Any owner who pays minimum wage is un-American - here's why

And I bet you don't make minimum wage. Are you married with children? Do you own your own home without a mortgage? Do you live in a high cost of living region?

 

Not true. $14 an hour is well, well above a realistic min wage. I live by myself and have no kids, and I could live on as little as $600 a month if I went totally spartan. My actual expenses are a little over $1000-1100 a month. Working 40 hours a week I'd be able to easily save over $1,000 a month in cold hard cash.

If by "poverty line" you're referring to people with children that they can't support, well that's not any CEO's problem. No one forced them to have a kid knowing they were making only $8 an hour, and it's not the CEO's obligation to bail them out for their lack of forethought.

A better question is, how do unemployed people, or people who's only income is $8 an hour flipping burgers sleep at night when they choose to pop out kids knowing they can't support them, while pointing fingers at the "big bad CEOs" for their own lack of reponsibility?

No one's forced to work at Walmart.

People who choose not to work, or pop out 3 kids with 3 different fathers, and sit around collecting welfare are way more undeserving than the Walton's.

It's not a 'below poverty' wage if you don't have kids. So don't have kids - problem solved.

I'd say it's way more akin to treason for someone to (*)(*)(*)(*)(*) and moan that they're entitled to $14 an hour simply because they're too stupid to use a condom, or too lazy to manage their money.

 

I was dismissed your graph, and yes I am a liberal progressive. I dismiss your graph because it is irrelevant to this conversation. Nobody is arguing what unemployment is. What I asked of you earlier in this thread was where are all this below min wage jobs AND how would abolishing the min wage not depress wages. You still can't answer those.

I understand your graph. But it has no importance here. What's next you going to tell the Sun rises in the east and sets in the west?

 

Trying to explain market economics to those who "feel" instead of think....
is a fraudulent waste of time.

thick as a brick....willfully so.

 

The Poverty line is a meaningless arbitrary number, currently it's about $23,000 a year for a family of four. If a family of four has two wage earners (which is considered the norm for middle class families), and they work full time at minimum wage, they are making about $30,000 a year, which is above the poverty line. If a worker can't produce enough profit for the company for their wages, then they won't have a job. An artificially high minimum wage will just cause people who were previously workers to be unemployed.

 

Yes, federal minimum wage for 40 hrs a week is $15,030 a year. Poverty line for a two person household is $15,150 a year. A little overtime, and they have it.....

 

Tangential argument. The graph represents basic economic theory on unemployment. We don't need to have a perfectly transparent economy to know that when you artificially set the minimum wage above where the normal equilibrium would exist between supply of labor and demand for labor, you create a situation where more people are willing to work, and less employers are willing to hire. That creates unemployment. There are many other factors that go into why unemployment exists, however this basic economic principle is sound no matter what school you belong to.

Your next move is to argue that the concept of supply and demand doesn't exist. Then I'll know how far out there you are on the subject, and pity the poor students who had to listen to your ramblings as part of their education.

 

Shocker.

If by 'depressing wages' you mean a return to a system where someone's wage is dependent on the market, not the Government setting a price floor, then yes, wages would be depressed. The trade off to this would be more people working since employers will be more likely to hire.

Really? Because it didn't seem like you understood it earlier. I'm glad progress is being made.

 

Once you start getting more than 1 person, the earned income credit also starts coming into play. While people like to deny the inconvenient reality, there are people who make decisions geared at getting the max EIC as they can, including borrowing/renting kids from others to claim on their taxes as if they supported them.

 

Not really.

Okay since you admit to depressing wages. Tell me why I should support this. It means less money in my pocket. Why would I want that. I am not willing to give you the point that it would lower unemployment in any meaningful way. But since you have been asked several times to show something that proves that point you are trying to make that it would and can not, I guess you are just giving up on that.

I understood why you posted the graph earlier. You wanted to turn this thread into a debate about what employment is as a definition. I get why you would do that. You just finally admitted it in this last post. You know that the min wage helps keep wages higher and without it people would make less money as a whole. You might want to reread the OP in this thread. You just proved his point.

 

And your proposed solution would be...what?

 

Interesting in this thread there is no discussion why one worker earns minimum wage while another worker earns $50/hour? There are extreme differences in these two workers, some of which stem from culture and some from personal actions, and as long as these extreme differences exist so will the disparity in wages. It is unconscionable to believe industry should pay a worker with a graduate degree the same as a high school dropout...unless they are both performing the identical job. It's pretty natural to believe if you arbitrarily increase minimum wage by 100%, like from $7.50/hour to $15/hour, then all wages will eventually increase by 100%...which means those who currently earn 'minimum wage' and complain about this stuff will still be earning 'minimum wage' at $15/hour and still complaining. So if it's impossible to simply bump minimum wages by 100%, then why even talk about it? IMO the only way for a person to earn more than minimum wage is to increase their workplace value with training and education. Those who refuse to take personal actions for this personal problem, simply will remain stuck...

 

$14 an hour X 40 hours a week X 4 weeks a month = about $2240 a month before taxes. Or $26880 a year.

Tell me how a single individual, with no children, would have any trouble living on that. That's well above the 'bare minimum' needed to survive.

 

Actually, if a person works or is paid 52 weeks per year, this is 2080 hours (X) $14/hour = $29,120 per year minus applicable taxes and FICA...

 

The real problem is that since Unions are pretty much a thing of the past, and there are a lot of people looking for work, employers can keep wages down. Most people today don't get annual raises, they have no ability to bargain with their employer since the employer knows he can replace that person easily (even skilled workers), so the worker's only option is to look elsewhere, but he or she is likely to find that noone else is willing to pay more. Workers will not be able to get higher wages until good help starts to become hard to find.

 

Most jobs should pay a living wage, but not all. They weren't meant to. They were meant to help as a second income. Like the time my wife wanted to put siding on our home and I worked a security job to supplement my income of my regular job, till I got enough money to have the siding put on. Some like McDonalds are meant for high school or college kids for spending money, or again to help supplement a family income. Can you even guess if Burger King paid $15.00 an hour, plus benefits what a cheese burger, fries and coke would cost you? Why would anyone go there when they could get a regular meal at a real restaurant? Those cheap hanburge joints would be out of business. Why should a guy that quit school, has no training and doesn't want to put himself out and is content in flipping hamburgers get paid as much as a teacher, brick layer, or even a bus driver, etc?

 

Thanks to NAFTA and Free Trade. But we can also blame the unions for driving up wages and benefits up so high to make companies move. Is it right that a guy might have dropped out of high school, that puts tires on a car coming down an assembly line gets paid 20 thousand more than a teacher who had to go to college for 4 years to get her degree to teach and is saddled with a $90,000.00 student loan on top of that?

 

Unions may have hit a low plateau, especially in the private sector, but they'll come back as evidenced by organizing taking place in many service industry businesses such as McDonalds, Taco Bell and Dunkin Donuts to mention a few; there have been some threads here in the past month or so detailing the organizing drives. As more people get fed up with working conditions, more organizing will take place. Its definitely cyclical.

 

Only will happen if they get government control to force it. Businesses dont want them, consumers dont want to pay their prices, and people want their jobs. no wants to end up like hostess. Unions are horrible for the nation at large, and only good for their members. We don't need anymore crony capitalism, which is the only thing unions do. They either "fix" the labor supply or the competing goods supply through tarriffs. Government unions are of course the worst, but the afl CIO has such a bloody and racist history it is surpring they aren't mentioned next to the KKK in history books. But I guess the 2 companies that write our texts have to stay friendly to their union buyers and the democrats still have a use for the unions.

 

Because it has nothing to do with what constitutes treason for starters.
Also, people are generally paid what they are worth (absent certain distortions). Many Americans don't like the idea that they add no real value to the economy, but sometimes the truth hurts. We have an over saturated labor market, policies such as social assistance which incentivize employers to pay less, and an abundance of college graduates with worthless degrees.
From the small business perspective, over regulation makes it extremely unappealing to hire anyone ever. It is better to use a call service than to hire a secretary for example, because you can easily dismiss the call service if they do a bad job and are not required to offer them benefits and pay a host of other expenses. If you see yourself as an eternal worker, then it will always seem like workers should be offered more, but if you see yourself as a boss or owner, you will see that workers bring a huge amount of liability and expense that is hardly worth the low skilled labor you are buying.

 

The government can only enforce the laws; if the employees vote to unionize, that's were it begins and ends. Business may not want them; afterall its all about control and money. But if they unionize, like or not management will just have to deal with it.

Hostess ended up like they did due to poor business decisions they made; not the unions. But we can discuss that in another thread.

Union's are supposed to be good for their members. Their not horrible for the nation at large unless you don't believe that workers should have rights in the workplace.

Your entitled to your viewpoint, but I have to disagree; I've been a union worker for my entire career and have done very well; the company likewise has done very well for over 80 years even tho' they are "saddled" with a unionized workforce. The trick is to develop a working partnership with your company which is what my union has done and continues to do. Management wins and we win as well. I do feel for my non-union counterparts; they are always complaining about how bad things are where they work, but are too afraid to unionize; to each their own I suppose. One thing is for sure; I've got excellent medical benefits, a real retirement plan along with a 401.k and true job security; I'd never trade it for anything.

 

There is a lot of truth to that. Unions usually force employers to pay much more than the guy is worth. They also force companies to pay more than the job is worth. I still believe unions can have a place in the work force. But they can't operate like they use to. People have no idea how NAFTA and Free Trade has changed things. When you have a company in Mexico, China or Korea making a like product as an American company, the American company has to cut expenses, move, or go out of business. Which has forced many companies to do, like Whirlpool. Because so many people are buying Samsung or LG appliances, they have had to close down three major appliance plants and move to Mexico, Where LG and Samsung are making theirs, along with Korea. One of those plants was in business since the 1950's. Of course if Americans were more concerned on where the product was made, all those plants might still be open. But unlike China, Japan and Korea that try and protect their markets and business, Americans don't. Most never give it a second thought where the product was made. But will be the first ones to (*)(*)(*)(*)(*) when that American company moves out.

 

When there is a shortage of labour, the country opens the door and allows more people in to keep the wages low, hardly seems fair.
You pointed out the way to beat union is to higher out side contractors, works great until they run off with some secrets, hows that working for you? You get what you pay for.

 

I hope you're right.

 

Why should they not be able to fire them? Aren't union picketing of "scabs" the prime example of interference with labor?

That is what unions say all the time when their striking and holdouts go too far and the company just says "screw it"

What about the rights of employers? What about the goths of "scabs"? Why do consumers have to get stuck with more cronyism and protectionism that dries up their cost? Why should tax payers have government taken hostage by the public unions? Who take tax money to buy politicians?

They no doubt have protection afforded to their industry by government. Can you disclose the industry? I am sure it is protected, at the cost to consumers and people who want your job.

like when the UAW lobbies for tarrif protctions that hurt consumers but benefit union workers and the companies they work for. Or when they lobby for a bailout like GM

See how you do without subsidy.

for having to pay for your lifestyle?

they probably realize union jobs go out of business.

Of course not, skinning your fellow man is the true test of a liberal.

Outside of Germany and Poland, I would like to hear of one union that has done anything good without harming others in society. Just one that is around today.