in a Clinton Concession to Sanders platform the Democrats are embracing $15 Federal wage, problem with this I see I do not see Democrats doing anything with this since it would cut into many of their programs including the ACA, there is a big differance from forcing companies to pay minimum wage to the government paying minimum wage or more since the Government is funded by taxes and such.
but as noted in the article they are talking over time, can see the Republican's going along with this but telling the Democrats which of their programs they want to cut first?
Asterios wrote: can see the Republican's going along with this but telling the Democrats which of their programs they want to cut first?
Sounds like a good idea! We can start with some major cuts to the military, shut down all military operations in other countries, etc. That should free up quite a bit of money.
Asterios wrote: can see the Republican's going along with this but telling the Democrats which of their programs they want to cut first?
Sounds like a good idea! We can start with some major cuts to the military, shut down all military operations in other countries, etc. That should free up quite a bit of money.
not as much as you would think, our over seas operations are not as big as you would think.
and you have to remember with a federal minimum wage increase that is an increase of millions of workers (including military) pay including the increased costs of contracts from the private sector and federal union wages too, in fact the unions see how it will only lead to lay offs and such which is why they added the over time portion.
Asterios wrote: not as much as you would think, our over seas operations are not as big as you would think.
Oh really? Because a quick search turns up a cost of about $14.6 billion just to keep troops in Afghanistan. And of course if shutting down all of our foreign operations doesn't save enough money then there's always other stuff to get rid of. Kill the F-35, stop building aircraft carriers, etc.
Then of course there's the question of just how much the government needs to cut to balance out an increase in the minimum wage. How many federal jobs are only paying minimum wage right now, and what percentage of total employee spending do those jobs add up to?
and you have to remember with a federal minimum wage increase that is an increase of millions of workers (including military) pay including the increased costs of contracts from the private sector and federal union wages too, in fact the unions see how it will only lead to lay offs and such which is why they added the over time portion.
Good point. If you don't support a minimum wage increase then you don't Support Our Troops.
Asterios wrote: not as much as you would think, our over seas operations are not as big as you would think.
Oh really? Because a quick search turns up a cost of about $14.6 billion just to keep troops in Afghanistan. And of course if shutting down all of our foreign operations doesn't save enough money then there's always other stuff to get rid of. Kill the F-35, stop building aircraft carriers, etc.
Then of course there's the question of just how much the government needs to cut to balance out an increase in the minimum wage. How many federal jobs are only paying minimum wage right now, and what percentage of total employee spending do those jobs add up to?
and you have to remember with a federal minimum wage increase that is an increase of millions of workers (including military) pay including the increased costs of contracts from the private sector and federal union wages too, in fact the unions see how it will only lead to lay offs and such which is why they added the over time portion.
Good point. If you don't support a minimum wage increase then you don't Support Our Troops.
problem is a bulk of that money spent overseas is on pay, so unless you plan on laying off all those military and civilian personal, its not viable
as to the F35 thought that was already dumped? and didn't know we were making any more carriers at this time, and believe it or not when it comes to pay the federal government is very stingy with minimum wage being very rampant which is why the government is very slow about raising the federal minimum wage since it would hurt their bottom dollar and then some, why do you think even the democrats are hesitant about raising the federal minimum wage, Clinton only wanted to raise it to $12 an hour over time. the Democrats have no problem about raising minimum wages on companies since it doesn't hurt them, but raising the federal minimum wage effects them greatly.
also the link you linked to was from last year our overseas forces have been reduced since then and are expected to be reduced even more this year.
As a rough estimate: when the government recently increased the mandatory minimum wage for federal contractors to $10.10/hour about 200,000 jobs were affected. So, let's say 500,000 jobs are affected by an increase to $15.00/hour. Entirely removing our presence in Afghanistan and saving that ~$14.6 billion would be enough to give an extra $29,000 to each of those 500,000 people. I think it's pretty clear that cutting military funding to pay for the wage increase would be at least plausible.
Peregrine wrote: As a rough estimate: when the government recently increased the mandatory minimum wage for federal contractors to $10.10/hour about 200,000 jobs were affected. So, let's say 500,000 jobs are affected by an increase to $15.00/hour. Entirely removing our presence in Afghanistan and saving that ~$14.6 billion would be enough to give an extra $29,000 to each of those 500,000 people. I think it's pretty clear that cutting military funding to pay for the wage increase would be at least plausible.
problem is 500K doesn't even come close to all the jobs affected, many Federal Civilian workers are Union workers which have in their contract that their wages go up with minimum wage same amount, and we are not and there are almost 22 Million Federal employees not 500K like you think.
Asterios wrote: problem is a bulk of that money spent overseas is on pay, so unless you plan on laying off all those military and civilian personal, its not viable
Uh, sure. $14.6 billion for 5,500 troops. Let's be really generous to you and assume that "a bulk of that money" is 51%. Are you really going to seriously claim that each of those 5,500 soldiers is getting paid ~1.35 million per year?
as to the F35 thought that was already dumped?
Nope. Still around, still a giant money pit that will probably be obsolete long before it has a chance to accomplish anything.
and believe it or not when it comes to pay the federal government is very stingy with minimum wage being very rampant which is why the government is very slow about raising the federal minimum wage since it would hurt their bottom dollar and then some, why do you think even the democrats are hesitant about raising the federal minimum wage, Clinton only wanted to raise it to $12 an hour over time. the Democrats have no problem about raising minimum wages on companies since it doesn't hurt them, but raising the federal minimum wage effects them greatly.
You do realize that the minimum wage for government contractors was recently raised to $10.10/hour, right? The government isn't reluctant to raise the minimum wage because it will hurt the government (they can, after all, just print more money to pay their bills), they're reluctant to do it because of concerns about a backlash from the businesses handing them bribes campaign contributions.
Asterios wrote: problem is a bulk of that money spent overseas is on pay, so unless you plan on laying off all those military and civilian personal, its not viable
Uh, sure. $14.6 billion for 5,500 troops. Let's be really generous to you and assume that "a bulk of that money" is 51%. Are you really going to seriously claim that each of those 5,500 soldiers is getting paid ~1.35 million per year?
as to the F35 thought that was already dumped?
Nope. Still around, still a giant money pit that will probably be obsolete long before it has a chance to accomplish anything.
and believe it or not when it comes to pay the federal government is very stingy with minimum wage being very rampant which is why the government is very slow about raising the federal minimum wage since it would hurt their bottom dollar and then some, why do you think even the democrats are hesitant about raising the federal minimum wage, Clinton only wanted to raise it to $12 an hour over time. the Democrats have no problem about raising minimum wages on companies since it doesn't hurt them, but raising the federal minimum wage effects them greatly.
You do realize that the minimum wage for government contractors was recently raised to $10.10/hour, right? The government isn't reluctant to raise the minimum wage because it will hurt the government (they can, after all, just print more money to pay their bills), they're reluctant to do it because of concerns about a backlash from the businesses handing them bribes campaign contributions.
you do realize that there are more then just Military personal ? there are Civilian personal helping the military personal, as to Contract employees of course that number is low since most Contract employees are already making more then that to begin with, very few contractors were making minimum wage.
Asterios wrote: problem is 500K doesn't even come close to all the jobs affected, many Federal Civilian workers are Union workers which have in their contract that their wages go up with minimum wage same amount, and we are not and there are almost 22 Million Federal employees not 500K like you think.
Clearly you didn't read the article. The total number of government employees is completely irrelevant here, what matters is the number that are making minimum wage. The 200,000 number was the number of people who were making less than $10.10/hour and got a pay increase. If you're making $20/hour it doesn't matter if the minimum wages goes up to $15/hour or down to $1/hour (unless you have a salary increase tied to minimum wage in your contract), you're still going to keep making your $20/hour and your cost to the government doesn't change. So if you want to talk about the impact of changing the minimum wage you have to look at the subset of the 22 million federal employees who will actually see a pay increase.
Asterios wrote: problem is 500K doesn't even come close to all the jobs affected, many Federal Civilian workers are Union workers which have in their contract that their wages go up with minimum wage same amount, and we are not and there are almost 22 Million Federal employees not 500K like you think.
Clearly you didn't read the article. The total number of government employees is completely irrelevant here, what matters is the number that are making minimum wage. The 200,000 number was the number of people who were making less than $10.10/hour and got a pay increase. If you're making $20/hour it doesn't matter if the minimum wages goes up to $15/hour or down to $1/hour (unless you have a salary increase tied to minimum wage in your contract), you're still going to keep making your $20/hour and your cost to the government doesn't change. So if you want to talk about the impact of changing the minimum wage you have to look at the subset of the 22 million federal employees who will actually see a pay increase.
which I repeat all Federal Union Employees which are the bulk of employees outside of the Military are Union employees have the mimimum wage increase in their contract.
Asterios wrote: which I repeat all Federal Union Employees which are the bulk of employees outside of the Military are Union employees have the mimimum wage increase in their contract
d-usa wrote: Well, the 350,000 federal union employees employed with me in my federal department don't have it in our union contract.
so when minimum wage goes up to $15 an hour if you are making less then that now, that is all you will make even though you were making more then the new kid there?
as to my work thru the GSA we had it in our contract and we had a whole lot more workers, could be not enough workers in your division to warrant such a clause to peg their wages to the minimum wage or you had lousy negotiators, most unions if not all have some allowance of pegging their wages to the Federal Minimum wage.
Asterios wrote: which I repeat all Federal Union Employees which are the bulk of employees outside of the Military are Union employees have the mimimum wage increase in their contract
They should start cutting costs by getting rid of the lifetime pensions for Senators and Congressmen. Nothing is more disgusting than former government representative continuing to receive a lifetime pension after getting removed from his position for criminal activities.
d-usa wrote: Well, the 350,000 federal union employees employed with me in my federal department don't have it in our union contract.
so when minimum wage goes up to $15 an hour if you are making less then that now, that is all you will make even though you were making more then the new kid there?
There is no part of our contract that is tied to minimum wage.
as to my work thru the GSA we had it in our contract and we had a whole lot more workers, could be not enough workers in your division to warrant such a clause to peg their wages to the minimum wage
Yes, the entire federal department including the Secretary in the Cabinet is a pretty small division.
or you had lousy negotiators, most unions if not all have some allowance of pegging their wages to the Federal Minimum wage.
So it should be pretty easy for you to go to all the public union websites for the federal government and look through their contracts to back up your claim then.
stanman wrote: They should start cutting costs by getting rid of the lifetime pensions for Senators and Congressmen. Nothing is more disgusting than former government representative continuing to receive a lifetime pension after getting removed from his position for criminal activities.
Now that I can get behind. it just irks me about the crooks on all sides who still get paid and such, but then again I think they are over paid to began with.
stanman wrote: They should start cutting costs by getting rid of the lifetime pensions for Senators and Congressmen. Nothing is more disgusting than former government representative continuing to receive a lifetime pension after getting removed from his position for criminal activities.
While a nice sentiment, its literally nothing when it comes to the federal budget.
I think blocking public employees from jumping ship to the private sector quickly would save far more money. Americans shouldn't be able to live on the government dole for years and then take those skills to make more money. I'm not talking just military and related industries, this happens in a lot of sectors,
After all, we're supposed to separate state-run enterprises and private capitalism right?
Yes, the entire federal department including the Secretary in the Cabinet is a pretty small division.
and what department would that be?
The Department of Not Making Stuff Up.
We can continue this when you find some proof for your points, until then I have zero interest in pursuing the usual course of discussion where you will just continue to know my situation and everything I do better than me while refusing to bring any proof of your own position.
Yes, the entire federal department including the Secretary in the Cabinet is a pretty small division.
and what department would that be?
The Department of Not Making Stuff Up.
We can continue this when you find some proof for your points, until then I have zero interest in pursuing the usual course of discussion where you will just continue to know my situation and everything I do better than me while refusing to bring any proof of your own position.
well that is why I wanted to know which department so I could pull up the PDF file on your unions contract (yes I do have access to the Government Union contract PDF's), unless you are lying just because you hate me cause i'm for Trump, so ball is in your court.
Asterios wrote: can see the Republican's going along with this but telling the Democrats which of their programs they want to cut first?
Sounds like a good idea! We can start with some major cuts to the military, shut down all military operations in other countries, etc. That should free up quite a bit of money.
well that is why I wanted to know which department so I could pull up the PDF file on your unions contract (yes I do have access to the Government Union contract PDF's), unless you are lying just because you hate me cause i'm for Trump, so ball is in your court.
Every federal agency that I can think off in my city has their own union. Every union has their own website. Every website has a copy of their contract.
So you should be able to do a quick Google for your location, even more so with your Government Union Contract PDF access, and find some contract that back up your claim. Especially since you claim that most union jobs will have that clause.
Asterios wrote: can see the Republican's going along with this but telling the Democrats which of their programs they want to cut first?
Sounds like a good idea! We can start with some major cuts to the military, shut down all military operations in other countries, etc. That should free up quite a bit of money.
Thanks for advocating my unemployment!
Everybody is just waiting for their contract buyout offer
well that is why I wanted to know which department so I could pull up the PDF file on your unions contract (yes I do have access to the Government Union contract PDF's), unless you are lying just because you hate me cause i'm for Trump, so ball is in your court.
Every federal agency that I can think off in my city has their own union. Every union has their own website. Every website has a copy of their contract.
So you should be able to do a quick Google for your location, even more so with your Government Union Contract PDF access, and find some contract that back up your claim. Especially since you claim that most union jobs will have that clause.
and I already posted links where the Unions even said their wages were pegged to the federal minimum wage and that it was common practice amongst unions, or did you not see those links?
Asterios wrote: and I already posted links where the Unions even said their wages were pegged to the federal minimum wage and that it was common practice amongst unions, or did you not see those links?
You mean the link that said that ~1/3 of the contracts they looked at had any tie at all, and that it's difficult to say how many would actually have a significant result?
Asterios wrote: and I already posted links where the Unions even said their wages were pegged to the federal minimum wage and that it was common practice amongst unions, or did you not see those links?
You mean the link that said that ~1/3 of the contracts they looked at had any tie at all, and that it's difficult to say how many would actually have a significant result?
the one where they didn't have access to all contracts, and even the Unions had said the practice is common to peg their wages to the federal minimum wage.
Asterios wrote: the one where they didn't have access to all contracts, and even the Unions had said the practice is common to peg their wages to the federal minimum wage.
Do you understand the idea of a representative sample?
We talking those who General Schedule? (GS levels) or those who are hired as contractors by other companies that are contracted by the government? Both? Also have to remember the government also hire people at min wage. Combine all three?
Also if we're talking military pay one can look up the 2016 pay scale for the military. Also the additional pay..BAH, Combat, Sea Duty, Flight pay etc etc etc. Not all military rate those additional pay. Also some of those pay are non taxable. Like Jump Pay and Flight Pay.
Asterios wrote: the one where they didn't have access to all contracts, and even the Unions had said the practice is common to peg their wages to the federal minimum wage.
Do you understand the idea of a representative sample?
We can do better than 2 word posts that don't add anything beyond bickering. Let's make sure posts going forwards in this thread are a) substantive and b) not solely dedicated to arguing. If this can't be managed, I'm going to start issuing warnings
Asterios wrote: the one where they didn't have access to all contracts, and even the Unions had said the practice is common to peg their wages to the federal minimum wage.
Do you understand the idea of a representative sample?
do you?
It's what happens when you look at 85-110 collective bargaining agreements and find that 31 would have either a wage increase or renegotiation after a federal minimum wage increase, then make the reasonable assumption that the overall percentage of contracts with similar agreements is probably somewhere around the same.
And of course this is not specific about how much of an increase would happen if the minimum wage increased, or guarantee that any renegotiation would result in a substantial wage increase. So, as stated before, you can't just quote the number of federal employees and assume that all of them are going to get a pay raise.
Asterios wrote: the one where they didn't have access to all contracts, and even the Unions had said the practice is common to peg their wages to the federal minimum wage.
Do you understand the idea of a representative sample?
do you?
It's what happens when you look at 85-110 collective bargaining agreements and find that 31 would have either a wage increase or renegotiation after a federal minimum wage increase, then make the reasonable assumption that the overall percentage of contracts with similar agreements is probably somewhere around the same.
And of course this is not specific about how much of an increase would happen if the minimum wage increased, or guarantee that any renegotiation would result in a substantial wage increase. So, as stated before, you can't just quote the number of federal employees and assume that all of them are going to get a pay raise.
well for starters the military is the largest Federal Employee I believe and the bulk of them would be effected by the minimum wage increase, since they will not just increase E-1 thru E-6 pays they will increase all pays, and pretty much would be said in most areas, since it does not bode well for someone who was making say $13 an hour to make the same amount as someone who just started at $10.10 an hour.
and then we have Goernment employees which are on the "G" level pay grades, which the only way they get pay raises is if the federal minimum goes up or they go to a higher "G" level pay scale, but even if the lowest "G" level pay scale goes up all "G" level pay scales go up.
your issue is you keep confusing how the Government pays with how the private sector pays, it is not the same.
Asterios wrote: even if the lowest "G" level pay scale goes up all "G" level pay scales go up.
{citation needed}
Do you have evidence that this is a mandatory thing, and that a minimum wage increase could not be implemented by removing all scale positions below $15/hour and putting those people into the lowest scale position that pays at least $15/hour? The lowest level, in this case, would cease to exist at all.
Asterios wrote: even if the lowest "G" level pay scale goes up all "G" level pay scales go up.
{citation needed}
Do you have evidence that this is a mandatory thing, and that a minimum wage increase could not be implemented by removing all scale positions below $15/hour and putting those people into the lowest scale position that pays at least $15/hour? The lowest level, in this case, would cease to exist at all.
if you read the link it will state all pay levels are based on the base level pay.
as to removing several levels of pay, highly doubt it.
Asterios wrote: as to removing several levels of pay, highly doubt it.
Why? Why must a minimum wage increase be implemented by "all federal employees get an X% pay increase until nobody is making less than $15/hour" instead of "all federal employees currently making less than $15/hour are moved into the $15/hour bracket"?
Asterios wrote: as to removing several levels of pay, highly doubt it.
Why? Why must a minimum wage increase be implemented by "all federal employees get an X% pay increase until nobody is making less than $15/hour" instead of "all federal employees currently making less than $15/hour are moved into the $15/hour bracket"?
because that would be like making all Enlisted men below a Sergeant, Sergeant First classes and such, the government pay scale is very similar to the military pay scale and civilian government employees working with the military are given a "rank" based on their pay grade.
and I repeat the Government will not remove several pay levels, they will just increase pay across the board, like i aid you keep thinking the Government is like a civilian corporation when it comes to pay, they are not, it is organised and set up a certain way. which is why many go to the public sector since their options in the government are limited.
Peregrine wrote: Kill the F-35, stop building aircraft carriers, etc.
To the comment about aircraft carriers... It would seem, based on what little I can find, that the Navy does want to replace the existing carrier fleet with the new Ford Class carrier.
The problem is the 700 million plus dollar, Littoral Combat Ships, that two representatives are largely responsible for forcing the navy to buy (surprise surprise, the representatives in question represent the two districts that build the bulk of these types of ships)
Personally, I think $15 is too high for a federal minimum. State/local situations could warrant it, but the federal should just be the baseline. I think it should be raised to $10 and then tied to inflation. That way we don't have to worry about it.
Co'tor Shas wrote: Personally, I think $15 is too high for a federal minimum. State/local situations could warrant it, but the federal should just be the baseline. I think it should be raised to $10 and then tied to inflation. That way we don't have to worry about it.
problem is inflation is high and with some states going up to $15 it will increase inflation across the board, the problem with this the cost of living is not the same all over the country, so while in some places $10 an hour is not a living wage other places it is, the Federal should be a guideline, and minimum wage should increase but like you said not this much.
Trying to tie it to inflation doesn't work at this point because inflation is like 12 dollars higher than the current minimum wage. That's what we should have done 30 years ago, but the 'boomers dropped the ball like always and thus here we are.
That said, I dunno how much raising the minimum wage is going to accomplish in the long run. I was always skeptical of the "high minimum wage hurts small-businesses" meme until I actually traveled to some Nowheresville USA places. I genuinely don't think alot of those small businesses located in the desolate ass mid-west and the like could survive a 15/hour minimum wage.
BlaxicanX wrote: Trying to tie it to inflation doesn't work at this point because inflation is like 12 dollars higher than the current minimum wage. That's what we should have done 30 years ago, but the 'boomers dropped the ball like always and thus here we are.
That said, I dunno how much raising the minimum wage is going to accomplish in the long run. I was always skeptical of the "high minimum wage hurts small-businesses" meme until I actually traveled to some Nowheresville USA places. I genuinely don't think alot of those small businesses located in the desolate ass mid-west and the like could survive a 15/hour minimum wage.
even places that are not in the middle of nowhere, yeah $15 an hour in cities like LA or SF or NY, places like those can handle such an increase, but other places cannot, personally i think minimum wage should be handled at a smaller level like city level since they have a better understanding of what their community can handle. Federal raises and even state raises across the board not realizing several communities in those areas cannot handle such an increase.
Asterios wrote: personally i think minimum wage should be handled at a smaller level like city level since they have a better understanding of what their community can handle.
The problem is that then you completely remove any incentive to increase minimum wage. It's just like what we see with towns giving huge tax breaks to attract businesses and vague promises of "creating jobs", if you don't bid all the way to "we won't ever make you pay taxes for the rest of eternity" then that new factory or whatever goes to the town that did. If you let minimum wage be a local thing then you'll get a bunch of towns setting it as low as possible, regardless of whether or not it's enough to live on, in a desperate attempt to keep themselves an option for new businesses. The only way to avoid this problem is to set the minimum wage at a higher level of government so that everyone plays by the same rules and there's no bidding war.
BlaxicanX wrote: Trying to tie it to inflation doesn't work at this point because inflation is like 12 dollars higher than the current minimum wage. That's what we should have done 30 years ago, but the 'boomers dropped the ball like always and thus here we are.
That said, I dunno how much raising the minimum wage is going to accomplish in the long run. I was always skeptical of the "high minimum wage hurts small-businesses" meme until I actually traveled to some Nowheresville USA places. I genuinely don't think alot of those small businesses located in the desolate ass mid-west and the like could survive a 15/hour minimum wage.
I agree with this, but at the same time, areas like Seattle are showing that raising the minimum wage does the opposite of hurt the economy. Part of the problem, is that there are folks out there who still believe that Horse and Sparrow, or trickle-down economics works. Personally, I don't think that simply raising the minimum wage is going to solve any of our perceived problems (by perceived, I am talking about legitimate problems, as well as the more political, made-up ones). IMHO, we need to combine wage increases with tax code changes. I find the idea that people who are wealthy enough, are simply gonna stash their money offshore, where there are no taxes paid, and many of our largest corporations are paying essentially less than zero taxes, repulsive. If there needs to be tax breaks for corporations, it should be for bringing jobs back home, instead of shipping them out overseas.
Asterios wrote: personally i think minimum wage should be handled at a smaller level like city level since they have a better understanding of what their community can handle.
The problem is that then you completely remove any incentive to increase minimum wage. It's just like what we see with towns giving huge tax breaks to attract businesses and vague promises of "creating jobs", if you don't bid all the way to "we won't ever make you pay taxes for the rest of eternity" then that new factory or whatever goes to the town that did. If you let minimum wage be a local thing then you'll get a bunch of towns setting it as low as possible, regardless of whether or not it's enough to live on, in a desperate attempt to keep themselves an option for new businesses. The only way to avoid this problem is to set the minimum wage at a higher level of government so that everyone plays by the same rules and there's no bidding war.
problem with that like I said is minimum living wage across this country differ, what it costs for a single person to live in New York 2 families or more can live off of in say my hometown in California, minimum wage in California is going up, businesses in say San Francisco may not be leaving, but in Stockton they are, i'm looking at whole shopping centers now where half the businesses are vacant. and several businesses shut down in the past few months. so if we do like you said we do, we will lose businesses in several towns like mine, the big cities won't feel a thing but the rest of the country will become an empty desert.
Can I interest some of my American comrades in here in a system without State-mandated Minimum Wages that works, while empowering workers? I've never gotten why the state has to get involved in the minimum wage business in the first place, surely that's why unions exist?
Unions are satanic. Anything that gives workers bargaining power is anti-capitalist, and if you don't like your working conditions you need to just quit and go find a better job in our not-at-all saturated job market.
Only 36% disapprove, and that's been declining steadily. There was a big fall in their favrobility after 2008, but they have been steadily recovering. And it's looks liked they've never been above 45% disapprove.
Only 36% disapprove, and that's been declining steadily. There was a big fall in their favrobility after 2008, but they have been steadily recovering. And it's looks liked they've never been above 45% disapprove.
gots to love them polls with 101% results. as it goes I never trust polls even if they are in my favor since there are only a spot check on a small demographic.
once upon a time the Unions used to be good and did good, now they are viewed as being as bad as corporations and such.
No, now people of a certain disposition fell into a rhetorical trap utilized by sympathetic politicians. Young Cruz, in particular, made a point about how his opponent's agents acted like "..union boss thugs..."
This criticism is fair, in the sense that unions worked that way in the past...past.
Only 36% disapprove, and that's been declining steadily. There was a big fall in their favrobility after 2008, but they have been steadily recovering. And it's looks liked they've never been above 45% disapprove.
gots to love them polls with 101% results.
It's called rounding. And are you questioning the validity of Gallup?
once upon a time the Unions used to be good and did good, now they are viewed as being as bad as corporations and such.
No, now people of a certain disposition fell into a rhetorical trap utilized by sympathetic politicians. Young Cruz, in particular, made a point about how his opponent's agents acted like "..union boss thugs..."
This criticism is fair, in the sense that unions worked that way in the past...past.
yeah well me I'm remembering recently when the State Union (CalPers) here made bad investments and expected the Tax Payers to pay for their mistakes when they lost their retirement funds.
I don't even know where to start with this one other than I'm not surprised in the least bit.
I mean, someone posts a reputable poll that proves your statement wrong, you counter it with the claim that you question all polls, you follow that claim up with an article filled with polls in an attempt to back up your original claim, said article is filled with polls that prove you wrong.
I don't even know where to start with this one other than I'm not surprised in the least bit.
I mean, someone posts a reputable poll that proves your statement wrong, you counter it with the claim that you question all polls, you follow that claim up with an article filled with polls in an attempt to back up your original claim, said article is filled with polls that prove you wrong.
posted for the article, not the polls, even polls that support I question unless it is like Government data polls where all data is gathered, not just a random sampling of people called.
I don't even know where to start with this one other than I'm not surprised in the least bit.
I mean, someone posts a reputable poll that proves your statement wrong, you counter it with the claim that you question all polls, you follow that claim up with an article filled with polls in an attempt to back up your original claim, said article is filled with polls that prove you wrong.
posted for the article, not the polls, even polls that support I question unless it is like Government data polls where all data is gathered, not just a random sampling of people called.
Just stop, you aren't helping your case by moving goalposts.
I don't even know where to start with this one other than I'm not surprised in the least bit.
I mean, someone posts a reputable poll that proves your statement wrong, you counter it with the claim that you question all polls, you follow that claim up with an article filled with polls in an attempt to back up your original claim, said article is filled with polls that prove you wrong.
posted for the article, not the polls, even polls that support I question unless it is like Government data polls where all data is gathered, not just a random sampling of people called.
Just stop, you aren't helping your case by moving goalposts.
goal post still the same its just you moving them trying to instigate things, which is why I shall now place you on ignore, since you seem happy to just Troll me.
its just you moving them trying to instigate things
Oh goodness, I love it when people tell you that you're moving goalposts and then you tell them that you aren't but they are. This has happened numerous times from plenty of other posters and the end is always the same and I really think you don't seem to understand what "moving the goalposts" means.
which is why I shall now place you on ignore, since you seem happy to just Troll me.
No, I'm calling you out on your endless parade of nonsense. Don't get upset just because you're wrong.
Further discussion of a user's personal belief in polls is getting off topic. Perhaps it is best to place people who toe the line of the rules but don't quite cross them on ignore so you don't have to worry about it anymore and risk getting dragged into rude/off topic discussions
Spinner wrote: Anyway! This is good news, so far as I'm concerned. Nice to see the Democrats starting to align so we can get more non-Trump-crazypants policy news.
Personally, I'd love to see them get on board with some of the ideas that people like Nick Hanauer have. While adopting a party line of $15/hr is a step in that direction, it's only one step, and will be devoid of any meaning without other policy changes.
BlaxicanX wrote: Unions are satanic. Anything that gives workers bargaining power is anti-capitalist, and if you don't like your working conditions you need to just quit and go find a better job in our not-at-all saturated job market.
*meh*
Private Union shops are fine.
It's the public sector unions that same can be pretty bad.
BlaxicanX wrote: Unions are satanic. Anything that gives workers bargaining power is anti-capitalist, and if you don't like your working conditions you need to just quit and go find a better job in our not-at-all saturated job market.
*meh*
Private Union shops are fine.
It's the public sector unions that same can be pretty bad.
Agreed. Private sector unions are fine but it's wrong for public sector employees to unionize, even Democrats like FDR were against govt unions. Personally I think private sector unions should be more restricted in size because the biggest (private) unions often all have the same problem of trying to represent too many workers in too many different locations and situations to really have a united stance on labor issues. That's when unions become more about political influence than addressing specific grievances.
BlaxicanX wrote: Unions are satanic. Anything that gives workers bargaining power is anti-capitalist, and if you don't like your working conditions you need to just quit and go find a better job in our not-at-all saturated job market.
*meh*
Private Union shops are fine.
It's the public sector unions that same can be pretty bad.
Asterios wrote: personally i think minimum wage should be handled at a smaller level like city level since they have a better understanding of what their community can handle.
The problem is that then you completely remove any incentive to increase minimum wage. It's just like what we see with towns giving huge tax breaks to attract businesses and vague promises of "creating jobs", if you don't bid all the way to "we won't ever make you pay taxes for the rest of eternity" then that new factory or whatever goes to the town that did. If you let minimum wage be a local thing then you'll get a bunch of towns setting it as low as possible, regardless of whether or not it's enough to live on, in a desperate attempt to keep themselves an option for new businesses. The only way to avoid this problem is to set the minimum wage at a higher level of government so that everyone plays by the same rules and there's no bidding war.
You just summed up why we see sectors like manufacturing get moved offshore and never come back. It will always be cheaper to run factories in countries that have different/weaker/nonexistent labor laws.
The more expensive govt makes labor the higher the barrier to entry into the workforce. The more protectionist the govt behaves towards labor the more it incentivizes illegal labor.
If we're going to have a federal minimum wage it was due for an increase, just due to inflation if for no other reason. However the issues plaguing our workforce, labor policy and economy are more numerous and complex than can be solved by a higher minimum wage. Minimum wage can be characterized in an overly simplified manner with exaggerated impact/importance. That's why politicians like to talk about, it can be perceived by voters as a panacea but it really doesn't address the root causes.
Asterios wrote: personally i think minimum wage should be handled at a smaller level like city level since they have a better understanding of what their community can handle.
The problem is that then you completely remove any incentive to increase minimum wage. It's just like what we see with towns giving huge tax breaks to attract businesses and vague promises of "creating jobs", if you don't bid all the way to "we won't ever make you pay taxes for the rest of eternity" then that new factory or whatever goes to the town that did. If you let minimum wage be a local thing then you'll get a bunch of towns setting it as low as possible, regardless of whether or not it's enough to live on, in a desperate attempt to keep themselves an option for new businesses. The only way to avoid this problem is to set the minimum wage at a higher level of government so that everyone plays by the same rules and there's no bidding war.
You just summed up why we see sectors like manufacturing get moved offshore and never come back. It will always be cheaper to run factories in countries that have different/weaker/nonexistent labor laws.
The more expensive govt makes labor the higher the barrier to entry into the workforce. The more protectionist the govt behaves towards labor the more it incentivizes illegal labor.
If we're going to have a federal minimum wage it was due for an increase, just due to inflation if for no other reason. However the issues plaguing our workforce, labor policy and economy are more numerous and complex than can be solved by a higher minimum wage. Minimum wage can be characterized in an overly simplified manner with exaggerated impact/importance. That's why politicians like to talk about, it can be perceived by voters as a panacea but it really doesn't address the root causes.
what we as a country need to do is make it not so cheap for companies to go overseas, make it more costly for them, problem is the TPP kind of screwed that.
Asterios wrote: what we as a country need to do is make it not so cheap for companies to go overseas, make it more costly for them, problem is the TPP kind of screwed that.
No, that doesn't work on a whole lot of levels. First up TPP hasn't cost anyone a job because it hasn't been signed in to law.
Second up, TPP isn't even much of a trade deal, there's very little in it about removing trade protections, for the simple reason that almost all trade protections are already gone. TPP is mostly about establishing consistent business laws on things like IP.
Thirdly, people somehow only understand trade deals in terms of other countries getting to sell in to your country, they never understand that it also makes your country more able to sell goods in to their country. The trade deals that have seen low end manufacturers to relocate to Vietnam or wherever else and then sell goods back in to the US are the same deals that have allowed the US to sell their own goods, whether its aircraft or financial services, in to markets in the rest of the world. And losing those low skill textile jobs might suck for low skilled workers, but when it allows Boeing to expand and offer more high skilled jobs, well then the benefit to the US as a whole should be very obvious.
And because it really needs to be said again and again until people finally understand it - the loss of jobs in US manufacturing isn't because those jobs have been taken by foreigners. It's because they've been taken by machines. The US manufactures more than ever - but it has many less jobs in manufacturing because of automation.
Asterios wrote: what we as a country need to do is make it not so cheap for companies to go overseas, make it more costly for them, problem is the TPP kind of screwed that.
No, that doesn't work on a whole lot of levels. First up TPP hasn't cost anyone a job because it hasn't been signed in to law.
Second up, TPP isn't even much of a trade deal, there's very little in it about removing trade protections, for the simple reason that almost all trade protections are already gone. TPP is mostly about establishing consistent business laws on things like IP.
Thirdly, people somehow only understand trade deals in terms of other countries getting to sell in to your country, they never understand that it also makes your country more able to sell goods in to their country. The trade deals that have seen low end manufacturers to relocate to Vietnam or wherever else and then sell goods back in to the US are the same deals that have allowed the US to sell their own goods, whether its aircraft or financial services, in to markets in the rest of the world. And losing those low skill textile jobs might suck for low skilled workers, but when it allows Boeing to expand and offer more high skilled jobs, well then the benefit to the US as a whole should be very obvious.
And because it really needs to be said again and again until people finally understand it - the loss of jobs in US manufacturing isn't because those jobs have been taken by foreigners. It's because they've been taken by machines. The US manufactures more than ever - but it has many less jobs in manufacturing because of automation.
well several fast food industries are about to remove frontline help with self help order kiosk's like Wendy's and Carl's Jr along with others.
Asterios wrote: well several fast food industries are about to remove frontline help with self help order kiosk's like Wendy's and Carl's Jr along with others.
Asterios wrote: what we as a country need to do is make it not so cheap for companies to go overseas, make it more costly for them, problem is the TPP kind of screwed that.
No, that doesn't work on a whole lot of levels. First up TPP hasn't cost anyone a job because it hasn't been signed in to law.
Second up, TPP isn't even much of a trade deal, there's very little in it about removing trade protections, for the simple reason that almost all trade protections are already gone. TPP is mostly about establishing consistent business laws on things like IP.
Thirdly, people somehow only understand trade deals in terms of other countries getting to sell in to your country, they never understand that it also makes your country more able to sell goods in to their country. The trade deals that have seen low end manufacturers to relocate to Vietnam or wherever else and then sell goods back in to the US are the same deals that have allowed the US to sell their own goods, whether its aircraft or financial services, in to markets in the rest of the world. And losing those low skill textile jobs might suck for low skilled workers, but when it allows Boeing to expand and offer more high skilled jobs, well then the benefit to the US as a whole should be very obvious.
And because it really needs to be said again and again until people finally understand it - the loss of jobs in US manufacturing isn't because those jobs have been taken by foreigners. It's because they've been taken by machines. The US manufactures more than ever - but it has many less jobs in manufacturing because of automation.
well several fast food industries are about to remove frontline help with self help order kiosk's like Wendy's and Carl's Jr along with others.
Kilkrazy wrote: ... as employers have preferred to increase prices or take lower profits rather than lay off workers.
I can promise you that American corporations have next to zero problems laying off workers to cut costs. I live that experience.
I would have thought that too, but Walmart chose to raise all employees from minimum wage to a mandatory $10.
Walmart's doing fine. Though I'd argue the success of Costco and Sam's Club in the long run might put Walmart in a similar position to Sears at some point. By that I mean that the former company's market model is more sustainable, and profitable than the later's.
I don't know why debates about minimum wage became this bizarre zero sum game. Companies can't just lay off workers willy nilly. They have work that has to be done. Minimum wage increases won't eliminate any need for labor. Company's already try to keep their workforce costs down. If minimum wage went up, they'd definitely shave jobs, but it's not the end of the world and in the long run the trends in the rest of the world show that the job market recovers. I think $15 is too high, even if phased in over time. $11-13 is far more reasonable. At least at that level, single adults in most parts of the US will probably be able to meet all their basic needs, and have some money left over to do some basic consuming.
Market forces already force many companies to pay more than minimum wage for a number of factors. They're not all blind to cost of living, and wage competition is a real thing. With a minimum wage somewhere around $10, you'd probably end up with most workers in reality earning $15 (EDIT: eh, that's optimistic, probably closer to $12-$14 depending on region) an hour anyway.
I've always wondered what the absolute breaking point is for fast food when automation becomes the more attractive option. It's not like the workers are paid much to begin with. It isn't like the high costs of unionized manufacturing.
Oxford University researchers have estimated that 47 percent of U.S. jobs could be automated within the next two decades. And if even half that number is closer to the mark, workers are in for a rude awakening.
Plus, these robots are getting much better at white-collar style jobs now too. The economy of the future will be nothing like the one we had 50 years ago, the 90's, or even today.
Sadly, the trend in automation will evolve and revolutionize labor much faster than social norms and labor laws will. This is a recipe for social unrest and a greater divide between Have and Have-not.
Should be a fun couple decades as these trends start to materialize to a point where they can no longer be ignored. This $15 minimum wage is still looking at the old Labor models, and not the future. In the future, the greatest limit on labor will not be cost, but on material resources, energy resources, and governmental costs.
Easy E wrote: I think it is time we all faced facts:
Oxford University researchers have estimated that 47 percent of U.S. jobs could be automated within the next two decades. And if even half that number is closer to the mark, workers are in for a rude awakening.
Plus, these robots are getting much better at white-collar style jobs now too. The economy of the future will be nothing like the one we had 50 years ago, the 90's, or even today.
Sadly, the trend in automation will evolve and revolutionize labor much faster than social norms and labor laws will. This is a recipe for social unrest and a greater divide between Have and Have-not.
Should be a fun couple decades as these trends start to materialize to a point where they can no longer be ignored. This $15 minimum wage is still looking at the old Labor models, and not the future. In the future, the greatest limit on labor will not be cost, but on material resources, energy resources, and governmental costs.
This has always been a common threat, and will only increase as technology increases.
Easy E wrote: I think it is time we all faced facts:
Oxford University researchers have estimated that 47 percent of U.S. jobs could be automated within the next two decades. And if even half that number is closer to the mark, workers are in for a rude awakening.
Plus, these robots are getting much better at white-collar style jobs now too. The economy of the future will be nothing like the one we had 50 years ago, the 90's, or even today.
Sadly, the trend in automation will evolve and revolutionize labor much faster than social norms and labor laws will. This is a recipe for social unrest and a greater divide between Have and Have-not.
Should be a fun couple decades as these trends start to materialize to a point where they can no longer be ignored. This $15 minimum wage is still looking at the old Labor models, and not the future. In the future, the greatest limit on labor will not be cost, but on material resources, energy resources, and governmental costs.
This has always been a common threat, and will only increase as technology increases.
Agreed, which means our societal view on work and "value" needs to evolve as automation increases.
I am no expert, and I have read this thread for some education and thought provocation. I have had the same job for 20 years but before that I was a bus boy and burger flipper in high school. There was a minimum wage increase when I worked at Whataburger and I think it went up to $4.75 or something like that, many many years ago. the immediate response was to raise prices. I don't remember anyone being laid off. However the thought that went through my head then was if prices go up, all that extra money Im making is just going to purchase the same stuff at a higher price, so I'm really not gaining anything.
There seem to be some smart people here, so explain to me how that is wrong?
problem is before it used to be not cost effective to replace workers with automated machines and such cause the costs of maintaining them was high, but when minimum wage goes up to $15 an hour those costs become negligible and it becomes more cost effective to use automated machines, hell a manufacturing company in China just laid off like 30K employees with automation. so we are not far behind me thinks. fast food will probably be the first to go that way, the owner of Wendy's already said they will be swapping out employees with machines within the year. http://fusion.net/story/302781/wendys-self-service-kiosks-fast-food-automation/ the problem is will this lead to protests against machines? could this be the start of SkyNet? who knows. but too be honest from the customer service i've seen at a lot of fast food places, no real loss there since a computer would be much nicer then then the person behind the counter.
redleger wrote: I am no expert, and I have read this thread for some education and thought provocation. I have had the same job for 20 years but before that I was a bus boy and burger flipper in high school. There was a minimum wage increase when I worked at Whataburger and I think it went up to $4.75 or something like that, many many years ago. the immediate response was to raise prices. I don't remember anyone being laid off. However the thought that went through my head then was if prices go up, all that extra money Im making is just going to purchase the same stuff at a higher price, so I'm really not gaining anything.
There seem to be some smart people here, so explain to me how that is wrong?
problem is when does a BigMac become too pricey? $10? $11? $15? already paying over $5 for a BigMac now (not the meal just the burger.), fast food businesses have some of the highest employment numbers, but when it becomes cheaper to cook at home by a whole bunch then go out for fast food it will hurt fast foods bottom dollar.
redleger wrote: I am no expert, and I have read this thread for some education and thought provocation. I have had the same job for 20 years but before that I was a bus boy and burger flipper in high school. There was a minimum wage increase when I worked at Whataburger and I think it went up to $4.75 or something like that, many many years ago. the immediate response was to raise prices. I don't remember anyone being laid off. However the thought that went through my head then was if prices go up, all that extra money Im making is just going to purchase the same stuff at a higher price, so I'm really not gaining anything.
There seem to be some smart people here, so explain to me how that is wrong?
Think of it this way. Would you have been as well off and happy if the company had reduced your pay to 1 cent an hour, because this would have caused prices to be reduced?
redleger wrote: I am no expert, and I have read this thread for some education and thought provocation. I have had the same job for 20 years but before that I was a bus boy and burger flipper in high school. There was a minimum wage increase when I worked at Whataburger and I think it went up to $4.75 or something like that, many many years ago. the immediate response was to raise prices. I don't remember anyone being laid off. However the thought that went through my head then was if prices go up, all that extra money Im making is just going to purchase the same stuff at a higher price, so I'm really not gaining anything.
There seem to be some smart people here, so explain to me how that is wrong?
You end up chasing your tail with minimum wage raises. You raise minimum wage, so stores raise prices, so your dollar doesn't go as far and your living conditions don't really improve much. The things that go up in price tend to be essentials, rent, booze. You also end up being less competitive with foreign markets, so your local currency has to devalue otherwise exporting gets harder and importing gets easier.
But it's not like it makes NO difference, it does tend to bridge the wage gap somewhat, with the working class earning more relatively speaking. But whether that's a good thing or not is debatable, with an engineering degree in Australia (where we have a reasonably high minimum wage) you don't earn a hell of a lot more than a semi-skilled factory worker (there's a difference, but the gap is small enough to make you wonder if it's worth studying for an extra 4 years ).
Then on the flip side, if you have to pay your factory workers a lot of money, there's less incentive to make things locally and it becomes harder to get a job as a factory worker in the first place.
The Aussie dollar has dropped more recently, but even when the Aussie dollar was up around parity with the US dollar it was still better off being an engineer in the USA because you earned a similar amount of money but your money went further.
Most minimum wage jobs are grunt level -- kitchen porter, pizza delivery, waiting on tables at cheap places, cleaner -- that kind of thing.
These jobs are a very small component of the prices the employers charge for their product/service overall.
To make an extreme example, a multi-billion dollar bank still needs its floors swept and lavatories cleaned. How much do you think an extra 50 cents an hour for those workers is going to impact on the bottom line?
ahh the good ole days when I could get me Candy bars for .05 or .10 each, bottle of soda was about the same price too and sadly while minimum wage has tripled or so since then, the cost of products have gone up 10 times, and don't see them staying the same when minimum wage goes up.
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Kilkrazy wrote: Most minimum wage jobs are grunt level -- kitchen porter, pizza delivery, waiting on tables at cheap places, cleaner -- that kind of thing.
These jobs are a very small component of the prices the employers charge for their product/service overall.
To make an extreme example, a multi-billion dollar bank still needs its floors swept and lavatories cleaned. How much do you think an extra 50 cents an hour for those workers is going to impact on the bottom line?
actually Bank Janitors make good money much more then minimum wage.
also would these be the same banks the government had to bail out because they were broke?
Asterios wrote: ahh the good ole days when I could get me Candy bars for .05 or .10 each, bottle of soda was about the same price too and sadly while minimum wage has tripled or so since then, the cost of products have gone up 10 times, and don't see them staying the same when minimum wage goes up.
depends on how much labor makes up their operating costs.
Ultimately, lots of industries wont aee much change, some will see massive change, it all depends on how much sub $15 wages compose their operating costs. For something like a fast food joint that only employs a cook, counter person, and a runner, they cant really cut people and are gonna have to pass that cost on, but it may only be a ~5% increase averaged out over the menu since labor wasnt a huge cost center to begin with. For a low end factory employing hundreds of people for $9/hr with almost zero material costs, a minimum wage increase to $15 may require a 60% price increase to cover, which may not be sustainable, though such industry is likely to have already moved overseas or be in imminent danger of it anyway.
Asterios wrote: ahh the good ole days when I could get me Candy bars for .05 or .10 each, bottle of soda was about the same price too and sadly while minimum wage has tripled or so since then, the cost of products have gone up 10 times, and don't see them staying the same when minimum wage goes up.
depends on how much labor makes up their operating costs.
Ultimately, lots of industries wont aee much change, some will see massive change, it all depends on how much sub $15 wages compose their operating costs. For something like a fast food joint that only employs a cook, counter person, and a runner, they cant really cut people and are gonna have to pass that cost on, but it may only be a ~5% increase averaged out over the menu since labor wasnt a huge cost center to begin with. For a low end factory employing hundreds of people for $9/hr with almost zero material costs, a minimum wage increase to $15 may require a 60% price increase to cover, which may not be sustainable, though such industry is likely to have already moved overseas or be in imminent danger of it anyway.
The variables in these things are huge.
around here fast food places usually have like 20 people working in them, when I worked fast food oh so many decades ago yeah there were 3 people and can see them reducing the number of employees down to that, but then we are faced with the inevitability of a run away unemployment rate.
also i've already seen a 10% or more increase in fast food product and thats only after a $1 increase in minimum wage, we still have $5 more to go.
Kilkrazy wrote: Most minimum wage jobs are grunt level -- kitchen porter, pizza delivery, waiting on tables at cheap places, cleaner -- that kind of thing.
These jobs are a very small component of the prices the employers charge for their product/service overall.
To make an extreme example, a multi-billion dollar bank still needs its floors swept and lavatories cleaned. How much do you think an extra 50 cents an hour for those workers is going to impact on the bottom line?
But it does end up scaling the higher paying jobs as well. You don't just raise minimum wage and end up with more people on minimum wage as their wages get swallowed up by whatever the minimum is. I'd have to double check but my understanding is a factory workers in both Australia and the US earn more than minimum wage.... but they earn a similar % more than minimum wage. Again I'd have to double check, but that's what my factory worker mates have told me, because you have to pay your semi-skilled workers more than the dude who mops the floors.
Then the cost of essentials goes up along with minimum wage. The standard of living doesn't magically get twice as good if you double minimum wage.
Even though minimum wage in Australia is much higher, I'm not sure the standard of living is much higher for people on minimum wage, you still won't be able to afford to rent a place by yourself either way. You can barely survive on minimum wage in either country, it seems the main difference is people earning a bit above minimum wage (semi-skilled workers) seem to have a bit more disposable income and people in positions that require qualifications seem to have a bit less.
But there's obviously a balance. If you take the minimum wage argument to either extreme then it gets stupid, there's a sweet spot somewhere.
Kilkrazy wrote: Most minimum wage jobs are grunt level -- kitchen porter, pizza delivery, waiting on tables at cheap places, cleaner -- that kind of thing.
These jobs are a very small component of the prices the employers charge for their product/service overall.
To make an extreme example, a multi-billion dollar bank still needs its floors swept and lavatories cleaned. How much do you think an extra 50 cents an hour for those workers is going to impact on the bottom line?
But it does end up scaling the higher paying jobs as well. You don't just raise minimum wage and end up with more people on minimum wage as their wages get swallowed up by whatever the minimum is. I'd have to double check but my understanding is a factory workers in both Australia and the US earn more than minimum wage.... but they earn a similar % more than minimum wage. Again I'd have to double check, but that's what my factory worker mates have told me, because you have to pay your semi-skilled workers more than the dude who mops the floors.
you will have to excuse KilKrazy he thinks if minimum wage is increased only those making minimum wage will get increases.
Asterios wrote: ahh the good ole days when I could get me Candy bars for .05 or .10 each, bottle of soda was about the same price too and sadly while minimum wage has tripled or so since then, the cost of products have gone up 10 times, and don't see them staying the same when minimum wage goes up.
depends on how much labor makes up their operating costs.
Ultimately, lots of industries wont aee much change, some will see massive change, it all depends on how much sub $15 wages compose their operating costs. For something like a fast food joint that only employs a cook, counter person, and a runner, they cant really cut people and are gonna have to pass that cost on, but it may only be a ~5% increase averaged out over the menu since labor wasnt a huge cost center to begin with. For a low end factory employing hundreds of people for $9/hr with almost zero material costs, a minimum wage increase to $15 may require a 60% price increase to cover, which may not be sustainable, though such industry is likely to have already moved overseas or be in imminent danger of it anyway.
The variables in these things are huge.
around here fast food places usually have like 20 people working in them, when I worked fast food oh so many decades ago yeah there were 3 people and can see them reducing the number of employees down to that, but then we are faced with the inevitability of a run away unemployment rate.
even when I worked in fast food like 13 years ago as a high schooler, we had may 7 or 8 tops at peak rush times, I dont think ive ever seen a place with 20 people. That said, yeah its likely they may scale back some of this, but you need someone to flip burgers, someone to take the orders, and someone to deliver them, theres a limit to how much can be cut.
Now, therea some automation potential, but thatll likely happen regardless of minimum wages, I saw my first order kiosk in a Jack In The Box back in 2011 over five years ago, so I imagine if they catch on theyll replace people regardless.
also i've already seen a 10% or more increase in fast food product and thats only after a $1 increase in minimum wage, we still have $5 more to go.
there are likely to be other factors in that beyond just wages. Rent, inputs (e.g. beef which has become dramatically more expensive over the last 15 years), etc all factor in. It's also sometimes just a convenient excuse for some businesses to raise prices that people will accept when otherwise they wouldn't haven
Vaktathi wrote: It's also sometimes just a convenient excuse for some businesses to raise prices that people will accept when otherwise they wouldn't haven
Indeed, I well remember businesses raising prices after the ACA was passed and claiming that was the reason, well before any of them had actually felt even a cent of impact.
Monkey Tamer wrote: I've always wondered what the absolute breaking point is for fast food when automation becomes the more attractive option. It's not like the workers are paid much to begin with. It isn't like the high costs of unionized manufacturing.
It's cheaper from the get go. Labor that doesn't take a wage, need HR, healthcare, can sue you, or any number of other things, will always be cheaper. The sheer benefit of not having to manage a workforce of people probably innately out weighs any source of cheap human labor that isn't sweat shop level labor. A machine doesn't need maternity leave. It doesn't need time off. It doesn't take vacations. It can't break a leg. It can't steal from you. You don't have to pay it overtime, or hire extra ones when one wants to be at its kids soccer game.
It's not, and never has been, and issue of "are machines cheaper." The machine was better from the beginning as a mere concept. It's an issue of "does the machine exist, and is it reliable enough that I can replace workers with it."
We're pretty much at the edge of the later questions being "yes, it exists and it is reliable" which really makes this whole idea that "we have to keep wages down or machines will replace people" utterly moot and pointless. Machines are already poised to do. That boat sailed years ago.
yeah well me I'm remembering recently when the State Union (CalPers) here made bad investments and expected the Tax Payers to pay for their mistakes when they lost their retirement funds.
CalPERS is part of the California government, its operating costs are paid for by tax payers as a matter of course. It is not a union.
Vaktathi wrote: It's also sometimes just a convenient excuse for some businesses to raise prices that people will accept when otherwise they wouldn't haven
Indeed, I well remember businesses raising prices after the ACA was passed and claiming that was the reason, well before any of them had actually felt even a cent of impact.
yeah, I remember a lot of that going on. It's sadly a fairly common tactic. Blame some political thing you dont like to enhance yourself at the expense of others while feeding the outrage machine. Sadly not uncommon, especially with small businesses and franchises.
We're pretty much at the edge of the later questions being "yes, it exists and it is reliable" which really makes this whole idea that "we have to keep wages down or machines will replace people" utterly moot and pointless. Machines are already poised to do. That boat sailed years ago.
This is applying more and more to white-collar and professional jobs and is only accelerating for blue-collar/working class jobs.
Yes, the only real question is, how long will it take society to adapt to the fact that not everyone can be gainfully employed anymore? I have a feeling culturally in the US it is still long ways off!
We're pretty much at the edge of the later questions being "yes, it exists and it is reliable" which really makes this whole idea that "we have to keep wages down or machines will replace people" utterly moot and pointless. Machines are already poised to do. That boat sailed years ago.
This is applying more and more to white-collar and professional jobs and is only accelerating for blue-collar/working class jobs.
Yes, the only real question is, how long will it take society to adapt to the fact that not everyone can be gainfully employed anymore? I have a feeling culturally in the US it is still long ways off!
I see this increasingly in white collar jobs. Accounting depts at places like mine used to have something like 12 accountants. Now they have 3 with 6 "accounting clerks" that usually dont have a degree and are paid hourly, and the computers do everything else. Accounting, which was once a huge staple of business employment, is becoming increasingly automated and I see a lot of accountants having hard times coping.
It was kinda awkward watching some dude in IT write a sql query in two days that took 12 minutes to execute, to do what we paid someone $80k/year to do previously full tim
I'd be more optimistic. Much like the Great Depression, it's very hard for a democracy to ignore 1/3 of the population being completely and utterly out of work, and the future we're looking at is closer to 1/2 to a point (depending on how far you want to take technology, it's feasible for the entire human workforce, as in workers doing work for day to day business operations, to achieve obsolescence.
I'm sure plenty of people will be bitching though.
LordofHats wrote: I'd be more optimistic. Much like the Great Depression, it's very hard for a democracy to ignore 1/3 of the population being completely and utterly out of work, and the future we're looking at is closer to 1/2 to a point (depending on how far you want to take technology, it's feasible for the entire human workforce, as in workers doing work for day to day business operations, to achieve obsolescence.
I'm sure plenty of people will be bitching though.
The Great Depression resulted in the spread of communism throughout Europe, then the spread of fascism. Then that whole WWII thing, followed by that Cold War thing.
I am down with the increased minimum wage. Automation will replace them as soon as possible anyway, regardless of the minimum wage.
There was also Imperialism, a First World War, the Great Recession is not remotely comparable to the Great Depression, and I could go on and on and on, but the base point is so incorrect I can't help but fee like it would be a huge waste of my time to make the attempt.
Just because two periods of time look similar, doesn't mean they are. Historical Parallelism is a dubious practice at the best of times.
You betcha. However Weimar Republic crumpled in the Depression. Germany was mayhaps the country hardest hit.
the Great Recession is not remotely comparable to the Great Depression, and I could go on and on and on, but the base point is so incorrect I can't help but fee like it would be a huge waste of my time to make the attempt.
You weren't involved seeing the Fed and the Central Banks attempting to stop the utter dissolution of the financial industry. I was. Whatever you want to believe is based on....nothing.
Just because two periods of time look similar, doesn't mean they are. Historical Parallelism is a dubious practice at the best of times.
Live longer. Read a book.
Read history and follow the trends of history. In every great cultural and political shift there is social and economic dislocation. In the 1800s it was "panics." The Depression created the greatest blood bath the world had ever known.
The Great Recession destroyed the lives of millions of people in the US and worldwide. The EU can't handle it and is now breaking up. Automation will continue to accelerate that (automation being a parallel leading to the Depression as well).
LordofHats wrote: I'd be more optimistic. Much like the Great Depression, it's very hard for a democracy to ignore 1/3 of the population being completely and utterly out of work, and the future we're looking at is closer to 1/2 to a point (depending on how far you want to take technology, it's feasible for the entire human workforce, as in workers doing work for day to day business operations, to achieve obsolescence.
I'm sure plenty of people will be bitching though.
The Great Depression resulted in the spread of communism throughout Europe, then the spread of fascism.
Then that whole WWII thing, followed by that Cold War thing.
I am down with the increased minimum wage. Automation will replace them as soon as possible anyway, regardless of the minimum wage.
Well, I don't know about all that, but I think we can all agree that the pace of automation will lead to instability and potential labor/class turmoil in the coming 50 years.
Frazzled wrote: Read history and follow the trends of history.
I'm a historian. Reading books is pretty much 75% of what I do (the other 25% is formatting citations ). I've learned two things; 1) historical events are infinitely complex, bordering on the mystical at times, in how they elude our understanding. 2) 90% of everything is crud, and all those books written by shill experts to pander to people with historical BS fall into the 90%. Yes. Every great shift of history comes with social and economic dislocation, but that things are shifting should be the first clue that assuming previous circumstances will repeat in the same way now is fallacious, and that's without even touching the issue of blaming events of Fascism, Communism, and WWII solely on the Great Depression, as if Great Depression were some bubble in which a bunch of stuff happened.
These two things aren't the same. They're not even all that similar beyond being economic down turns. Even if your riddle with problems hypothesis had meat behind it, it still wouldn't support your conclusion. If that's not a good reason to spend no more time on the discussion I don't know what is. Sometimes something is so wrong, that its mere utterence is a message from the universe that there will be no point
*Curiously invented by a fiction writer, but I'll be damned. It works pretty well for illustrating that projecting our own lives onto the past is a surefire way to end up being wildly wrong (vice versa applies) and repeated to me so much I hate it, and I hate this thread for making me repeat it further damn it!
Usually I find it has nothing to do with how well one reads, but what one is reading. No amount of "read better" will make the likes of Amity Shlaes' The Forgotten Man anything but dribble. Might I suggest;
Voices of Protest: Hughey Long, Father Coughlin, and the Great Depression by Alan Brinkly. Wonderful book for American politics in the 1930s, particularly as it relates to the briefly lived American Fascism movement of the period (Coughlin) and good ol' American Populism (Long). EDIT: Also wonderfully topical given this past primary season. It's interesting looking at Long and Coughlin's roles in the 1936 election, and the journey through the primaries of Trump and Sanders (respectively).
There's so many books on the Great Depression it's impossible to ever read all of them. Robert McElvaine however published in 2009 what has quickly become the new definitive text for general Depression history; The Great Depression: America, 1929–1941. Most books on the period focus way too much on the New Deal. McElvaine goes beyond it too look at the entire decade (and change). Gerald Nash's The Crucial Era: The Great Depression and World War II 1929-1945 is commonly used as a text book on the formative years of the Depression and the World War. It's a little out of date being published in 98 and all, but it's still valid.
Joseph Maiolo's Cry Havoc: How the Arms Race Drove the World to War, 1931-1941 as the title suggests is primarily focused on the arms race of the interwar years, and the authors primary argument is that the arms race was the foremost issue that produced the Second World War. He takes his argument too far imo, but he does delve into the politics and economics of the great powers and how those factors influenced their decision making, so its a useful work even if the author tries to stretch his evidence farther than it can take him.
Usually I find it has nothing to do with how well one reads, but what one is reading. No amount of "read better" will make the likes of Amity Shlaes' The Forgotten Man anything but dribble. Might I suggest;
There's so many books on the Great Depression it's impossible to ever read all of them. Robert McElvaine however published in 2009 what has quickly become the new definitive text for general Depression history; The Great Depression: America, 1929–1941. Most books on the period focus way too much on the New Deal. McElvaine goes beyond it too look at the entire decade (and change). Gerald Nash's The Crucial Era: The Great Depression and World War II 1929-1945 is commonly used as a text book on the formative years of the Depression and the World War. It's a little out of date being published in 98 and all, but it's still valid.
Joseph Maiolo's Cry Havoc: How the Arms Race Drove the World to War, 1931-1941 as the title suggests is primarily focused on the arms race of the interwar years, and the authors primary argument is that the arms race was the foremost issue that produced the Second World War. He takes his argument too far imo, but he does delve into the politics and economics of the great powers and how those factors influenced their decision making, so its a useful work even if the author tries to stretch his evidence farther than it can take him.
I'll admit, these look very interesting. I may add one after I finish With the Old Breed.
Now I will see you this and challenge you to read Zaloga's Panther vs. Sherman Battle of the Bulge. Excellent.
Kilkrazy wrote: Most minimum wage jobs are grunt level -- kitchen porter, pizza delivery, waiting on tables at cheap places, cleaner -- that kind of thing.
These jobs are a very small component of the prices the employers charge for their product/service overall.
To make an extreme example, a multi-billion dollar bank still needs its floors swept and lavatories cleaned. How much do you think an extra 50 cents an hour for those workers is going to impact on the bottom line?
But it does end up scaling the higher paying jobs as well. You don't just raise minimum wage and end up with more people on minimum wage as their wages get swallowed up by whatever the minimum is. I'd have to double check but my understanding is a factory workers in both Australia and the US earn more than minimum wage.... but they earn a similar % more than minimum wage. Again I'd have to double check, but that's what my factory worker mates have told me, because you have to pay your semi-skilled workers more than the dude who mops the floors.
Then the cost of essentials goes up along with minimum wage. The standard of living doesn't magically get twice as good if you double minimum wage.
Even though minimum wage in Australia is much higher, I'm not sure the standard of living is much higher for people on minimum wage, you still won't be able to afford to rent a place by yourself either way. You can barely survive on minimum wage in either country, it seems the main difference is people earning a bit above minimum wage (semi-skilled workers) seem to have a bit more disposable income and people in positions that require qualifications seem to have a bit less.
But there's obviously a balance. If you take the minimum wage argument to either extreme then it gets stupid, there's a sweet spot somewhere.
I can only refer you to the practical example of the UK where the rising minimum wage neither has decreased labour employment nor has increased inflation.
Breotan wrote: I can promise you that American corporations have next to zero problems laying off workers to cut costs. I live that experience.
And I can promise you that very few companies choose to employ people they don't need. They employ who they need to, no more, and pay them what they have to, no more. As such, if government dictates a higher minimum wage, the company doesn't just cut staff because it still needs cleaners and service staff and whatever else.
There is an effect on the margins, and the scale of that effect is constantly up for debate. But we can only begin that discussion once we understand the basics of how and why companies hire people.
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Monkey Tamer wrote: I've always wondered what the absolute breaking point is for fast food when automation becomes the more attractive option. It's not like the workers are paid much to begin with. It isn't like the high costs of unionized manufacturing.
I think the breaking point is probably driven more by the technology than the cost of labour. Think of it this way - in other countries around the world service staff at McDonalds are on lots more than they are in the US and we've only just started to get machines to order food (and they seem geared more at allowing for elaborate customisation more than reducing the service staff).
Think of it this way - if a machine with installation costs $50,000 and requires a lot of upkeep every year, then it's a bad option whether the service staff is on $7 or $15. But if the machine costs $5,000 and requires little maintenance then unless wage dropped to about $2 the machine is the better choice every time.
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redleger wrote: I am no expert, and I have read this thread for some education and thought provocation. I have had the same job for 20 years but before that I was a bus boy and burger flipper in high school. There was a minimum wage increase when I worked at Whataburger and I think it went up to $4.75 or something like that, many many years ago. the immediate response was to raise prices. I don't remember anyone being laid off. However the thought that went through my head then was if prices go up, all that extra money Im making is just going to purchase the same stuff at a higher price, so I'm really not gaining anything.
There seem to be some smart people here, so explain to me how that is wrong?
The price of food will only increase by the proportion of cost that is made up by minimum wage. For a very simple example, consider a place selling just burgers. Right now each burger might have built in to it about $1 worth of ingredients and $2 worth of minimum wage workers (service staff and burger flipper). They sell the burger for $5 giving them a $2 gross margin that they use to cover rent, advertising and management wages, and once that's covered the rest is profit.
Then minimum wage goes up, let's say it goes up 10%, from $10 to $11. Suddenly the burger is now $1 worth of ingredients and $2.20 worth of minimum wage workers. To keep their gross margin the same at $2 they'd have to increase the price of the burger to $5.20.
So yeah, there's inflation. But note that it was only 4%, a lot less than the 10% that minimum wage increased by. A person who worked one hour used to buy two burgers and have no change, now he can buy two burgers and still have 60c.
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AllSeeingSkink wrote: You end up chasing your tail with minimum wage raises. You raise minimum wage, so stores raise prices, so your dollar doesn't go as far and your living conditions don't really improve much.
This only works if the cost of every single good is entirely minimum wage work. But in the real world where minimum wage is a small component of the cost of any good or service the argument makes little sense. Because rent, wages above minimum and raw materials make up a much bigger share of the cost goods and services.
There is a very small inflationary impact to minimum wage, but it's small enough to be fairly close to irrelevant. The real issue is deadweight loss.
But whether that's a good thing or not is debatable, with an engineering degree in Australia (where we have a reasonably high minimum wage) you don't earn a hell of a lot more than a semi-skilled factory worker (there's a difference, but the gap is small enough to make you wonder if it's worth studying for an extra 4 years ).
That's true of just about every white collar jobs. Hell even doctors earn a pretty crappy wage straight out of medical school. The point though, is that university grounding gets on a career ladder. The factory worker will start at $40k and finish his working life 30 years later at $60k (inflation adjusted). The engineer might start at $50k, but he'll finish at $150k.
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Vaktathi wrote: For a low end factory employing hundreds of people for $9/hr with almost zero material costs, a minimum wage increase to $15 may require a 60% price increase to cover, which may not be sustainable, though such industry is likely to have already moved overseas or be in imminent danger of it anyway.
Oh dear, the US might lose its textile industry to China. Somebody better tell 1983
Anything that's driven by low wages is already gone from the developed world. Those kinds of industries are not only so far gone from the US, that even China is starting to lose them to the next string of up and coming Asian countries like Vietnam.
redleger wrote: I am no expert, and I have read this thread for some education and thought provocation. I have had the same job for 20 years but before that I was a bus boy and burger flipper in high school. There was a minimum wage increase when I worked at Whataburger and I think it went up to $4.75 or something like that, many many years ago. the immediate response was to raise prices. I don't remember anyone being laid off. However the thought that went through my head then was if prices go up, all that extra money Im making is just going to purchase the same stuff at a higher price, so I'm really not gaining anything.
There seem to be some smart people here, so explain to me how that is wrong?
The price of food will only increase by the proportion of cost that is made up by minimum wage. For a very simple example, consider a place selling just burgers. Right now each burger might have built in to it about $1 worth of ingredients and $2 worth of minimum wage workers (service staff and burger flipper). They sell the burger for $5 giving them a $2 gross margin that they use to cover rent, advertising and management wages, and once that's covered the rest is profit.
Then minimum wage goes up, let's say it goes up 10%, from $10 to $11. Suddenly the burger is now $1 worth of ingredients and $2.20 worth of minimum wage workers. To keep their gross margin the same at $2 they'd have to increase the price of the burger to $5.20.
So yeah, there's inflation. But note that it was only 4%, a lot less than the 10% that minimum wage increased by. A person who worked one hour used to buy two burgers and have no change, now he can buy two burgers and still have 60c.
But then the problem goes, and it was brought up by Redleger, that now there's been a price hike in the burger... you've explained that this isn't really a big deal, but it is, because the burger is more expensive, so one person may choose to buy groceries and cook for themselves for the evening. The grocery store has been "forced" to raise their prices to keep their margins the same, so food is more expensive. This worker who bought food just had his/her rent increased by the property management company at their apartment complex, to keep the margins, etc. etc. on down the line to the point where, yeah, the minimum wage person is in literally the exact same spot they were in before at the lower wages.
Ensis Ferrae wrote: But then the problem goes, and it was brought up by Redleger, that now there's been a price hike in the burger...
Well, there hasn't really been a price hike in the burger. It more accurately reflects the true cost of a burger.
Right now, we have cheap burgers partially because we're offsetting the cost of them via the taxpayer funded food stamps and welfare that minimum wage people who make burgers are getting because they can't live with their wages. Walmart has cheap prices partially because their workforce costs Americans 6 billion dollars a year in welfare.
Right now, we have cheap burgers partially because we're offsetting the cost of them via the taxpayer funded food stamps and welfare that minimum wage people who make burgers are getting because they can't live with their wages. Walmart has cheap prices partially because their workforce costs Americans 6 billion dollars a year in welfare.
Breotan wrote: I can promise you that American corporations have next to zero problems laying off workers to cut costs. I live that experience.
And I can promise you that very few companies choose to employ people they don't need. They employ who they need to, no more, and pay them what they have to, no more. As such, if government dictates a higher minimum wage, the company doesn't just cut staff because it still needs cleaners and service staff and whatever else.
Hold the phone a minute. You mean my job doesn't keep me on staff just because they like paying me!? Dude that hurts, I thought the big corporation was my friend...
So, how much of this plank can be attributed to Bernie's run for president, and how much was the Dems tapping into the zeitgeist of the Labor movement?
Right now, we have cheap burgers partially because we're offsetting the cost of them via the taxpayer funded food stamps and welfare that minimum wage people who make burgers are getting because they can't live with their wages. Walmart has cheap prices partially because their workforce costs Americans 6 billion dollars a year in welfare.
Which is, IMHO, flat out wrong.
Wrong as in it is not true, or wrong as in morally bankrupt?
Right now, we have cheap burgers partially because we're offsetting the cost of them via the taxpayer funded food stamps and welfare that minimum wage people who make burgers are getting because they can't live with their wages. Walmart has cheap prices partially because their workforce costs Americans 6 billion dollars a year in welfare.
Which is, IMHO, flat out wrong.
It is, but it's also why corporations like WalMart lobby in support of the legislation. They get the govt to determine when people work enough to qualify for benefits and how much they have to get paid and then the corporations know how to schedule employees to keep them under the threshold and let the govt pick up the slack. I know our HR dept is adamant that we keep all of our part time employees scheduled so that their hours fall short of the threshold and we have to keep a buffer built in just in case somebody has to fill in and pick up additional hours. It's just cleverly disguised corporate welfare that really doesn't help people get ahead at all.
Plus the higher the wage the more stringent the requirements are to get hired. It's already difficult for unskilled people and young people with no prior work history to get jobs and increasing wages just increases that difficulty. Increasing minimum wage does more for people who already have jobs than for people trying to find jobs. Increasing wages also tips the scales in regards to the viability of automation. Automation may cost more than human labor now but if there are built in increases to wages over the next 5-10 years as local, state and federal minimum wage goes up it makes the cost of automation more affordable and viable.
Companies are already working on training consumers to be more self reliant. Most fast food restaurants I've been in recently already have touch screen self serve drink fountains, and more places are switching to touch screen ordering too. WalMart is always short staffed, they'll have 12 registers but only staff 2 of them during the day, but they'll increase the number of self checkout registers. They want people to see long lines and go over and use self checkout and over time the ratio of self checkout:cashiers increases leading to one supervising cashier monitoring half a dozen self checkout registers.
Asterios wrote: can see the Republican's going along with this but telling the Democrats which of their programs they want to cut first?
Sounds like a good idea! We can start with some major cuts to the military, shut down all military operations in other countries, etc. That should free up quite a bit of money.
Thanks for advocating my unemployment!
Luckily, the Government issued you bootstraps to pull yourself up, by!
Right now, we have cheap burgers partially because we're offsetting the cost of them via the taxpayer funded food stamps and welfare that minimum wage people who make burgers are getting because they can't live with their wages. Walmart has cheap prices partially because their workforce costs Americans 6 billion dollars a year in welfare.
Which is, IMHO, flat out wrong.
Wrong as in it is not true, or wrong as in morally bankrupt?
Morally bankrupt, evil, dastardly, depraved, villainous, etc.
Asterios wrote: can see the Republican's going along with this but telling the Democrats which of their programs they want to cut first?
Sounds like a good idea! We can start with some major cuts to the military, shut down all military operations in other countries, etc. That should free up quite a bit of money.
Thanks for advocating my unemployment!
Luckily, the Government issued you bootstraps to pull yourself up, by!
I kid, I kid..
If the Government issuing you boot straps....4-6 AD years for a 8 year obligation....wait
This contract has two parts. The part we did today is your Dep In Contract otherwise known as Delay Entry
Your going into the --->insert whatever branch here (Reserves)<---- for a eight year obligation. Your going in as a E01 for 4 years active duty leaving you with 4 years left to decide if you want to re-enlist, go into the Reserves, or Guards. If you choose to go the civilian route be advise the Military can call you back within the last four years if they need you. For a grand total of eight years. Understand? Good. Now the reason your going into the Reserves is they are going to use this portion of your contract to a adminstrative hold on the job you pick. So no one else can take it from you. It will be locked to your Contract. You do not need to make Drills or anything but you stay in contact with your recruiter unless he/she says otherwise
Now when you come back on your ship day. You be going in Active (Branch) for fours years into the MOS that you picked or they picked for you. You swear in again and this one is a no turn around.
Any Questions? No? Good. All I need for to go into effect is your finger print and half your Soul. Forgot to mention I am also the Cross Road Demon.
Ensis Ferrae wrote: But then the problem goes, and it was brought up by Redleger, that now there's been a price hike in the burger... you've explained that this isn't really a big deal, but it is, because the burger is more expensive, so one person may choose to buy groceries and cook for themselves for the evening. The grocery store has been "forced" to raise their prices to keep their margins the same, so food is more expensive. This worker who bought food just had his/her rent increased by the property management company at their apartment complex, to keep the margins, etc. etc. on down the line to the point where, yeah, the minimum wage person is in literally the exact same spot they were in before at the lower wages.
No. Sure, the grocery store will also raise prices, but again it will only be by the % in minimum wage increase, times the portion of store costs made up by minimum wage. Which by definition is less than the minimum wage increase, unless the whole business cost base is entirely minimum wage.
Rent won't increase, because rent has no minimum wage component. You might argue that they're protecting their margins, but you're forgetting that price competition exists and you can't just put the price at whatever margin you'd like to make, you have to price your property low enough to ensure a tenant. Those market pressures are exactly the same before and after the minimum wage increase. If rentors could simply choose to charge more, then they'd charge more with or without a minimum wage increase.
It's kind of amazing that people believe this argument when it comes to minimum wage, but would never make the same assumption with any other resource. If sugar manufacturers all somehow managed to have their sugar sold at 10% more... would anyone argue that there's no point raising prices because sugar manufacturers would all end up in the same place because everything will increase prices? No, they'd understand that prices would go up by the extent that sugar makes up the total economy, that sugar manufacturers would end up with a gain very slightly less than 10%, and everyone else would lose by that slight increase in overall prices. But put up that same situation with minimum wage, and everyone loses track of that simple, intuitive reality.
Rent won't increase, because rent has no minimum wage component. You might argue that they're protecting their margins, but you're forgetting that price competition exists and you can't just put the price at whatever margin you'd like to make, you have to price your property low enough to ensure a tenant. Those market pressures are exactly the same before and after the minimum wage increase. If rentors could simply choose to charge more, then they'd charge more with or without a minimum wage increase.
You'll have to forgive me for disagreeing with this because I've a number of friends who work and live in the greater Seattle area and have been forced to find other living arrangements due to rent increasing literally a month after a wage increase took effect. It is possible that they were renting from shady property management companies, but the way they bitched about not finding the quality they had, at the price they had spoke volumes to me.
I agree with your statement insofar as houses are concerned, but not apartments in the US. And I agree based on my own experiences in using a property management/real estate company to rent out one of the houses I've bought, which is closely mirrored by the people I know in the same boat as me (owning one or more house, living in another location)
Ensis Ferrae wrote: You'll have to forgive me for disagreeing with this because I've a number of friends who work and live in the greater Seattle area and have been forced to find other living arrangements due to rent increasing literally a month after a wage increase took effect. It is possible that they were renting from shady property management companies, but the way they bitched about not finding the quality they had, at the price they had spoke volumes to me.
I agree with your statement insofar as houses are concerned, but not apartments in the US. And I agree based on my own experiences in using a property management/real estate company to rent out one of the houses I've bought, which is closely mirrored by the people I know in the same boat as me (owning one or more house, living in another location)
Actually, thinking about it I think you make a fair point. My first thoughts on the impact on rent were too simplistic. If a specific rental market, such as low cost apartments had a large number of people on minimum wage in them, then prices in that market could be capped mostly by what rentors are able to afford. If they can afford more then I could see rents going up.
That would then act to offset some of their increase in pay.
redleger wrote: I am no expert, and I have read this thread for some education and thought provocation. I have had the same job for 20 years but before that I was a bus boy and burger flipper in high school. There was a minimum wage increase when I worked at Whataburger and I think it went up to $4.75 or something like that, many many years ago. the immediate response was to raise prices. I don't remember anyone being laid off. However the thought that went through my head then was if prices go up, all that extra money Im making is just going to purchase the same stuff at a higher price, so I'm really not gaining anything.
There seem to be some smart people here, so explain to me how that is wrong?
The price of food will only increase by the proportion of cost that is made up by minimum wage. For a very simple example, consider a place selling just burgers. Right now each burger might have built in to it about $1 worth of ingredients and $2 worth of minimum wage workers (service staff and burger flipper). They sell the burger for $5 giving them a $2 gross margin that they use to cover rent, advertising and management wages, and once that's covered the rest is profit.
Then minimum wage goes up, let's say it goes up 10%, from $10 to $11. Suddenly the burger is now $1 worth of ingredients and $2.20 worth of minimum wage workers. To keep their gross margin the same at $2 they'd have to increase the price of the burger to $5.20.
So yeah, there's inflation. But note that it was only 4%, a lot less than the 10% that minimum wage increased by. A person who worked one hour used to buy two burgers and have no change, now he can buy two burgers and still have 60c.
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AllSeeingSkink wrote: You end up chasing your tail with minimum wage raises. You raise minimum wage, so stores raise prices, so your dollar doesn't go as far and your living conditions don't really improve much.
This only works if the cost of every single good is entirely minimum wage work. But in the real world where minimum wage is a small component of the cost of any good or service the argument makes little sense. Because rent, wages above minimum and raw materials make up a much bigger share of the cost goods and services.
Sebster, I watched you go through nearly this exact same explanation last time this subject came up, and probably the time before that. I appreciate you taking the time to try and educate other people in here, even though it must get frustrating to cover the same ground over and over.
The older I get, the more I realise that lies and misunderstandings about economic policy and practices are the main reason we are so maddeningly short of our potential as a developed society.
Rent won't increase, because rent has no minimum wage component. You might argue that they're protecting their margins, but you're forgetting that price competition exists and you can't just put the price at whatever margin you'd like to make, you have to price your property low enough to ensure a tenant. Those market pressures are exactly the same before and after the minimum wage increase. If rentors could simply choose to charge more, then they'd charge more with or without a minimum wage increase.
You'll have to forgive me for disagreeing with this because I've a number of friends who work and live in the greater Seattle area and have been forced to find other living arrangements due to rent increasing literally a month after a wage increase took effect. It is possible that they were renting from shady property management companies, but the way they bitched about not finding the quality they had, at the price they had spoke volumes to me.
Don't you have protections from predatory landlords where you live? I'm just across the border from you and rent increases are capped at about 2.5% a year by law.
redleger wrote: I am no expert, and I have read this thread for some education and thought provocation. I have had the same job for 20 years but before that I was a bus boy and burger flipper in high school. There was a minimum wage increase when I worked at Whataburger and I think it went up to $4.75 or something like that, many many years ago. the immediate response was to raise prices. I don't remember anyone being laid off. However the thought that went through my head then was if prices go up, all that extra money Im making is just going to purchase the same stuff at a higher price, so I'm really not gaining anything.
There seem to be some smart people here, so explain to me how that is wrong?
The price of food will only increase by the proportion of cost that is made up by minimum wage. For a very simple example, consider a place selling just burgers. Right now each burger might have built in to it about $1 worth of ingredients and $2 worth of minimum wage workers (service staff and burger flipper). They sell the burger for $5 giving them a $2 gross margin that they use to cover rent, advertising and management wages, and once that's covered the rest is profit.
Then minimum wage goes up, let's say it goes up 10%, from $10 to $11. Suddenly the burger is now $1 worth of ingredients and $2.20 worth of minimum wage workers. To keep their gross margin the same at $2 they'd have to increase the price of the burger to $5.20.
So yeah, there's inflation. But note that it was only 4%, a lot less than the 10% that minimum wage increased by. A person who worked one hour used to buy two burgers and have no change, now he can buy two burgers and still have 60c.
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AllSeeingSkink wrote: You end up chasing your tail with minimum wage raises. You raise minimum wage, so stores raise prices, so your dollar doesn't go as far and your living conditions don't really improve much.
This only works if the cost of every single good is entirely minimum wage work. But in the real world where minimum wage is a small component of the cost of any good or service the argument makes little sense. Because rent, wages above minimum and raw materials make up a much bigger share of the cost goods and services.
Sebster, I watched you go through nearly this exact same explanation last time this subject came up, and probably the time before that. I appreciate you taking the time to try and educate other people in here, even though it must get frustrating to cover the same ground over and over.
The older I get, the more I realise that lies and misunderstandings about economic policy and practices are the main reason we are so maddeningly short of our potential as a developed society.
Rent won't increase, because rent has no minimum wage component. You might argue that they're protecting their margins, but you're forgetting that price competition exists and you can't just put the price at whatever margin you'd like to make, you have to price your property low enough to ensure a tenant. Those market pressures are exactly the same before and after the minimum wage increase. If rentors could simply choose to charge more, then they'd charge more with or without a minimum wage increase.
You'll have to forgive me for disagreeing with this because I've a number of friends who work and live in the greater Seattle area and have been forced to find other living arrangements due to rent increasing literally a month after a wage increase took effect. It is possible that they were renting from shady property management companies, but the way they bitched about not finding the quality they had, at the price they had spoke volumes to me.
Don't you have protections from predatory landlords where you live? I'm just across the border from you and rent increases are capped at about 2.5% a year by law.
you are lucky here it is a lot more which is why me and my wife bought a house when the market crashed, also people think property owners of apartments never have their rates go up? an apartment complex does not clean itself or pay water and garbage out of thin air, their rates go up too. as to sebster he is wrong, he keeps thinking only from the fast food point, he does not consider the entire chain required to get you that burger and how all those employees in that chain also got raises too, one of my friends who runs a fast food place (he has 2 franchises) just saw his base costs go up big time this year on the products he orders, and lump that in with now having to give his employees paid sick leave and having to pay into their health coverage, not too mention larger insurance rates, hes barely making a living now and about to shut up his place like a few others have already done so, and he has almost 60 employees working for him between both places. but hey they may be out of work but they can feel good somebody will be making $15 an hour soon, just not them.
Don't you have protections from predatory landlords where you live? I'm just across the border from you and rent increases are capped at about 2.5% a year by law.
Honestly mate, I have no idea.
But part of at least one of my buddies' situations was made as bad as it was for them was because he works at SeaTac airport. Now, I don't know the full legalities of everything, but workers there are pretty much divided into two groups: inside the fence and outside the fence. Inside the fence workers are officially "port of Seattle" employees, and so, when Seattle started bumping minimum wage, they got that bump. Guys like my buddy who work outside the fence, didn't. Perhaps this was just a situation where a corporate apartment management company saw wage increases for Seattle, knowing that airport employees are part of the Port system, and saw opportunity to make a bit more money themselves. Perhaps there were many more rental companies that did the same, I don't really know.
Perhaps this anecdotal example is more of an illustration of how things could potentially go wrong when you keep wage increases localized at the city level, as opposed to county or state level.
Asterios wrote: one of my friends who runs a fast food place (he has 2 franchises) just saw his base costs go up big time this year on the products he orders, and lump that in with now having to give his employees paid sick leave and having to pay into their health coverage, not too mention larger insurance rates, hes barely making a living now and about to shut up his place like a few others have already done so...
If the only way his business is viable is if his employees get poverty level wages with no benefits, maybe he's just terrible at business.
Asterios wrote: one of my friends who runs a fast food place (he has 2 franchises) just saw his base costs go up big time this year on the products he orders, and lump that in with now having to give his employees paid sick leave and having to pay into their health coverage, not too mention larger insurance rates, hes barely making a living now and about to shut up his place like a few others have already done so...
If the only way his business is viable is if his employees get poverty level wages with no benefits, maybe he's just terrible at business.
My gods, having to pay for his employees to live a decent life and not be forced to take government assistance because of his greed? What has this country come to?
feeder wrote: Sebster, I watched you go through nearly this exact same explanation last time this subject came up, and probably the time before that. I appreciate you taking the time to try and educate other people in here, even though it must get frustrating to cover the same ground over and over.
The older I get, the more I realise that lies and misunderstandings about economic policy and practices are the main reason we are so maddeningly short of our potential as a developed society.
Thanks, and I agree. There are a lot of issues that people have very strong opinions on without actually having much of an understanding of the issue. Minimum wage is a good example, it simply can't cause so much inflation that the wage benefit just disappears. And it might cause enough job loss that it is a bad idea... but determining that 'might' is dependent on the economy in question and the scale of the raise. And yet so many people are willing to say 'it won't cause job losses' or 'it will cause job losses' without ever actually finding out about the details of the economy in question or reading any of the countless bits of quant work that might have studied that particular market.
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Asterios wrote: as to sebster he is wrong, he keeps thinking only from the fast food point, he does not consider the entire chain required to get you that burger and how all those employees in that chain also got raises too
I was using fast food as an example to keep the model simple. Adding in a full value chain would require a lot more explanation without really adding to the basic concept.
But obviously, yes, the goods used in the fast food store come from other businesses, and those businesses will have some portion of minimum wage workers on their payroll. But the mechanic remains the same - the inflationary impact of a minimum wage increase is limited to the percentage of the economy paid on minimum wage. If 100% of the economy is paid at minimum wage then the inflationary impact of the increased wage will be exactly equal to the increase in pay and no-one will be better off. But if less than 100% of workers are on minimum wage then the inflationary impact will be less than the increase in minimum wage, and so minimum wage workers will gain.
I may add one after I finish With the Old Breed.
