Minimum wage should be $22.62 an hour

BS - You don't work, you starve!

A person can't even collect unemployment or welfare assistance if they refuse to accept employment.

This belief that a person can simply say no to a job offer is absolutely stupid. Even when I was earning a 6-digit income I HAD TO WORK OR STARVE. I was financially able to go for 6-months without job easily, even a year without serious financial difficulties, but after that it was get a job at whatever wages were offered or become homeless. Someone that's only been earning $20,000/yr can't even afford to go for 90-days without a job before they're forced to accept employment at any wage.

 

Everyone has to work or starve. It's the nature of being an a mortal human. But why is the fact that I need to work or starve anyone's problem buy my own. It is my responsibility to come up with a business plan that earns me enough money to meet my survival needs. That is my responsibility, and not anyone else's.

 

Obviously 'unemployment' is only for those who were 'employed'. The unemployment fund is funded by business so if a person is not or never was an employee I'm thinking they would not be eligible...nor should they.

Welfare assistance is available to everyone through government and private agencies no matter employment history.

You have an instant gratification problem. Just because a person accepts a job today does not mean they need to keep that job forever. Sometimes we take what is available but if we have greater potential then all we need to do is work hard and be patient.

People who choose to stay in dead end jobs for the long term are doing so by their choice...no gun held to their head...

 

A minimum wage of $22 per hour would be a disaster. around $20 per hour is the median hourly wage, meaning 50% of jobs would be effected. The result will be a combination of higher prices, higher unemployment, reduced hours, decreased fringe benefits, consolidation of companies into larger ones, the rendering of small businesses inoperable, reduced competition, and major economic distortions. You have to have absolutely no economic understanding to be supportive of such a policy.

 

Accept employment at the lower wage temporarily, then actively work to become a more attractive candidate for higher paying positions. And if you were making 6 figures but would starve if you stopped working, then honestly you were not managing your money well at all.

 

In the past this was possible but it becomes less and less possible today as middle income jobs disappear. The rungs in the economic ladder to success are being removed while, at the the same time, more and more people are attempting to climb that ladder.

http://thegazette.com/subject/opini...ell-economy-and-governments-response-20140611

http://news.yahoo.com/charts-rich-won-great-recession-130300311.html

We have a serious problem with wealth distribution (not redistribution) in the United States that those on the right just don't seem to recognize for whatever reason. The middle class that existed when I was working my way up the economic ladder is rapidly disappearing leaving more and more Americans at the bottom rungs of the ladder with no place to go.

Nothing exemplifies this more than the manufacturing sector that were typical middle income jobs because of the unions. While many lament our manufacturing jobs going overseas that isn't the problem. The problem is that there are about 40% fewer manufacturing jobs per capita worldwide today when compared to 1970.

http://motorcitytimes.com/mct/2011/...-manufacturing-is-not-just-an-american-thing/

It's all well and good to say, "Start at the bottom and work yourself up to middle income jobs" but that only works if the middle income jobs exist and there are fewer and fewer of them with more and more people seeking those jobs.

 

This is one of the best explanations about the wage scale that I've seen, but I'm not holding my breath that proponents of a minimum wage hike will understand it.

 

Too many people, and idiot politicians, believe money grows on trees...zero fiscal responsibility! It's 100% meaningless politics IMO but the naive hold on to these impossible promises from idiot politicians. They think they can interfere with the technical processes of the economy, including the supply and demand of labor, forcing demands from the private sector. A business owner will tolerate labor issues up to a point then they start figuring out how to eliminate employees, automate, use robotics, source off-shore, etc. but the socialist knuckleheads don't care. They whine like babies demanding more then continue their whining when industry does not 100% support their chosen lifestyles! It's barely working today and won't work well at all in the future which tells me whatever problems we have today will be exacerbated tomorrow...

 

They're mistaken. The more rough they play, the faster they'll find themselves without a need to fill. The reason their wage is low to begin with is because their contribution is minimal. The higher the cost of that contribution the sooner folks will find a way to get things done without it.
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You mean just because they demand to be paid more, they're not going to get it.

And they might just get replaced by automation? Geez, I feel so bad.

 

It's just like people today demanding that the wealthy pay more and more of the tax burden...including up to 100%. At some point as these people try to suck more and more there comes a point in time when the wealthy rebel and the result is diminishing returns. The same applies to people demanding more and more from their employers, with zero increase in productivity, and again at some point when labor becomes a bigger problem, the company will take steps to solve the problem...I'd say this will be diminishing returns for the employees...

 

It is still possible today. If you are starting out with virtually no skills and limited education, you can't expect to start in the middle of the pay ladder. Take a job that pays less and invest your time in improving skills demanded at better paying jobs.

I think this NYT article is more interesting:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/01/25/upshot/shrinking-middle-class.html?_r=0&abt=0002&abg=0

Since 2000, the middle class has gone from 45% of people to 43% of people. But the upper classes have also decreased from 25% to 22% of the population. A decline in the percentage of households in the upper income level is unprecedented. Your own yahoo source makes this point. During the Great Recession, "collectively, the top 1 percent lost 49 percent of the billions in wealth that vanished like so much Lehman Brothers stock."

A measure in constant 2009 dollars shows the middle class has declined because more people are moving in to the upper classes:
http://www.aei.org/publication/yes-...ower-class-theyve-risen-into-the-upper-class/

The problem with the method you are using to say the middle class is shrinking is you are looking at what the top 5% spend now vs in the past, as if that says anything about the size of the middle class. That the top 5% are consuming more says nothing about how many people are in the middle class.

To your point about wealth distribution, there are problems inherent in our monetary system that cause wealth to be transferred from the poorest to the richest (the result of inflationary monetary policy). For example, you notice that during boom times the rich gain income at a far faster rate than everyone else, and then during the crash they often lose it faster as well. This is due to the fact that the rich hold a lot more wealth in real estate and the stock market, which are especially subject to monetary policy. Inflationary monetary policy tends to pump up stocks and real estate, and economic contractions tend to push them down.

The problem is with our government focusing on propping up stocks and housing values as if that means the economy is growing. Instead, policies that increase production, productivity, and wage growth should be pursued instead.

 

One problem with this line of reasoning. The "Market" always attempts to drive costs down to the lowest possible level and the "Perfect Market Cost of Labor" is $0 per hour. While the supply of labor will keep the compensation above $0 per hour the desparate need of the worker for income, left unchecked by any counter-acting economic force, the "Market" will continue to drive wages down lower and lower. Does anyone seriously believe that if it weren't for the minimum wage laws that employers wouldn't be paying less?

The belief that by "obtaining education/skills and to have good work performance" will increase compensation is generally a myth. Most people are already over-qualified for the positions they hold and the wages they receive. Since the 2008 Recession we've seen the median income decline by over 5% while the people's education/skills and work performance have not decreased one iota. That decline has been far worse for mid-to-lower income households and has resulted in the massive increase in government welfare support just so people can survive.

http://news.investors.com/blogs-cap...amily-incomes-drop-in-march.htm#ixzz3YJYriSKM

The Market, vitually unopposed by any other economic force, is responsible for this decline in median income and compensation is going down in spite of the education/skills and work performance of the employees. There are, of course, reasons for this.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikshe...t-coming-back-and-heres-why/?partner=yahootix

When the Market is fundamentally unopposed, and it has been for decades, wages continue to deteriorate and minimum wage laws merely create an artificially created "bottom" to that decline. Basic economics come into focus when we address the minimum wage laws.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/real-root-america-wage-problem-103000382.html

Corporate profits are at an all-time high and the increases in income for the wealthy are unprecedented but because of the "Market" virtually none of this is filtering down to the workers that don't have bargaining power when it comes to "selling their labor" to the employers. We've destroyed the ability of the workers to negotiate compensation by systematically destroying the powers of organized labor starting in the 1970's based upon "Republican" economic policies that oppose the workers and favor the owners of enterprise. The minimum wage was always a safety net for workers where they didn't have "bargaining power" to negotiate fair compensation because without it the employers would pay even less. It had nothing to do with education/skill or job performance of the worker because "enterprise" will ignore the education/skills and even job performance if it can get away with paying less, far less, than what those are worth.

I'm a libertarian and generally oppose minimum wage laws and instead would prefer to see negotiated compensation between the employers and the workers but for that to occur we need to re-empower organized labor. The government cannot favor the employer over the workers but that is what Republican economic policies are based upon where they've gutted the power of organized labor often with "Right to Work" laws that effectively destroy the negotiation power of the unions.

We witnessed the growth of the middle class during the 1950's and 1960's when unions, even under corrupt leadership (that no longer exists as it once did), were able to negotiate mutually beneficial compensation contracts with employers. These contracts did not increase prices but instead merely divided the wealth being created by the workers with the owners in a fair manner. The effects of the union contracts spilled over into the non-union jobs as they effectively counter-acted the Market pressure driving down compensation.

Since the 2008 Recession we've seen employment returning so that the unemployement rate is now in the lower 5% range but as noted there are millions of "long-term unemployed" that are not being counted. To effectively count those that have "dropped off the books" we probably need an official unemployment rate below 3% so we still have a long ways to go before there will be a "labor shortage" that can drive up wages. That would address half of the problem with the declining income of American households but it's not nearly enough.

As cited we also need to restore the powers of organized labor so that there is a balancing force to the downward pressure of the Market on compensation. We need negotiated compensation as oppose to Market dictated compensation.

In the interim we do need a substantial increase in the minimum wage because the Market has already driven compensation down to far below what it costs to live and effectively increased the necessary spending on welfare assistance in America many times over what it should be. Higher minimum wages will reduce the necessity for government welfare assistance and even those on the "right" would arguably like to see less government welfare spending.