recently, the Seattle Weekly published an article, which has circulated through some conservative circles as proof that raising the minimum wage is damaging to business.

http://www.seattlemag.com/article/why-are-so-many-seattle-restaurants-closing-lately

However, the Seattle Times reached out to the owners of the businesses reportedly closing over the minimum wage hike, and found that, in every case, the increase of the minimum wage had absolutely nothing to do with the closures (and, in one case, the business was sold to a friend of the owner who plans to reopen it under a new name).

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/truth-needle-is-15-wage-dooming-seattle-restaurants-owners-say-no/

A livable wage hurts nobodies' interests, unless your interests are in keeping poor people on slave wages (in which case, feth you.).


So, here's what we know.

a.) Seattle is raising the min wage.
b.) Seattle is doing this gradually, so as to accommodate changes employers will have to make.
c.) They haven't even STARTED to bump the pay up yet.
d.) Buisinesses that haven't even started to raise their wages, are going out of business anyways. So naturally this does not have anything to do with their closing.

And you conclude what I've put in bold off of that. You have no basis for that statement. There are no results of this wage hike to interpret yet, and somehow you've drawn such a definitive and simultaneously weak conclusion. That is pretty ______. I'll let the reader fill in the blank.

You've presented an opinion with no substantiating details. Whoops. Try again in about 7 years.


Do you have any evidence that a livable wage hurts anyone? Any at all? Anyone that isn't a slavery-supporting douchebag, that is.


LMFAO

How in the world can you possibly equate somebody who willfully accepted a paying job to a slave? I've held a few minimum wage jobs over the years and while they weren't always fun they sure weren't anything remotely like slavery. Nobody ever sold off members of my family to another company, none of my supervisors brutalized or maimed me over infractions real or imagined, I got paid every two weeks and I could quit at any time. Not exactly Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Starting April 1 workers in Seattle that earn minimum wage will be making at least $10/hr or $11/hr depending on the type of employer and employee. The current minimum wage for Washington state is $9.47. Does the extra $0.53 or $1.53 now make it a "living wage" in your opinion? If making the minimum wage $15/hr fixes whatever problems you feel are caused by having minimum wage only be $9.47 then why spend 7 years slowly increasing it? Why not raise it immediately? Why not raise it to $20/hr?



Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/24 13:30:49


Post by: Prestor Jon


 Bookwrack wrote:
And yet companies keep doing it because it provides good looking savings on paper.
 Bullockist wrote:
 Xenomancers wrote:
 cincydooley wrote:
 sebster wrote:


"Worth" is, of course, highly also subjective. There was an idea, from way back in the early days of economics, that wages for a job will move to it's natural marginal value, that it's value can be determined naturally by economic forces. That idea is about three or four generations dead by now, as we've learned that's a nice theory and it helps explain very broad concepts, but in terms of any specifics it's absolutely dwarfed by relative bargaining power and cultural values. Remove the minimum wage and you add the potential for exploitation in to that, and then there's real trouble.


I mean, people are already declining to take jobs they believe are 'beneath' them. We see it all the time. I completely agree that "worth" is subjective, and on two fronts:

1. How much does a business decide a particular job is "worth."
2. Are there individuals willing to accept that job at that "worth."

HSM proposed that, without a minimum wage, people would be working for pennies a day. I think that's a ridiculous notion.

A business is going to pay as little as possible for the job they need done. People that need employment are going to weigh whether what said business is offering is worth their time. No one, in 2015 America, is going to work for pennies a day. As such, businesses cannot pay pennies a day, because there would be no demand for a job that paid pennies day. From there, businesses will continue to raise that wage until someone is willing to take that job. At that point is the correct wage for said job. It doesn't need a minimum wage to artificially drive it.

I've never been in the workforce without a minimum wage. I can tell you though, higher minimum wage is BETTER for everyone. Those who end up making minimum wage end up spending their entire paycheck anyways whether its 10$ or 15$ an hour pay rate. I't comes right back to businesses. A dude that used to snuff at 5 dollar coffee might try or start frequenting Starbucks because hes got some bills in his pocket. Same can be said about everything. People with money are more likely to spend it. It's better for everyone. Eventually everyone wages go up as a result because businesses are selling more product. WIN WIN really.


This, a more powerful lower wage creates more spending in the economy, yeah i get that it is offset by inflation,lower class/lower middle class having a slight raising of pay adds far more to an econmy than tax breaks to the rich. the profusion of GST proves this.

And really, the inflation number that goes with the raising of minimum wage is about 30% of the raise, so that means they're still coming out ahead.


If raising minimum wage increases prices and inflation that inflation only eats up 30% of minimum wage employees' raise then going with the higher increase of $1.53 (from the $11/hr employee) they are going to get an extra $1.07/hr of disposable income. That's $8.56 per working day, $42.80/week.

If that increase in minimum wage would enable workers to spend and extra $6.11/day at Starbucks how is that worker any better off? If they spend all of their raise at Starbucks all you've done is kept them at the same old minimum wage of $9.47/hr plus a cup of coffee per day. How does a cup of coffee make the minimum wage worker any less exploited or impoverished?

How many minimum wage employees have to spend their $42.80/week at a local Starbucks in order to create one new (minimum wage) job at that Starbucks? At $11/hr a full time minimum wage employee earns $22,000/yr gross. Factor in that Starbucks also has to pay benefits to a full time employee and that makes the total compensation cost to Starbucks as what? $30,000? $35,000? For arguments sake we'll go with $32,000. Of course Starbucks wouldn't hire another barrista just to eat up all of the increased revenue from additional coffee purchases so it would take a greater increase to ensure that Starbucks would still see an increase in profit after another hire. So that's more like $42,000. That would require that the local Starbucks see an additonal $807.69/week in coffee purchases. That would require 19 minimum wage employees spending their entire $42.80/wk increase at the same Starbucks every week in order to create 1 more minimum wage job. And again, that leaves those employees with their same earnings as before Seattle's increase, but with an extra cup of coffee.

In that scenario the minimum wage increase hasn't helped those employees at all. All it's done is make Starbucks more money. Instead of helping workers it's just more corporate welfare.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/24 13:44:32


Post by: Ratbarf


So a couple points that I don't think have been brought up yet regarding a living minimum wage and robotics.

1.) The only reason workers accept being paid a non-living wage is because we subsidize their wages through social welfare programs. Companies couldn't find workers for 7.50 an hour if it weren't for the fact that said workers can make up for the shortfall in earnings by accessing foodstamps, subsidized housing, and subsidized transportation. Companies are essentially taking advantage of this because they know people can live on the combination of the petty wages and government welfare programs.

2.) On a macro scale companies do suffer when they have high turnover rates due to people quitting or being fired, but the justification for the treating of workers as disposable is because on a micro scale your boss wants someone who does what he says when he says it, regardless of how it affects the employee. They're willing to eat that hundred or two hundred dollars of lost revenue in training fees for the power the constant threat of quick and easy replacement has over their employees.

3.) The thing that would stop people from Guillotining the person who owns all of the automated robots is if their technology is advanced enough to fully automate the gathering, processing, and manufacturing industries it's advanced enough to make robotic police/soldiers. The only reason popular revolutions win is because the people doing the heavy lifting of a regime are just that, people. Robots won't have any reticence about firing into a crowd, or killing anyone and everyone who they are told to. You can't appeal to their common humanity.

4.) Eventually we will have to either adopt some form of universal stipend on which people live or augment their incomes. General purpose robotics is going to absolutely devastate darn near all blue collar jobs, and likely a large proportion of white collar professions as well. The two ways that can go are the Elysium route or the Proto-Star Trek route. There isn't much room for a middle ground.

Personally I believe we're going to end up with Elysium, the reasons for which being that our democratic institutions are structured in a way that benefits people who can afford to make large "campaign donations" over average people. On top of that, the people don't actually control the actions of their politicians once they are in office, nor do they actually get to vote directly on matters. They have to rely on a representative who is just begging to be influenced by those willing to put personal interests above the interests of their constituents. But I'm getting off topic so I'll leave it at that.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/24 15:25:05


Post by: Grey Templar


Most minimum wage jobs require almost no training, there isn't much expense associated with hiring a new employee. $100-200 seems rediculously high.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/24 15:40:59


Post by: Relapse


 Grey Templar wrote:
Most minimum wage jobs require almost no training, there isn't much expense associated with hiring a new employee. $100-200 seems rediculously high.


I had this conversation with Dogma about costs associated with training and development. It can surprise you if you're not familiar with the subject about how much training costs, one way or the other.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/24 15:50:09


Post by: Grey Templar


I know for some jobs it can be expensive, but not for jobs like burgerflipping or bagging groceries. You watch a 30 minute safety video, spend some time with another employee, and you are ready.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/24 15:56:24


Post by: Relapse


 Grey Templar wrote:
I know for some jobs it can be expensive, but not for jobs like burgerflipping or bagging groceries. You watch a 30 minute safety video, spend some time with another employee, and you are ready.


There's quite a bit more to it than that, though, if you want employees that can see and fix gaps in the system that allow things like wrong orders, poorly cooked food, unsanitary facilities, or groceries bagged that damage other product. These things can be what causes bad word of mouth for a business that turn away potential customers, costing a business profit.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 dogma wrote:
Relapse wrote:

My experience covers almost a decade of Job Instruction and Job Relations training.


So you're an unreliable narrator.

Relapse wrote:

The only reason the data seems sympathetic to my cause is because it reflects truth.


What data? All you have presented are anecdotes.

Relapse wrote:

If you want a number put to "as a rule", up to 80% of a businesses problems can be solved with proper training and employee development.


Piece of advice: don't use a round number if you want people who haven't already bought into the concept you're selling to believe you. Use a number like...83%.

Relapse wrote:

The data came from over 16,000 factories that were polled by the Training Within Industry service post WW2, and it holds true to this day.


So why is it "...up to 80%..." and not just 80%?


Long story short, you have your opinions with nothing to back them and no amount of data or professional qualification is going to convince you.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/24 16:16:24


Post by: Bran Dawri


Prestor Jon wrote:

If raising minimum wage increases prices and inflation that inflation only eats up 30% of minimum wage employees' raise then going with the higher increase of $1.53 (from the $11/hr employee) they are going to get an extra $1.07/hr of disposable income. That's $8.56 per working day, $42.80/week.

If that increase in minimum wage would enable workers to spend and extra $6.11/day at Starbucks how is that worker any better off? If they spend all of their raise at Starbucks all you've done is kept them at the same old minimum wage of $9.47/hr plus a cup of coffee per day. How does a cup of coffee make the minimum wage worker any less exploited or impoverished?

How many minimum wage employees have to spend their $42.80/week at a local Starbucks in order to create one new (minimum wage) job at that Starbucks? At $11/hr a full time minimum wage employee earns $22,000/yr gross. Factor in that Starbucks also has to pay benefits to a full time employee and that makes the total compensation cost to Starbucks as what? $30,000? $35,000? For arguments sake we'll go with $32,000. Of course Starbucks wouldn't hire another barrista just to eat up all of the increased revenue from additional coffee purchases so it would take a greater increase to ensure that Starbucks would still see an increase in profit after another hire. So that's more like $42,000. That would require that the local Starbucks see an additonal $807.69/week in coffee purchases. That would require 19 minimum wage employees spending their entire $42.80/wk increase at the same Starbucks every week in order to create 1 more minimum wage job. And again, that leaves those employees with their same earnings as before Seattle's increase, but with an extra cup of coffee.

In that scenario the minimum wage increase hasn't helped those employees at all. All it's done is make Starbucks more money. Instead of helping workers it's just more corporate welfare.


Although the post you responded to used SB as an example, this is a bit farfetched. A househould struggling to make ends meet is not going to spend all, or even a significant amount of its increased wages on a luxury item like Starbucks except once in a blue moon (well, not if they have any brains); they'll spend it on other more useful items like food, or that car repair that needed doing for the past forever, or even not spend much more but start saving a little for a bigger investment into a new car somewhere down the line.
I daresay though that people on current minimum wages can't afford to not spend the little bit extra on things that they've needed for quite some time now but never had the money for. And that's the point. Everything that these people now make extra gets pumped back into the economy because they can't afford not to, and while the employer might not see a direct benefit, other businesses will, in turn causing the economy as a whole to grow. This has in theory been the driving force behind an economy for, well, forever. As long as the money keeps being pumped around, all will (eventually) be well. Unless of course this extra money is put into circulation once, and then hoarded upwards through corporate profits into the pockets of shareholders who then sit on it forever as the leeches that they are.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/24 16:23:06


Post by: Ensis Ferrae


Bran Dawri wrote:


Although the post you responded to used SB as an example, this is a bit farfetched. A househould struggling to make ends meet is not going to spend all, or even a significant amount of its increased wages on a luxury item like Starbucks except once in a blue moon (well, not if they have any brains); they'll spend it on other more useful items like food, or that car repair that needed doing for the past forever, or even not spend much more but start saving a little for a bigger investment into a new car somewhere down the line.
I daresay though that people on current minimum wages can't afford to not spend the little bit extra on things that they've needed for quite some time now but never had the money for. And that's the point. Everything that these people now make extra gets pumped back into the economy because they can't afford not to, and while the employer might not see a direct benefit, other businesses will, in turn causing the economy as a whole to grow. This has in theory been the driving force behind an economy for, well, forever. As long as the money keeps being pumped around, all will (eventually) be well. Unless of course this extra money is put into circulation once, and then hoarded upwards through corporate profits into the pockets of shareholders who then sit on it forever as the leeches that they are.


The problem with your line of reasoning is that we can see, repeatedly, especially around tax season that people who are in that situation would, by your own words "not have any brains"... if they get extra money, it'll instantly go to that new TV or new video game, new wheels for the hoopty car that needs all kind of engine work, etc.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/24 16:49:48


Post by: d-usa


The difference there, for most, is that it is a big lump-sum of money once a year. Having an extra $50 a paycheck is different than getting a big tax return.

Falling gas prices are a good example right now: The average money effectively had X more money to spend a month since gas was cheaper (for us it was around $150 a month). Now some probably blew the money on frivolous things. But for others it became money spend on groceries, bills, and debt.

And truly, even frivilous things like "rims" is money that is spend in the community and goes to the business owner and his employees, the driver delivering the rims to the store, the gas station where the delivery driver purchased his coffee, etc.

Or do people not believe in trickle down economics anymore?


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/24 17:25:11


Post by: Prestor Jon


 d-usa wrote:
The difference there, for most, is that it is a big lump-sum of money once a year. Having an extra $50 a paycheck is different than getting a big tax return.

Falling gas prices are a good example right now: The average money effectively had X more money to spend a month since gas was cheaper (for us it was around $150 a month). Now some probably blew the money on frivolous things. But for others it became money spend on groceries, bills, and debt.

And truly, even frivilous things like "rims" is money that is spend in the community and goes to the business owner and his employees, the driver delivering the rims to the store, the gas station where the delivery driver purchased his coffee, etc.

Or do people not believe in trickle down economics anymore?


Our economy is based on consumer consumption that's inarguable. The issue that I have with the minimum wage debate is proposed solution doesn't alleviate the articulated problems.

Seattle's legislation only gives minimum wage earners an increase of $1.53 at best and $0.53 at worst starting April 1. What problems faced by minimum wage workers are going to solved because starting in april they'll have an additional $42/wk in gross pay? How much are they going to net every two weeks on payday? $65? That's not going to make them financially solvent or qualified to move on to a better job.

The problem goes beyond just giving people slightly more money. What kind of jobs are created in a consumer consumption based economy? Automation and globalization are already having a dramatic impact on our economy and both factors are only going to exert more pressure in the future. Faced with the downward pressure of automation and globalization how does making labor more expensive create more jobs? Higher labor costs creates incentives for outsourcing and automation of jobs (which are already becoming cheaper alternatives thanks to inevitable technological progress).

Increasing minimum wage can make living on minimum wage slightly more comfortable and create an increase in consumption but isn't going to create a greater abundance of better jobs or help the people "trapped" in minimum wage jobs to land those better jobs. All it does is try to maintain a status quo that can't be maintained, putting off the kind of real changes that need to be made in the name of political expediency.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/24 19:04:55


Post by: Ensis Ferrae


Prestor Jon wrote:

Seattle's legislation only gives minimum wage earners an increase of $1.53 at best and $0.53 at worst starting April 1. What problems faced by minimum wage workers are going to solved because starting in april they'll have an additional $42/wk in gross pay?


There's also that little bit where, Im sure Washington will find some way to tax you an additional 1.80 when the new increase kicks in (seriously, this state will nickel and dime you every chance they fething get)


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/24 19:10:28


Post by: Prestor Jon


 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Prestor Jon wrote:

Seattle's legislation only gives minimum wage earners an increase of $1.53 at best and $0.53 at worst starting April 1. What problems faced by minimum wage workers are going to solved because starting in april they'll have an additional $42/wk in gross pay?


There's also that little bit where, Im sure Washington will find some way to tax you an additional 1.80 when the new increase kicks in (seriously, this state will nickel and dime you every chance they fething get)


That's just another example of how govt solutions tend to not really solve the problem at all. If you increase your earnings the govt will reduce or remove your assistance, increase your taxes and leave you worse off than you were before. Incentivizing people to avoid being productive isn't a good thing.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/24 21:28:31


Post by: Ratbarf


 Grey Templar wrote:
Most minimum wage jobs require almost no training, there isn't much expense associated with hiring a new employee. $100-200 seems rediculously high.


The training costs I used are associated with the first day or two of work for the new hire, in which they watch that training and safety videos and generally aren't very productive. On top of that there is the pay of the employee who is training them instead of doing their own job to their full capacity, and finally there is almost always some kind of product waste associated with a new hire as they are probably going to screw up once or twice or possibly more before they get into the swing of things. It all adds up.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/24 21:32:38


Post by: dogma


Relapse wrote:

Long story short, you have your opinions with nothing to back them and no amount of data or professional qualification is going to convince you.


A well constructed data set would convince me. Unfortunately you don't have that as it is pretty much impossible to create one that spans multiple employers.

As to professional qualifications: no, they won't convince me. In fact leaning on them would make me more reluctant to trust your opinion.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/24 21:35:19


Post by: Grey Templar


 Ratbarf wrote:
 Grey Templar wrote:
Most minimum wage jobs require almost no training, there isn't much expense associated with hiring a new employee. $100-200 seems rediculously high.


The training costs I used are associated with the first day or two of work for the new hire, in which they watch that training and safety videos and generally aren't very productive. On top of that there is the pay of the employee who is training them instead of doing their own job to their full capacity, and finally there is almost always some kind of product waste associated with a new hire as they are probably going to screw up once or twice or possibly more before they get into the swing of things. It all adds up.


Even in a scenario like that, its still cheaper to hire someone new than pay someone more. The cost of training isn't significant enough to warrant serious employee retention procedures.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/24 21:38:52


Post by: dogma


Prestor Jon wrote:
All it does is try to maintain a status quo that can't be maintained, putting off the kind of real changes that need to be made in the name of political expediency.


Which are?

 Grey Templar wrote:

Even in a scenario like that, its still cheaper to hire someone new than pay someone more. The cost of training isn't significant enough to warrant serious employee retention procedures.


That will vary according to the business in question, but generally you're correct; at least in any major metro area.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/24 22:42:16


Post by: Relapse


 dogma wrote:
Relapse wrote:

Long story short, you have your opinions with nothing to back them and no amount of data or professional qualification is going to convince you.


A well constructed data set would convince me. Unfortunately you don't have that as it is pretty much impossible to create one that spans multiple employers.

As to professional qualifications: no, they won't convince me. In fact leaning on them would make me more reluctant to trust your opinion.


You still haven't shown any data to support your position, just your anecdotal reminiscences.

Another article about training, with data compiled from 2500 companies:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/emad-rizkalla/not-investing-in-employee_b_5545222.html

From data compiled by the government post WW 2 from 600 companies:

http://www.twi-institute.com/training-within-industry/about-twi/history/




Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/24 23:24:52


Post by: dogma


Relapse wrote:

You still haven't shown any data to support your position, just your anecdotal reminiscences.


Then we're on a level playing field.

Relapse wrote:

Another article about training, with data compiled from 2500 companies:


That article doesn't link to the ASTD data which it is citing, and you are referring to.

Relapse wrote:

From data compiled by the government post WW 2 from 600 companies:


TWI Institute is clearly trying to sell itself by leveraging Rosie the Riveter, despite not being responsible for any war production. Bonus points for obviously rounded statistics.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/25 00:07:58


Post by: Prestor Jon


 dogma wrote:
Prestor Jon wrote:
All it does is try to maintain a status quo that can't be maintained, putting off the kind of real changes that need to be made in the name of political expediency.


Which are?



I freely admit that I don't have all the information needed, the time to analyze it to come up with a definitive positive solution.

I do think it would be good start to evaluate our current economic, education and labor policies and culture. Are the jobs we value highest and push our children to seek and build our public and higher education systems around the right jobs? I think we should be promoting and incentivizing the well paid blue collar jobs that are necessary to maintain the infrastructure our society is built on. Those are the jobs that are the least likely to be outsourced or automated. We've moved away from manufacturing for decades and automation and globalization aren't going to let us bring those jobs back. Service sector and retail jobs are always going to be predominantly low paying or minimum wage jobs and those jobs will continue to decrease in number. Technology will always eliminate jobs, that's the impetus behind technology, increasing productivity.

Predicting the future is extremely difficult and we shouldn't let the govt push one narrow solution instead of a diverse plan. The world has changed and will continue to change. Govts are deliberately slow at responding to change so we need to make sure govt allows the private sector to be dynamic and innovative without leaving workers too vulnerable. I can't anticipate where new jobs will come from in the future but I know it's futile for govt to try to postpone the inevitable.

Increasing minimum wage will benefit those that hold minimum wage jobs and keep them but only in the near term. The longterm outlook for minimum wage jobs that only require basic skills, when the govt artificially inflates the cost of the labor to do them, is bleak. Those jobs will go away as cheaper alternatives for employers become more plentiful and viable. If we don't start planning for that inevitability now its only going to increase the societal pain felt when that future arrives.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/25 00:16:56


Post by: Relapse


 dogma wrote:
Relapse wrote:

You still haven't shown any data to support your position, just your anecdotal reminiscences.


Then we're on a level playing field.

Relapse wrote:

Another article about training, with data compiled from 2500 companies:


That article doesn't link to the ASTD data which it is citing, and you are referring to.

Relapse wrote:

From data compiled by the government post WW 2 from 600 companies:


TWI Institute is clearly trying to sell itself by leveraging Rosie the Riveter, despite not being responsible for any war production. Bonus points for obviously rounded statistics.


At this point, after showing you an extensive series of articles and data from government and business sources, and you still refuse to admit you are wrong, there is no further point in carrying on this conversation with you.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/25 02:27:02


Post by: cincydooley


 dogma wrote:
Relapse wrote:

You still haven't shown any data to support your position, just your anecdotal reminiscences.


Then we're on a level playing field.

Relapse wrote:

Another article about training, with data compiled from 2500 companies:


That article doesn't link to the ASTD data which it is citing, and you are referring to.

Relapse wrote:

From data compiled by the government post WW 2 from 600 companies:


TWI Institute is clearly trying to sell itself by leveraging Rosie the Riveter, despite not being responsible for any war production. Bonus points for obviously rounded statistics.




Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/25 03:00:03


Post by: Relapse


 cincydooley wrote:
 dogma wrote:
Relapse wrote:

You still haven't shown any data to support your position, just your anecdotal reminiscences.


Then we're on a level playing field.

Relapse wrote:

Another article about training, with data compiled from 2500 companies:


That article doesn't link to the ASTD data which it is citing, and you are referring to.

Relapse wrote:

From data compiled by the government post WW 2 from 600 companies:


TWI Institute is clearly trying to sell itself by leveraging Rosie the Riveter, despite not being responsible for any war production. Bonus points for obviously rounded statistics.





I am getting that feeling. I guess managing three people for a couple of months in a gym somewhere trumps decades of data collection.


This is a good read:

http://leaninstituut.nl/publications/Roots_of_Lean_TWI.pdf


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/25 03:26:19


Post by: dogma


Relapse wrote:

I am getting that feeling. I guess managing three people for a couple of months in a gym somewhere trumps decades of data collection.


I managed ~300 people for 2 years. Though, as I said, qualifications are irrelevant here; it is the internet after all.

 cincydooley wrote:

Referenced the concept of moving the goalposts.


I'm not moving the goalposts at all. I am questioning the merit of the articles Relapse has provided to support his argument. In my opinion they are either poorly constructed, or deliberately attempting to sell some form of certification.

Relapse wrote:

At this point, after showing you an extensive series of articles and data from government and business sources, and you still refuse to admit you are wrong, there is no further point in carrying on this conversation with you.


You didn't show me any data from a government source, or even a business source. You showed me articles which may have cited data produced by a government or business source, but I couldn't really tell if they did because the articles in question were deliberately unclear.

Prestor Jon wrote:
I think we should be promoting and incentivizing the well paid blue collar jobs that are necessary to maintain the infrastructure our society is built on. Those are the jobs that are the least likely to be outsourced or automated.


So plumbers, welders, electricians, cable technicians, some IT guys, mechanics, etc.?

Prestor Jon wrote:

Increasing minimum wage will benefit those that hold minimum wage jobs and keep them but only in the near term. The longterm outlook for minimum wage jobs that only require basic skills, when the govt artificially inflates the cost of the labor to do them, is bleak. Those jobs will go away as cheaper alternatives for employers become more plentiful and viable. If we don't start planning for that inevitability now its only going to increase the societal pain felt when that future arrives.


It seems like you're trying to rush that future along.

What constitutes "basic skills" changes over time, and people adapt to that change over the same period of time. The question is over how well a person using their "basic skills" should be compensated.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/25 05:57:51


Post by: hotsauceman1


 Ratbarf wrote:
 Grey Templar wrote:
Most minimum wage jobs require almost no training, there isn't much expense associated with hiring a new employee. $100-200 seems rediculously high.


The training costs I used are associated with the first day or two of work for the new hire, in which they watch that training and safety videos and generally aren't very productive. On top of that there is the pay of the employee who is training them instead of doing their own job to their full capacity, and finally there is almost always some kind of product waste associated with a new hire as they are probably going to screw up once or twice or possibly more before they get into the swing of things. It all adds up.

When I got a summer job, I ended up burning like 50 hotdogs........
But then I got so much on my managers good side that I could ask for any day off that wasn't a weekend for being a good worker.
You never know who will be a good worker.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/25 14:01:42


Post by: Prestor Jon


 dogma wrote:


Prestor Jon wrote:
I think we should be promoting and incentivizing the well paid blue collar jobs that are necessary to maintain the infrastructure our society is built on. Those are the jobs that are the least likely to be outsourced or automated.


So plumbers, welders, electricians, cable technicians, some IT guys, mechanics, etc.?

Prestor Jon wrote:

Increasing minimum wage will benefit those that hold minimum wage jobs and keep them but only in the near term. The longterm outlook for minimum wage jobs that only require basic skills, when the govt artificially inflates the cost of the labor to do them, is bleak. Those jobs will go away as cheaper alternatives for employers become more plentiful and viable. If we don't start planning for that inevitability now its only going to increase the societal pain felt when that future arrives.


It seems like you're trying to rush that future along.

What constitutes "basic skills" changes over time, and people adapt to that change over the same period of time. The question is over how well a person using their "basic skills" should be compensated.


Yes.

I'm not trying to hasten the future, I would just like politicians to pay more attention to what's coming when they make policy decisions. The point remains that artificially increasing the value of unskilled labor only makes alternatives like automation and outsourcing more practical and attractive. Most minimum wage jobs pay minimum wage because they are the simplest jobs that can therefore draw from the largest pool of available workers giving the employer the leverage needed to offer a lower wage than that offered for more skilled positions.

You have experience with a gym. The gym I go to on my lunch break really doesn't need employees other than personal trainers and maintenance staff for the equipment. When I get there I often wave the barcode on my key fob under the scanner myself, pick up a towel off the stack on the counter, change, workout, shower, and leave. They don't really need a front desk person just to scan in members. They also sell stuff like power bars and gatorade, they could automate that. If they had enough personal trainers working the ones that didn't have training sessions scheduled could handle walk ins that wanted a tour and signing up new members. In the upcoming years it will only be cheaper to replace people with technology, that's a certainty.

Yes, "basic skills" will change. Are our education systems adaptable enough to make sure people are obtaining the right basic skills to be employable? If not what do we do with the people that don't have the "basic skills" needed to get a job and how do we change the systems to be more effective?


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/25 14:11:26


Post by: Bullockist


I'd like to add that increasing minimum wage adds greatly to the spent money flying around an economy (as long as inflation is managed). The poor spend more than the rich and pay more tax per capita.
I'm still confused why my government always seems to want to lower minimum wage , when as I see it a higher minimum wage adds much more to the government pocket.
Perhaps someone can shed some light on this?


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/25 14:30:53


Post by: Prestor Jon


 Bullockist wrote:
I'd like to add that increasing minimum wage adds greatly to the spent money flying around an economy (as long as inflation is managed). The poor spend more than the rich and pay more tax per capita.
I'm still confused why my government always seems to want to lower minimum wage , when as I see it a higher minimum wage adds much more to the government pocket.
Perhaps someone can shed some light on this?


The politicians want to spur job creation and more corporations setting up facilities in Australia. The cheaper the price of labor the more incentive for companies. Australia is close to SE Asia so do you want companies to set up show in Oz or in Thailand or in China? Politicians benefit from claims that sound good, like creating jobs, higher employment levels etc. regardless of the greater context of those claims (what is the average wage of those jobs, are they full time or part time, are people taking multiple jobs to make ends meet, etc).

You might want to look into the 1997 Asian financial crisis for more background (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997_Asian_financial_crisis). The IMF bailed out the affected countries but the rescue packages had strings attached. The structural adjustment packages were designed to help make sure the govts in those countries could get back to generating enough revenue to stay solvent and pay back the IMF loans. One aspect of that was to make those countries more attractive for outside investors/corporations to do business there. The easiest way to make those countries more attractive for investment was to make labor cheap and worker protections weak. Corporations see an opportunity for cheap manufactoring, build factories, spend money, the govt takes their cut and uses the money to repay the loans. Everybody wins, except for the little guy that's getting paid gak. The larger consequence of that is that it creates downward pressure on wages all over. For instance, Apple is never going to move their manufacturing from China to the US, they would lose a ton of money because it's much more expensive to do that here than in China and the US is never going to be able to lower that cost to be equal.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/25 19:22:36


Post by: Psienesis


IMF packages *always* have strings attached, which is why they're often so very, very terrible (like requiring the privitization of utilities, so that poor countries then have to charge citizens for power and water, when they used to provide them for free).

Are our education systems adaptable enough to make sure people are obtaining the right basic skills to be employable?


Hahahahahahahahahahaha.

Ah... no. Our educational system has been gutted by special interest groups who would rather teach Creationism than science.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/25 20:27:58


Post by: cincydooley


 Psienesis wrote:

Ah... no. Our educational system has been gutted by special interest groups who would rather teach Creationism than science.


That's pretty ignorant, and simply not the case. Especially considering the largest group of Christians in the world (Catholics) teach evolution in their schools.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/25 20:36:03


Post by: CptJake


 cincydooley wrote:
 Psienesis wrote:

Ah... no. Our educational system has been gutted by special interest groups who would rather teach Creationism than science.


That's pretty ignorant, and simply not the case. Especially considering the largest group of Christians in the world (Catholics) teach evolution in their schools.


Come on now. We all know how gakky a reputation Jesuit universities like Georgetown have.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/26 05:03:47


Post by: dogma


Prestor Jon wrote:

If they had enough personal trainers working the ones that didn't have training sessions scheduled could handle walk ins that wanted a tour and signing up new members.


Trainers make a lot more money than desk staff, usually 3-4 times as much. You don't want someone like that doing desk or member work because someone will pay them better and you won't be able to keep them.

Prestor Jon wrote:

Yes, "basic skills" will change. Are our education systems adaptable enough to make sure people are obtaining the right basic skills to be employable? If not what do we do with the people that don't have the "basic skills" needed to get a job and how do we change the systems to be more effective?


I think we first need to agree on what "basic skills" make a person employable.



Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/26 05:18:04


Post by: Ensis Ferrae


 dogma wrote:


I think we first need to agree on what "basic skills" make a person employable.




There's "basic skills", as in the bare minimum for a given job; And then there's "basic skills" which, I would assume you're referring to what old timers (and guys like me) think that's what a HS diploma should net? By that I mean, if you've completed HS you should be able to do a wide range of pretty menial tasks; Count change, scan items, put nails into various pieces of wood, move things from Point A to Point B, etc. all things which are, by and large components of many entry level/minimum wage type jobs.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/26 07:41:21


Post by: dogma


 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

There's "basic skills", as in the bare minimum for a given job; And then there's "basic skills" which, I would assume you're referring to what old timers (and guys like me) think that's what a HS diploma should net?


I think it is fair to assume that "basic skills" now include competency with Windows, Mac OS, Android, and iOS; all of which are acquired by simply being a person in the US. If you are young, and lack those competencies (HS diploma or not), you are probably going to find it difficult to find employment.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/26 07:49:44


Post by: Ratbarf


Grey Templar wrote:
 Ratbarf wrote:
 Grey Templar wrote:
Most minimum wage jobs require almost no training, there isn't much expense associated with hiring a new employee. $100-200 seems rediculously high.


The training costs I used are associated with the first day or two of work for the new hire, in which they watch that training and safety videos and generally aren't very productive. On top of that there is the pay of the employee who is training them instead of doing their own job to their full capacity, and finally there is almost always some kind of product waste associated with a new hire as they are probably going to screw up once or twice or possibly more before they get into the swing of things. It all adds up.


Even in a scenario like that, its still cheaper to hire someone new than pay someone more. The cost of training isn't significant enough to warrant serious employee retention procedures.


That's the point I was trying to make.

hotsauceman1 wrote:
 Ratbarf wrote:
 Grey Templar wrote:
Most minimum wage jobs require almost no training, there isn't much expense associated with hiring a new employee. $100-200 seems rediculously high.


The training costs I used are associated with the first day or two of work for the new hire, in which they watch that training and safety videos and generally aren't very productive. On top of that there is the pay of the employee who is training them instead of doing their own job to their full capacity, and finally there is almost always some kind of product waste associated with a new hire as they are probably going to screw up once or twice or possibly more before they get into the swing of things. It all adds up.

When I got a summer job, I ended up burning like 50 hotdogs........
But then I got so much on my managers good side that I could ask for any day off that wasn't a weekend for being a good worker.
You never know who will be a good worker.


First day on the fork lift I ripped a couple hundred dollars of worth cement.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/26 12:19:47


Post by: Ensis Ferrae


 dogma wrote:
 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

There's "basic skills", as in the bare minimum for a given job; And then there's "basic skills" which, I would assume you're referring to what old timers (and guys like me) think that's what a HS diploma should net?


I think it is fair to assume that "basic skills" now include competency with Windows, Mac OS, Android, and iOS; all of which are acquired by simply being a person in the US. If you are young, and lack those competencies (HS diploma or not), you are probably going to find it difficult to find employment.


Ohh yeah, even at my age it was sort of a given, since most, if not all of my school papers were required to be typed via computer.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/26 14:42:50


Post by: Bran Dawri


 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

There's "basic skills", as in the bare minimum for a given job; And then there's "basic skills" which, I would assume you're referring to what old timers (and guys like me) think that's what a HS diploma should net? By that I mean, if you've completed HS you should be able to do a wide range of pretty menial tasks; Count change, scan items, put nails into various pieces of wood, move things from Point A to Point B, etc. all things which are, by and large components of many entry level/minimum wage type jobs.


I could do all of those things before entering high school. That is literally unschooled labour, even high school is unnecessary for that.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/26 16:53:16


Post by: hotsauceman1


 Ratbarf wrote:


hotsauceman1 wrote:
 Ratbarf wrote:
 Grey Templar wrote:
Most minimum wage jobs require almost no training, there isn't much expense associated with hiring a new employee. $100-200 seems rediculously high.


The training costs I used are associated with the first day or two of work for the new hire, in which they watch that training and safety videos and generally aren't very productive. On top of that there is the pay of the employee who is training them instead of doing their own job to their full capacity, and finally there is almost always some kind of product waste associated with a new hire as they are probably going to screw up once or twice or possibly more before they get into the swing of things. It all adds up.

When I got a summer job, I ended up burning like 50 hotdogs........
But then I got so much on my managers good side that I could ask for any day off that wasn't a weekend for being a good worker.
You never know who will be a good worker.


First day on the fork lift I ripped a couple hundred dollars of worth cement.

First days are pilot episodes, they don't count


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/27 00:34:38


Post by: Psienesis


As an indicator, prior to the establishment of the $15 minimum wage, $40K a year meant you could "live" in Seattle, but you better really like sharing rent with someone, and eating lots of ramen.

That is to say, currently, right now, with the minimum wage not yet $15\hr, making slightly more than $15\hr is hardly riotous living. The true effect is going to bump several companies who've been fairly shady with their job-titles and payment into either paying fairly for what they're wanting people to do, or watch their talent walk away.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/27 00:47:08


Post by: cincydooley


 Psienesis wrote:
As an indicator, prior to the establishment of the $15 minimum wage, $40K a year meant you could "live" in Seattle, but you better really like sharing rent with someone, and eating lots of ramen.


And?

I didn't realize affording a place all to yourself was an unalienable human right.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/27 00:59:11


Post by: BlaxicanX


If it isn't, what is an inalienable human right beyond just "being alive"?


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/27 02:47:50


Post by: Bullockist


Paying rent apparently.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/27 04:59:39


Post by: Ensis Ferrae


 Psienesis wrote:

That is to say, currently, right now, with the minimum wage not yet $15\hr, making slightly more than $15\hr is hardly riotous living. The true effect is going to bump several companies who've been fairly shady with their job-titles and payment into either paying fairly for what they're wanting people to do, or watch their talent walk away.



One of two things would happen, IMO....

-Workers demand a raise in order to afford to continue living where they are.
-Workers move to "cheaper" areas (Renton, Feddy Way, Tacoma, Fife, Puyallup, etc), then demand a raise in order to afford the commute to and from work.

If neither of those work, then yeah... the people would probably be leaving.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/27 05:01:41


Post by: hotsauceman1


Question, how does this affect those who are salaried?


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/27 09:35:21


Post by: Breotan


 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Question, how does this affect those who are salaried?

It doesn't.



Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/27 10:09:11


Post by: Haight


 cincydooley wrote:
 Psienesis wrote:

Ah... no. Our educational system has been gutted by special interest groups who would rather teach Creationism than science.


That's pretty ignorant, and simply not the case. Especially considering the largest group of Christians in the world (Catholics) teach evolution in their schools.


Honest question: Since when ?

I was raised catholic, and this was not the case when i was in catechism, nor in theology until early high school when i moved from parochial school to public school. Creationism was absolutely taught, and evolution was never once mentioned in either biology or philosophy.

I went to High School in the mid to late nineties. Catechism would have been in the early to late eighties.



If this is a shift of the catholic church, i applaud them for it (and that's a bold statement coming from me as it's a combination of words that i thought wouldn't ever leave my mouth again). Is this a recent change ?


EDIT: I think it might be useful to note for those that don't know, i grew up and continue to live in the fairly to very liberal northeast... so it's not like i was in an uber conservative orthodox area that was denying evolution. I was in an evolution-friendly portion of the country to begin with. 20 years, all things considered, isn't that long of a time to the catholic church. That's why i'm curious when this changed.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/27 14:01:10


Post by: cincydooley


 Haight wrote:
 cincydooley wrote:
 Psienesis wrote:

Ah... no. Our educational system has been gutted by special interest groups who would rather teach Creationism than science.


That's pretty ignorant, and simply not the case. Especially considering the largest group of Christians in the world (Catholics) teach evolution in their schools.


Honest question: Since when ?


Since 1950, informally, and much more formally in 1996.

Since 1950 the only thing they've really differed on is the soul.

Here's an article that sums it up fairly well: http://www.newsweek.com/pope-franciss-remarks-evolution-are-not-controversial-among-roman-catholics-281115

When he says, in regards to Christians, that they'd "rather be teaching creationism" he's either willfully ignorant or simply lying.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Haight wrote:


EDIT: I think it might be useful to note for those that don't know, i grew up and continue to live in the fairly to very liberal northeast... so it's not like i was in an uber conservative orthodox area that was denying evolution. I was in an evolution-friendly portion of the country to begin with. 20 years, all things considered, isn't that long of a time to the catholic church. That's why i'm curious when this changed.


I live in a very conservative Catholic area of the country (Cincinnati) and they certainly teach evolution at all 14 or so of the Catholic High Schools in the Cincinnati Archdioceses, and have since I was in school.

I think it's probably important to differentiate between what is taught through catechism and what is taught through schools.

Regardless, Catholic schools shouldn't be denying evolution, because the Vatican surely doesn't.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/27 14:48:24


Post by: Relapse


This thread has started to evolve from discussion about minimum wage.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/27 19:40:40


Post by: hotsauceman1


 Breotan wrote:
 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Question, how does this affect those who are salaried?

It doesn't.


Cool, I can see a lot of employees going salaried now.
And what if they work in the Walmart that is outside city limits.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/27 20:37:29


Post by: Ensis Ferrae


 hotsauceman1 wrote:

Cool, I can see a lot of employees going salaried now.
And what if they work in the Walmart that is outside city limits.


Depends on the type of salary the people are making of course. For instance, a buddy of mine is in car sales. The dealership pays him a salary that is a bit above minimum wage, which as we know is very little. But, he makes serious commission from the sale of a new car (he gets a per unit commission from the manufacturer, and a "bells and whistles addon features" commission from the dealership based on price of vehicle).

I can see the "salary" of guys like that shifting a bit the same way the minimum wage for table staff at restaurants would, in about the same proportion as well.



If they are working a crap job like Walmart outside the city limits of Seattle, but live within the city limits.... well, they probably aren't too bright, and it really, really sucks to be them.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/27 21:03:52


Post by: TheMeanDM


It's great in theory.

But, I feel that it is just a temporary fix to a more daunting problem.

As others have said, and I agree, that it will negatively affect the buying power of the dollars in that area.

One thing that would help fix the income problem would be a national healthcare plan.

The amount that people (especially middle and lower income) have to pay for medical coverage and associated costs is utterly insane. Medical is, from what I recall, the #1 reason for bankruptcies in the US.

If somehow we can create a system that covers everybody and is funded properly, we can put more $ back into the pockets of those who need it without having to mandate a huge increase in minimum wage.

Just for my wife and I, our portion is $660/month. Our income is such that the kids are qualified for Title 19. But to add them would be another $200/month (roughly).

Developing a proper tax code for corporations and individuals could easily fund healthcare for everybody at a basic level...

Just my 2 cents.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/27 21:07:58


Post by: Psienesis


No argument there. To properly address the issues facing the majority of the American populace would require a ground-up rewrite of tax code, healthcare, housing costs... but that's never going to happen.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/27 23:06:26


Post by: cincydooley


I mean, it could start with re-incentivizing(is that a word?) companies to stay in the US. Right now there's so little onus or them to do so.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/28 00:13:18


Post by: Ensis Ferrae


 TheMeanDM wrote:

Medical is, from what I recall, the #1 reason for bankruptcies in the US.



Yep... 75% if all bankruptcies in the US are due to medical emergencies/diagnoses/treatment

60% of THAT population actually did have "major medical" insurance at the time of their issue.


It was one of the few "good things" I liked about my old insurance job... supplemental insurance (like AFLAC, and some others) is ridiculously awesome, once you realize what it is, how it really works, etc.


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/28 00:21:28


Post by: TheMeanDM


The problem though is that you can insurance coverage yourself to death...


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/28 00:27:15


Post by: Ensis Ferrae


 TheMeanDM wrote:
The problem though is that you can insurance coverage yourself to death...


most of the cost still resides in "major medical"

Last time I did a quote on myself... for around 100 bucks a month, I had cardiac/stroke coverage, cancer coverage, "accident" coverage (ie, falling from a roof, breaking my femur in rugby, becoming a para/quadriplegic)


Major medical, for a 28 year old.... 500 bucks, give or take (and that was on the bronze ACA plan, which many people think they need a silver or gold plan... so this was the cheap stuff)


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/28 00:29:34


Post by: TheMeanDM


Dont get me wrong...supplemental coverage can be a great benefit...if you have the discretionary income to get it after meeting your other obligations.

I too used to be in the insurance sales world :-)


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/28 04:37:36


Post by: Ensis Ferrae


 TheMeanDM wrote:
Dont get me wrong...supplemental coverage can be a great benefit...if you have the discretionary income to get it after meeting your other obligations.

I too used to be in the insurance sales world :-)


Lol, I partially got out of it due to some supervisory "suggestions".... and partially because i really suck at cold calls


Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage debacle @ 2015/03/28 13:17:21


Post by: TheMeanDM


I was not a pressuring kind of guy. I would work the numbers and present the savings and benefit...but I wouldn't pressure and hound people. Now, granted, I thought some people were ridiculous for not electing to go with me and save $1,100/year...but..it"s their $ :-)

I am FAR FAR happier and more successful as an RN now