Forum Post: Minimum wage
Posted 13 years ago on Nov. 2, 2011, 11:46 p.m. EST by PartyX
(202)
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crazy to think years ago people who made minimum wage could afford a car and a place of there own and still manage to get drunk on the weekend.
The minimum wage is the best way for employers to collude on wages. Abolish the minimum wage and you will force employers to compete for cheap labor, driving wages up. You will also allow people with $2 an hour skills into the work force so they can collect more skills on the job and eventually have $35 an hour worth of skills. Think outside the box the government has put you in.
hope more people read your comment
Thanks! Trying to insert some simple micro-economics into the discussion. It may not be perfect, but it provides a pretty solid framework to think through some of the complex problems people are posing.
No! the minimum wage helps people! We raised it to $7.50 right before the economy went into the pothole. The problem is that we didn't raise it enough! We need a $100 an hour minimum wage, that would be real economic justice. 98% unemployment wouldn't result , pay no attention to Ron PauI.
and do you think you can generate enough sales at your potential employer to justify $100/hour (does that include benefits?). Think about it. Most companies which sell stuff need about 70c of every dollar in sales for the raw materials to make their stuff. That leaves 30c to pay you and everyone else. So you would need to sell AT LEAST $300,000 in product for your employer to break even JUST ON YOU. So you dont get the job unless you sell more...say 4-500k of stuff. If you can do that, you have a $100/hour job
I don't know about all that stuff you said, it doesn't make sense. I think I deserve $100 an hour because it's FAIR.
That would raise the cost of goods by a factor of 13.
Then we need to subsidize goods and tax the rich! it's simple!
rich pay the taxes now. so what would you change?
Tax them more! Some places have had income tax higher than 100% Why not now?
You're simple.
Thank you for proving the insanity of the liberal thought process.
No! this will create wealth and jobs like the rest of the civilized world! And Cuba too! Germany does this stuff why not us?
Logic would dictate if $100 / hour is good. $200 / hour would be better.
You fucking dimwits
Absolutely! But $100 an hour is a good starting point!
There Is a War Going On For Your Mind
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tP5yA3RwzOk
My friends currently do just that. That being said a price floor only serves to exclude those with low skills from entering the job market to improve those skills or learn new ones.
The minimum wage harms the poor and working poor the most.
Well from a small business stand point looking for cheap labor it is understandable. However, the fact that housing prices and everything else costs so much. Someone with little skills or who lacks the ability to learn (because there are people out there with learning disabilities) should be able to maintain a living wage
Those with little skills are harmed by a price floor because in effect it states that its illegal to hire someone whose skills are worth a wage below the price floor. It also results in increased teen unemployment especially in urban minority areas where job availability is already low. No hiring a kid for 5 an hour to sweep out the local hard ware store for two hours after work anymore - its illegal to do so. Even though that allows them to get some money, learn some budgeting, and get some job skills and a reference. A reference that states you always show up on time is a lot better for a first full time job than someone off the street with no experience.
The minimum wage causes consequences that are in opposition to the reasons why the minimum wage was established - making it particularly difficult to do away with since so many people concentrate on the intentions on why it was introduced instead of the consequences.
The housing market has been seriously disrupted for a long time but the largest hurdle in saving for a house is that the ability to save is destroyed by planned inflation.
Planned inflation is what has gotten us into the mess we are in when it comes to how the govt plans there budget. You make some great points.
Minimum wage is communism!
Three hots & a cot is the new minimum wage!
Support your local private prison-industrial complex!
Slavery is freedom! Poverty is wealth!
The BOP is the new HUD!
Thanks Ronnie, I see your mind works as good now that your dead as when you were alive. (lol)
what is BOP?
The Federal Bureau of Prisons, son.
as a follow up, the minimum wage in the 1930's was about 25-30c/hour, translated into about $7/hour in today's inflation adjusted dollars
it is all about what you can purchase with the money one makes coupled with the ability to save. Not to many can afford to save for retirement should be the discussion as well.
well, they lived in a small apartment/house, no color tv, no cellphone, no cable (add those bills up as it relates to take home pay)
right; no cell phone, no cable
Fuck I can't remember that day- i must be younger than you- I suppose at the the jobs that you had overtime but that is a thing of the past as well - time and a half that is. Good thing we got rid of those pesky unions
true, when I started working? 1986 minimum wage was $3.35/hr. AND a gallon of unleaded was $1.00 I could get 3.35 gallons of gas for an hours work. Today i get less than 2 gallons for my minimum wage.
but, speaking of minimum wage, election year is upon us and we can expect Obama to raise it up a bit. his last ditch effort to proove he is " for the poor ", in typical democrat fashion. I have a strong suspision democrats being "for poor people" is much like that old twilight zone "how to serve man".. of course dems are for poor people, they love to have poor people so they can continue to manipulate them. like lying to a child. easy targets
more people are really wise to the world thanks to this internet
I would like to see the top 10% live for a year on the minimum wage. I bet they would have a new perspective on what their greed is doing to the people of this country.
you do realize that the top 10% starts at 50,000 per year...that's not rich by any standards. The top 1% starts at approximately $350,000.00 per year. Many of us who are in the top 10% (including myself), started working 30 years ago at minimum wage. Everything is relative.
You say that as if those with minimum wage jobs are somehow entitled to higher paying jobs. That may be the case but just curious - what is driving your view that minimum wage workers deserve higher wages?
One more thing. What makes you think people don't deserve a living wage?
Basic principal of life. Figure it out for your self on how much it would take to live. I did it about ten years ago and came up with a basic wage of around twenty dollars an hour in order to pay rent, eat, pay bills, and maybe have a cheap vacation.
Get a pen and paper and simply add it up for yourself. Seven or eight dollars just doesn't cut it unless you are living at home with your parents.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ms3eaPZpYFw
Check out the universal living wage site. you can calculate how much you would need to earn in order to afford a 1 bedroom apartment that costs no more than 30% of your pay. http://universallivingwage.org/
financial advisors say between 20 and 30 % of your pay should go to mortgage
And you could work a summer job and pay your way through private college!No loans.No debt. No servitude.
is that what you did?
By the time I went to college a summer job wouldn't pay the bills. I started my own business and educated myself. School of hard Knocks they call it. Worked out all right, still learning.
good for you, I retired in '08 from the Navy...doing the Larry Crowne thing...Hope to be like you one day
lots of benefits to own bus....long hours,low pay,lots of responsibility,no paid for health ins.,no paid vacation(work double for two weeks to get ready,vacate two weeks while paying someone to do your work while gone,work extra hard after for two weeks to fix screwups while gone) ,no pention/401k....can't think of many people I'd trade with though
Larry Crowne?
navy guy who went back to college
Inflation will do that to you, steals the cash right out of your wallet while you are drunk.....
you know lincoln was said to be the first to print money with out the authority of the fed.
The french did it before Lincoln, the chinese experimented with it before the French. It's not new and not a civilisation in the history of mankind has been better off with it, or even survived.......
Bankers have been printing their own money ever since gold had value and people didn't want to have to carry all that heavy gold around. First money was a receipt from banker holding your gold in safe keeping. Worked for eons until greed set in.
Yes thats how it started, it was a derivative of something other than debt. I don't think it worked for eons, it destoyed every civilisation that employed its use, unfortunately no country learned, and for the first time in human history, we have a GLOBAL fiat currency.
I don't believe its the fiat currency itself that is the problem. The problem the way I see it is that all money is of debt, and all the money+ interest adds up to more than the money. Its a conundrum. If the state would print its own money and spend it ONLY on infrastructure (investment in future) then there would be money in circulation for repaying debt+interest.
Agree, get rid of debt based economy. How can people expect to be free when even the money they work for is debt?
I hear that is why everything is so inflated, had to buy a new car last month, sold our hybrid because the inverter went out. told me it would cost 7 grand to get it fixed and the guy down there worked it out where we got the 8 year 100,000 mile warranty, we had 106 thousand... we sold the car worrying about the future of selling it. I must admit when we saw the new car prices it felt like I was punched in the stomach. Something is dead wrong with the prices we pay
Keynes outlined the causes of high inflation and economic stagnation in post-WWI Europe in The Economic Consequences of the Peace.
"Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the Capitalist System was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some... Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose."
Keynes explicitly pointed out the relationship between governments printing money and inflation.
less than 10 years ago my sister told me her husbands friend who is surely a 1% (graduated college in the sixties)...started buying gold instead of real estate, she said his circle of friends knew when to get it out and suggested I buy gold... did not listen...anyway, I believe the devaluation of currency is global and to be quite honest this is a depression not a recession. what is unclear is why is futures are predicting small commodities to continue to climb. such as, food
I've made 300 % on my gold because I know governments can't help themselves.....
Funny story. In 1980 my brother received a raise to $5 per hr. He immediately factory ordered a Trans Am. He chose the T-top, color, interior and turbo pkg with hood decal. 4 year car loan and insurance in his own name. He worked for that car but it was an attainable goal.
Nice car. Add the airbags, gas milage and general safety ratings the government requires, and I bet your brother wouldn't be able to afford that car. Obviously inflation plays a role, and the point you make is a good one, but let's not forget that the goods we bought in 1980 are far inferior to those we can buy today. And at the same time the skills of minimum wage workers aren't that much better than they were in 1980.
In 1980 the minimum wage was less than $5 an hour. Also, what was the cost of a Trans Am in 1980?
In 1980 the economy was shit, inflation was up over 11% from the previous year, and people were paying 13% interest on mortgages.
The cost of a Trans Am in 1980 was $10,000 (Factory Ordered). A corvette ran about $12,500. Mortgage rates were higher but also remember that housing was affordable. A bi-level home ran about $35-45,000. What you also had was bank CD interest rates that encouraged personal savings. You are right that the minimum wage was less than $5 an hr. He worked in small deli and the owner rewarded him for working hard. I, myself, mowed lawns with a little murray push mower. I would push that mower 3/4 of a mile to mow a lawn for $5-10. I purchased my first motorcycle at age 14 and my car at age 17. Even as a 17 year old I could afford my own car insurance. It was $400 per year without collision. The economy was different back then but I wouldn't have called it shit. .
It was $3.10 in 1980. That's what I paid my men to start but most of them got regular raises after a few months making quite a bit more. It you worked well, you were paid well. If not, I'd find somebody that would.
This guy named Dewayne had one with a 400 horse engine. Car was so damn fast it was scary. t-tops were the shit, can still remember the shiny gold dash board.
A 301 with a turbo made 210 horses. They ran about a 17 second quarter mile when new. Most small cars will outrun one now. they sure were flashy back then.
Minimum wage is a bad idea. Increasing the cost of labor so that the workers can buy the good. Then when the price of goods goes up because of the increased cost of labor you raise it again. It's a horrible cycle
Stability in the market for staple items seems to be what is expected as well as gives a sense of sanity to working class folks like myself. Micheal Douglass played in the movie falling down...Ahead of its time...
They still can manage to get drunk in the weekend. And high in the week.
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