Do you believe in a living wage?

And yet, opponents of a living wage claim that living wages would be a disaster. But you did it. Other businesses do it. Like you said, you had "a scheme". I would call it a viable business plan.

 

Thank you for your well-thought out replies. I used to be dead-set against MW increases and "living wage" ideas. I have undergone a gradual change in attitude, and I have thought about it a lot, and so I have used this thread to test my ideas, knowing that I would probably get a lot of resistance.... which I did. I bolded your last statement because it also makes sense to me. It gives us another choice. It seems this discussion has given us 3 choices:

(1) Leave things as they are.
(2) Use the law to impose a living wage.
(3) Your idea - Leave things as they are except shift the tax burden of supporting low income people to wealthy individuals.

Your idea would be the simplest to implement, but it would be damn hard to get it past our politicians because we know who owns them.

Thanks again for your perspectives.

Seth

 

That may be because it's your imagination. I neither said that nor implied that. So what did I mean? I meant that the minimum wage should be raised to at least $11/hr and tied to the CPI. Then your favorite employer has no responsibility for it. He just has to pay it.

But if the worker qualifies for public assistance due to the wage being so low, then the taxpayer is, in essence, subsidizing the employer's paid wage.

Agreed. But expecting a person to work 60-80 hours a week to make up for tightwad taxpayers who are willing to watch the economic conditions deteriorate just so long as they can see tax brackets stay too low, is not good.

 

Robert, I don't eat at Chipolte's, and I don't live in SF. Let me ask you something. What does it cost to go out to dinner at a Chipolte's in SF? Give me a rough estimate, and then I'll make my point.

 

No, the effort is for a living wage, not a higher minimum wage.

When the minimum wage is lower than that, then we end up with labor that is working, but being paid in part by our taxes.

Everything was going on "before Trump". Surely you can understand that, given that Trump has been in office for a month.

Yes, many of these jobs are going to go away.

What we need to avoid is the problem we had with manufacturing workers, where there was too little education (of all kinds) stranding these workers with skills no longer needed and without the tools to keep up.

We're moving into a post manufacturing world, where we need to be sure our kids are prepared to keep up with the pace of industry.

And, burger flipping just isn't a part of that. It's dead end. It's too little even just to live, let alone to do what is necessary to enter the market of jobs which pay a living wage and to then keep up.

 

I have to date, never eaten there. I seldom go to San Francisco. My last dinner there cost my girlfriend close to $200 and that was around 1994.

I just looked over their menu and it is a fast food joint. I shall go the short distance to one of the joints and get prices tomorrow.

 

Seth et al


This can help you since it brings up Chipotle incomes for their workers

https://www.glassdoor.com/Hourly-Pa...Pay-EJI_IE15228.0,8_KO9,20_IL.21,29_IM761.htm

 

The rich boogers had a fit when the minimum wage was set at 25 cents an hour. http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/2006/09/05/minimum-wage-began-as-25-cents-in-1933/

One of the planks in the Progressive Party Platform of 1912, November 5, 1912, included a minimum wage for women and a living wage.

"Minimum wage standards for working women, to provide a "living wage" in all industrial occupations;"
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29617&st=minimum+wage&st1=

This is what FDR said in 1933 =
"May I call your attention to minimum wage law just passed by Legislature of New York and approved by Governor Lehman which declares it against public policy for any employer to pay women or minors a wage which is "both less than the fair and reasonable value of services rendered and less than sufficient to meet the ultimate cost of living necessary for health." This represents great forward step against lowering of wages, which constitutes a serious form of unfair competition against other employers, reduces the purchasing power of the workers and threatens the stability of industry. I hope that similar action can be taken by the other States for protection of the public interest."
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=14616&st=minimum+wage&st1=

It seems that although the fight to raise the common worker's living standard is over 100 years old some people won't be happy until such workers are reduced to serfs and slaves like their ancestors of centuries past. They will really have a fit when the government has to give everyone a minimum guaranteed annual income in a few years.

 

"But inflation!" is a weak argument, because it discounts the time all this takes, and that inflation will happen with or without a MW increase. Markets are inelastic, prices are sticky. There will be a period of time where goods will become more affordable for lower earners, increasing their chance of productive growth. And with aggressive management, we can keep them from sliding back again. As long as inflation is literally built into the economy by the FED, we have to keep doing it over again! At least until we peg it instead of having to do it manually every few years.

Don't y'all believe in increasing aggregate consumption, too? Capitalism needs a healthy consuming class to exist! Or are you on that Austrian Mises kick?

 

Ahh yes, "less is more". The socialist battle cry from the Carter years.

 

Haha, you'll have to thank WAN for that. Cheers!

 

How is that a socialist battle cry?

 

You don't have to do that. I assume your girlfriend was paying for several people. My point is that if you can afford a $200 dinner and they raise their prices by 10%, now the dinner costs $20 more, and you can probably afford that too. A $50 dinner would cost $55, $5 dollars more.

Big deal! I don't think it matters. So if they raise the pay of their employees and raise the prices on their menu by 10%, does it matter?

 

It's about socialism not working and acceptance of the fact that under it you will have less

 

It was me and her. A funny story is now about to be disclosed.

Jan asked me to be her guest for dinner at a French restaurant in San Francisco for my birthday. I jumped at the chance. I picked up the tab normally. We get the menu and man the prices. I was not used to seeing such high prices. But what the heck. She worked as an executive secretary for a major firm so I just went with the idea of hers. I did not select from the most expensive things but nothing was cheap. The wine was decent but not nearly the price of some of their wines.

We had the 6 or 7 course dinner and each item we got the full lecture from the waiter on the item. When it was over, she asked him for the bill. She looks it over and does not show it to me. I had a good idea it was expensive since the menu had the prices.

She pays with a credit card and we are ready to go. The waiter picks it up and in seconds returns to the table with this pained look on his face and asks what he had done wrong. I look at her and she is embarrassed. She takes the bill and knowing her. I think she crossed off his tip. She did not want to discuss it so I let it drop.

Frankly Seth, the help at that restaurant make a lot of money. I am told some of them make over $100,000 per year. My own daughter waits tables for the time being and has made well over $4,000 per month. She is not in danger of starving.

A burrito at Chipotle around here might cost between $7 to $10 for the largest and best filled Burritos. So it is not the high price french food I spoke of in San Francisco.

I am not questioning your math. I do question the sanity of the city fathers of SF who crafted the law they follow.

 

Seth, I wanted my workers to be well paid since I put demands of excellence. And this also ensured my prices for appraisals was worth paying for them. I only had one worker that worked for my firms lowest rate and at the time I paid her around $12 per hour when Clinton was in his terms of office. So at the time, for her, to answer company phones, she was pleased. My other workers got paid by the job. They were not my employees, they were all contractors I supplied appraisal jobs to. I did not control them or working hours. If they wanted a job, they showed up.

 

The thread creator is me...

 

It is extra to the person who is buying work and the one who is selling it. The person who came to an agreeable price with those who provide it, but then is being charged more for reasons other than the value provided, is paying extra. Literally.

You are supporting the person to whom you are charitably handing money. The one who is taking your money and spending it. Whether that person is working part or full time creating personal art, volunteering in a soup kitchen, choosing to greet people at Wal-mart, or counting clouds... you are supporting the person to whom you are giving support. If you don't want to support them, make that argument.

But claiming other people owe you something, that you gave them something, when they didn't ask you for anything or receive anything from you—that someone is obliged to you because the guy you helped offered to sell them some of his time—that's not reasonable or honest. It's like saying you owe me, because I gave the kid who mows your lawn a birthday gift last year.



​

 

I agree. However thats not reality anymore. The majority of new jobsa created these days are low paying service jobs. The number of well paying jobs is on a steady and steep decline. Throw in the 3 million drivers who are about to be out of work due to driverless cars. The fact is that we will have few high paying jobs in comparison to the people who need work.

 

then have a job and a side business to meet some need in your area. I know a lawyer who does deeds. That is the ONLY thing he does. Thousands a year. Can do most of them at home. Only goes to his official office once a week to check the mail for checks. The info his transmitted to him electronically/fax, he gets anything else he needs from the internet, and away he goes. Has a few part-time people who will type them for him when he wants them to on a piece-meal rate for when he is sick or going out of town. It is a crazy world, but as he says, it beats defending crack addicts.

 

Money in savings accounts or other investments is not idle money.

Saving 5-10% of income throughout one's life is one of the 2 or 3 best decisions a person can make in life...

 

If regulations are so bad why is it that countries with few regulations are the poorest?

Consider India where 800 million people live in poverty.

China has far more people but only 82 million live in poverty.

The US has the smaller population but over twice the percentage of people live in poverty than China.

Since India has the fewest regulations it should be the richest of the three, based upon that criteria. It's obvious that the number of regulations is not a good metric to use for evaluating economies.