Would you republicans vote for a $12 minimum wage?

I suggest those that want a higher wage use their right to form a union and collectively bargain for that higher wage, in addition to leaving the rest of us the hell alone. Higher minimum wages are destroying my community.

 

Not true. The minimum anyone can be paid is seven bucks and some change, per hour. I don't support $15, I support $11, which is what it was in 1968, and no one complained, no one got laid off, and, in fact, in most cities, it was more like $13 or $14 ( adjusting for inflation ).

A minimum wage is there to prevent anyone from paying a substandard wage. Currently, 7 bucks or so is substandard.

 

We can set the baseline to $11, which is what it always has been in prior years before they stopped raising the minimum with inflation.

 

NOt that simple. A baseline is still needed. Have no fear, no one is going to bother you. Did you complain in 1968 when the minimum was $11 and unemployment was 3.8%? Were you even born then?

 

It's impossible to judge what I would accept or reject because we are not in congress or the senate, because if we were there, we would know what are our relative bargaining positions were, and we would bargain from our relative bargaining strengths.

 

What's not true.

State's can set their own minimum wage, and many have done so.

The federal government does not need to be tinkering around with this issue.



https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/state

 

Ahh, transactional thinking. That is the logic exploiters use to pay people $2 per day for 16 hours of labor, as they do in China. Your thinking is, well, if someone is willing to accept $2 for 16 hours labor, then that's it's value.

No, that's criminal exploitation, and it is not allowed in this country. China styled sweatshops are illegal. Think about why they are illegal?

they are illegal because, in America, it's considered criminal.

If a minimum wage is a livable wage, one shouldn't be allowed to pay below it. That's the progressive view.

Here I'm concerned with paying below a livable wage. Below that is exploitation.

the subject is minimum wages. Don't conflate minimum wage with price controls, that's ridiculous.

 

it was $11 in 1968, adjusting for inflation, and no one got laid off, and no one complained, and unemployment was 3.80%,
That's the baseline where it should be, and more expensive cities can adjust upward from there.

 

The fed minimum should be what it costs to live simply in the cheapest states. Studio apartment, basic essentials, bus fair, food, some disposible income, etc.

In 1968, adjusting for inflation, it was $11 an hour, and no one complained, ( it is $14 in San Diego ) and unemployment was 3.8%

 

yes, a tiered approach. I don't know why Bernie doesn't understand this, $15 in some rural town in Kansas would be too high.

 

If a particular minimum wage rate makes a difference, then all poor people should move to California where minimum wage is highest.

 

I lean towards letting the states set their own MW. In my state of Oregon, there are 3 minimum wages. The differences are on where you work, and a state is in the best position to judge that. I think that right now, reality should outweigh politics. It is completely counterintuitive to raise the MW as struggling small businesses are trying to reopen from the pandemic. I don't think the timing could be worse.

 

Why do we need a “baseline”? As I mentioned above the circumstance between a large urban ara and the wide open spaces of the west, for instance, rules out any “baseline” criterion.

 

Why is a baseline still needed?

You are already bothering me. I am willing to work for $5/hr, that's the most the employer is able to pay, but current federal minimum wage laws prohibit the practice. This negatively impacts my financial security and negatively impacts the employers financial security. Minimum wage advocates are destroying my community.

 

What nonsense. If I spend 16 hours making you a neckless that I sell to you for 2 dollars is that illegal? No. If someone else spends 16 hours making a neckless that they sell to me for 2 dollars that I in turn sell to you for 3 dollars, is that illegal? No. The value of the thing being traded in any case, be it labor, goods, or services, is whatever the trading parties agree it is.

Now we have a subject change sweatshops? A sweatshop isn't about the amount of value a laborer produces. It's about the violation of labor regulations. Those include, unsafe work environments, age restrictions, violation of contract, violation of federally protected rights etc. According to a government accountability office report there were still thousands of sweatshops IN THE US in 1994. The 1968 minimum wage obviously didn't prevent them, did it? So again, how does a minimum wage prevent exploitation?

And I'm telling you you're making it illegal for anyone to agree to produce less value than your minimum. Are some labor agreements exploitative? Of course. But changing the scale of the tool that measures value has no effect on that. The consequence, however, is that you make all the agreements that aren't exploitative illegal.

I'm going to need some quantitative data that proves that. Prove to me that a grandmother who agrees to sit in front of Walmart to greet people for 7 dollars an hour is being exploited. Prove to me that a teen who flips burgers for drinking money on Fridays is being exploited.

Then why did you try to change the subject to sweat shops? And the minimum wage is a price control. The price of labor.

 

Over the last 20 years, minimum wage only seems to have been a larger issue during the Obama administration, when 6% of people worked minimum wage at the peak, then fell steadily again to the lowest point ever during the Trump years.

Only 1.9% of workers are making MW now. Tax cuts lifted all boats.







https://usafacts.org/articles/minimum-wage-america-how-many-people-are-earning-725-hour/

 

Where in the Constitution does it say the federal government has the authority to set wage rates?

 

It boils down to my thinking of helping more people than you hurt.

 

It actually could be too low for some places on the west coast and New York City.

 

Nope.

 

So still no proof.

 

Not really, what keeps prices from going up due to regular wage increases?

 

Then raising the min should have no great impact on prices.

 

Good talk

 

The difference between a few dollars a week that the business owner calculates he can afford and 50-100% raises granted by government fiat mandated by 535 Washington suits, few of which have ever managed a payroll or run a business.