Abolish the federal minimum wage

[DesperateHouseHusband]

would be dumb if the cost of living was the same in every state/city

NOWHERE in this country is the cost of living low enough to justify abolishing the federal minimum wage.

 

[Knucklehead]

Not only keep it but raise it!

 

[Kulindahr]

BTW, did you notice that one person voted to eliminate the minimum wage in both STATE and FEDERAL?

I wonder what he must be thinking? Doesn't he realize it would cause deflation? Not to mention, it would worsen illegal immigration.

A lot of people on fixed incomes could love a little deflation.

Illegal immigration, OTOH, is not a matter for economic policy, it's a matter for guns on the border.

 

[Just_Believe18]

I don't think there's a constitutional basis for minimum wage guidelines to be within the purview of the Federal Government.

It ought to be a state by state issue.

It might cost half as much to live in one state compared to another, why should the wages be the same?

A state by state issue? Unfortunately, Republican run states will go to the extremes of failing minimum wage workers CRAP. Look at the example of the state of Kanas. For a long time, the minimum wage in Kansas was $2.65. It was the lowest in the nation. Tell me how a person is suppose to survive on $2.65 an hour?

 

[NineOfClubs]

A state by state issue? Unfortunately, Republican run states will go to the extremes of failing minimum wage workers CRAP. Look at the example of the state of Kanas. For a long time, the minimum wage in Kansas was $2.65. It was the lowest in the nation. Tell me how a person is suppose to survive on $2.65 an hour?

Well, it's all about the market

If you offer $2.65, you're going to attract the lowest of the low, want better, pay more.

Your competitor down the street has realized this and is offering a higher wage, is getting better workers, and he's beating your ass, figuratively.

 

[Supersix]

As a teen, I was employed by a state agency for low income families, making minimum wage at a summer job cleaning schools. When the lofty politicians raised the minimum wage in the middle of the summer, my hours were cut back, because the state agency was only budgeted for the lower amount. So, I didn't benefit at all, and neither did the school district. Big help that was. All it acheived was to make the politicians look good. And to everyone who believes that minimum wage is something anyone should be able to live on, other than a teenager still at home, you're in a dreamworld.

 

[vulgar_newcomer]

Kulindahr, or FireGod, could you explain your positions?

I could reply to this... but I am more intrigued by this:

Could you explain? SC, with its abysmally poor drivers, plague these roads I drive perpetually, so I have a hard time finding pity for them and prefer they leave the Union entirely---goddamn you, Lincoln--- so I'm rather curious what you mean.

Not much to explain. I used SC as a example of a state where many employers would have absolutely no problem with further exploitation of its work force. But South Carolina isn't unique as a state goes. There would be no shortage of small to large business that would sleep fine at night offering employees a wage 200% or better below the current $7.25 a hr.
If anyone thinks a gallon of milk or chicken thighs cost less at the piggly wiggly or food lion in South Carolina over the same products in California they are wrong.

There are many states which would lower or abolish the minimum wage. My own state votes time and time again (Republicans) not to increase it. It was put on the ballot after a vigorous fight to keep it off by the Republicans, they waged and spent big bucks to keep it off the Florida ballot. They lost and the public voted on it. A state increase was only won in Florida by that general election and never would have been approved by the state legislators who the numb nuts elect as well. At that point Florida's wage for a brief time was above the federal wage which of course had been stalled out for a decade of no votes. Now the federal wage of $7.25 a hr is higher then the state minimum


Yet the electric rate increases that must be approved by the same state legislators are never denied and are far greater in percentage increase compared to the screaming plantation mentality that won't increase the minimum wage.


The great deception is that the minimum wage is used by part time high school kids or entry level and only a small percentage actually make this most jobs pay more. Employers often pay a small amount over minimum wage so they don't make the list, but you can bet your last dollar that starting wage would be damn near what you would be making 10 from the hire date as well.




Read it and weep
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/anth484/minwage.html

 

[Zu-Mendel]

**Specifically related to Employment/Wages**

so... i would guess everyone voting "NO" would support fully enforcing Illegal Immigration laws already on the books!?

Of course I would, but brute force is not going to solve illegal immigration.

Step 1 - Congress passes a bill which would make the penalty for any operational manager who hires illegally one year per head in a federal penitentiary, and increase the corporation's tax rate by 10% for every illegal found employed there. This tax increase would be for the entire company/corporation, and for the parent company as well if they own a 51% stake. Employment of illegal immigration dries up overnight after a few examples are made.

Step 2 - Congress passes another bill which makes the call for all illegal immigrants with clean criminal records to register for a modified permanent residency. This modification includes a permanent minimum income tax rate of 60% that would match the top bracket if that ever goes up. While they may stay here (kicking them out would cost more than the benefit), they still broke our laws, and will pay for that for the remainder of their stay. The vast tax burden will either convince current illegals to leave the US since they can no longer find employment, convince potential illegals not to come here, or cause those who stay to pay in to society far more than they will ever get back. These residents have no right to vote, receive government aid, or be allowed access to medicare / social security. The only way to remove such a status is to return to their country of origin and get to the back of the line, or serve in our military for a minimum of two terms in times of war, and three in times of peace. Upon discharge they would be granted full citizenship.

Step 3 - Congress passes a law requiring police to run the SS numbers of every person they bring in, if the individual has no SS / permanent residency number then they are shipped off to INS for deportation. Public hospitals will require the same thing, though they will also be required to treat the illegals first. Quite simple; no SS#, no government service, and if certain agencies catch wind of it immediate transfer to the INS. If the illegals don't like it, then they can sign up for the modified permanent residency, and be treated as a citizen in most respects. If the illegals don't have clean records, then they don't need to be here in the first place.



My plan in not 'nice', but then again solutions rarely are. We all know this would never happen, liberals would get their panties in a bunch over the heavy-handedness of it, and the corporate owners of conservatives would never allow their cheap labor source to dry up.

Face it people, illegal immigration is a problem which will never be solved by our government as long as our capitalist society demands a steady supply of disenfranchised slave labor.

 

[chrisrobin]

Curious thing to note. It seems that a handful of states have created laws that allows them to pay less than minimum wage under certain conditions. Businesses that make less than $500,000 a year in Minnesota can pay $5.25 an hour. A lot of states have laws that pay $2.60 an hour if the employees are allowed tips (sounds like it could be a crappy deal for the employee if you're working at the wrong place).

If an employer in Minnesota is really shrewd (slimy?) he can factor into his wage plan the fact that there is no sales tax on food.

 

[Kulindahr]

As a teen, I was employed by a state agency for low income families, making minimum wage at a summer job cleaning schools. When the lofty politicians raised the minimum wage in the middle of the summer, my hours were cut back, because the state agency was only budgeted for the lower amount. So, I didn't benefit at all, and neither did the school district. Big help that was. All it acheived was to make the politicians look good. And to everyone who believes that minimum wage is something anyone should be able to live on, other than a teenager still at home, you're in a dreamworld.

That's one very real side of the minimum wage argument: raising it does cut hours and does cut jobs. Raise the minimum wage, and these things happen -- and while many of the jobs that disappear go overseas, some just stop getting done.

Yet the electric rate increases that must be approved by the same state legislators are never denied and are far greater in percentage increase compared to the screaming plantation mentality that won't increase the minimum wage.

Wish I knew where to find it.... Churchill once delivered a sort of lecture to parliament on a topic very much like this.
I sometimes think all lawmakers should be required to live in the economic conditions of the poorest of those they represent.

The great deception is that the minimum wage is used by part time high school kids or entry level and only a small percentage actually make this most jobs pay more. Employers often pay a small amount over minimum wage so they don't make the list, but you can bet your last dollar that starting wage would be damn near what you would be making 10 from the hire date as well.


Read it and weep
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/anth484/minwage.html

I once protested to some folks drawing up one of these sets of graphs that their poverty line should show one-, two-, and three-person households, not just the mythical four-person one. It would be a lot more useful.

To me that's the most useful graph, showing poverty vs. minimum wage -- yet its usefulness is seriously diminished by the lack of those other lines.


Intriguingly, on this topic liberals become like conservatives: if they can benefit the aggregate, they care not one whit for the real individuals they harm.

 

[Kulindahr]

Kulindahr, they've been saying that since the 1930s, but yet during the intervening period of time we've seen some of the most prosperous times in our history.

That doesn't negate the facts.

Raising the minimum wage, whatever else it means, means that people get hurt because jobs get lost.

 

[RobinGoodfellow]

Curious thing to note. It seems that a handful of states have created laws that allows them to pay less than minimum wage under certain conditions. Businesses that make less than $500,000 a year in Minnesota can pay $5.25 an hour. A lot of states have laws that pay $2.60 an hour if the employees are allowed tips (sounds like it could be a crappy deal for the employee if you're working at the wrong place).

Not quite right; although they can below minimum wage for someone who makes tips, they must also pay at least the regular minimum wage (for non-tipped employees) if they don't average out to the regular minimum wage. In essence, if you make more, great, if not, we have you covered.

As for the debate in general, although state jobs may cut back their hours when it increases, others don't. The general trend is that increasing the minimum wage also brings in more money for general employers, so they gripe, but usually that's about it. A maximum wage would be meaningless, simply because that would mean more non-wage reimbursement. On the other hand, I think we're a few more years from another raise, at any rate...

RG

 

[Kulindahr]

Toriko, globalization hadn't been a huge issue until about the 1980s.

Sort of means that fifty-year period was a special situation.

 

[joaama]

**Specifically related to Employment/Wages**

so... i would guess everyone voting "NO" would support fully enforcing Illegal Immigration laws already on the books!?

What do they have to do with each other?

 

[Kulindahr]

I disagree, Kulindahr, and I can use one of your own examples to illustrate it.

Remember the debate about the Laffer curve? It was learnt that lowering taxes for the purposes of creating national wealth only works under very narrow circumstances.

I submit to you that raising the minimum wage also cuts a few jobs, but also under very narrow circumstances, and never for very long, anyway. And if you look throughout our history, you'll see that is the case.

What was the wealthiest we'd ever been? Let's take the 50s and 60s. We had a sharply progressive income tax rate system, widespread union activity, minimal budget deficits....and a minimum wage.

You disagree with facts?

The rising minimum wage in Oregon has totally eliminated at least one company I know of, a call center -- the jobs gone to India. As others have testified, it has meant cut hours as well.

That's why I say on this issue liberals are doing a "conservative": not caring about the ones harmed, so long as their is aggregate benefit.

 

[Kulindahr]

then why not raise it to $20.00 hr?

All at once? Too much of a shock to the system.

That would be interesting, BearDaddy, and it's something that I've thought about for a while.

It's hard to say what the outcome would be. If everybody was making $20hr more, they'd have a lot more money to spend, and it would be spent for the most part, which would spur the economy. (It would of course temporarily cost a few jobs.)

It might also spur inflation, though.

There are a lot of factors here, from how much of the cost of a product is labor to the portion of people getting minimum wage in the work force.... Yes, it would cause inflation, but ti would also do other things.
It's not quite the same as it used to be. The international situation plays a big part now. How that plays with the minimum wage situation domestically... is beyond my brain at the moment -- maybe later when I'm healthier.

 

[Kulindahr]

Kulindahr, I don't doubt that what you're telling me is the truth, but a call center in America is a sitting duck, anyway. It would have been only a matter of time.

What's bothering me about all of this, Kulindahr, is that you're focusing on "the little picture": one call center that was doomed anyway, and testimony from Supersix who's a Republican.

You don't seem to be willing to see the big picture—one of many decades of minimum wages during times of our greatest prosperity.

Kulindahr, I just looked to see how you voted, and am wise enough to know that I ain't changin' your mind. So let's agree to disagree, and have a beer, k?

I see the big picture quite well. So do Republicans who want to get harder on crime and don't care if they send innocent people to jail so long as they get more criminals. They happen to not care that they're ruining lives in order to get aggregate good. I just don't want those lives overlooked.


p.s. -- how can you tell how I've voted?

 

[Supersix]

Supersix who's a Republican.

Gasp! I am not a republican, I am an independent conservative. There's way too many things republicans do that I disagree with, mostly when they cave in to democrats. Just because the lines between democrats and socialists have become blurred, doesn't mean the lines between republican and conservative are equally blurred.

 

[Kulindahr]

The People of the State of Arizona voted for a raise in the minimum wage increase, and this was after the Legislators voted against it the previous years.

Did they vote to make it match federal law, like they did with immigration... only to get smacked down by the people who aren't enforcing an identical law?

 

[GhostMost]

Good fake God I was about to read all of your posts but come the fuck on, appointing a maximum wage are you people serious?
Abolish minimum wage?
People actually complain about still getting paid while earning tips?

...Communists and their selfishness : /