Forum Post: $20 minimum wage
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 7, 2011, 3:49 p.m. EST by tsmcarr
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So one of the demands is $20 minimum wage? How exactly would that work. Businesses would A) go out of business because they can't afford to hire anyone or B) have to raise their prices accordingly to stay in business.
how exactly would any of that help?
$20.00 minimum wage would only equal higher cost of goods and services for everyone and increase the trade deficit and debt obligations to china enormously. If your minimum wage was increased to 20/ per hour, bread would cost $8 bucks a loaf- so what have you really gained. The relaitvity of the income to cost remains the same.
You need to ask the guy who wrote that. That was his personal wish list, he doesn't speak in any official way for anyone but himself. This is a public internet forum, anyone can post.
it seems like a reasonable amount to live and maybe on occasion go on vacation
[Deleted]
Yes, I've seen it in the media too but they got it from this forum. Typical lazy journalism, they simply search the Internet now instead of doing real research.
I will try and find you a link to the post, the admins have since put a disclaimer at the top explaining this. The closest to "official" demands that I have seen was posted at coupmedia in the beginning of the protest and even that is not at this time a "consensus" among the group. I will try to post both links for you soon.
PS - I am not an "official" anything either, but I've been following the story and participating since the beginning.
the internet is a very useful tool for conducting research
It's also great in finding multiple factoids which can be summed as fact...when it's all a farce.
Yea, not as useful as actually going out and talking to people and doing original writing which is what journalists are supposed to do.
I do origonal writing here
I also present other peoples work
Are you employed by the mainstream media?
no
but they should pay me
I did look back to my link and it was from here.
Okay and here is the other link I mentioned:
http://coupmedia.org/occupywallstreet/occupy-wall-street-official-demands-2009
Personally, I have to agree with you, a minimum wage of 20 dollars per hour would be not workable (and that's being kind) : )
The minimum wage is already over $20. You the employee don't get that amount. It's because government has stolen half of your wages through payroll taxes, regulations, fees, etc that your employer is forced to pay. If you want more money then you should be demanding less government, not more.
Also, why have a minimum wage at all? Let the employee choose how much they are willing to settle for. The lazy and dumb employees will have to take whatever their worth is. Unemployment would plummet. The hard working employees won't have an artificial wage range, as their labor will be leveraged for higher wages.
Take it easy. How about ten dollars to start off..lol
Henry Ford paid his worker enough to buy his product. If workers aren't paid enough to buy their own company's product, how will the company survive? Starbuck's pays $8 dollars an hour. If they allow their workers to work 40 hours a week, which I highly doubt, that would be roughly $1,000 a month after taxes. After gas (100-200 a month), food( 200 a month), cell phone ($100), car insurance ($100) and other various expenses during the month, how many of their workers can afford a $4 latte? Of course these are all rough estimates, assuming this person has no car payment and lives with their parents, or in a very inexpensive apartment. What $20 an hour can get you, this is $2250 a month after taxes btw or $1125 every two weeks: 500-800 in rent/mortgage, a $300 car payment, and the rest of the expenses listed as well as a little extra to spend on a $4 latte. Certainly not a luxury lifestyle, but enough to buy that latte.
Henry Ford paid his worker enough to buy his product. If workers aren't paid enough to buy their own company's product, how will the company survive? Starbuck's pays $8 dollars an hour. If they allow their workers to work 40 hours a week, which I highly doubt, that would be roughly $1,000 a month after taxes. After gas (100-200 a month), food( 200 a month), cell phone ($100), car insurance ($100) and other various expenses during the month, how many of their workers can afford a $4 latte? Of course these are all rough estimates, assuming this person has no car payment and lives with their parents, or in a very inexpensive apartment. What $20 an hour can get you, this is $2250 a month after taxes btw or $1125 every two weeks: 500-800 in rent/mortgage, a $300 car payment, and the rest of the expenses listed as well as a little extra to spend on a $4 latte. Certainly not a luxury lifestyle, but enough to buy that latte.
I'd have to get rid a over half my low wage employees. Exactly the ones who would be hurt the most. Who are you guys for anyway? Clearly not the little guy! I'd never be so heartless!!
I remember this same debate when Congress was debating raising the minimum wage a few years back. One side was saying that it was an ethical mandate, the other warned that it would cost jobs as employers cut employees to preserve their margins. Well, they passed that increase in 2009, it's hard to tell within the context of a recession what the effect is, so I'll leave it up to each of you to decide if minimum wage jobs have dried up since 2009.
small business would suffer, and corporations will only go offshore even more. In order for us to increase to $20.00 mininum wage American need to stop doing business with companies that produce and operate overseas. Buy American or don't buy at all.
small business would suffer, and corporations will only go offshore even more. In order for us to increase to $20.00 mininum wage American need to stop doing business with companies that produce and operate overseas. Buy American or don't buy at all.
The whole purpose of minimum wages is to keep prosperity among everyone. The working class have frequently been oppressed into working for less than they're worth.
Theoretically, the likelihood of getting the CEO job is 1 spot per how many lower workers. A normal foreman would be shuffled off for a higher manager worker.
This demand is something for later.
You do not understand "minimum wage". It's not about keeping prosperity among everyone. If that were the case, it would rise with inflation and the cost of living.
Minimum wage is the least common denominator that the government says everyone is worth. The people who make considerably more than minimum wage (like me and many others here) have worked our asses off and improved our skills, education, and lots in life in order to confidently demand and negotiate for more. If you work at a fast food restaurant your entire life as a cashier and expect to be earning $30.00 per hour, then you are sadly mistaken because you have done nothing to improve yourself to contribute more to the work force.
Abolish minimum wage completely. How long do you suppose a restaurant would be in business if it only offers a buck an hour to its servers? Free market principles work when given a chance. Government interventino in free market principles is what leads to sheeple demanding a minimum wage of $20.00 per hour.
Of course when the market has limited options, they are forced to accept whatever they can.
The buck an hour hypothesis would depend on market variables. In a market where there are no jobs, the buck an hour job may be the only game in town.
In such a scenario (all regulations being equal), that dollar would go a hell of a lot further too... You have to remember, in that free market, the proprietor is the risk taker.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/708507790/protest-to-prosperity-occupy-wall-street-pamphlet We need to Unify under a single cause. We need a democratic economy. Please visit the projects page above and read the pamphlet. It's free. If you decide you want to support us, you can. We are for Democracy and Free-Market! We want to get the word out about how Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Martin Luther King Jr., Michael Novak and Ray Carey believed we could find peace and prosperity through economics!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/708507790/protest-to-prosperity-occupy-wall-street-pamphlet We need to Unify under a single cause. We need a democratic economy. Please visit the projects page above and read the pamphlet. It's free. If you decide you want to support us, you can. We are for Democracy and Free-Market! We want to get the word out about how Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Martin Luther King Jr., Michael Novak and Ray Carey believed we could find peace and prosperity through economics!
$20.00 minimum wage would only equal higher cost of goods and services for everyone and increase the trade deficit and debt obligations to china enormously. If your minimum wage was increased to 20/ per hour, bread would cost $8 bucks a loaf- so what have you really gained. The relaitvity of the income to cost remains the same.
How bout since our economy is set up to be a free market system that there should not even be a minimum wage. Minimum wage systems might work state to state if they so choose. But to federalize a minimum wage is unconstitutional. In a free market society, if businesses want to pay someone more 5$ an hour, then no one will want to work for that company. Its called competition between the companies that should naturally exist. Companies can destroy themselves by being cheap. If you compete against salaries, the better companies will have higher salaries which will lead for better work and better products. In a free market, you will have the best of everything because of competition that is created. The problem of exporting jobs to other countries is the problem. And that can be the fault of the US government by regulation and taxes on american companies and small businesses. Then they reward the businesses on wall street by bailing out failing companies like GM and numerous financial instituitions. The financial institutions though fell from the bad mortgages the US government forced banks to make to people who had no businesses getting the credit they were given. This attack on wallstreet is ridiculous. I am a 25 year old working in the healthcare industry. These people have no clue and just continue to spit anti american socialistic principles. Go read up on the constitution and what free trade is. If you dont like. Go live in a European Union and see how much better your life is. Oh yea. they are doing the same thing we are. Its socialism
I think you are correct. All businesses that hire minimum-wage workers (fast food, restaurants, coffee shops, certain construction companies, etc.) would have to increase prices immediately. Depending upon the amount of labor that goes into the product, the price will increase accordingly. The problem is that it ripples through the economy. McD's will have higher labor costs, but so will the suppliers of beef, tomatoes, onions, and potatoes. I would guess McD would have to increase prices somewhere in the 10%- 40% range. I can see some businesses, like landscaping, having to raise their prices by much more
The question of how many will stay in business is another matter entirely. It depends on whether consumers feel like they are still getting their money's worth. In this economic environment I would expect to see a significant contraction in spending due to the higher prices. People will save more, consume less.
We don't necessarily need a high minimum wage, this would hurt a lot of companies. What I would rather is is a more equal distribution of wages from CEOs all the way down to the bottom.
I have to figure out which bills to pay and which ones to put off each week while my boss does not. I work in a grocery store as a produce manager. I bring home about $390 a week after taxes, my department averages $4000 profit each week, that's after all expenses my department is responsible for. At Christmas time I get a $100 bonus every year.
52 weeks in a year @ $4000 = $208,000.00 Yet my yearly income is about $27,040.00 before any taxes are taken. Or $13.00 an hour and 40 hours a week.
So I make about 13% for myself compared to what my boss earns because of me.
I would be happier if I even only made 25% for myself from what I earn my boss. Which would be $52,000 a year or $25.00 an hour at 40 hours a week. My boss would still be making $156,000.00 a year off of me.
Well.. why don't you go start up your own produce store? And your boss doesnt make 208,000 a year. There are many taxes your boss has to pay.
A valid question.
I do not have access to the start up capital that would be needed, nor the credit rating. The credit rating is my fault though as I blew it with a credit card my freshman year of college and have been struggling to rebuild since.
Besides I went to college for Software Engineering and Mathematics, Produce just pays the bills so I can get by.
I hear ya. I blew my credit my freshman year too. Now I am a nurse and rebuilt my credit. Keep looking for jobs... you will get one. Its all about the choices we make throughout our life that define is. No jobs for Math and software engineering eh? A lot of people go to school not thinking they will get a job out of school. Though... thats not the truth obviously. Though I would have loved to be a teacher I did not go that route because I knew I wouldnt have a job or a high paying job for that matter. So i did nursing because I thought I could do a lot of good and always got a lot back from helping people in need. Its not my true passion but I like it. So I chose something that I knew I could live well on and suceed.
People who make good business decisions in life should not be penalized for being successful. If you were that guy making $120,000 then you can make that call of whether you would like to pay your employees better. I would not like the government telling me what to with my money for being successful. I think there should be a FLAT tax and everyone pays the same. Sounds fair to me
I was not suggesting that the government should make my boss pay me more. I was simply wishing employers would show more appreciation for their workers. More of a social change than a political one.
As far as taxes go, I sadly do not know enough about the current system to be able to recommend any changes. Though I do recognize a need for a change to the current tax system.
There are jobs out there for software engineering, but there are many more of us looking for jobs than there are jobs. One reason I have been attempting to create my own.
So apply yourself and earn his job. Wouldn't that be sweet? You would have the bigger paycheck and the self-worth of having gotten there yourself.
It is a small family run grocery store in a rural community. There is no where else for me to go with this job. If I was not already applying myself I would not be creating that much profit. I have had a high stress management position before and rather not have that again.
I managed a kitchen at a college serving roughly 800 students a meal. Using the same kind of math as above I was making roughly 6% compared to what the profit I was generating.
I do not want my bosses job. I just want to feel that my current job has worth.
As far as finding another job. I have been trying to build a web design company with my brother. I put in about another 40-60 hours a week into my own company but so far the work has been spotty. My goal would be to work for my own company. So far we have been attempting to build our company since April 2009, with little to no luck.
I understand that wholly. You're best option is to gird up and make it on your own as a suppliment until it becomes a permanent replacement.
My wife is a self-taught graphic designer. She charges as little as $50 a job to the small businesses for ad design because small businesses cannot afford the $2000+ an agency would charge. She designs their newspaper ads or campaign ads (for a little town clerk guy every 2 years) and so forth. The $50 would have been the graphic designer's cut for the ad work at the agency for these tiny jobs so she's getting her fair pay and the client is paying only for what they needed.
She has loyal customers that have hired her repeatedly for several years - having found them originally through ebay advertising. I use freelancer.com to find web designers like you - check it out as a place to find freelance jobs for yourself in addition to ebay.
And good luck. Trust me, there is no feeling like the realization you just made it on your own.
And if you are worth that much to the company, then you should be confident in yourself to be able to negotiate a higher salary accordingly. If you don't negotiate, then don't bitch. If you have tried and the boss said "no", then move on. That's the beauty of a capitalist society. You are not a slave to anybody and you deserve to be paid your worth.
As far as a web design company - look elsewhere - too many cookie cutter design companies out there that will always undercut your prices. You have a solid sounding education - and you even sound like you want more -- so go get it.
I greatly appreciate your encouragement and I thank you.
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Many wont agree, but take the time to watch for a different perspective.
Minimum Wage argument http://www.youtube.com/user/misesmedia#p/search/0/4KT0JZhTIcg
The Federal Reserve is the root of our economic woes, and a result is the corruption in the economy and govt. The FED and money history and Great depression http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYZM58dulPE
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One word: Hyperinflation.
Look people, printing more fiat currency is not going to replenish the earth's resources, it's pretty simple.
More inflation wouldn't help anything. Idiot protesters who think this are idiots.
It wouldn't work, and wouldn't help. If you want to raise the minimum wage, the minimum wage employees have to produce things that are more valuable thus increasing the value of their labor. Of course, I don't think that is going to happen, especially given the nature of globalization.
But, setting the minimum wage FAR above equilibrium is not a solution because it will have the exact effects as you claim. It would have deleterious effects on youth unemployment levels.
If you had a higher minimum wage, then people would buy more things, resulting in higher employment to sell those things. Additionally, if we made those things in this country, we'd be bonkers rich and productive.
If you raise minimum wage lets say 50%, then businesses would have to increase their prices by 50% - it's all relative. Sure, you would have more money, but it would cost more to buy things.
I've personally experienced minimum wage go up in Massachusetts through the years (I recall making only $6.75 when I started working only two years later to make a minimum of $8.00). Prices haven't gone up "relatively" (as you said they would) in the retail environment. Not even in correlation to inflation.
You're pretty wrong. Wrong about this.
You should look at the rest of the factors - like where the making of those retail items have come from to save the costs. And are they truly of equal quality and exact features.
Then you would have a better understanding that tsmcarr's analogy is too simple to exactly true.
The other problem is for the lowest skill workers (usually innercity teens). Their unemployment rate grows every time the minimum wage is raised because it puts them in competition with more skilled workers.
About teens: That's not quite true either.
Such a case is ONLY true because we've cut out the manufacturing jobs in this country.
If we still had a strong manufacturing base, mature workers would find employment there, leaving retail jobs to teenagers and students.
Additionally, if we had a strong manufacturing base, we wouldn't see these same kinds of problems. Outsourcing doesn't actually save us any money. I'm not sure why anyone believes it does.
An interesting note: when considering inflation, minimum wage is currently lower than it was in the early 90's.
Why don't we have the same manufacturing base? Oh yeah, it became too expensive to make inexpensive goods with US labor. Outsourcing does save money - tons. I know this for a fact because I have no choice.
I entered a crowded market (there are a lot of different products like mine but worse). To attract customers I have to have a better product that isn't too much more expensive than the next best - or actually cheaper.
Since my product uses a new, superior technology than my competitors it is more expensive to make no matter where I make it. I choose the US to protect the intellectual property from chinese rip-offs. However, that puts me at a disadvantage to those who can make their old tech products cheaply here or abroad.
The cover to my product is required by law to be flame resistant. Everyone's is required. Fine. That requires no unusual technology so I can get a cover made anywhere. Here's my dilemma. In the US the fabrics that meet the flame resistance standards cost more for a yard than a cut and sewn with metal zipper and handle completed cover bought out of China or Mexico. In fact, the cost to buy the fabric and materials here in the US and sew it with US labor means just my cost for the cover would be higher than my customers are willing to pay for the entire finished product!
So I can either make everything in the US and sell nothing because my price HAS TO BE too high, or outsource part/all the making of it so that I can bring the product customers want (and medically need in this case) at a price they can afford.
By outsourcing, one reduces the flow of money in the United States. By eliminating jobs in the U.S., one actively cuts the money from working families.
The great fallacy of trickle down economics (or golden shower economics as I like to call it) is that it's the richest people that create jobs; when, in reality, economy operates in a trickle up method.
What point would it be to create retail jobs if there is not a working base wealthy enough to buy that product? Borders going out of business wasn't because their CEOs weren't rich enough--they went under because (among other reasons including competition with Amazon and television) working people didn't have enough disposable income to spend on books.
On the one hand, outsourcing does make a product "cheaper." But at what cost? You eliminate you customer base if you outsource because you've halted job growth in the American market.
Nonsense.
Borders went out of business almost entirely because the didn't adapt to the changing market - not directly because people didn't have cash for books.
More and more books are bought on eReaders (though it isn't the majority of the market quite yet) and for less money than paper books. Also, the internet has made it wonderfully easy to get an book you want for less than a box shop can sell it. Barnes & Noble is probably only still alive today because of their Nook reader and because you can get an eBook on the Nook even cheaper if you are physically in a store when you download.
People didn't stop buying books - total sales aren't that far off the norm when you look at all book mediums. The change was a better delivery system (internet orders and eBooks). Are we going to trash the new technology to save jobs?
And if outsourcing truly cost jobs (instead of transitioning a large number of them to other industries), so too would technological advancements. Do we close our borders and bring "fancy drink umbrellas" manufacturing back here? Do we throw out and ban technology improvements because these things kill jobs?
Wage costs are passed down into product costs which makes products more expensive. Many jobs that minimum wage workers have work for companies that sell products that compete on price, so increasing labor costs by upping the wages would take them out of competition.
If we want to incentivize making things in this country, the first step to take would to take incentives away from outsourcing labor and holding untaxed income abroad.
Good point, Winnebago.
Did you learn this in college or the real world?
I am 26 now and have held numerous minimum wage jobs in high school (snowboard instructor, made pizza, car wash). I interned on Wall Street in undergrad, worked in valuation consulting and a bank after undergrad. I'm going back to school this Spring for something completely different, so I've done quite a few things. So to answer your question, both.
"Social and political issues in general seem to me fairly simple; the effort to obfuscate them in esoteric and generally vacuous theory is one of the contributions of the intelligentsia to enhancing their own power and the power of those they serve. " -Noam Chomsky.
You've been fooled by corporations into believing these things. As someone previously cited, Denmark has a minimum wage of $20 (in USD).
How about if minimum wage were $20.00 and a maximum cap of, say $1,000,000 a year were placed on workers? What then? Don't you see that prices wouldn't raise? Nor would the cost of living?
I don't want a maximum cap on wages, and a minimum floor on wages I am for and should float with inflation / cost of living. Minimum wage should not be so high to where minimally-productive labor is priced in such a way that causes the price of goods to rise, which would negate the gains in labor to begin with.
I do want a system of blind justice and of proper incentive and regulatory structure.
Why don't you want a maximum wage cap? That's the simplest solution to reducing the price of goods.
Let's say, theoretically, someone or a research group comes up with a technological innovation that allows us to create a Dyson sphere and harvest the power of the sun, something truly groundbreaking. Why should this groups' financial benefits be limited?
Because to think they made this accomplishment completely by themselves, without the help of society throughout their generative years; that high school taught them nothing; that their constant daily interactions with society; that college; post-grad; and their working years; that acquaintances didn't bear influence, that authors didn't instruct them in their work--is just a limited thought.
One does not achieve greatness in a void. It requires a lifetime of experience and interaction, of learning and active being to get there.
For each one of our accomplishments we have someone else to thank for getting us there.
I believe he/she learned it in college AND in the real world.
I heard they were already unemployed
They are and raising the minimum wage would make it even worse.
not for the people earning minimum wage
You can't just raise the minimum wage in a vacuum, there are consequences of raising the minimum wage, OTHER than their wages rising.
Some consequences would include
Can you imagine making $20 working at a pizza place? The concept is silly, the cost of the pizza would have to increase significantly in order to accomodate wage increases.
the only jobs I've had since I quit the military have been pretty close to minimum wage
but that vacuum has been created by numbers that were created by loans
further
the people just don't disappear,
a failure of numbers <> a failure social relations
please consider the use of the word vacuum
In Denmark the minimum wage is greater than $20 (and yes, the relevant adjustments have been made). So apparently the two choices you gave are not exhaustive.
The economy in Denmark cannot be compared to the economy of the US in the way that you pose. You can't say that since Country XYZ has a minimum wage and it works, then it should work in the USA, you would have to hold all other factors constant. Look at the economy of Denmark? What makes it different from the USA? Looking into that question will lead you to the answer as to why they are able to maintain such a high minimum wage, yet at the same time, have one of the most competitive and free economies on Earth. Being a net exporter of energy certainly helps and is one glaring difference.
We could export energy too if we chose to. All I'm saying is that a $20 minimum wage is not CLEARLY ridiculous. I don't think it should be part of the OWS demands, but the labeling of it as a pure fantasy has to be argued with facts. It just can't be asserted.
Also, Australia has a minimum wage of > $14, and its economy probably isn't THAT much different than the U.S. right?
Australia I think would be a better comparison, this is interesting (the suggestions part) http://tiny.cc/p9yzw
Sure, probably so. Although we have to remember that none of these countries represents the maximum possible minimum wage attainable. These countries all still have wide inequality and excessive pay to those at the top. So countries like Australia could probably increase their minimum wage and keep their unemployment the same or could maintain their minimum wage and reduce unemployment through other government programs and means.
I'm not arguing anything in particular here. All I wanted to comment on is that someone saying a "$20 minimum wage can't work" is about as justified as saying that it can work. It's a complicated issue and merits a real discussion from those that think it's important.
You also need to consider the fact that the dollar is quite weak vs. the kroner. When you adjust for purchasing power parity (how much stuff you can buy with your kroners) the rates are fairly close: http://livingeconomics.org/article.asp?docId=374
I was taking my numbers from Wikipedia, which are measured in "international dollars", so the numbers I provided are consistent with purchasing power parity.
Interesting. They may be using a trade-weighted dollar value, but I don't know. Great thread, though! Thanks for the info.
Yeah, I didn't look into the specifics of how they calculate it exactly either. Thanks for the discussion.
Minimum wages don't work, only a maximum wage for those who sit on the boards of publicly traded corporations will help to bring down the costs of products and create jobs.
The wages of Americans have not risen significantly in decades but CEOs and executives have incresed dramatically on average. It is us and them way more than ever before.