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 whembly wrote:
Other than that visa debit card thing... which is a joke.

Why is it a bad thing the McD is offering budgeting tools?

Because the budget tool's answer to living on a McDonald's wage is to get another job. Which is basically McDonald's saying they know that a McWage, even at 40 hours a week isn't enough to live on.

And personally, I think 40 hours of work in any job should provide a decent enough standard of living.


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 Breotan wrote:
That extra money has to be made up somehow. Either the price is increased, Government has some sort of subsidy in place, or they have fewer employees. High wages, low prices, or fully staffed restaurants... pick two.

Yeah, as I already said, the price goes up. The rest of us pay a little more, and for that people making and serving our food get to earn a living wage.


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 whembly wrote:
Why is it necessarily a bad thing to work two jobs (or more)?

There is nothing wrong with working two jobs. When he was fresh off the boat, my father in law worked two jobs, and kept doing so until the family home was paid off.

But the idea should be that working a second job is an option for people who want to get ahead fast. It shouldn't be a requirement just to keep level with your monthly expenses.


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 CptJake wrote:
Labor used to perform tasks has a value. If flipping burgers is worth 9 bucks an hour, artificially valuing it at 20 an hour will have ripple effects that are going to hurt the folks that rely on those jobs. You cannot get around that.

That only holds if we assume labour is automatically priced at its optimum value. Which any freshmen who slept through his Econs lectures should be able to tell you is a massive assumption that becomes almost fantasy when you look at the low end of the market.

For what it's worth, I did live on 40 hours minimum wage between two jobs.

Granted, that was living in a low income neighborhood in the only apartment building in the area that wasn't Section 8, without a car payment (I had a car that my girlfriend's mom gave me when my creepy creepo van died) , unable to pay on my student loans, and with a roommate.

I kept the lights on though. And I could afford to eat meals that had meat in them probably three times a week. Chili night when it had hamburger in it was always awesome.

 whembly wrote:
I get that... so how do you change that?

Best way is to better yourself and reflect on your expenses.

Yeah, but there's two different groups here. There's the individual, who as you rightly point out needs to realise that working minimum wage sucks, and do what he can to get some kind of qualification or foothold on the corporate ladder.

But the other group is society, who can look at the circumstances of people on the minimum wage, and ask if we really need all of our own wealth so much that we're comfortable with making people at the bottom working two jobs in order to break even each month. Or if maybe we might consider paying a little more for our Big Mac, if it meant the guy behind the counter only had to work 40 hours a week, and could spend the rest of the time attending college or a trade school. Or smoking dope and playing x-box, it's his life, so whatever. Point being, he's entitled to a life as much as anyone else.


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 Grey Templar wrote:
As has been proven is several threads. Increasing the minimum wage does nothing to change the situation. it just shifts numbers around.

Moving the numbers around is changing the situation. It means the working poor have more money, and the rest have slightly less.


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 Frazzled wrote:
Why?

Seriously, they've done studies that identified empathy in babies as young as nine months. And yet here again Fraz is acting like he's completely unaware of the idea that people don't like seeing other people suffer.

Which leads me to conclude that Fraz is, at most, eight months old.

 CptJake wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:

CptJake wrote:
[Long-winded error in thinking that "living well" equates to "living at all".]

Holier than thou "I care for humanity and you don't" nonsense with no grounding in economic reality....

Look at how the real world works. Show me how raising minimum wages does not end up hurting lower income people. Higher wages = less minimum wage jobs. Employers can only ever afford to eat too much of the pay raise before they cut. That cut is a person. Or more. Bigger companies outsource to other countries. Small companies very often stay stagnant, shrink (employee wise), or go away if their labor costs go up.

You spout gak about accepting a 2% increase in costs of products you buy to support a higher minimum wage. Guess what? The folks with a new higher minimum wage also just got hit by the 2% increase in product costs. You just made costs go up and changed nothing but how good you feel about minimum wage having gone up.

Like you get that things are more complex than that right? That the costs of goods and services are set by complex and somewhat malleable forces. For example the cost of a loaf bread isn't set by some direct ratio to the minimum wage you can pay someone in a bread factory. Particularly when that bread has raw materials supplied by and is distributed and consumed by a complex economic system.

Never mind the complexities of a business entity and how an increase in cost labor doesn't inherently mean fewer workers or proportionally higher prices. You may have minimum labor requirements, or there isn't a good point where you lose less profit from your cut production than you do keeping at the current pace or accelerating despite those costs. Similarly raising prices may cause a decrease in consumption that eats into your margins more than the increase in labor.

Things you mention can happen to some extent, under the right (even common) conditions. However the view you're putting forward is so grossly simplistic as to be worthless. You're looking at economics through lens that would be woefully inadequate to provide a conversational model for the average trading mini-game in a jRPG, let anyone anything even vaguely resembling even the most simplistic analogy of the real world.

 whembly wrote:
Isn't bootstrapping already policy? !

*looks at education system at all levels.

Public education is the exact opposite of bootstrapping. Bootstrapping is pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. It's saying 'I used to work minimum wage for 72 hours a week, but then I wrote a phone app that made me a million dollars, using the programming skills I taught myself'.

It is, basically, a complete fething fantasy, and a major part of the reason that the US, despite it's dreams of a meritocracy where anyone can make something of themselves, has fallen behind the rest of the developed world in social mobility. Simply put, in the US if you are born to poor parents you are much, much more likely to end up poor, and in turn have kids who are also poor.

And if people can't see how the low minimum wage plays a massive part in that, well I just don't know what to say.

 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Isn't bootstrapping already policy? !

*looks at education system at all levels.

Public education is the exact opposite of bootstrapping. Bootstrapping is pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. It's saying 'I used to work minimum wage for 72 hours a week, but then I wrote a phone app that made me a million dollars, using the programming skills I taught myself'.

It is, basically, a complete fething fantasy, and a major part of the reason that the US, despite it's dreams of a meritocracy where anyone can make something of themselves, has fallen behind the rest of the developed world in social mobility. Simply put, in the US if you are born to poor parents you are much, much more likely to end up poor, and in turn have kids who are also poor.

And if people can't see how the low minimum wage plays a massive part in that, well I just don't know what to say.

b..b..b..but but the free market!

 CptJake wrote:
If that was not the case, and a higher minimum wage is the answer to poverty, why go small? Why not make minimum wage something folks can really live off of? At 40 hours a week and a 50 week year (we get a couple for vacation, right) I think $200,000 a year should allow every one to live well right?

There are very smart people who collect all kinds of data and process it in all kinds of clever ways to figure out exactly what level of minimum wage the market can accept before you see a material effect on unemployment. Over here in Australia, as I already pointed out in this thread, we pay $16.37 an hour and it didn't lead to massive unemployment. The idea that the US couldn't tolerate a $12 or $13 minimum wage is frankly laughable.

 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
I get that... so how do you change that?

Best way is to better yourself and reflect on your expenses.

Yeah, but there's two different groups here. There's the individual, who as you rightly point out needs to realise that working minimum wage sucks, and do what he can to get some kind of qualification or foothold on the corporate ladder.

But the other group is society, who can look at the circumstances of people on the minimum wage, and ask if we really need all of our own wealth so much that we're comfortable with making people at the bottom work two jobs in order to break even each month. Or if maybe we might consider paying a little more for our Big Mac, if it meant the guy behind the counter only had to work 40 hours a week, and could spend the rest of the time attending college or a trade school. Or smoking dope and playing x-box, it's his life, so whatever. Point being, he's entitled to a life as much as anyone else.

That right there Seb... is perception.

What you or I want in life, for what we think we need to be happy, isn't necessarily the same for some folks.

I know plenty of people, who works multiple part-time jobs (30-60 hr/week) who makes the best of their situation, and are happy.

I actually don't mind having conversations about raising the minimum wage... but it needs to be tempered so that it doesn't go overboard. Whenever minimum wage or living wage topic pops up... do you know which group squeaks the loudest? It's the UNION. At first glance, you'd ask why? Is it because from the goodness of their heart, they see it a good thing? That's possibly true... however, the truth is likely this: Most Union contracts link their negotiated hourly wages to the state's minimum wage. Therefore, if the state raises the minimum wage... the union shops automatically get a raise.

Now, that may NOT be necessarily a bad thing... it's just that, things don't always appear they way the do on the surface. There are ulterior motives going on here.

Now, back to the subject at hand. I was NOT given anything. I had to work hard to get where I'm at... I have to pay my school loans until after I retire as I didn't fit in any affirmative active category. Yes, when I was on my own, things were tough. I remember working 4 jobs at a time to make end meet on my own, while STILL attending school. There was a good chance that I may have to move to another state in order to "keep moving forward" in life. Those are NOT unique situations that I'm sure other dakkanauts will attest to. That's what I mean by "bootstraps". As for the inevitable cries that bootstrapping doesn't always work... my retort? Deal with it... adapt... overcome... as Sigvatr stated in another thread #dealwithit. Blaming your predictament on other things isn't going work. In the US, for those in true need of help... it's there.

There is a big difference between cost of living and Standard of living. Like a saying we have in the military. "You are a product of your environment". You change the environment you change the product. I do not view everyone as "product". Its interesting and a bit of a drag trying to change an individual who left a "questionable" environment to an environment that's regimentized (spelling)

 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Isn't bootstrapping already policy? !

*looks at education system at all levels.

Public education is the exact opposite of bootstrapping. Bootstrapping is pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. It's saying 'I used to work minimum wage for 72 hours a week, but then I wrote a phone app that made me a million dollars, using the programming skills I taught myself'.

It is, basically, a complete fething fantasy, and a major part of the reason that the US, despite it's dreams of a meritocracy where anyone can make something of themselves, has fallen behind the rest of the developed world in social mobility. Simply put, in the US if you are born to poor parents you are much, much more likely to end up poor, and in turn have kids who are also poor.

And if people can't see how the low minimum wage plays a massive part in that, well I just don't know what to say.

Erm... we may have different ideas of what "bootstrapping" really means.

We will ALWAYS have this issue with folks trying to break through that being "born to poor family, you'll likely be stuck in the poor bracket". I mean, c'mon seb, that's fething common sense. It's life... it's NOT unique to America.

So, again... what recommendation do *you* have?



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 sebster wrote:

 CptJake wrote:
If that was not the case, and a higher minimum wage is the answer to poverty, why go small? Why not make minimum wage something folks can really live off of? At 40 hours a week and a 50 week year (we get a couple for vacation, right) I think $200,000 a year should allow every one to live well right?

There are very smart people who collect all kinds of data and process it in all kinds of clever ways to figure out exactly what level of minimum wage the market can accept before you see a material effect on unemployment. Over here in Australia, as I already pointed out in this thread, we pay $16.37 an hour and it didn't lead to massive unemployment. The idea that the US couldn't tolerate a $12 or $13 minimum wage is frankly laughable.

There's just one problem with that right now...

We're no where near full employment. Wouldn't making that sort of change now be problematic now?

The one and only time I left the US Military due to burn out (before the wars) I worked in Central Processing in a major hospital starting at 15 dollars an hour. Year later I went to SurgTech school and pretty much became a certified Surgical Technician making 1$9.75 an hour. Three days later after receiving my diploma I was heading down to Ft Eutis, VA learning to become a 88N Movement Coordinator. I could have said no but that sense of duty ingrained in me.....oh and the Army knew they we're screwing me but paid for the entire school itself. Still though making over 1300 every two weeks wasn't bad at all. Then I was making close to 5K tax free on my first deployment. Only three days of month that shines. The 1st, 3rd and the 15th were paid days (3rd was was being refunded back on federal taxes)

Still though we need to change the "environment" of the low income families

 sebster wrote:
The idea that the US couldn't tolerate a $12 or $13 minimum wage is frankly laughable.

Yeah... that shouldn't be a problem... *shrugs* I think we already have a couple of states over the $9.00 threshold...

Actually, only one state over $9, Washington State... http://money.cnn.com/interactive/pf/state-minimum-wage/

Well... DC tried to impose a minimum wage of $12.50 for any companies making over a billion a year (obviously targeting Walmart)... Walmart was scheduled to open 3 stores in the more impoverish areas... after this passed, Walmart said "no mas" and canceled the expansion plans.

Considering the pay gap between the highest and lowest level employees in America, I'm pretty sure a little bit of restructuring wouldn't hurt the guys up top that much. When you're making $12m a year, I'm pretty sure that after the first few millions, it's mostly just for show.

 whembly wrote:
That right there Seb... is perception.

What you or I want in life, for what we think we need to be happy, isn't necessarily the same for some folks.

I know plenty of people, who works multiple part-time jobs (30-60 hr/week) who makes the best of their situation, and are happy.

And surely they'd be happier still if they earned an extra $1 an hour?

Now, that may NOT be necessarily a bad thing... it's just that, things don't always appear they way the do on the surface. There are ulterior motives going on here.

Absolutely, it's politics and there are always lots of insider groups playing the system for their own benefit. But none of that changes the basic

Now, back to the subject at hand. I was NOT given anything. I had to work hard to get where I'm at... I have to pay my school loans until after I retire as I didn't fit in any affirmative active category. Yes, when I was on my own, things were tough. I remember working 4 jobs at a time to make end meet on my own, while STILL attending school. There was a good chance that I may have to move to another state in order to "keep moving forward" in life. Those are NOT unique situations that I'm sure other dakkanauts will attest to. That's what I mean by "bootstraps". As for the inevitable cries that bootstrapping doesn't always work... my retort? Deal with it... adapt... overcome... as Sigvatr stated in another thread #dealwithit. Blaming your predictament on other things isn't going work. In the US, for those in true need of help... it's there.

 Fafnir wrote:
Considering the pay gap between the highest and lowest level employees in America, I'm pretty sure a little bit of restructuring wouldn't hurt the guys up top that much.

Eh... the best way imo is to address it in the tax codes.hi

1) Close all fething tax subsidies, rebate, loopholes, deduction, whateve. If you're in that highest bracket, which is 39.6%... then you taxed at 39.6%.
2) Redefine what is income... it should include all sources (capital gains, inheritence, all-of-it)
3) Voila, tax returns should be fitted on one sheet of paper! w00t! We now have time to go to fajita night at Frazzled's place.


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 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
That right there Seb... is perception.

What you or I want in life, for what we think we need to be happy, isn't necessarily the same for some folks.

I know plenty of people, who works multiple part-time jobs (30-60 hr/week) who makes the best of their situation, and are happy.

And surely they'd be happier still if they earned an extra $1 an hour?

Sure that's possible... But, is it our responsibility to facilitate this happiest? See where I'm getting at? Living a life is not the same as ensuring everyone be happy.

 sebster wrote:

that if we keep 10% of the working population in near poverty, well then most of them will never climb any higher and will have pretty tough lives. But if we can ensure they're paid a decent wage, well then significantly more will have the time and resources to get a better qualification, and the rest will at least have more comfortable lives.

You make it sound like that's done on purpose. (in yellow). Sure there's always room for improvement... but, the sense I'm getting on this thread is that things are out of hand. Which is what I'm objecting to here.

We have VERY good safety nets to help those in need... and, even those who abuses it, ie the SNAP program:
http://blog.heritage.org/2013/05/27/the-facts-about-food-stamps-everyone-should-hear/
An average of $668 per month! o.O That's way more I pay for my grocery (house hold of 2 adults and 2 squigs)

For the record, I'm in favor of keeping these things... just wished there are robust mechanisms to prevent abuses. But, I'd take these level of abuses so that those in need truly get what the help the need.

 whembly wrote:
Erm... we may have different ideas of what "bootstrapping" really means.

We will ALWAYS have this issue with folks trying to break through that being "born to poor family, you'll likely be stuck in the poor bracket". I mean, c'mon seb, that's fething common sense. It's life... it's NOT unique to America.

So, again... what recommendation do *you* have?

Yeah, the parents income will always have an affect on the children's income. The issue is only how much we can reduce that impact.

And no, it isn't unique to America. I didn't say it was. I said it was worse in America, and that's pretty bad considering just a couple of generations ago the US had the best social mobility of any country in the world. It used to be that how much money your parents had mattered less in America than anywhere else in the world. If you born in to absolute poverty but you worked hard you had a better chance of getting ahead in America than anywhere else in the world. But that is no longer the case, and in fact now your parent's income is a stronger determinant of your income than in almost any other country in the developed world.

That should be seen as a problem by anyone who believes in bootstraps, and people being able to make something of themselves, no matter what they came from.

Reversing that trend is difficult, for sure. But there's a few things that can be done that will change it massively within a generation. The first is to make the minimum wage enough to give a decent life on 40 hours a week. That gives people time to study and move in to a better job, or time to raise their kids, so those kids are better prepared and more likely to make something of themselves.

The second thing that would need to be changed is to raise the standard of education among the poorer schools. But that'd require a whole new model of funding (moving it away from local revenue sources and to state or federal funding, to make each school more equitably funded).

There's just one problem with that right now...

We're no where near full employment. Wouldn't making that sort of change now be problematic now?

But at the minimum wage you've got right now it's likely to have no effect on employment. I mean, I haven't seen the US numbers but your economy is not that different to our own, and the modelling here said there was little impact to employment for our $16.37 minimum wage, and that's been shown to be pretty solid as there's been no drag on our employment numbers.

In fact, there's a bit of scope to argue that an increase to minimum wage might have a stimulus effect in your current economic circumstances. Basically given the depressed demand you wouldn't see much price inflation, so the increased wages would basically be a hit straight to the business owners, who are otherwise largely sitting on the profits and not reinvesting them, whereas in the hands of the workers that money would almost certainly be respent (but that's just stuff I've read elsewhere in a lot more detail, can't find now, and is way beyond my pay grade to repeat accurately, let alone assess if it might actually be true).

 sebster wrote:


That should be seen as a problem by anyone who believes in bootstraps, and people being able to make something of themselves, no matter what they came from.

I'm sorry, but I believe anyone can "bootstraps" themselves out... maybe it's because I was one of them and my own anecdotal evidence supports that. *shrugs* I can be wrong... maybe my sunglasses are too rosy. *shrugs*

Reversing that trend is difficult, for sure. But there's a few things that can be done that will change it massively within a generation. The first is to make the minimum wage enough to give a decent life on 40 hours a week. That gives people time to study and move in to a better job, or time to raise their kids, so those kids are better prepared and more likely to make something of themselves.

Well that's all good... but you could be working part-time (or not work) and be on government help.
Need help to rent/buy house? Go here... http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/topics/rental_assistance
Need help with food? Go here... http://dss.mo.gov/fsd/fstamp/
Need help with education? Go here... http://www.usa.gov/Citizen/Topics/Benefits.shtml
Need help with daycare? Go here... http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/occ/resource/ccdf-grantee-state-and-territory-contacts#M
How 'bout a cell phone? Go here... http://www.freegovernmentcellphones.net/
Energy Assistance? Go here... http://www.benefits.gov/benefits/browse-by-category/category/ENA
Programs for single moms? We have it in spades...
And on...and on...

The point is, the infrastructure is there for the taking. It's the WILL is generally the issue. We can argue whether its not working well or what we can do to tweak it... but, it's not for lack of trying.

The second thing that would need to be changed is to raise the standard of education among the poorer schools. But that'd require a whole new model of funding (moving it away from local revenue sources and to state or federal funding, to make each school more equitably funded).

I agree whole-heartedly about that. And stop the standardize testing linkage to funding.... the classic unintended consequent scenario.

There's just one problem with that right now...

We're no where near full employment. Wouldn't making that sort of change now be problematic now?

But at the minimum wage you've got right now it's likely to have no effect on employment. I mean, I haven't seen the US numbers but your economy is not that different to our own, and the modelling here said there was little impact to employment for our $16.37 minimum wage, and that's been shown to be pretty solid as there's been no drag on our employment numbers.

In fact, there's a bit of scope to argue that an increase to minimum wage might have a stimulus effect in your current economic circumstances. Basically given the depressed demand you wouldn't see much price inflation, so the increased wages would basically be a hit straight to the business owners, who are otherwise largely sitting on the profits and not reinvesting them, whereas in the hands of the workers that money would almost certainly be respent (but that's just stuff I've read elsewhere in a lot more detail, can't find now, and is way beyond my pay grade to repeat accurately, let alone assess if it might actually be true).

 sebster wrote:

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 Grey Templar wrote:
As has been proven is several threads. Increasing the minimum wage does nothing to change the situation. it just shifts numbers around.

Moving the numbers around is changing the situation. It means the working poor have more money, and the rest have slightly less.

So your answer to the poor having it bad is to make everyone else worse off so the poor have a couple extra bucks to spend at McDs?

Sorry, but I'm not buying that crap.

Because nobody needs anything as long as I got mine.

 whembly wrote:
I'm sorry, but I believe anyone can "bootstraps" themselves out... maybe it's because I was one of them and my own anecdotal evidence supports that. *shrugs* I can be wrong... maybe my sunglasses are too rosy. *shrugs*

Maybe everyone can, but I don't really think what can happen is a good guy for policy. What matters is what does happen, and we know that bootstrapping happens less in the US. I mean, I can get the numbers if you want, but basically there is less of it in your country than elsewhere in the developed world. Now, either that's because the poor in the US are somehow inherently lazier than elsewhere, or because it is much harder for a person to pull themselves up there than elsewhere in the world.

For a country that used to pride itself on being the land of opportunity, I would have thought you'd want to return to that being true.

The point is, the infrastructure is there for the taking. It's the WILL is generally the issue. We can argue whether its not working well or what we can do to tweak it... but, it's not for lack of trying.

Yes, there is aid. But it isn't as much aid as you see in other developed countries. And when you put that on top of the very low minimum wage, the end result is that it is much, much harder to get out of the bottom deciles in the US than elsewhere in the world.

I agree whole-heartedly about that. And stop the standardize testing linkage to funding.... the classic unintended consequent scenario.

Oh absolutely. Can you believe that Australia is rolling out our own standardised testing model. I mean, in the US it was probably always a bad idea, but at least it wasn't a proven failure when you started the program. But now we're copying it... incredible.

Eh... even if that was true, in the current political enviroment and the sheer number of lobbying groups... I seriously doubt this would happen here.

Definitely true. Especially because the poor don't vote.


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 Grey Templar wrote:
So your answer to the poor having it bad is to make everyone else worse off so the poor have a couple extra bucks to spend at McDs?

Sorry, but I'm not buying that crap.

Umm, yeah, my answer to improving the living standards of the lowest paid is to pay them more, and have everyone else cover that by paying slightly higher prices.

And it isn't my answer. It's been pretty much standard policy across the world for the better part of a century. The only sensible debate is on how much the minimum should be.

CptJake wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:

CptJake wrote:
[Long-winded error in thinking that "living well" equates to "living at all".]

Holier than thou "I care for humanity and you don't" nonsense with no grounding in economic reality....

Look at how the real world works. Show me how raising minimum wages does not end up hurting lower income people. Higher wages = less minimum wage jobs. Employers can only ever afford to eat too much of the pay raise before they cut. That cut is a person. Or more. Bigger companies outsource to other countries. Small companies very often stay stagnant, shrink (employee wise), or go away if their labor costs go up.

You spout gak about accepting a 2% increase in costs of products you buy to support a higher minimum wage. Guess what? The folks with a new higher minimum wage also just got hit by the 2% increase in product costs. You just made costs go up and changed nothing but how good you feel about minimum wage having gone up.

Chongara has already pointed out the lack of understanding and value in what you've expressed here far more eloquently than I would have. So I'll merely leave you with this: the concept of a minimum labour require defeats everything you just said, and that minimum labour requirement is something that even the most pedestrian understanding of the workplace would include. So I'm almost curious how your "understanding" has managed to omit it.

The very concept of "higher wages = less jobs" is, for lack of a more eloquent term, stupid. In order to actually believe that tripe, you have to first hold a foundational erroneous belief that an employer views labour costs as anything other than a necessary expense that would never be paid if it didn't absolutely need to be. No employer creates jobs our of the goodness of their heart; they create jobs based on their absolute necessity to do so. The cost of wages does not factor into what the minimum amount of labour required to perform a task is.

d-usa wrote:Because nobody needs anything as long as I got mine.

I beat ya by almost two pages on that one.

That's what they get for being poor! They're just asking to get poorer! Blame the victim!

 azazel the cat wrote:


The very concept of "higher wages = less jobs" is, for lack of a more eloquent term, stupid. In order to actually believe that tripe, you have to first hold a foundational erroneous belief that an employer views labour costs as anything other than a necessary expense that would never be paid if it didn't absolutely need to be. No employer creates jobs our of the goodness of their heart; they create jobs based on their absolute necessity to do so. The cost of wages does not factor into what the minimum amount of labour required to perform a task is.

Not really.


If I currently employ 3 people, but minimum wage goes up 10%, what I am likely to do is lay-off one person and pay the remaining 2 employees, say, 20% more to do the work of 3 people.

I just reduced wage cost by 20% with the same output. And my 2 remaining workers are happy because they got a 20% pay raise.

Your view only works if the job in question cannot be done with less workers than it is now.


Raising minimum wages encourages employers to do things like this. Cut out unnecessary employees.

 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
I'm sorry, but I believe anyone can "bootstraps" themselves out... maybe it's because I was one of them and my own anecdotal evidence supports that. *shrugs* I can be wrong... maybe my sunglasses are too rosy. *shrugs*

Maybe everyone can, but I don't really think what can happen is a good guy for policy. What matters is what does happen, and we know that bootstrapping happens less in the US. I mean, I can get the numbers if you want, but basically there is less of it in your country than elsewhere in the developed world. Now, either that's because the poor in the US are somehow inherently lazier than elsewhere, or because it is much harder for a person to pull themselves up there than elsewhere in the world.

For a country that used to pride itself on being the land of opportunity, I would have thought you'd want to return to that being true.

I simply don't think raising the minimum wage would "fix" this. I think there's a larger issue here at stake that is generational. I believe (and I know I'm going to get hammered on this) that the biggest culprit is simply the lack of self responsibility and/or the belief that "You CAN do it!" mindset is sorely lacking. That is, we've become a coddled, pampered, instant gratification, society that puts the proverbial handcuffs on most of us... and we generally ask WHO can help us in our need... whereas the right question is, what can I do to be better? This is something I'm really cognizant of when I'm teaching my boys...

The point is, the infrastructure is there for the taking. It's the WILL is generally the issue. We can argue whether its not working well or what we can do to tweak it... but, it's not for lack of trying.

Yes, there is aid. But it isn't as much aid as you see in other developed countries. And when you put that on top of the very low minimum wage, the end result is that it is much, much harder to get out of the bottom deciles in the US than elsewhere in the world.

Grey Templar wrote:Your view only works if the job in question cannot be done with less workers than it is now.

I'm glad you see my point, then. Because at the low-end of the job market, there are no jobs that operate above the skeleton crew.

Look at any fast food joint, or retail store. Count the number of employees on shift at any given time. That is the exact minimum number of employees required in order to get the work done. Maybe not even enough to get it all done.

And that is why the belief that there will ever be more low-end jobs if the jobs cost less in wages is a complete fabrication.

 Grey Templar wrote:
If I currently employ 3 people, but minimum wage goes up 10%, what I am likely to do is lay-off one person and pay the remaining 2 employees, say, 20% more to do the work of 3 people.

I just reduced wage cost by 20% with the same output. And my 2 remaining workers are happy because they got a 20% pay raise.

Your view only works if the job in question cannot be done with less workers than it is now.


Raising minimum wages encourages employers to do things like this. Cut out unnecessary employees.

Your example is non-sensical. First up, paying someone 20% more doesn't make them clean tables 20% faster. Second up, every business is in the process of cutting unnecessary employees. Having businesses motivated to find and cut surplus resources is basically the whole fething point of capitalism.

How it actually works is that, basically, a restaraunt needs clean tables. Having someone do that job and take out the bins and cover for the dishwasher when he's on his break costs the restaraunt minimum wage each hour. If minimum wage goes up by a $1 an hour, well you still need someone to clean tables etc.. and so for the eight hour shift you pay that person an extra $8. The business wears that cost because it still needs that job done, and depending on the state of the industry and level of competition, some portion of the extra wage cost will make its way in to the cost of a meal, while the rest is to be borne by the business owner.

Now, if minimum wage increases by too much then you start seeing businesses saying 'it costs too much to run a restaraunt section, and so we'll relocate and just become a take out store only' and other similar cost cutting measures. But, as I've now said many times, countries all over the world sustain minimum wages miles higher than yours (here it's over $16) without seeing any real impact on employment numbers.


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 whembly wrote:
I simply don't think raising the minimum wage would "fix" this. I think there's a larger issue here at stake that is generational. I believe (and I know I'm going to get hammered on this) that the biggest culprit is simply the lack of self responsibility and/or the belief that "You CAN do it!" mindset is sorely lacking. That is, we've become a coddled, pampered, instant gratification, society that puts the proverbial handcuffs on most of us... and we generally ask WHO can help us in our need... whereas the right question is, what can I do to be better? This is something I'm really cognizant of when I'm teaching my boys...

To the extent that US is full of coddled, pampered people seeking instant gratification, the rest of the developed world is too. And yet social mobility elsewhere isn't getting worse.

Eh... I find that to be a very broad statement because the standard of living (among others) ought to be incorporated in those sorts of analysis... and that's almost impossible because it's really subjective. You know me with damned statistics

But we're talking about the developed world. Living standards in Japan, France, New Zealand and the United States aren't identical, but they're close enough that they can't really impact on this analysis.

Yeesh... sorry. Hopefully the adminstrations/reviews are keep closer to the localities then here in the States.

Unfortunately, they're Federalising the whole thing. Total fething disaster coming...

Erm...wut? o.O They do vote...

Granted, they don't have the influences as those with large checkbooks.

No really. The poor have really, really low participation rates.

Yes, but instead of having, say, 5 wait staff they cut down to 4. Or maybe 3.

And with facilities that are already barebones you only ensure that they will remain that. There is no incentive for expansion or more hiring.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Yes, but instead of having, say, 5 wait staff they cut down to 4. Or maybe 3.

And with facilities that are already barebones you only ensure that they will remain that. There is no incentive for expansion or more hiring.

And they already have no incentive to hire or pay more. Or else they would not be bare bone staffing at minimum wage.

The market has spoken, and it has said "screw the worker".

 Grey Templar wrote:
Yes, but instead of having, say, 5 wait staff they cut down to 4. Or maybe 3.

No, they won't, and I just explained why. Don't just keep repeating a basic summary of your argument.

Anyhow, to repeat - paying the remaining staff 20% more doesn't make them clean tables 20% faster and get the job done. And if it did, the company would just have done that in the first place, because finding a way to get the job done for less money spent is the whole fething point of capitalism.

And with facilities that are already barebones you only ensure that they will remain that. There is no incentive for expansion or more hiring.

If expansion is viable opportunity then it's unlikely that a minimum wage $1 an hour higher will change that. After all, I don't know if you've ever been outside the US, but we have restaurants all over the place, and a much higher minimum wage.

America is different and unique and nothing that ever works anywhere else could actually work here.