Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Gitzbitah wrote:
@ lonestarr777 Whoa there- he may have called this generation soft and greedy, but I don't think that's remotely close to anything like rapists.

@cuda1179 Fair enough- let us explore cost of living then.

https://smartasset.com/mortgage/the-cost-of-living-in-florida

TLDR- Rent for studio apartment- 1223
Electricity- 129
Food- 271 per month- 1 adult, no kids
Catastrophic Insurance- 249


So before we get into luxury items, that's 1872. Minimum wage is 8.25 here. Working 40 hours a week at that rate, your gross income per month before taxes is 1320.

I appreciate the idea that there are far more luxuries, and indeed, far more things we term necessities nowadays- but even so, I say that if working full time at minimum wage cannot equal the cost of living then there is a deeper issue than excessive internet expense or avocado consumption.

I'd question whether that rent is realistic. According to that site that's the rent of an average studio apartment. So two potential issues...

1. Is the average price representative, or is it too heavily swayed by expensive suburbs. Folk too often use some absurd rent figure when they talk about rental costs. I'm not saying that's what you're doing, I'm just saying it happens (like usng a nice inner suburb as a benchmark while ignoring the outer suburbs are a fraction of the price). I know when I was living in PA I lived somewhere that was waaaay below the average rental price, it was still comfortable and only a few minutes drive from work/shops/etc.

2. Is a "studio apartment" a good representation. I don't know what Florida is like, but out here 1br and studio apartments are largely located within nicer inner suburbs, there isn't many of them in the outer burbs which pushes up the average price. It's actually cheaper to live in a 2br place further out and catch a train or drive in. Assuming you're going to waste money living alone anyway, 3 of the first 4 places I lived after moving out of home were share deals, and that was perfectly fine.

I'm not trying to say you conclusion is wrong, maybe it's unrealistic to live on minimum wage, I haven't checked, I'm just querying whether your calcs are actually representative.

That is certainly a fair point!

I live in Plant City, a small town between Orlando and Tampa. There's a Walmart and 2 Publixes!

A quick look on zillow shows starting rent prices between 650 and 1000. This is purely anecdotal- the 1223 I listed earlier was pulled from the article I linked to.

For any of the urban areas, like Miami or Tampa, they are very accurate.

Would it alter the equation much if we used the lowest available number?

At 650 rent, total expenses would be 1299. Gross pay at minimum wage would still be 1320 before taxes- that's still untenable.
.
edit- You know, a really interesting exercise would be to do the same thing for your own zipcode. Just look up your state's minimum wage, cost of living, and zillow the lowest rent places available. See if your area can be survived on minimum wage.

 Gitzbitah wrote:
That is certainly a fair point!

I live in Plant City, a small town between Orlando and Tampa. There's a Walmart and 2 Publixes!

A quick look on zillow shows starting rent prices between 650 and 1000. This is purely anecdotal- the 1223 I listed earlier was pulled from the article I linked to.

For any of the urban areas, like Miami or Tampa, they are very accurate.

Would it alter the equation much if we used the lowest available number?

At 650 rent, total expenses would be 1299. Gross pay at minimum wage would still be 1320 before taxes- that's still untenable.
.
edit- You know, a really interesting exercise would be to do the same thing for your own zipcode. Just look up your state's minimum wage, cost of living, and zillow the lowest rent places available. See if your area can be survived on minimum wage.

I did, and it can be done, even if living alone. Of course, I'm living in an area that has one of the lowest costs of living in the country. One dollar here literally is worth two in California.

I don't know if it's just my area, but I have never seen anyone around here be stuck at minimum wage for years. Even the tweakers and white trash get raises.

"Raises" that are cents on the dollar don't really count in my book. That's what I see, almost exclusively.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
"Raises" that are cents on the dollar don't really count in my book. That's what I see, almost exclusively.

If I may ask, where do you live, as that's not the norm around here. As someone who employs some lower wage workers, even the bottom barrel teenagers don't stay at minimum after their evaluation periods. The average wage of those that have been with me less than 2 years is 25% over minimum wage.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And as much as some people don't want this admit it, there are a number of people that really aren't worth more than minimum wage. I've fired people in their mid 20s for not being worth minimum wage. No employer should feel obligated to give a raise "just because".

 cuda1179 wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
"Raises" that are cents on the dollar don't really count in my book. That's what I see, almost exclusively.

If I may ask, where do you live, as that's not the norm around here. As someone who employs some lower wage workers, even the bottom barrel teenagers don't stay at minimum after their evaluation periods. The average wage of those that have been with me less than 2 years is 25% over minimum wage.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And as much as some people don't want this admit it, there are a number of people that really aren't worth more than minimum wage. I've fired people in their mid 20s for not being worth minimum wage. No employer should feel obligated to give a raise "just because".

California. A year's work at minimum wage is worth 35-50 cents an hour of raise. As for the latter point, I totally agree. What's a problem is people worth well over minimum wage get little to nothing above what any random person doing a semi-competent job. When I was working minimum wage jobs I would watch people do a half the work but get paid more because how long someone had been working meant more than the quality or quantity of work. Around here I see the best employees get 10 cents more of a raise than whatever the standard set by corporate is. And more than once I've seen managers so bad the store ran better when they were on vacation.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
"Raises" that are cents on the dollar don't really count in my book. That's what I see, almost exclusively.

If I may ask, where do you live, as that's not the norm around here. As someone who employs some lower wage workers, even the bottom barrel teenagers don't stay at minimum after their evaluation periods. The average wage of those that have been with me less than 2 years is 25% over minimum wage.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And as much as some people don't want this admit it, there are a number of people that really aren't worth more than minimum wage. I've fired people in their mid 20s for not being worth minimum wage. No employer should feel obligated to give a raise "just because".

California. A year's work at minimum wage is worth 35-50 cents an hour of raise. As for the latter point, I totally agree. What's a problem is people worth well over minimum wage get little to nothing above what any random person doing a semi-competent job. When I was working minimum wage jobs I would watch people do a half the work but get paid more because how long someone had been working meant more than the quality or quantity of work. Around here I see the best employees get 10 cents more of a raise than whatever the standard set by corporate is. And more than once I've seen managers so bad the store ran better when they were on vacation.

Back in my "corporate" days I saw this quite a bit too. While there are many things about Unions that I like, I also think that they promote this kind of "effort stagnation". Workers that either can't do more or have no desire to do more keep going up the same pay increases as long as they do just enough to not get fired. People that have both ability and desire soon find out that being the best really has minimal positive effect on their careers.

Wowzer. So first the problem is "kids these days" just not budgeting properly, and now somehow unions are the reason for stagnating wages.

Why not just start reposting chapters from Atlas Shrugged and be done with it eh

 Yodhrin wrote:
Wowzer. So first the problem is "kids these days" just not budgeting properly, and now somehow unions are the reason for stagnating wages.

Why not just start reposting chapters from Atlas Shrugged and be done with it eh

Unions aren't really the reason for overall wage stagnation. I do feel that they hinder performance based pay raises, which is pretty true.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/what-did-corporate-america-do-tax-break-buy-record-amounts-n886621

I thought this might be useful to add to the discussion. I'm not surprised that this happened. I have never bought the whole idea that taxes breaks on businesses will have them reinvesting in their country. Not in this age of modernization, communication, and transportation.

 cuda1179 wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
Wowzer. So first the problem is "kids these days" just not budgeting properly, and now somehow unions are the reason for stagnating wages.

Why not just start reposting chapters from Atlas Shrugged and be done with it eh

Unions aren't really the reason for overall wage stagnation. I do feel that they hinder performance based pay raises, which is pretty true.

Do Unions actively prevent employers from seeing a worker performing well and compensating them for it?

 cuda1179 wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
Wowzer. So first the problem is "kids these days" just not budgeting properly, and now somehow unions are the reason for stagnating wages.

Why not just start reposting chapters from Atlas Shrugged and be done with it eh

Unions aren't really the reason for overall wage stagnation. I do feel that they hinder performance based pay raises, which is pretty true.

Well what I was talking about had no union involvement at all, so from what I see there is little to no performance based raises either way, just that the unions get people actual increases across the board as opposed to a pittance.

Also, I mostly blame workers who just show up and don't even do the bare minimum; if they were new employees or there weren't other employees picking up the slack they'd be fired. Showing up and doing average or minimum effort I don't blame people for in a lot of cases, because the company obviously doesn't care about them so it's only fair that they don't care about the company. 'Treat others how you want to be treated' cuts both ways.

 Yodhrin wrote:

Frankly I only see three likely outcomes if we continue on the present trajectory - it gets so bad there's an actual proper uprising and the whole system is torn down to be replaced with who knows what, or it gets that bad but the extant power elite manage to stamp out any potential uprising before it starts in which case the present wave of proto-fascists will lead us into full-fat cattle carts and secret police fascism, or some politician somewhere will muster up just enough braincells and charisma to sell both the public and the power elite on something like a Basic Income.

Just a new guy's two cents, but there is a possible fourth option, complete stagnation. Nothing gets better, nothing gets worse, essentially, Trump's biweekly insanity plea is the most exciting thing that happens. As for the first outcome, I've only been able to imagine one scenario that actually leads to a guaranteed favorable result, and that is basically someone pulling an Emporer of Mankind style power grab.

That, however, might just be the pessimistic part of my optimistic realist outlook kicking in.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Also, I mostly blame workers who just show up and don't even do the bare minimum; if they were new employees or there weren't other employees picking up the slack they'd be fired. Showing up and doing average or minimum effort I don't blame people for in a lot of cases, because the company obviously doesn't care about them so it's only fair that they don't care about the company. 'Treat others how you want to be treated' cuts both ways.

In many cases people work somewhere they never see a manager, often getting their orders and reporting via email or some smartphone app. The only important thing is crossing off all the duties in the app, and as long as you do no one in management even remembers who you are. Companies like this also don't select rank-and-file workers for any performance-based raises - money is better spent on managers who never see their workers, directors who only talk to customers and ofc the shareholders who couldn't care less as long as they get maximum returns. As one might expect this doesn't really inspire any workers to even try beyond the bare minimum required to get the job done.

 cuda1179 wrote:
I did, and it can be done, even if living alone. Of course, I'm living in an area that has one of the lowest costs of living in the country. One dollar here literally is worth two in California.

Thinking about it, I was living on pretty close to minimum wage when I was living in the USA. Was on a scholarship, which was a bit more than minimum wage, but at the same time managed to save money for a hobby car and bought lunch at uni basically every day, without those two things I would have been getting by on an amount pretty close to minimum wage without even trying, lol.

But that was in PA and living in a large town (i.e. not a big city like Philly or Pittsburgh), I'm sure it varies state to state and city to city.

The minimum wage in Australia is much higher than the US but you still can't afford to live by yourself in the inner suburbs of a major city and will usually have to find at least 1 other person to share the rent.

Skaorn wrote:
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/what-did-corporate-america-do-tax-break-buy-record-amounts-n886621

I thought this might be useful to add to the discussion. I'm not surprised that this happened. I have never bought the whole idea that taxes breaks on businesses will have them reinvesting in their country. Not in this age of modernization, communication, and transportation.

I know my CEO has always been exceedingly clear that any tax break money would go back into share buy backs and dividends to shareholders. He didn't even try to hide it in the all Company meetings. The CEO runs a $15-Billion dollar international company. I am guessing his peers feel the same way, even if they are not as dumb to openly share it with the work force.

 Easy E wrote:
I know my CEO has always been exceedingly clear that any tax break money would go back into share buy backs and dividends to shareholders. He didn't even try to hide it in the all Company meetings. The CEO runs a $15-Billion dollar international company. I am guessing his peers feel the same way, even if they are not as dumb to openly share it with the work force.

It was the same with the tax holidays for money parked outside the US. They have already planned their investments so the money mostly goes into creating more shareholder value (dividends or share buybacks). Politically it always gets sold as some "trickle down bs" that's good for the worker but ends up mostly in the pockets of the already rich. If you want to improve the economy give money to the poor (improve social safety nets and otherwise reduce their burden). It gets used locally and circulates more. For each unit of currency spend on that you get a better economic boost than cutting taxes for the rich by the same amount.

 Easy E wrote:

Skaorn wrote:
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/what-did-corporate-america-do-tax-break-buy-record-amounts-n886621

I thought this might be useful to add to the discussion. I'm not surprised that this happened. I have never bought the whole idea that taxes breaks on businesses will have them reinvesting in their country. Not in this age of modernization, communication, and transportation.

I know my CEO has always been exceedingly clear that any tax break money would go back into share buy backs and dividends to shareholders. He didn't even try to hide it in the all Company meetings. The CEO runs a $15-Billion dollar international company. I am guessing his peers feel the same way, even if they are not as dumb to openly share it with the work force.

I give him credit. Only the most naive aren't aware of what corporations are going to do with their tax break, at least this CEO is upfront about it.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Easy E wrote:

Skaorn wrote:
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/what-did-corporate-america-do-tax-break-buy-record-amounts-n886621

I thought this might be useful to add to the discussion. I'm not surprised that this happened. I have never bought the whole idea that taxes breaks on businesses will have them reinvesting in their country. Not in this age of modernization, communication, and transportation.

I know my CEO has always been exceedingly clear that any tax break money would go back into share buy backs and dividends to shareholders. He didn't even try to hide it in the all Company meetings. The CEO runs a $15-Billion dollar international company. I am guessing his peers feel the same way, even if they are not as dumb to openly share it with the work force.

I give him credit. Only the most naive aren't aware of what corporations are going to do with their tax break, at least this CEO is upfront about it.

It is not just CEOs....

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/22/tax-cuts-are-here-but-for-main-street-workers-pay-raise-isnt-coming.html

As a small-business owner myself, I have not seen any of my peers raising wages locally. Me included.

Was the purpose of these tax cuts to raise wages? I figured the purpose of them was to strengthen local businesses and encourage them to actually keep their money in the country, not directly increase wages.

I haven't really been following it though, are the tax cuts payroll tax cuts?

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Was the purpose of these tax cuts to raise wages? I figured the purpose of them was to strengthen local businesses and encourage them to actually keep their money in the country, not directly increase wages.

I haven't really been following it though, are the tax cuts payroll tax cuts?

I believe the argument for the cuts was the old "trickle down" gak - that tax cuts will give the owners/CEOs/etc more money which they'll use to raise wages out of the goodness of their hearts

--

Why aren't wages rising? Because for the most part companies have disempowered labor and become big enough that they've got most people in a hand to mouth existence kept afloat by debt, with no time to organize or speak up because of a constant fear of losing what little they have.

It's euphemistically called "keeping the country competitive" and people still buy it as if it was a good thing.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Was the purpose of these tax cuts to raise wages? I figured the purpose of them was to strengthen local businesses and encourage them to actually keep their money in the country, not directly increase wages.

I haven't really been following it though, are the tax cuts payroll tax cuts?

They were indeed advertised to raise wages and help the common man, standard trickle down stuff. As it has always been, it's still bullcrap on every level from the most conceptual to the most practical.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Was the purpose of these tax cuts to raise wages? I figured the purpose of them was to strengthen local businesses and encourage them to actually keep their money in the country, not directly increase wages.

I haven't really been following it though, are the tax cuts payroll tax cuts?

All of the above.

But the you're right in that the current round of tax cuts were predicated on the myth of restoring American industry, which is stupid if you understand how the US economy has changed in the last 60 years. Service jobs aren't going anywhere except in a few sectors because for the most part you have to actually be on site to provide services. Even if the company is overseas, it doesn't really effect job availability and you can easily encourage a business to stay in the US by giving cuts to the business. There's no need to give tax cuts to ultra-rich mega CEOs who have more money than god except those CEOs tend to be big campaign donors so of course they can buy their way into getting more money.

Other than that tax cuts have always be argued on the grounds that the savings will trickle down to the rest of us inspite of the fact we've been living with trickle down tax cuts for most of the last 35 years and wages have remained stagnant and barely keeping up with inflation (if at all) ever since.

 cuda1179 wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
Wowzer. So first the problem is "kids these days" just not budgeting properly, and now somehow unions are the reason for stagnating wages.

Why not just start reposting chapters from Atlas Shrugged and be done with it eh

Unions aren't really the reason for overall wage stagnation. I do feel that they hinder performance based pay raises, which is pretty true.

There are effective ways of doing it. The agreement we have where I work mandates a pool of X%, and a minimum of Y% to everyone (where Y<X).

The balance can then be allocated on a discretionary basis. It's not perfect because a) X is still below the official level of inflation and b) "lifers" can end up on relatively ridiculous levels after 10 or 20 years relative to newcomers, but those are faults in application rather than theory.>

 LordofHats wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Was the purpose of these tax cuts to raise wages? I figured the purpose of them was to strengthen local businesses and encourage them to actually keep their money in the country, not directly increase wages.

I haven't really been following it though, are the tax cuts payroll tax cuts?

All of the above.

But the you're right in that the current round of tax cuts were predicated on the myth of restoring American industry, which is stupid if you understand how the US economy has changed in the last 60 years. Service jobs aren't going anywhere except in a few sectors because for the most part you have to actually be on site to provide services. Even if the company is overseas, it doesn't really effect job availability and you can easily encourage a business to stay in the US by giving cuts to the business. There's no need to give tax cuts to ultra-rich mega CEOs who have more money than god except those CEOs tend to be big campaign donors so of course they can buy their way into getting more money.

Other than that tax cuts have always be argued on the grounds that the savings will trickle down to the rest of us inspite of the fact we've been living with trickle down tax cuts for most of the last 35 years and wages have remained stagnant and barely keeping up with inflation (if at all) ever since.

Agreed. If trickle down worked they would be sharing the wealth they already had. Also, we have all of human history see that if wealth can be centralized it will be centralized.

And that's just the first two most obvious reasons for how utterly inane the idea is.

Even if we remove the tax-cuts from the equation, the state of unemployment and the current American economy should be causing wage inflation. The fact that it is not is very notewaorthy, and it appears to me that the reasons why they are not rising are still not fully understood.

Is this normal? NO. Therefore, what else is unique about the present time to cause this stagnation?

Easy E wrote:Is this normal? NO. Therefore, what else is unique about the present time to cause this stagnation?

* If I remember correctly a lot of the jobs after the 2008 depression where not the good type of jobs. Low benefits, low job security, lowly paid, easy to fire people.
* There's also the fact that interest rates are rather low since then so companies have an easier time getting the money they need but it also means our wages are worth less.
* Then outside investors have also been buying real estate in economically important areas, that means the working class has to spend more of their wages on housing just to keep up. All the while rural jobs have been declining which in turn puts even more pressure on rents in metropolitan areas.
* social safety nets: All kinds of benefits have been cut. Stuff that people working in low earning jobs relied to keep their heads above the water
* In the US: I think health insurance costs have also been rising faster than wages.
* In the US: Student loan, I think those have also been rising faster than wages.
* In the US: I think certain segments of the population have already relied a lot on credit to survive
* Fewer unions, thus less power to protect workers.
* Certain jobs have been automated away or made so easy that you can hire anyone to do it.

A combination of all that (and more) pushes the power balance further towards companies and away from workers (just look at how Amazon can treat its warehouse workers because of those issues) and as a result companies don't have incentives to raise wages for a significant segment of their (easily replaceable) workforce.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Was the purpose of these tax cuts to raise wages? I figured the purpose of them was to strengthen local businesses and encourage them to actually keep their money in the country, not directly increase wages.

I haven't really been following it though, are the tax cuts payroll tax cuts?

Payroll isn't taxed and never has been. Businesses only pay taxes on their profit. By definition, that means they pay taxes on what's left AFTER paying payroll and all other bills.

Contrast this with the taxes on the worker, who is taxed on everything he earns BEFORE paying any bills... and then taxed again on much of what he spends.

 Vulcan wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Was the purpose of these tax cuts to raise wages? I figured the purpose of them was to strengthen local businesses and encourage them to actually keep their money in the country, not directly increase wages.

I haven't really been following it though, are the tax cuts payroll tax cuts?

Payroll isn't taxed and never has been. Businesses only pay taxes on their profit. By definition, that means they pay taxes on what's left AFTER paying payroll and all other bills.

Contrast this with the taxes on the worker, who is taxed on everything he earns BEFORE paying any bills... and then taxed again on much of what he spends.

What?! Companies have always paid payroll taxes. Every pay stub from every job you’ve ever worked has had payroll tax deductions on it.
https://www.fool.com/taxes/2018/06/24/the-us-payroll-tax-in-2018-what-you-need-to-know.aspx

Prestor Jon wrote:


What?! Companies have always paid payroll taxes. Every pay stub from every job you’ve ever worked has had payroll tax deductions on it.
https://www.fool.com/taxes/2018/06/24/the-us-payroll-tax-in-2018-what-you-need-to-know.aspx

What is's saying I think is that the tax burden of payroll taxes is paid by the employee, not the company they works for. That is, the employee is the one who actually loses money in payroll tax, not the company since the company just deducts its end from employee wages and then the government takes another cut from the employee because for some baffling reason there's no actual federal law governing how employers divide up these costs despite the presumed presumption that employee and employer are both paying equal amounts. In practice company's pay very little in payroll tax out of their own coffers.