It's grossly over-simplified and doesn't take into account the costs of living in other states. I find it interesting that they chose Ohio as their example. If they chose California, the costs per employee to raise them to a "living wage" given the overall more expensive costs of living in that state would be MUCH higher. Closer to $20.00 per hour, including all mandatory benefits.
In that case, the prices of everyday items would go up significantly. So much so that you're left with a zero-sum change: In other words, the employees at the bottom end get paid more. But their cost of living goes up to match it and they gain nothing in the long run. This has happened EVERY SINGLE TIME that the minimum wage has been hiked upwards!
You also get employers who likely decide to cut costs by cutting down on the amount of employees. To take Walmart as an example again - First to go would likely be the "greeters" at the door. Many retirement-age people work those jobs to make ends meet because their pensions or other benefits such as medicare and drug prescriptions have not kept up with inflation. That's a lot of old people now out of work. Possibly to the point of losing their homes and either having to be institutionalized or move in with their kids, and that burden makes their costs of living go up. And that's just one example of a consequence I can think of.
Another point to consider. Walmart, McDonalds, and other such jobs were never meant to be "living wage" jobs. These are entry level positions - training wheels for young people (or supplementary income for old people as in the example above). Basically - if you're working at Walmart or McDonalds past the age of 25 or so? You're doing something terribly terribly wrong with your life or you're retired and something has forced you to go to work again. (Again, likely health related)
If a "living wage" is mandated, you can pretty much kiss goodbye the ability of many small or start-up companies to grow. There's a huge hurdle to jump when you get past the current "50 employee minimum" past which the employer must take over the healthcare costs. This kind of law ONLY benefits large corporations and/or those who can soak the costs. It may not mean that much in the long run for Walmart and other giant chains. But your local "Mom and Pop" store? Oh yes - that will hurt them very badly.
Okay, so let's take this into consideration:
Exactly how many people are there out there that would merely require training wheel jobs, as you put it? Fetch me the numbers, then compare to the actual number of people employed in such jobs. Pretty damn sure that the number of people employed vastly outnumbers the number of people that could be employed in said jobs. Perhaps even by an order of magnitude. (As an aside, the industry only has itself to blame for outgrowing its labor pool. The only reason these businesses are able to get away with it is because things are simply that crap-sack and people are desperate.)
And let's take it a step further. Shift managers, assistants.... How much do they make? These, by their very definition, should not be training wheel jobs. However, each and every one of these stores will employ anywhere between five to ten persons in the middle-rank positions. Not very many of them make more than $15/hr.
Finally: where do most of these 'entry level position' people live? Ghettos. Slums. Lower class living areas. Bet you that the only ones that live in the middle class neighborhoods are the ones that already have a bread winner in the household. These would be the young adults and the spouses.
So, try that argument again. It's as flimsy as it accuses the video of being.
The math is simple. Pay out more. Don't jack up the prices by more than a reasonable margin. Demand increases. Industry is driven. Tax revenues increase. America moves forward.
Logan, your argument sounds like a justification for fully-socialized healthcare, not a justification against raising the minimum wage. And how many "Mom and Pop" stores are affected by the "50 employee minimum"? That's not just a strawman, that's a red herring.
BA, the labor market is oversaturated because we've chosen to outsource most of our manufacturing to other countries, leaving substantially fewer jobs here for people to do. If you want to fix that, you'll have to bring the jobs back - which will raise the prices of the goods that are manufactured, becauwe the minimum wages here are higher than they are in most of Asia (where the goods are currently manufactured).
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
What I want to know, is where the idea that working more than 40 hours a week and still being just above the poverty line is a noble thing came from?
Never mind that working in customer-facing roles, dealing with the utter scum of the public, is one of the hardest and most tiring jobs their is. Especially with the amount of entitled shits out there.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
Edit to fix spelling and grammar.
Try doing it on their home turf. Delivery jobs can suck sometimes.
As for the labor market being over-saturated... *Sighs* Let's be realistic: we're never getting those jobs back. At least not in our life times. It will require that pay for general labor in assembly plants and the like become more or less equal throughout the world, and by then I think we'll have figured something else out, like a machine to take the human element out of it.
The only other thing would be if we specialized in the manufacture of high-quality goods. This is already happening - witness the non-sweatshop, all American made clothing of American Apparel. Granted, you'll never see their stuff in Walmart, but just imagine benefit to our economy if more people could afford to buy their products!
Another example: other countries absolutely love to use cotton from the USA over cotton from anywhere else because our standards of quality control are so high. Not only is our cotton better processed, but also cotton bales from other places tend to have things like fast food and candy wrappers mixed in. :p
The biggest change that I want to see made to the minimum wage is to ditch the exception for tips-based jobs such as waitressing.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make
anything explode.
ECSNorway Wrote:The biggest change that I want to see made to the minimum wage is to ditch the exception for tips-based jobs such as waitressing.
As long as the tips are 100% declared on income tax, I agree.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Do we need to rehash the discussion of differing cultural attitudes towards tips?
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make
anything explode.
No, I'm just saying income should be reported.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Quote:Rev Dark wrote:
http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/201 ... blogs&_r=0
Pretty much a point by point rebuttle of Logan's piffle.
Well said. Well said indeed.
Quote:It's grossly over-simplified and doesn't take into account the costs of living in other states. I find it interesting that they chose Ohio as their example. If they chose California, the costs per employee to raise them to a "living wage" given the overall more expensive costs of living in that state would be MUCH higher. Closer to $20.00 per hour, including all mandatory benefits.
California has mandated minimum living wage rate that are much higher than the rest of the nation. Now if you choose Missisipi, Louisiana or Alabama...you'd be at $7.25/hour. At the low end of the totem pole. You can have made a better case. I suspect Ohio is in the middle, making it a reasonable case.
Quote:Another point to consider. Walmart, McDonalds, and other such jobs were never meant to be "living wage" jobs. These are entry level positions - training wheels for young people (or supplementary income for old people as in the example above). Basically - if you're working at Walmart or McDonalds past the age of 25 or so? You're doing something terribly terribly wrong with your life or you're retired and something has forced you to go to work again. (Again, likely health related)
And if it's the only job available during the great Recession and the aftermath and you're out of work, then beggars cannot be choosers. Have you considered that a retiree might have to work again because:
1) Their pension benefits either got slashed or evaporated because the company you retired from made it a priority during "restructuring"?
2) They'ved outlived your retirement benefits.
3) They suffered a financial catastrophe. Or their medical bills is outstripping their out of pocket expenses. Most peopple go for the cheapest medical premium available. Then they found out the deductables go through the roof.
Or worse, their too "rich" to qualify under normal Medicaid and too "poor" to afford private help insurance.
__________________
Into terror!, Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell
That last point is a bitch. My folks (married for 46 years this August) have been flat-out told to "get a divorce, and we can help you" from state assistance programs because, as a married couple, they make too much to qualify.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''
-- James Nicoll
Dartz Wrote:What I want to know, is where the idea that working more than 40 hours a week and still being just above the poverty line is a noble thing came from?
I think it's a serious misinterpretation of the old "hard work is its own reward" protestant work ethic.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Quote:robkelk wrote:
Quote:Dartz wrote:
What I want to know, is where the idea that working more than 40 hours a week and still being just above the poverty line is a noble thing came from?
I think it's a serious misinterpretation of the old "hard work is its own reward" protestant work ethic.
It's the GOP version story of David Copperfield. Unfortunately not everyone can become an entrepreneur, lucked out on the stock market, won the lottery, a movie star or a sports star. What happens to those who are not so blessed? Yo have to work harder nowadays just to stay in place. What happens to those who did not win the "birth lottery"?
__________________
Into terror!, Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell
Quote:robkelk wrote:
BA, the labor market is oversaturated because we've chosen to outsource most of our manufacturing to other countries, leaving substantially fewer jobs here for people to do. If you want to fix that, you'll have to bring the jobs back - which will raise the prices of the goods that are manufactured, because the minimum wages here are higher than they are in most of Asia (where the goods are currently manufactured).
My understanding is that the US and other 1st World economies do very close to the same amount of manufacturing they always have, even in things like heavy industry or cheap plastic toys, and that the job share in those sectors has been decreasing because the
automation of those jobs has improved - hyperbolically, rather than a thousand people on the assembly line, it's a thousand robots and fifty robot-repair technicians and five or ten robot programmers.
Which, yeah, has the same upside as the outsourcing - those thousand assembly-line jobs will never exist again.
===========
===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
Valles Wrote:Quote:robkelk wrote:BA, the labor market is oversaturated because we've chosen to outsource most of our manufacturing to other countries, leaving substantially fewer jobs here for people to do. If you want to fix that, you'll have to bring the jobs back - which will raise the prices of the goods that are manufactured, because the minimum wages here are higher than they are in most of Asia (where the goods are currently manufactured).
My understanding is that the US and other 1st World economies do very close to the same amount of manufacturing they always have, even in things like heavy industry or cheap plastic toys, and that the job share in those sectors has been decreasing because the automation of those jobs has improved - hyperbolically, rather than a thousand people on the assembly line, it's a thousand robots and fifty robot-repair technicians and five or ten robot programmers.
Which, yeah, has the same upside as the outsourcing - those thousand assembly-line jobs will never exist again.
The US does manufacture the most stuff by value, but most of it is specialized high value stuff, or just durable goods such as air-planes, artificial hearts and so on.
As for automation in the US.... I know of one specific factory that was build in the 80's to manufacture ceramic goods such as tiles and toilet-bowls and so forth, it employs roughly thirty thousand people.
In the 00's a similar factory was built in the US, it employs 5 people and a few dozen robots, it doesn't make anything but tiles, and in roughly equal mass as the chinese factory total output. Roll that in your head for a moment, a roughly three orders of magnitude change in the amount of workers needed... And personel cost for the two factories are not that different as having expensive engineers work the night shift.... (you can;t just start and stop a kiln, it takes tremendous power and time to get back to operating temperature.) vs the thousands of workers working in conditions that would give OHSA fits....
Well one is the kind of manufactering job we want to have the other... we can;t compete on labour prices with china.
Quote:In that case, the prices of everyday items would go up significantly. So much so that you're left with a zero-sum change: In other words, the employees at the bottom end get paid more. But their cost of living goes up to match it and they gain nothing in the long run. This has happened EVERY SINGLE TIME that the minimum wage has been hiked upwards!
Nope, there is a short inflationary spike but it is mild and short, and low end workers still come out way ahead. That has happened every single time in the past the US has raised the minimum wage, so if you are going to tell me this time will be different you better have some good arguments as to why we should not rely on historical data.
Also the cost of payroll is 10-15% of retail (
source) so tripling minimum wages should add 20-30% to the price of most goods, compared to having triple the income that is just a very small rise. For most consumer goods labour is a trivial part of the cost.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."